YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

A SHORT HISTORY OF
THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

SY THE SAME AUTHOR
PHILIPS' NEW STUDENTS' HISTORICAL ATLAS
(The work to which reference is made throughout the
following pages.)
PHILIPS' SCHOOL ATLAS OF MODERN HISTORY
THE MAKING OF MODERN INDIA
THE CULMINATION OF MODERN HISTORY (in
Three Vols.) : —
i. Nationalism and Internationalism
ii. National Self-Government
iii. The Expansion of Europe
A HISTORY OF LIVERPOOL
PEERS AND BUREAUCRATS: Two Problems of
English Government

A SHORT HISTORY OF
. , THE BRITISH
COMMONWEALTH IN TWO VOLUMES
BY
RAMSAY MUIR
professor of modern history in the
university of manchester

VOLUME I
THE ISLANDS AND THE FIRST EMPIRE
(to 1763)

LONDON
GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., 32 FLEET ST.
LIVERPOOL: PHILIP, SON & NEPHEW, LTD., 20 CHURCH ST.
I92O

PREFACE
The book of which this volume is the first half is an attempt
to tell, within moderate compass, the story of the British
Commonwealth, regarded as a single whole, but also as a
part of the greater commonwealth of Western Civilisation.
As I have conceived it, it is the story of a number of peoples
gradually learning to live together in a free partnership,
inspired by their common enjoyment of the institutions of
political liberty.
It is part of the plan of the book that the treatment
should become fuller as the narrative draws nearer to our
own time. The present volume extends to 1763, and covers
all that part of the story which is common to all the English-
speaking peoples. It will be succeeded by a second volume
of similar dimensions, which will bring the story down to
the Great War.
In this first volume the bulk of the space is necessarily
devoted to the history of England, because it was in England
that the institutions and ideas characteristic of the whole
Commonwealth had their birth and early development.
But I have tried in several respects to differentiate my
narrative from the many admirable summaries of Enghsh
history with which it may seem to challenge comparison.
(1) I have endeavoured to give a clear and distinctive
treatment to the history of Wales, Scotland and Ireland,
so far as the limits of space permitted ; while, in the second
half of the volume, I have laid an increasing degree of
emphasis upon the history of the Colonies, the development
of oversea trade, and the part played by the Navy in deter
mining the fortunes of the Commonwealth as a whole.
(2) I have striven to keep the reader's mind awake to
the most significant features of contemporary European
history, especially during the modern age ; and to show
the influence of European events upon the development of

vi SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
the Commonwealth. In particular I have tried to make
clear, at each stage, the part played by other European
countries in the extension of European civilisation to the
non-European world, and the contrasts between the methods
of the rivals in this field.
(3) Even in the narrative of Enghsh history my aim has
been to emphasise those aspects only which seemed to be of
direct importance for the future development of the whole
Commonwealth. I have therefore dealt comparatively
lightly with the mediaeval period down to 1485 ; it occupies
only one-fourth of the present volume. In the mediaeval
section, and indeed throughout the volume, I have laid
stress especially upon the growth of institutions, and upon
the gradual change in the social organisation of the British
peoples. This does not mean that I have thrust wars into
the background. While I have deliberately dealt very
summarily with minor wars, I have treated pretty fully
the great struggles which have marked the principal epochs
in the development of the British Commonwealth — the
Elizabethan war against Spain, the Civil War, the wars
against Louis xiv., and, above all, the culminating conflict
with France in the middle of the eighteenth century.
J. R. Green, that admirable writer, never wrote a more
foolish sentence than one which occurs in the preface to
his most famous book : ' War plays a small part in the real >
story of European nations, and in that of England its part
is smaller than in any.' Green wrote in a time of long-
established peace. We, who have lived through the most.
terrible of all wars, know that there are some wars which
not only vitally influence the external fortunes of States,
but profoundly affect their character, their institutions,
and their social order ; and the four great wars which I
have named assuredly fall into this category.
The plan of the book, and the complexity of its subject
matter, have compelled me to disregard entirely the con
ventional division into dynasties and reigns, and to take
a considerable latitude in departing from ' chronological
order. As a means of remedying the defects of this method,
of bringing out instructive synchronisms, and at the same
time of making cross-reference easier, a • Chronological

PREFACE vii
Index ' is added to the volume. For the gift of this index
(which deliberately abstains from any attempt to be ex
haustive) I am deeply indebted to Miss Harriet Davies.
An index of the ordinary type will be included in the second
volume. No maps are inserted in the narrative : I have contented
myself with frequent footnote references to my Students'
Atlas of Modern History, to which this book is meant to be
a companion. I have also used footnotes to direct the
attention of the reader to a large number of good, short
biographies, and to a few novels. Short lists of good
modem books in English are appended to each chapter.
I hope that the book may be useful to teachers, and that,
in spite of its length, it may be suitable for the higher forms
in schools, for training colleges, and for the junior classes in
Universities. But while I have kept these needs in view,
my primary aim has been to make the noble and stirring
story of the development of the British Commonwealth at
once intelligible and interesting to the general reader.
In conclusion I have to give my cordial thanks to my
friends Miss B. A. Lees, Professor Powicke, Dr. G. S. Veitch,
and Mr. C. S. S. Higham, who have kindly read parts of
the volume in proof, and given me the advantage of their
criticism.
RAMSAY MUIR.
Buxton, May 1920.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
BOOK 1
THE MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS (to a.d. 1215)
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION, ...... J
I. THE FIRST INHABITANTS AND THE FIRST CONTACT WITH
CIVILISATION, ..... 5
§ 1. The Islands and their Earliest Peoples, p. 5 ; § 2.
The Roman Occupation, p. 9.
II. THE TEUTONIC INVADERS (a.D. 410-825), . . 13
§ 1. The Barbarian Conquerors and the Chaos they
produced, p. 13 ; § 2. The Revival of Civilisation, p. 19 ;
§ 3. England in 800 A.D., p. 23.
III. THE INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN (a.D. 825-1066), . 26
§ 1. The Vikings and their Ravages, p. 26 ; § 2. Alfred
the Great and the Emperor Kings, p. 29 ; § 3. The
Second Danish Conquest and the Coming of the
Normans, p. 34 ; § 4. The Need for the Norman Con
quest, p. 37.
IV. THE WORK OF THE NORMAN KINGS (A.D. I066-II54), . 41
§ 1. The Norman Conquest and the Establishment of
the Feudal Order, p. 41 ; § 2. The Beginnings of a
National System of Government, p. 43 ; § 3. Norman
Influence in Wales and Scotland, p. 49.
V. THE REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED (A.D. 1154-1216), . SI
§ 1. The Angevin Empire and Europe in the Twelfth
Century, p. 51 ; § 2. Henry n.'s Work of Organisation,
P- 57 ; § 3- Richard 1. and John : the Winning of
Magna Carta, p. 61.
VI. THE STATE OF ENGLAND IN I 2 15, . , /•_
§ 1. A Land of Communities, p. 67 ; § 2. The Church
and its Services to Civilisation, p. 72 ; § 3. Contact with
Europe, p. 75 ; § 4. The Backwardness of Wales, Scot
land, and Ireland, p. 76.
viii

CONTENTS ix

BOOK II
THE CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS : AND THE
GROWTH OF SELF-GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND
(a.d. 1215-1485)
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION, . . . . . 8 1
I. THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE
ISLANDS, . . . . . -83
§ 1. Changes in the Political Systems and Ideas of
Europe, p. 83 ; § 2. The Enrichment of Civilisation :
the Friars and the Universities, p. 89.
II. THE ORGANISATION OF THE ENGLISH NATION (a.D. I 2 1 6-
1307), . . . . . .95
§ 1. The Rise of National Feeling, p. 95 ; § 2. Montfort
and the First Attempt at Parliamentary Government,
P- 97 5 § 3- Edward I. and the Establishment of Parlia
ment, p. 101 ; § 4. The Lawyer - King as National
Leader, p. 103.
III. THE CONQUEST OF WALES, .... I07
IV. THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND, . . . II3
§ 1. The Development of the Scottish Monarchy, p. 1 13 ;
§ 2. Edward I.'s Attempt to subjugate Scotland, p. 115 ;
§ 3. The Scottish Resistance under Wallace and Bruce,
p. 116; § 4. Bannockburn and the Establishment of
Independence, p. 118.
V. THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE, . .122
§ 1. The Motives of the Attempt, p. 122 ; § 2. The War
and its Consequences, p. 125.
VI. CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS, . . . . 130
§ 1. Changes in the Character of the Feudal Baronage,
p. 130 ; § 2. Peasants and their Landlords : the Black
Death, p. 133 ; §3. The Growth of Trade and Industry,
and their Organisation, p. 136; §4. Intellectual Fer
ment : Wycliffe and the Church, p. 140
vii. the development of english self-government
(a.d. 1307-1422), ..... 144
§ 1. Edward n. and Thomas of Lancaster, p. 145 ; §2.
The Wars of Edward III. and the Growth of Parliamen
tary Power, p. 147 ; § 3. The Invention of Impeachment :
the Justices of the Peace, p. 150; §4. Parliamentary
Supremacy and the Revolt of the Peasants, p. 153 ; § 5.
Reaction and Revolution, p. 156 ; § 6. The Lancastrian
Experiment of Limited Monarchy, p. 161.

x SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

FACE

VIII. THE SECOND ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE (a.D. 14H-
M53).  • l65
§ 1. The French Factions, and the Victories of Henry
v., p. 165 ; § 2. Joan of Arc, and the Ruin of English
Ambitions in France, p. 169.
IX. THE STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND (A.D. 1422-1485), 173
§ 1. Faction and Disorder in England, p. 173 ; § 2. The
Wars of the Roses, p. 178; §3. The House of York
and the Re-establishment of Royal Power, p. 180.
X. WALES, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND IN THE LATER MIDDLE
AGES, ....... 184
§1. Wales, p. 184; §2. Scotland, p. 185 ; §3. Ireland,
p. 188.
XI. EUROPE AND THE ISLANDS ON THE EVE OF THE MODERN
AGE, . . . . . . .192
§ 1. The Cosmopolitan Ideal of the Middle Ages and
its Breakdown, p. 192 ; § 2. The Political Condition of
Europe: the Rise of Nation-States, p. 195; §3. The
Turkish Peril, p. 200; §4. The Political Contrast
between England and Europe, p. 201.
BOOK III
THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE: THE RE
FORMATION, AND THE OPENING OF THE SEAS
(a.d. 1485-1603)
introduction, ...... 207
i. the restoration of good government (a.d. i485-
1529). • • • • • .210
§ 1. The Privy Council and the Re-establishment of
Order, p. 210 ; § 2. The Splendour of Henry vm. and
Wolsey, p. 214; §3. Growing National Strength,
p. 216 ; § 4. England and her Sister Realms, p. 218.
II. THE RENASCENCE, . . . . .2 22
§ 1. The Meaning of the Renascence, p. 222 ; § 2. The
Renascence in England, p. 225 ; § 3. Moral and
Political Aspects of the Renascence, p. 228.
III. THE NEW ERA IN FOREIGN POLITICS (A.D. 1485-1529), . 230
§ 1. The Beginning of National Rivalries : the Wars of
Italy, p. 230 ; § 2. Charles v., Francis I., and Solyman
the Turk, p. 232 ; § 3. The Balance of Power, p. 235.

CONTENTS j xi
CHAP. / PAGE
IV. THE UNVEILING OF THE OUTER WORLD, . . . 237
§1. The First Great Discoveries, p. 237; §2. The
Portuguese Power in the East, p. 240 ; § 3. The
Spanish Empire in America, p. 241 ; §4. The Modest
Enterprises of France and England, p. 244.
v. the reformation in europe and in england
(a.d. 1517-1559), . . . .246
§ 1. The Reformation in Europe, p. 246 ; § 2. The
King's Divorce and the Breach with Rome, p. 251 ;
§3. The Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the Or
ganisation of Despotism, p. 256 ; §4. The Culmination
of Henry vm.'s Power, p. 260 ; § 5. Edward VI. and
Protestantism Triumphant, p. 262 ; § 6. Mary and the
Catholic Reaction, p. 267 ; § 7. The Elizabethan Settle
ment, p. 271.
VI. THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND (a.D. 1528-1561), . 274
§ 1. Scotland in the Sixteenth Century, p. 274 ; § 2.
Scotland, England and France, p. 277 ; § 3. John
Knox and the Religious Revolution, p. 279 ; § 4. The
Years of Crisis, and the Anglo-Scottish Alliance, p. 281 ;
§ 5. The Religious Settlement in Scotland, p. 284.
vii. elizabeth, mary queen of scots, and philip ii.
(a.d. 1561-1587), . . . . .287
§ 1. The Counter-Reformation and the Political Situa
tion in Europe in 1559, p. 287; §2. Elizabeth and
Mary, 1561-1571, p. 291; §3. Years of Intensifying
Strain, 1 571-1584, p. 295 ; §4. The Open Conflict with
Spain, and the Execution of Mary, p. 300.
VIII. THE ENGLISH SEAMEN, AND THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH
ARMADA, ...... 303
§ 1. The Search for New Trade Outlets, p. 303 ; § 2.
The Pirates of the Narrow Seas, p. 305 ; § 3. Drake
and the Adventures of the Spanish Main, p. 308 ; § 4.
The Spanish Armada, p. 314.
IX. THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND, . . . . 32 1
§1. The Problem of Ireland, p. 321; §2. The First
Attempts to solve the Irish Problem, p. 324 ; § 3. Re
ligious Conflict and the Munster Risings, p. 327 ; § 4.
The Irish National Rising under Tyrone, p. 331.
X. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (A.D. 1558-1603), . . 335
§ 1. Literary Activities, p. 335 ; § 2. Social Conditions,
P- 338 ; § 3- Economic Changes, p. 342 ; § 4. The Re
ligious. Changes, p. 346 ; § 5. The Queen and her
Parliament, p. 350.

xii SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

BOOK IV
THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL SELF-GOVERN
MENT; AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH
EXPANSION OVERSEA (a.d. 1603-1660)
CHAP. ?AGE
INTRODUCTION, .... • 357
I. EUROPE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CEN
TURY, . . . . . . -359
§ i. Problems of Peace and War, p. 359 ; § 2. The
Thirty Years' War, p. 364.
II. THE FIRST COLONIES, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF TRADE
WITH INDIA, ...... 370
§ 1. International Rivalry in Oversea Trade, p. 370 ;
§ 2. European Enterprises in the East : the East India
Company, p. 372 ; § 3. Colonising Activities in the
West : Canada, Virginia, and New England, p. 376.
III. THE CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT (a.D. 1603-
1629)  385
§ 1. The General Grounds of Conflict, p. 385 ; § 2.
James I. and his Parliaments, p. 391 ; § 3. Charles I.
and the Petition of Right, p. 394.
iv. ireland and scotland under the early stewarts
(a.d. 1603-1640), ..... 401
§ 1. Ireland : the Plantation of Ulster, p. 401 ; § 2.
The Irish Policy of Wentworth, p. 404 ; § 3. Scotland :
the Absolutism of James 1., p. 406 ; § 4. The Revolt of
the Scots against the Policy of Charles I., p. 409.
V. PERSONAL GOVERNMENT AND ITS DOWNFALL (A.D. 1629-
1642),. . . . . . .414
§ 1. The Years of Personal Government, p. 414 ; § 2.
The Aims and Methods of Laud, p. 419 ; § 3. The
Puritan Emigration, 421 ; § 4. Ship Money and its
Significance, p. 428 ; § 5. The Collapse of Personal
Government and the Definition of Limited Monarchy
p. 430 ; § 6. The Cleavage of Parties and the Drift
towards Civil War, p. 434.

CONTENTS xiii
CHAP. PAGE
VI. CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS (a.D. 1642-1649), . . 440
§ 1. The Situation at the Outbreak of War, p. 440 ;
§ 2. The First Three Campaigns, p. 443 ; § 3. The
Professional Army, and the Downfall of the Royalist
Cause, p. 447 ; § 4. Attempts to find a Settlement,
P- 451 ; § 5- Solution by the Sword, p. 454.
vii. the puritan republic and the protectorate
(a.d. 1649-1658), ..... 458
§ 1. The Situation in 1649, P- 458 ; § 2. The Security
of the Republic Established, p. 461 ; § 3. The Attempt
to find a New System of Government, p. 465 ; § 4. The
Achievements of the Republic and the Protectorate,
p. 471.
VIII. THE PURITAN REPUBLIC AND THE OUTER WORLD, . 475
§ 1. Naval and Colonial Policy ; the Dutch War, 475 ;
§ 2. Cromwell's Foreign Policy and the War with
Spain, p. 480.
IX. THE COLLAPSE OF THE PURITAN REPUBLIC (A.D. 1658-
1660), ...... 484
BOOK V
CONSTITUTIONAL SETTLEMENT AND IMPERIAL
DEVELOPMENT (a.d. 1660-17 14)
INTRODUCTION, . . . . . -491
I. THE RESTORATION, ..... 494
§ 1. The Ideas of the Restoration and the Character of
Charles IL, p. 494 ; § 2. England : Limited Monarchy
and Religious Intolerance, p. 496 ; § 3. Scotland :
Absolutism and Religious Persecution, p. 501 ; § 4.
Ireland : Absolutism and partial Reconciliation, p. 504.
II. EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. (A.D. l66l-l688), . 508
§ 1. The Age of Enlightenment, p. 508 ; § 2. The
Ascendency of France, p. 5 1 1 ; § 3. The Wars of Louis
xiv. (to 1688), p. 514; § 4. Northern Europe: the
Rise of the Hohenzollerns, p. 519; § 5. The Problem
of the Turkish Empire, p. 521 ; § 6. The Prevalence of
Absolute Monarchy in Europe, p. 523.
III. RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES, .... 525
§ 1. International Rivalry Overseas, p. 525 ; § 2. The
French Colonial Empire and the Development of
Canada, p. 526 ; § 3. A New Era in British Colonial
Policy, p. 530 ; § 4. The Establishment of New Colonies,
p. 534; § 5. A Period of Friction, p. 539.

XIV

CHAP.

SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

IV. THE RISE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND (A D.
1660-1688), . . . . . -542
§ 1. The First Rudiments of a Cabinet and of Political
Parties : Clarendon, 1660-7, p. 542 ; § 2. The Cabal :
Religious Toleration, Secret Dealings with France and
Parliamentary Opposition, 1667-73, P- 544 '> § 3- Danby
and the Organisation of Political Parties, 1673-78, p. 547 ;
§ 4. Violent Party Conflict, 1679-81, p. 550; 8 5. Tri
umphant Reaction and the Disregard of Laws, 1681-88,
P- 554-
V. THE REVOLUTION (a.D. 1688-1692), . • • 560
§ 1. The European Situation and the Downfall of
James IL, p. 560 ; § 2. The War of the Revolution, in
Scotland, in Ireland, and on the Seas, p. 564.
VI. THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT (a.D. 1689-1707), , 570
§ 1. The General Character of the Settlement, p. 570 ;
§ 2. Tories and Whigs : rival Conceptions of Govern
ment, p. 571 ; § 3. The Constitutional Settlement in
England, p. 575 ; § 4. The Relations between Govern
ment and Parliament, p. 578 ; § 5. The Revolution
Settlement in Scotland and its Effects upon Anglo-
Scottish Relations, p. 580 ; § 6. The Union of England
and Scotland, p. 583 ; § 7. The Revolution Settlement
in Ireland, and the Penal Code, p. 586 ; § 8. The
Revolution in the Colonies, p. 591.
VII. THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. (A.D. 1689-1713), . 597
§ 1. The War of the League of Augsburg, and the
British share in it, p. 597 ; § 2. The Problem of the
Spanish Inheritance, p. 600 ; § 3. The Military
Problem, and the Greatness of Marlborough, p. 606 ;
§ 4. The War of the Spanish Succession, p. 609 ; § 5.
The Peace of Utrecht, p. 614.
VIII. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS (A.D. 1660-17 1 4), • . 6l8
§ 1. The Causes of the Growing Wealth of Britain :
Foreign Trade and Banking, p. 618 ; § 2. The Influence
of the ' Moneyed Interest' and its Effects upon National
Policy, p. 624.
ix. party conflicts in the reign of queen anne
(a.d. 1702-1714), . . . . .630
§ I. The Whigs and the Tories, p. 630 ; § 2. The War
Government of Marlborough and the Ascendency of
the Whigs, p. 633 ; § 3. Bolingbroke and the New
Toryism, p. 636.

CONTENTS xv

BOOK VI
THE WHIG OLIGARCHY; AND THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY

(1714-1763)

CHAP.

INTRODUCTION, ...... 645
I. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WHIG OLIGARCHY : THE
JACOBITE RISINGS, ..... 648
§ 1. The Insecurity of the New Regime and the Jacobite
Rising of 17 15, p. 648 ; § 2. The Organisation of the
Whig Oligarchy, p. 653 ; § 3. The House of Commons
under the Whigs, p. 656 ; § 4. The Young Chevalier,
and the Last Great Effort of the Jacobites, p. 659.
II. BALANCE OF POWER (A.D. 1 7 14- 1 739), . . . 664
§ 1. Characteristics of the Period, p. 664 ; § 2. The
Decay of Turkey, Poland and Sweden, and the Rise of
Russia, p. 665 ; § 3. The Franco-British Alliance for
the Maintenance of Peace, p. 669 ; § 4. The Gradual
Rupture of the Franco-British Alliance, and the Ques
tion of Poland, p. 673.
III. TRADE AND COLONIAL RIVALRY (a.D. 1714-1739), . 677
§ 1. Exaggerated Expectations from Tropical Trade,
P- 677 ; § 2. The Chief Spheres of Tropical Trade :
the Slave-Trade and the Great Triangle, p. 679 ; § 3.
North American Trade, and Franco-British Rivalry,
p. 683.
IV. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS (A.D. 1714-1739), . 687
§ 1. The Whig Ministries, p. 687 ; § 2. Walpole, the
Great Whig ; the Principles of his Policy, p. 689 ;
§ 3. Walpole's Constructive Work, p. 693 ; § 4. The
Opposition to the Whigs : the Ideas of Bolingbroke,
p. 697.
V. THE WESLEYS AND THE REVIVAL OF ENTHUSIASM, . 701
§ 1. The Age of Reason, p. 701 ; § 2. The Beginnings
of Organised Philanthropy : the Colony of Georgia, p.
704 ; § 3. The Religious Revival in Wales, and the
Methodist Movement, p. 706.

xvi SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. PA°E
VI. THE FIRST PHASES OF THE GRFAT CONFLICT FOR
MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY (A.D. I739-I7SS)i 7xo
§ I. The Opening of the Conflict, p. 710; § 2. The
Maritime War with Spain, p. 711 ; § 3. The War of the
Austrian Succession, and the Potency of Sea- Power, p.
712; § 4. The Beginning of Franco-British Conflict
Overseas, p. 717 ; § 5. The Years of Nominal Peace,
1748-55, p. 719; § 6. The Diplomatic Revolution of
1756, p. 724; § 7. British Politics and the Great Con
flict : the Emergence of Pitt, p. 728.
VII. WILLIAM PITT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH
MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY (a.D. 1755-
1763)  733
§ 1. The Dark Days, p. 733 ; § 2. Pitt's Opportunity,
and his Preparations, p. 736 ; § 3. The Turn of the
Tide, 1758, p. 742 ; § 4. The Annus Mirabilis of 1759 :
Quebec and Quiberon, p. 746 ; § 5. Negotiations for
Peace : the Fall of Pitt, p. 752 ; § 6. The Aftermath :
the Downfall of Spain, p. 755 ; § 7. The Peace of Paris,
p. 756.
VIII. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA, . 759
§ 1. The Main Factors of Indian Politics, p. 759 ; § 2.
The Chaos of Eighteenth-Century India : the Mahrattas
and the Afghans, p. 763 ; § 3. French and British in
the Carnatic : the Projects of Dupleix, p. 767 ; § 4.
Renewed Conflict ; and the Establishment of British
Influence in Bengal, p. 773 ; § 5. The Nature of the
British Power in India in 1760, p. 778.
IX. THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF THE BRITISH COMMON
WEALTH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 782
§ 1. The Prosperity and Freedom of England, p. 782 ;
§ 2. English Rural Society and its Organisation, p.
784 ; § 3. The Ruling Classes : the Squirearchy and
the Magnates : an Aristocratic Society, p. 787 ; § 4.
The Commercial and Industrial Interests : the Growth
of Capitalist Control, p. 793 ; § 5. The Growth of Pro
sperity in Scotland, p. 798 ; § 6. The Stagnancy of
Ireland, p. 802 ; § 7. The British Lands oversea :
their Social Character, p. 804 ; § 8. Problems of the
Commonwealth, p. 812.
CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX, , . -815

BOOK I
THE MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS
(TO A.D. 1215)

VOL. I.

INTRODUCTION
We are citizens not merely of a great country, but of a
wonderful partnership or fellowship of peoples, which is
generally known as the British Empire, but is better
described as the British Commonwealth of Nations. It
includes one-quarter of the area and one-quarter of the
population of the world, and its territories are to be found
in every continent and are washed by every ocean. There
has never been, in all the history of mankind, a political
structure which at all resembled the British Commonwealth.
For its most striking feature is that it is not a mere Empire,
held together solely by the military power of a conquering
people, like the many Empires that have arisen and decayed
in the course of history ; but that each of its members
retains its own distinct character, and is either entirely
free in the management of its own affairs, or (if it is not
ready for that) is governed with a view to the interests of
its own people, and not with a view solely to the interests
of the ruling race. All the innumerable nations and tribes
included within the British Commonwealth are able to live
together in peace, and to help and strengthen one another,
while each of them retains its own customs and modes of
life. That is something far more wonderful than the build
ing of even the greatest empire by mere force. As we all
are, or shall be, citizens of this world-wide Commonwealth
of Nations, and must share the responsibility for maintain
ing and improving the traditions by which it has grown
great, it is our duty to understand its character, and for
that purpose to study its history. The purpose of this
book is to explain how these traditions came into exist
ence, and how the Commonwealth of Nations grew to its
present marvellous dimensions.
It has all grown from the two small islands, Great Britain
and Ireland, which he off the north-west coast of Europe.
They have shared in the common civilisation of Europe,
but because they were islands they have been able to
develop in security their own characteristic institutions.

4 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS LBK- *•
And it has been these institutions, the institutions- of
political freedom, which have mainly determined the
character and course of the history of the whole Common
wealth. Moreover in these two islands there are, and
there have been for many centuries, no less than four dis
tinct nations. They have learned slowly and, in the case
of Ireland, very imperfectly, the difficult lesson of living
together in peace as members of a single great State,
without sacrificing their individual character. It has
come to be one of the distinctive notes of the British
Commonwealth that its ideal (not always realised) is to
cultivate unity without sacrificing freedom or forcibly
wiping out differences. And it was because the peoples
of the islands had in some degree learnt to tolerate differ
ences and to live together in mutual respect, that those
who went forth from them into the new world and the old
were able gradually to develop the world-wide partnership
of free nations which is the British Commonwealth.
Hence our story must begin with the peoples of the
islands ; and its first stage must deal (though only in the
broadest outline) with the development of the four nations
out of the very mixed races who have made their homes
in the islands.

CHAPTER I
THE FIRST INHABITANTS AND THE FIRST CONTACT
WITH CIVILISATION
§ i. The Islands and their Earliest Peoples.
Long before the dawn of history the British Islands were
attached to the mainland of Europe ; and the Thames
and the Trent were tributaries of the Rhine. The first
great event in the history of the British Commonwealth
was the gradual physical change — due, the geologists tell
us, to the melting of the huge polar ice-cap that once
extended over all Northern Europe — which caused the seas
to rise and to submerge the low plains where the English
Channel and the North Sea now lie. For this change
determined that the British lands, while forming a part of
Europe, should stand a little aloof from it ; and that their
peoples, which were to be the mother-races of the Common
wealth, should be bred apart, not cut off from the influence
of European civilisation, but yet free from constant contact
and strife with their neighbours, and able, therefore, to
develop their own institutions and modes of life in their
own way.
Cut off thus from the Continent, and lying on its north
western margin with nothing beyond but the stormy expanse
of ocean, the islands appeared to the ancients to be on the
very edge of the round flat world. Ancient maps 1 show
them thus, bordered by the great river Oceanus, which
was supposed to encircle the earth, and beyond which,
men thought, lay only emptiness. And so long as the
Mediterranean Sea continued to be the centre of Western
civilisation, as it did until four hundred years ago, the
British Islands did indeed lie on the outskirts of the world,
far from the heart of things, and counted for very little in
the life of Europe. It was not until the great explorations
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that the islands
1 See the maps reproduced in Atlas, Plate 46.

6 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS L^K- i-
ceased to be among the most remote outlying regions of
the civihsed world, and found that they lay in the main
track of the world's concerns. Then the great age of their
history began, for which all the earlier ages were but a long
preparation. The fact that the islands lay on the outermost verge of
the Eurasian continent had another vitally important
influence upon their history. The shallow sundering seas
were narrow and easily crossed ; and so it came about
that, in the incessant movement of peoples from the east
westwards, branches of all the races which came into
Western Europe also passed over the Narrow Seas, and
made their contribution to the population of the islands.
And because there were no further lands into which the
earlier migrants could be driven by their successors, all these
peoples were forced to blend with one another ; with the
result that the peoples of the islands derive their origin
from a greater variety of racial stocks than perhaps any
other people in Europe. As each of the migrant peoples
pressed into the islands it conquered its predecessors, drove
some of them into the less fertile regions of the north and
west, enslaved the rest, and then gradually blended with
them by intermarriage.
The earlier of these hordes of primitive conquerors have
left behind them no written records ; so that we cannot
even distinguish accurately between them, or tell with any
precision when they entered the islands, or describe their
life and character in any but the most general way. But
they have left their traces in the soil : — entrenched camps
on the hillsides ; tombs of various shapes ; fragments of
implements and weapons left in caves or in the alluvial
deposits by river-sides ; above aU, skulls or skeletons ; and
from these relics scholars piece together some ideas about
our remote ancestors.
The earliest of these relics belong to what is called the
Old Stone Age ; but it is probable that the men of this age,
died out altogether, and did not contribute at all to the
making of the mixed British peoples.
The first race that we can confidently regard as our part-
ancestors were the men of the New Stone Age. There
may have been more than one race in this age ; but one
of them was a short, dark people with long-shaped skulls,
whom scholars call the Mediterranean race, because peoples
of their type form the basis of the population in all the
Mediterranean lands. They were followed by a taller race,

v-n. a.j in£, fiKsi INHABITANTS 7
with round-shaped skulls, who had learnt to use bronze im
plements, and probably owed their superiority to this cause.
They were evidently a fairly civilised people, for they grew
corn, knew how to weave cloth, and could make pottery. It
was probably these people who erected the numerous circles
of standing stones, of which Stonehenge is the most remark
able ; and as the monoliths of which these great circles are
composed were in some cases brought from a distance,
the builders must have had a considerable degree of engineer
ing skill. They conquered and blended with their prede
cessors, and the mixed race spread all over the islands.
We are all in some degree descended from them ; but as
many of them were driven westwards and northwards by
later conquerors, they became most numerous in these
parts of the islands, and the short, dark types of Irishmen,
Welshmen and Scottish Highlanders are their most typical
representatives. The next race won their victory because they had learnt
to use iron. These were the Celts, a big-boned, fair-haired
people, who formed the first wave of the great Aryan stock,
from which all the principal peoples of Europe, as well as
the ruling elements in India and Persia, are mainly descended,
and to which all the later conquerors of Britain belonged.
Five or six hundred years before Christ the Celtic peoples
occupied the greater part of Europe north of the Alps ;
they pressed down into Italy and threatened the rising city
of Rome ; and one branch of them established themselves
in Asia Minor, and became the ancestors of St. Paul's
Galatians. But in course of time the next Aryan wave,
that of the Teutons, pressed them westward beyond the
Rhine, so that among the continental countries it is only in
France, Belgium, Northern Italy and Spain that their
blood forms a very important element. Their languages
survive only in the islands and in Brittany ; and the tender
vein of poetry and of love for natural beauty which they
developed is a heritage of great value which the peoples
of the islands owe to them.
The Celts came to Britain in two, or perhaps three, dis
tinct waves, separated by a considerable interval of time.
First came the Gaels, whose form of the Celtic language is
still spoken in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland ;
perhaps a couple of centuries later they were followed by a
second wave, the Britons, whose language is still spoken in
Wales and Brittany7"and was, not long ago, spoken in
Cornwall. The Gaels conquered and enslaved the earlier

8 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. I.
inhabitants, or drove them to the north and west; the
Britons, in their turn, treated the Gaels in the same way.
Both alike so completely overcame their subjects that the
languages of the earlier inhabitants disappeared altogether,
and the mixed race learnt to regard itself as Celtic; but
this, of course, does not in the least imply that the earlier
peoples were destroyed. Primitive peoples often change
their languages easily. In the fourth century before Christ,
when Alexander the Great was conquering Western Asia,
all Britain south of the Forth was British ; the rest of
Britain and the whole of Ireland were Gaelic ; but in both
regions the race was already a very mixed one.
We know nothing at all about the actual events of these
conquests : indeed, we know practically nothing about the
history of the inhabitants of Britain down to the eve of the
Christian era. During all these centuries the real centre
of Western civilisation was in the lands bordering on the
Mediterranean, where the Jewish prophets were preaching
the doctrines of an exalted religion ; where the Phoenician
navigators were extending the range of commerce, and
pushing their daring explorations through the Pillars of
Hercules to the Atlantic shores of Europe and round the
circumference of Africa ; where the little Greek city-states
were laying the foundation of political liberty, and creating
western art, philosophy and literature ; and where the
Romans were proving the power of Law and Discipline,
and were gradually bringing under their firm and organised
rule all the Mediterranean peoples.
Britain was scarcely at all influenced by all this wonderful
activity, which was creating what we call Western civilisa
tion. At first, and for long, the contact of the island tribes
with this nascent civilisation was very slight and purely
external. Phoenician sailors at an early date came to the
Stilly Islands to buy tin. Greek merchants from Marseilles
carried on a certain amount of overland traffic through the
tribes of Gaul, who had relations with their British cousins.
The more settled tribes in Southern Britain carried on some
rude trade, were introduced to Greek coins, and tried to
make a coinage of their own after the same pattern. A bold
Greek explorer, Pytheas, about the time of Alexander the
Great, made his way through the straits of Gibraltar and
as far north as the Shetlands ; and he wrote an account
of his travels, much as our Elizabethan explorers described
their adventures among the strange seas and the wild
savages of the new world. But on the whole the islands

CH. i.] THE FIRST INHABITANTS 9
were almost as much out of touch with the main stream of
history as the tribes of America were before the great
discoveries. In the earlier part of the Celtic period, we shall probably
pot be far wrong if we think of the Gaels and Britons as
being in much the same stage of civilisation as the Red
Indians of the seventeenth century. They were organised
in clans, under the lead of hereditary chieftains. They
were great fighting men, and constantly at war with one
another. Their warriors, like the Red Indians, loved to
paint or tattoo their bodies ; ' Briton ' probably means v
' painted,' and the wilder northern clans, among whom
this custom lasted longest, were known, centuries after
Christ, as the ' Picts,' or painted men. They worshipped
many gods, representing the forces of Nature, to whom they
offered human sacrifices ; and their priests, the remark
able order of Druids, exercised so great an ascendency
among them that they may perhaps be compared to the
Red Indians' Medicine Men. No doubt the civilisation of
the southern part of the island had developed a good deal
by the time that Caesar landed in it, fifty-five years before
Christ. But he found all these customs still in existence.
§ 2. The Roman Occupation.
It was a great thing for the Britons when the advancing
tide of R6man conquest brought them into contact with
a highly developed civilisation. The greatest of Roman
statesmen and generals, Julius Csesar, having conquered
the whole of Gaul, was led to pay two visits to the south-east
corner of Great Britain, in 55 and 54 B.C. Unfortunately he
was unable to undertake the conquest of the island, being
called away by more important affairs in Italy, where a
few years later he set up his personal authority over the
whole Roman Empire. It was not until a century later >
that the Roman Government undertook the conquest of
Great Britain. Between a.d. 43 and 61 the island was con
quered and organised as far north as the Humber. A few
years later the great general, Agricola, set forth to com
plete the conquest of the island, and fought, far north
among the Scottish mountains, the battle of Mons Graupius
(a.d. 84). But the vigour of Rome was already declining ;
these barren deserts did not seem worth 'conquering, and
the task was never completed. For a brief period, indeed,
the Lowlands of Scotland were occupied ; roads and camps
were made between the Tyne and the Forth, and a rampart

io MAKING OF THE I<OUK NAiiuiNo j.*5"- *•
was erected from the Forth to the Clyde, to keep off the
fierce hillmen. But even this part of Scotland was never
seriously organised as a Roman province, and the Romans
never directly touched Ireland at all, though they had
trade relations with it. Except for a short period they
practically limited themselves to the region south of the
Tyne and Solway, which was fenced off by a wonderful
massive wall of stone, with great towers at intervals, which
is still to be seen, a series of splendid ruins, standing gauntly
among the moorlands.
The area south of this wall— practically the whole of
England and Wales— was pretty thoroughly organised as
a Roman province,1 and had its share in the common
life of the civilised world for more than three centuries
and a half. The Romans garrisoned the country with
three legions of their famous soldiery. They built towns,
the 'relics of which — long buried beneath the debris which
was due to the neglect and hatred of the savages who
followed — are still to be seen at Bath, Chester, Silchester,
Wrexeter, and elsewhere. They introduced their own
laws and languages, and the upper classes among the
Britons most probably became Latin speakers, in much
the same way as the upper classes in modern India have
become English speakers. But they never effectually
Romanised the mass of the people, who laboured as serfs
on their estates, as they Romanised the people of Gaul and
Spain. Most of the Britons still spoke their Celtic dialects,
and the Romans had not long left the island before their
language ceased to be used by any but the learned.
Christianity followed the Romans into Britain, at first
as a persecuted, then as a recognised religion, and there
were British bishops and British martyrs. But there were
seemingly very few churches ; and it appears probable
that the mass of the country-folk remained pagan. Yet
the new religion had got itself established, and it was
capable of growing by its own strength. It had even begun,
before the Romans left the island, to spread to the wilder
Celtic peoples of Scotland and Ireland whom the Romans
never conquered.
Apart from Christianity, then, the Roman occupation
left comparatively little permanent mark upon the people :
only the upper class of the Celts seem in any full degree
to have adopted the culture of their masters. But there
was one aspect of the Romans' work which proved a per-
1 See the map of Roman Britain, Atlas, Plate 30.

ch. i.] THE FIRST INHABITANTS n
manent contribution to the progress of Great Britain. They
built a wonderful system of roads, straight and solidly
paved, sweeping across the hills and valleys, and through
the wide forests and marshes ; and these roads, for the first
time, made communication easy between one part of Great
Britain and another. They turned it from a series of little
isolated districts into a relatively unified country. For
many centuries to come these great roads were to be one'
of the chief unifying forces in Great Britain. Down to the
eighteenth century they continued to be the main means
of communication in the divided land.1
During the first four centuries of the Christian era the
Roman Empire 2 had given to the whole world of Western
civilisation a period of peace and orderly rule, such as it
had never known before, and has never known since.
Under its protection the art and the wisdom of Greece had
become the common heritage of the West ; and along its
guarded roads the missionaries of Christianity had come
and gone, gradually increasing the number of their adherents,
at first in obscurity, then in the face of persecution, and
finally under the official sanction of the Emperors, until
almost the whole Western world, except some of the pagani
or country-folk, had become Christian. It was this period
of peace and law, with the ideas it implanted as to men's
duties to the State and to one another, which laid the solid
foundations of European or Western civilisation ; and no
people has played any great part in the history of that
civilisation until it has been enabled, directly or indirectly,
to become a partner in the heritage of Rome. All this had
been possible because the armies of the Empire guarded its
long frontiers as the British armies to-day guard the
frontiers of India, and were able to prevent the inrush of the
barbarians who lay without.
The most formidable of these barbarians were the fierce
Teutonic clans, who wandered and fought among the forests
and marshes of Germany. Some of these tribes, dwelling
on the borders of the Empire, had learned to venerate its
splendid order and civilisation, and many of them had been
converted to Christianity before the end of the fourth
century ; but their admiration was mingled with greed,
and they longed to take these rich and cultivated lands for
themselves. And, as time passed, the chance of their
1 See the road map in the Introduction to the Atlas, p. 34, which shows
how the Roman roads continued to be used.
1 See the map of the Roman Empire, Atlas, Plate 1.

12 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. I.
doing so seemed to become greater. The Roman Empire
was slowly but surely decaying. It could no longer man
its armies from among its own citizens, and began to take
a dangerously large proportion of recruits from among the
German tribes themselves. In the middle of the third
century the barbarians were able to burst the guarded
frontiers, and work vast damage in the peaceful provinces ;
and though they were thrust out again, and the Empire was
reorganised, a whole rich province — modern Hungary and
Rumania — had to be abandoned to the Goths.
At length, towards the end of the fourth century, the
great catastrophe arrived. A new wave of invaders from
the East, the ferocious and brutal Huns, were forcing their
way into Europe. Their advance threw all the German
tribes into confusion ; and, escaping from the Huns, they
burst their way across the Rhine and the Danube. In the
course of the next generation these barbarian invaders
made themselves masters of the richest provinces in the
western half of the Empire.1 The Visigoths were in Spain,
the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Vandals in Northern Africa,
the Burgundians in South-Eastern France, and the Franks
in Northern France. Britain, too, had long been threatened.
Sea-rovers from North- Western Germany, the pagan Saxons,
who had never come in contact with Rome, and were among
the fiercest and most backward of the Teutons, had long
been harrying the east coast of Britain, so that the Roman
administrators of that province had been compelled to
appoint a special officer to deal with this peril, the Count of
the Saxon Shore. At the same time the untamed Picts to the
north of the great wall became more and more threatening.
But the outlying and backward province of Britain was
of little importance when the very heart of the Empire was
threatened. In a.d. 410 the Roman legions had to be
withdrawn from Britain, and with that event a new chapter
opens in the history of the British peoples. The Teutonic
or German invaders were about to make their contribu
tion to the population of the islands.
[For the general history of the period, Oman, England before the
Norman Conquest ; for prehistoric Britain, Boyd Dawkins, Early
Man in Britain ; for Celtic Britain, Rhys, Celtic Britain ; for Roman
Britain, Haverfield, The Romanisation of Roman Britain, Codrington,
Roman Roads. Enghsh students will find it interesting to read the
chapter on Roman Britain in the Victoria County History of their
own county.]
1 See the maps showing stages in the settlement of the Barbarians within
the Empire, Atlas, Plates 2 (a) (b) and 3 (a) (b). x

CHAPTER II
THE TEUTONIC INVADERS
(a.d. 410-825)
§ 1. The Barbarian Conquerors and the Chaos they produced.
The Teutonic tribes who settled in Great Britain during
the century following the Roman withdrawal came mainly
from the low and marshy lands which he between the
Rhine and the Baltic Sea.1 We know very little about their
history before they sought their new homes, or about their
customs and civilisation, except in so far as these were the
same as those of other Teutonic tribes, of which a general
description has been given to us by the Roman historians,
Csesar and Tacitus.
These tribes, as Caesar and Tacitus describe them, had a
very loose political organisation. Each tribe was divided
into districts under the rule of chieftains, but the tribes
as a whole seem to have had scarcely any common govern
ment, except that the chieftains took counsel together,
and that the whole body of free men were consulted about
a few greater issues, such as war against some neigh
bouring clan. Justice was administered in district courts,
probably presided over by the chieftains ; but freemen
seem to have had a right to be present, and it was they
who declared the ' custom of the folk,' by which any ques
tion ought to be determined. But there was no developed
system of law, no hearing of witnesses, no examination of
evidence — the real decision was arrived at either by hard
swearing, or by an appeal to the gods by ordeal, or by a
fight. The idea of crime, as an offence against the com-v
munity, scarcely existed among them, except in the case
of cowardice or treason- in battle ; even murder was not
punishable by death, but could be compensated by a pay
ment of the value of the dead man to his relatives, accord
ing to a fixed tariff of lives. There were rigid divisions
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 31. is

14 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
of caste among these tribesmen, between the noble-born,
the ordinary freemen, and the slaves or theows, who were
employed as serfs in the cultivation of the land : and it
was extremely hard, if not impossible, for any man to rise
out of the caste into which he was born. This division into
castes was general among the Aryan peoples, to which both
the Tefttons and the Celts belonged. It took many cen
turies to get rid of it altogether, and in India, instead of
becoming weaker, it became stronger and more elaborate
in course of time, and is still the most marked feature in
Indian life.
One of the strongest ties among the ordinary Teuton
tribesmen was that of kinship. Each village seems to have
been, at any rate in theory, a group of kinsmen. The whole
kin was responsible for the conduct of its members. It
was in kinship groups that the freemen were marshalled for
battle. And it would appear that the kinship groups worked
their land more or less in partnership. They needed a large
area of land for each group, for their methods of tillage
were rude, and they cultivated different patches of their
ground in each year, leaving the bulk of it waste for the
pasture of their cattle. In all this there is no great differ
ence between the customs of these tribes and those of the
Celts before the Roman conquest.
But one peculiar institution these Teuton tribesmen
possessed, which added greatly to their fighting efficiency,
and probably accounted for their victories. Each chieftain
prided himself upon maintaining a war-band of young
warriors, whom he fed and housed and supplied with
horse and armour. The members of these war-bands were
sworn to absolute loyalty, even to the death ; and youths
of the proudest birth were not ashamed to belong to
them. These bands of young warriors, who spent their
lives wholly in hunting or fighting or preparing for war,
were very useful in battle— much more useful than the
bodies of ordinary freemen called from the plough. Their
upkeep mus\ have demanded the labour of large num
bers of serfs, or heavy tribute from the freemen. And
their existence meant constant warfare ; the war-band had
to be kept exercised, or it would become discontented ;
and its members expected to be rewarded for their services!
These bands of comrades (comites) or gesiths were the
most important feature of the Teutonic system. They
must certainly have played a principal part in the conquest
of Britain. And the tie of loyalty which bound chieftain

ch. il] THE TEUTONIC INVADERS 15
and comrades one to the other was the strongest tie existing
among the Teutons. On the other hand, the rivalry of
various chieftains and their war-bands was bound to make
common action difficult.
We know very little about the adventures of these fierce
barbarians in Britain during the century and a half follow
ing the Roman withdrawal, for the Romanised Celts have
left us nothing but one or two vague and brief lamenta
tions over the punishment which Britain had to endure
for her sins ; while the Teuton tribesmen could not write,
and the scattered and conflicting statements about their
conquests which have come down to us were only written
down centuries after the events to which they refer.
One thing, however, is plain. They found it no easy
business to conquer Great Britain. The other provinces of
the Roman Empire were overrun by their barbarian con
querors with extraordinary rapidity and ease, but Great
Britain had to be won foot by foot in a long and obstinate
fight; much of it, and the whole of Ireland, were never-
conquered at all by these invaders. Indeed the Teutons,
though they no doubt raided the coasts, do not seem
to have ventured to make a settlement until forty years
after the Romans had withdrawn their troops ; the tra
ditional date for the first settlement is a.d. 449, when
a party of Jutes, under Hengist and Horsa,~"are said
to have established themselves in Kent. It took more
than a hundred years for the Teutons to win their
way half way across England, and another long period
passed ere they forced an access to the Bristol Channel
(battle of Deorham, 577), and the Irish Sea (battle of
Chester, 613), and so broke the Celtic states into three
fragments.1 Even then Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria,
South- Western Scotland, the whole of the Highlands, and
Ireland remained unconquered. This means that the
Celts, in spite of their desertion by the Romans, offered
a very desperate resistance — far more vigorous than was
offered to the Teuton conquerors in any other part of
Western Europe. The hero of this resistance, in the early
stages, was a Romanised Briton, whose fame is preserved
in the romantic legends of King Arthur and his Knights of
the Round Table ; but these legends have become so wildly
distorted that it is impossible to get any historical facts
out of them.
1 See the map showing the stages in the Teutonic conquest, Atlas,
Plate 32 (a).

16 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS |bk. *•
The main reason for the length of the struggle was, no
doubt, that instead of coming as a single organised host
under a single captain, like the Ostrogoths (in Italy) under
Theodoric, or the Franks (in Gaul) under Clovis, the con
querors of Britain came in many different tribal groups,
led by many rival chieftains with their war-bands, each
striving to carve out a little dominion for himself. We
can recognise four different peoples among the conquerors.
The Jutes, who may have come either from the Rhine
valley or from Jutland in North Denmark, came in two
distinct bands, one to Kent, another to the Isle of Wight and
Hampshire. The Saxons, from the Elbe and Weser valleys,
seem to have organised themselves at first into a big host,
which tried to advance up the Thames Valley ; but they
were beaten back at the battle of Mount Badon (? 516),
and they then split up into a number of distinct groups,
East, Middle, South and West Saxons, each group fighting for
its own hand. The Frisians, who came from the northern
•Dutch coast, certainly had a share in the invasions, but we
cannot tell exactly where they settled. The Angles, from
Holstein, seem to have been the only one of these peoples
who transplanted themselves in a body, with wives, cattle
and slaves, from their old homes to their new. They were
the most numerous of these peoples, and ultimately they
gave their name to the whole mixed population of South
Britain ; for England simply means Angleland. But
even the Angles seem to have made many distinct and un
connected attacks — in East Anglia, in Lincolnshire, up the
Trent Valley, in Yorkshire, and in Northumberland and the
Lothians. Scholars have tried to work out the details of
these settlements, but all their results are very uncertain ;
and we may well be content to. say that, during the century
following the Roman withdrawal, a large number of petty
Teutonic kingdoms had established themselves in the
eastern half of South Britain, from the Forth to the Solent,
and that these petty settlements were separated from one
another by the wide stretches of marsh, forest and moor
land by which England was split up. Several of these
little kingdoms are represented by modern English counties,
such as Sussex and Essex (the South and East Saxons),
Norfolk and Suffolk (the north folk and the south folk of
the East Angles).
A prolonged and bitter struggle of this kind would mean
a great deal of slaughter, and no doubt a much larger pro
portion of the Britons lost their lives than of the con-

ch. ii.] THE TEUTONIC INVADERS 17
quered provincials in Gaul. But we need not suppose
that there was a wholesale massacre of the conquered,
except perhaps in a few walled towns which angered the
invaders by their resistance. The Teutons hated towns,
and they left the Roman towns in Britain to fall into
ruins. In the first conquests, in which the whole mass of
freemen took part, there may have been a good deal of
slaughter ; but even at this stage it is likely that the Celtic
serfs would be kept alive, for it would be wasteful to destroy
them, and we know that the Teutons had used serfs in their
own country. But in the later conquests, carried out
mainly by the war-bands, who would need serf labour to
till the lands they won, it is impossible to believe that they
can have been destroyed. Those Celts who could afford
to do so, including all the educated classes, would take
refuge with their friends as the conquerors advanced ;
many of them fled to Brittany. But large numbers of
humble labourers remained, and learnt to speak the lan
guage of their masters. The only strong argument in
favour of a wholesale slaughter is that Christianity died
out in the country occupied by the conquerors ; but we
have seen that it had won no firm hold upon the rural popula
tion. We must not therefore imagine that the population
of England became purely Teutonic as a result of the
invasions. It was probably mixed everywhere, but the
Celtic element grew increasingly strong the further west
the Teuton power was extended. In parts of Wessex, for
example (i.e. Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset), the existence
of a Celtic population is recognised in the earhest laws.
In Devonshire the population is of almost purely Celtic
descent. Thus the first result of the Teuton invasion was greatly
to increase the disunity of the country. It was divided
between several free Celtic realms, and many separate
Enghsh kingdoms. From the first there was constant
strife between these little States, as each chieftain strove
to extend his dominion over his neighbours. And the result
was that some seven or eight substantial Enghsh kingdoms
emerged. The bigger of these included many smaller king
doms, which became ' shires ' or counties, but still had their
hereditary chieftains or kinglets and their distinct folkmoots
or assemblies of freemen. In the seventh and eighth cen
turies three of these kingdoms especially stood out, and
seemed strong enough to try to claim lordship over the
rest. These were Northumbria, a long narrow realm
vol. 1. b

i8 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATiO^a |>»- -¦
extending from the Humber to the Forth ; Mercia, a great
square block filling the Midlands, and including many petty
kingships ; and Wessex, which included the country south
of the Thames, from Devonshire to Sussex.1
While all this confusion reigned among the English
settlers, things were no better among the independent
Celts. We know very little about their history in this long
period, but we know that there were many divisions among
them. We can trace three groups in South Britain — West
Wales, which included Devonshire and Cornwall; Wales
proper ; and Strathclyde and Cumbria, which extended
from the Mersey to the Clyde. But there were further
divisions within these groups ; Galloway, for example, in
the south-west of Scotland, was a practically independent
realm, inhabited by Gaels or Picts, while the rest of Strath
clyde was occupied by Britons. In the north of Scotland
also there were several distinct kingdoms. And during
this period the confusion was increased by the migration to
the Western Highlands (503) of the Scots, a conquering
Celtic people from the nortrTof Ireland, who were, in course
of time, to give their name to the whole kingdom.2
It was no wonder that in the midst of all this confusion
civilisation decayed. When we reflect upon the condi
tion of the islands in the sixth and seventh centuries,
it seems incredible that out of such chaos there should, in
the fulness of time, have grown a united nation.
While Britain was in this state of chaos, Western Europe
also had fallen into the deepest barbarism, for the barbarian
conquerors had overrun every .part of it ; the Franks and
Burgundians in France, the Visigoths in Spain, the Ostro
goths and later the Lombards in Italy. And during the
same period a great transformation was being carried out
in the East. The Arabs, fired by the preaching of the
prophet Mohammed, had, during the seventh century,
overrun and conquered most of what remained of the
enstern half of the Roman Empire, and the whole of Persia.
Syria and Egypt were in their hands ; they were expanding
along the north coast of Africa; and at the beginning of
the eighth century (711) they were to cross the straits of
Gibraltar, and conquer the greater part of Spain.
But while chaos reigned everywhere else, in Ireland there
was going on a wonderful development ; for Ireland was
free from the Teutonic conquerors, as she had been free
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 32 (6).
* See the map of early Scotland, Atlas, Plate 39.

oh. ii.j THE TEUTONIC INVADERS 19
from the Romans. In the years following the Roman with
drawal from Britain, St. Patrick, who had been trained
in Gaul, undertook the task of completing the conversion
of the Irish Gaels to Christianity, and from this time a
wonderful revival of religion and learning made Ireland,
for two or three centuries, the holy place of Europe, and
the home of saints and missionaries. The country was
divided into about eight tribal kingdoms, constantly at
strife with one another. But that did not matter ; the
holy men withdrew themselves into settlements apart,
where hundreds of pupils gathered round them, building
their own wattled huts, and growing their own food, but
devoting most of their time to the study of religion.1 From
these monastic settlements they went forth with admir
able courage to preach the gospel in all the pagan lands
of the West. They found their way as far afield as Iceland.
They wandered over the whole of Western Germany, from
the mouth of the Rhine to Switzerland, and converted many
of the heathens of that region. But for us the most inter
esting of all their settlements was that which was made
by St. Columba, a pupil of one of the great monastic schools
in the north of Ireland, and a cousin of the King of the
Scots, who had recently established themselves in Argyll
shire. About 565, on the invitation of his cousin, Columba,
with twelve companions, established himself in the little
island of Iona, off the wild west coast of Scotland, and Iona
henceforth became one of the holy places of Britain.
Columba's disciples wandered over Northern Scotland, and
converted the heathen Picts. And presently they under
took a still heavier task — that of converting the fierce
Anglo-Saxon conquerors. § 2. The Revival of Civilisation.
The first attempt to convert the English was made,
however, not by the Celtic missionaries, but by a band of
monks headed by St. Augustine, who were sent by the great
Pope Gregory 1., and landed in Kent in 597 ; the site of
their first church, Canterbury, has ever "since been the
centre of the English Church. But though Augustine and
his foUowers converted Kent, and persuaded the kings of
Northumbria and Essex to accept the new religion, a great
heathen reaction led by the King of Mercia almost destroyed
their work. The real conversion of the English did not
begin until in 635 an exiled Northumbrian king, Oswald,
1 See the map of early Ireland, Atlas, Plate 41.

20 MAKING OF THE FOUR NAiiUiNs l—
brought from Iona the great Celtic missionary St. Aidan.
From the monastery which Aidan founded on the island
of Lindisfarne missionaries went forth over all England,
and in a generation the whole country had adopted the new
faith. Thus the English owed their conversion mainly to
their Celtic neighbours.
Unfortunately, in the long period during which the Celtic
Christians had been cut off by the heathen English from
the main body of Christians on the Continent, considerable
differences had sprung up between them, partly on minor
points, such as the date of Easter, but also on the greater
question of the way in which the Church should be organised.
In 664, a council of English bishops was called at Whitby,
to decide whether the Roman or the Celtic system should
be followed. This was the first common action taken by
all the English States. The council decided to adopt the
Roman methods, and so brought the new Christian Church
into contact and agreement with the rest of the Western
world. A continental bishop, Theodore of Tarsus, was
sent by the Pope to organise the new Enghsh Church. He
divided the land into bishoprics, more or less corresponding
with the little kingdoms ; x and the councils which these
bishops held from time to time formed the first recogni
tion of the unity of the Enghsh realms. Unfortunately
the decision >of 664 at first meant that a new cleavage was
introduced between the Celtic and the Teutonic regions of
the islands, just when their adoption of a common faith
promised to unite them. But this did not last very long :
most of the Celtic lands gradually accepted the Roman
order, and thus all the peoples of the islands had at last
something in common. For them, as for the rest of the
European peoples, a common religion was to provide a
binding force. It could only work slowly, and was not
of itself enough to weld them into a nation ; but without
it unity could never have come.
The adoption of Christianity did not merely bring the
islands once more into contact with the other peoples of
Europe : it brought them again under the influence of the
great heritage of Western civilisation, of which, through
these dark centuries, the Church was the only guardian.
They felt not only the influence of Christian morals and
Christian thought ; through the Church they also felt the
influence of the traditions of old Rome, although in a
very faint and remote way ; and none of the barbarian
1 See the map of Anglo-Saxon dioceses, Atlas, Plate 37 (a).

ch. il] THE TEUTONIC INVADERS 21
tribes ever succeeded in achieving much that was of value
until this happened. Under the stimulus of educated priests
and monks, intellectual life sprang into being ; and for a
time Northern England at least was probably more civi
lised than any of the countries of Western Europe where
the German barbarians had settled. The Venerable Bede,
who wrote his Ecclesiastical History in the monastery of
Jarrow-on-Tyne, and died in 735, was the only great writer of
Europe in his age . When the conquering Frankish kings began
in the eighth century to tame the savagery of Germany, and to
bring that country, in its turn, indirectly under the influence
of Rome, it was to England that they sent for missionaries
to complete the work which the Irish preachers had earlier
begun, and the organisation of the Christian Church in
Germany was due to an Englishman, St. Boniface. When
the greatest of the Frankish kings, Charlemagne (768-814),
having made himself master of all the West, tried to restore
the Roman Empire, and to make his court the centre of a
revival of learning, his chief adviser and helper was the
English scholar Alcuin. In Ireland also and (to a less
degree) in Scotland, learning and religion made progress
during this period ; so that, on the whole, the islands had
begun to emerge from their darkness, and were probably
for a time the most enlightened region in Europe.
But the old strife between the English kingdoms and
their Celtic neighbours, and among the English kingdoms
themselves, still continued, though with much less ferocity.
The main feature of the seventh and eighth centuries was
the long struggle for supremacy between the three chief
English kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. At
first Nortlrumbria led, but it was weakened by divisions
between its northern and southern halves, and by its strife
with its Celtic neighbours ; its greatness may be said to
end with the crushing victory of the Picts of Scotland at
Nectansmere in 685. Then Mercia succeeded to the leader
ship. Its greatest king, Offa (758-796), not only mastered
all the little kingdoms of the Midlands, but beat back the
Welsh, penning them behind the Dyke to which his name is
still attached. But Mercia was not a unified State ; it was a
bundle of vassal kingdoms, and was only formidable under
the rule of a great leader. Finally Wessex, the kingdom
of the south, achieved supremacy over all the English
kingdoms, under the leadership of Egbert, who succeeded
to the West Saxon throne in 802. He conquered Devon,
which was still Celtic ; he defeated the Mercians at Ellandun

22 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
(825) ; he made Kent and Sussex recognise his overlord-
ship ; and within the next few years all the little kings in
England had offered him obedience and allegiance. Here,
for the first time, was something resembling a single Kingdom
of England ; 'though, in fact, the little kingdoms still main
tained their separate existence, and real unity was far
from being secured.
It is a strange coincidence that just at the time when
the English tribes were attaining some unity, a great united
realm had been organised in Western Europe. During the
eighth century the Frankish kings of the Carolingian house
had rapidly made themselves the hope of Western civilisa
tion. They had beaten back the Saracens at the battle of
Poitiers (732), when they seemed likely to conquer France
as they had already conquered Spain. They had unified
all France and Western Germany under their rule. They
had taken the Church and the Papacy under their guardian
ship, and tamed the fierce Lombards in Italy. They had
begun to bring the still unconquered tribes of Central and
Northern Germany under civilising influences, and had
given their protection and help to Christian missionaries
preaching in these lands. They had even begun to conquer
the Slavonic tribes east of the Elbe, and fought success
fully against the Avars, a Mongolian raiding tribe who had
fixed themselves in Hungary. Something dimly resembling
the old order of the Roman Empire seemed to be emerging
in Western Europe.1 In a.d. 800, just two years before
Egbert ascended the West Saxon throne, the feeling of all
good Europeans and lovers of civilisation that the days of
peace and law were coming back again, received expression
when the Pope placed upon the head of Charlemagne, the
greatest of all the Frankish kings, an imperial crown, and
nailed him as Emperor, as the reviver of old Rome, as
the successor of the long line of Roman emperors who had
given peace to the world.
But the empire of Charlemagne, like the united England
of Egbert, was still too weak to stand any severe strain ;
and upon both of them there was to fall, during the ninth
century, a terrible series of trials, which for a time destroyed
all the work that had been done, and plunged not only the
islands, but the whole of Western Europe, into a long
new period of barbarism and anarchy. Charlemagne's
empire was divided among his descendants and torn asunder
1 See the map of Charlemagne's Empire, Atlas, Plate 4, and compare
with if the JVIohammedan Empire in the south,

ch. il] THE TEUTONIC INVADERS 23
by their quarrels, while their nobles set up for themselves,
and what is known as feudalism came into being. Mean
while the once great empire was attacked on all sides —
by the Saracens in Italy and the south ; by the Magyars,
a new wave of Mongolian invaders, from Hungary and the
south-east ; by the Slavonic tribes, whom Charlemagne had
held in check, on the east; and, above all, by the fierce
Norse and Danish raiders from the Scandinavian lands of
the north. Under these attacks, combined with its internal
weakness, the empire of Charlemagne rapidly collapsed.
England and the rest of the islands were subjected only
to the attacks of the Norse and Danish raiders, but the full
force of the storm fell upon them even more severely than
upon France. These attacks had, indeed, already begun
before Egbert's time, and were beginning to be serious
before his death. His recently created and loosely organ
ised power was not strong enough to stand the strain ;
during the generation after his death the conquering North
men settled in large numbers in the lands which had accepted
his supremacy, and a new and very important element was
added to the mixed population of the islands.
§ 3. England in 800 A.D.
Yet the appearance of the first king of all England marks
an era ; and before we turn to consider the raids and settle
ments of the Northmen, it will be worth while to review
briefly what was the condition at which England had
arrived in Egbert's time, four centuries after the first
Teutonic invasions ; especially because some of the features
of this period were to survive, and to have a lasting influ
ence upon English institutions.
We can form but a dim idea of the mode of life of the
English at this period, for there is no material of a detailed
kind until the time of the Norman Conquest ; and a yet
dimmer notion of the life of the other parts of the islands.
But we must conceive of the great mass of Englishmen as
probably living in village communities, and deriving their
livelihood from the labours of the fields. Many of the
villagers were freemen, holding substantial amounts of
land, often about 120 acres, and being liable for service
in the army and for attendance at the law courts. Many
others were serfs, not owing these obligations, but on the
other hand not free to leave their land, and subject to
many vexatious dues and services to their masters, whose
land they had to till as well as their own. These village

24 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
communities (whether free or servile) were practically self-
supporting. They grew their own food, made their own
clothes and utensils, and needed scarcely anything from
outside, except iron for their ploughshares and (in most v
villages) salt. Therefore the villagers knew and cared very
little about what went on beyond the limits of the village.
It was very difficult to stir them up to meet a common
danger, as the Danish invasions showed ; and it was almost
impossible to create among them a sense of patriotism for
England as a whole ; England as a whole meant nothing
to them.
The old military obligations of the freemen seem almost
to have fallen into disuse ; because in the petty wars of
the kingdoms the fighting was carried on, as perhaps it had
mainly been carried on almost from the beginning, by the
king's comrades or special fighting men. This class had
consequently grown very much in importance. They were
now known as thegns or royal servants, and they had
swallowed up all the old hereditary aristocracy. They had
access to the king's person. The chief among them were
members of his council. They were rewarded for their
services with grants of land, often including whole villages
of serfs. In short, they were tending to become a sort of
feudal nobility, although they had not yet obtained formal
legal powers over the freemen.
At the head of all was the King, whose position was
now, in the greater kingdoms, much more exalted than
that of the chieftains of the first conquering bands. Not
only the greater extent of his kingdom, but the solemnity
of Christian coronation, had raised him in dignity ; and
now all the chief men of the kingdom were his thegns or
servants. He maintained himself, and the cost of his
government, chiefly by the profits of his private estates
and the proceeds of the law courts ; and his court had to
travel about unceasingly in order to eat up the produce of
each of his estates in turn. In governing his realm, he
was assisted by a council of wise men, or Witan, which
generally included the ealdormen, who were the adminis
trative heads of the shires, together with the bishops and
the leading thegns. This body was the only common
ruling authority of the whole ldngdom ; and it was with
its advice that the king made new laws, or took measures
of attack or defence against other kings. But the king
had no official staff, apart from a few chaplains who
did such secretarial work as was necessary. There was no

ch. ii.] THE TEUTONIC INVADERS 25
regular machinery of government, and this made it impos
sible that effective control should be exercised over the
whole of a wide realm like that of Mercia, and still more
over all England.
The highest educative and civilising influences at work
in the islands were, of course, those of the Church ; and
it was perhaps only through the Church that men felt
themselves to be members of something wider and greater
than their village community or their shire-kingdom. The
organisation of the Church, however, was as yet far from
perfect. Many villages, no doubt, had churches of their
own ; and some may have had settled priests, who were
kept up by a payment of one-tenth of the produce of the
village lands. But this system was as yet far from universal.
The main centres of spiritual and intellectual life were the
monasteries, inhabited by groups of men who had vowed
themselves to a religious life. They were the only schools
and centres of learning. Some of them did splendid work,
but generally, in the eighth century, they were undergoing
some decay, and the first flush of enthusiasm for the new
religion was growing faint. England, in fact, had to pass
through many searching experiences yet before she was to
achieve either real unity or real civilisation.
It is a remarkable fact that the Teutonic settlers in
England, who had begun their attacks as pirates and sea-
rovers, had almost abandoned the sea from the time of
their settlement. The English of a.d. 800 were not a sea
faring people. When they were attacked, as they were
now to be, by the most daring mariners who have ever
been seen on the seas of the world, they were altogether
unable to meet them on their own element.
[As before, Oman's England before the Norman Conquest provides
the best general summary of recent knowledge. For the contem
porary history of Europe, Church's Beginning of the Middle Ages,
and Fletcher's Making of Western Europe. See also the first volume
of Hume Brown's History of Scotland, and Bury's St. Patrick.
Freeman's Old English History deals with this period ; also
Green's Making of England, vivid but rather unreliable. For
the early settlements, Leeds' Archcsology of the Anglo-Saxon
Settlements. There is a good description of early English society in
Miss B. A. Lees' Alfred the Great, and a lively and picturesque one
in the first volume of Fletcher's Introductory History of England .]

CHAPTER III
THE INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN
(a.d. 825-1066)
§ 1. The Vikings and their Ravages.
The next wave of invaders were the Northmen or Vikings,
who came from Norway and Denmark, the one a land of
barren mountains penetrated by deep fjords, the other a
land of sandy flats intersected by tortuous channels ; 1
both therefore lands which naturally bred sailors. These
Northmen were of Teutonic stock, but as distinct from the
Germans as the British Celts were from the Gaelic Celts.
They had taken no part in the earlier invasions of the
Roman Empire, and we know nothing about their early
history ; for though they later developed a splendid litera
ture, this was not until they had learnt the art from the
Christian world, arid especially from the Celts of Ireland.
With inexplicable suddenness they burst out in all
directions from their original homes towards the end of the
eighth century. Their ravages and adventures extended
over the whole of Western Europe during more than a
century. Then great bands of them settled down in the
British Islands and in France ; those who remained at
home organised civilised and Christian kingdoms ; their
piratical raids in Europe came to an end as suddenly as
they had begun ; and their extraordinary daring at sea
showed itself instead in the exploration of Greenland and
the shores of North America. In this later period they also
produced, in the sagas, some of the finest poetry of war and
adventure that has ever been written.
It is impossible to exaggerate the energy and daring of
these Vikings during the great Viking age, which may be
; said to extend from a.d. 789 (the date of the first recorded
1 raid in England) to a.d. 913 (the date of their settlement in
Normandy). Vikings from Sweden swept into Russia, and
laid the foundations of the Russian kingdom. Others made
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 31,

ch. in.] INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 27
their way down the Russian rivers to the Black Sea, and
entered the service of the Eastern Emperor at Constanti
nople. The main bands kept the whole of Western Europe
in a state of terror, so that a special petition, A furore Norman-
norum libera nos, found a place in the Litany of many Western
churches. Their long open boats, with high prows and sterns
carved into the likeness of dragons or serpents, were manned
by about sixty men apiece, whose painted shields hung over
the bulwarks. Without map or compass, driven by oar
and sail, and steered only by a long paddle on the right or
' steer-board ' side of the ship, these open boats ventured
through the roughest seas, swept up all the great rivers of
Germany and France, and terrorised even the distant shores
of Spain, Italy and Northern Africa. Nothing dismayed
the Vikings, and nobody seemed to be able to resist them.
They began by sudden plundering descents, in which they
showed the utmost ferocity, especially towards the priests
of the Christian religion, for they were fierce pagans. Their
next stage was to make a base on some convenient island
or headland, from which they ravaged the mainland, and
this they did all along the coasts of North- Western Europe.
Their final stage was the systematic conquest and settle
ment of a large area ; and when they reached that stage
(which happened in France and England), they showed
a remarkable capacity for assimilating and improving the
civilisation of the people among whom they settled.
Such a people, in spite of their ferocity and treachery,
, formed a wonderful enrichment of any land in which they
settled ; and we may rejoice that it was mainly upon the
British Islands that they concentrated their attention.
Their first recorded raid was in England, in a.d. 789 ; and
in England, Ireland and Scotland they settled in larger
numbers than anywhere else. Unlike the earlier Teutonic
hordes, they penetrated to almost every part of the islands.
It was to Ireland that they seem first to have given
their serious attention. During the first thirty years of the
ninth century they raided it unceasingly, and the rest of
the West had peace. By the middle of the ninth century
half of the country was said to have submitted to them,
and a Northman was in 853 over-king of all Ireland. But
they did not settle in very large numbers. They chiefly
established themselves in and round the three ports of
Dublin, Waterford and Wexford, which they founded
and turned into thriving centres of trade.1 Most of them
» gee the map of Ireland, Atlas, Plate 41.

28 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
were expelled by the Irish Celts early in the tenth century ;
but they had learnt much, and apparently owed to the
Irish poets their first training in the art of poetry. Un
happily their ravages brought to an end the golden age
of Irish letters and religion.
They also paid repeated visits, and in great numbers,
to the coasts of Scotland, though we have little record of
these attacks. They conquered and peopled the Orkney
and Shetland Islands, and the county of Caithness. They
settled in considerable numbers on the shores of the Moray
Firth, and southwards along the coast as far as the Forth.
They made themselves masters of most of the Hebrides,
which they called the Sudereys, or Southern Islands, and
of the Isle of Man ; that is why there is a Bishop of Sodor
(Sudereys) and Man. And the same bands who came by
this western route also settled in large numbers in Cumber
land, hitherto mainly Celtic, and along the north-western
shores of England, as far as the Mersey and the Dee. Of
most of these attacks there is no historical record, except
in the names of the places where they settled ; for where-
ever you see a place-name ending in by or thwaite, you know
it was a Viking settlement.
But the main attacks on England were directed against
the inviting and accessible east coast, and here it was, in
the end, that the scattered bands of Vikings gathered them
selves into great hosts, and deliberately set to work to sub
jugate the whole country.
The first serious attacks on England were made in the
later years of Egbert's reign, and on the whole that king
got the better of all attacks in Wessex. But they con
tinued with growing frequency and growing seriousness
during the reigns of his son and his grandsons, while the
opposite continental coasts suffered equally. At length,
in the middle of the ninth century, the Danes began to
make systematic attempts to conquer and settle. In 8j^
they wintered for the first time on English soil, in the Isle
of Thanet. In 867 a great swarm of them descended
upon Yorkshire, from which they were never again driven
out, and where they created a little kingdom. In 869 or
870 another band conquered East Anglia, thus establish
ing a second Danish kingdom in England.1
The most striking feature of all these attacks is that,
except in Wessex, no effective organised resistance was
anywhere offered to them. Each little district or old tribal
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 32 (c).

ch. iii.j ijn VASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 29
kingdom seemed to consider that it was none of its busi
ness to help its neighbours, and, when its own turn came,
found itself quite unable to resist. Only in Wessex did
the English hold their own against the raiders, who were con
stantly beaten back. And at length, in 871, the Danes decided
to concentrate their attacks upon Wessex. If Wessex had
succumbed, all England would have become a Danish realm.
§ 2. Alfred the Great and the Emperor Kings.
The desperate struggle of Wessex against the Danes
brought into the foreground the first great national hero of
England, and the noblest of English kings, Alfred the Great.1
Alfred was the youngest of the four grandsons of Egbert
who successively occupied the West Saxon throne. From
his earliest youth he had shown an exceptional vigour and
intelligence of mind, and this had been stimulated by a
pilgrimage to Rome, which he made with his royal father
when he was a child. From the age of seventeen he played
a leading part, under his brother Ethelred, in the endless
struggle against the Danes, and his gallantry and resource
fulness formed one of the chief reasons for the success of
the West Saxons. When the great attack came in 871,
Alfred, then about twenty-three years old, was the principal
leader on the West Saxon side. Many desperate pitched
battles were fought in this year. In one of them, on Ash-
down, Alfred's generalship gained a brilliant victory. But
the Danes were not to be defeated in a single fight. In a
later battle they killed King Ethelred ; and now Alfred
became king, and assumed the whole burden of the resist
ance against the conquerors, and of defending Christianity
and civilisation. It took him eight years of unceasing
fighting. He was, in the later part of these years, reduced
to the lowest ebb, and had to take refuge among the marshes
of Athelney in Somerset, while the triumphant Danes de
voured his Christmas fare at the royal manor of Chippen
ham. But he emerged from his retreat to inflict a final
and decisive defeat upon the Danes. They were driven
out of Wessex. By the treaty of Chippenham (878) they
were compelled to admit their defeat and to accept Christi-
anity; and a definition of boundaries eight years later
left Alfred in control not only of Wessex, but of half of
Mercia, south-west of a line drawn from London to Chester.2
1 The best modern biography of Alfred the Great is by Miss B. A. Lees
(Heroes of the Nations).
1 The division is shown in Atlas, Plate 32 (c).

30 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS Lbk. I.
In this enlarged realm Alfred set to work to organise the
forces of resistance. He built fortified towns, to be centres
of defence. He reorganised the fyrd, or national levy of
freemen, which had long been almost useless, because most
of the fighting had long been done by the professional fight
ing class of the thegns. He even organised a small fighting
fleet, borrowing Frisian sailors for the purpose, because the
English had ceased to be a seafaring race. The result was
that when a new storm of Danish attack burst upon him
in 885-895, he definitely got the better of his foes, and greatly
strengthened the position of his kingdom.
Alfred's reign left more than half of England under
Danish rule, and in a state of anarchy. But in the region
which remained under his control there was far greater
strength and efficiency than there had ever been before,
and Wessex could look forward confidently to the recon-
quest of the rest of England, which was to be achieved by
Alfred's successors. Moreover Alfred established friendly
relations with the neighbouring Celtic kingdoms, which
recognised that his strength was their chief defence against
a common danger. Cornwall had become practically a part
of Wessex, perhaps before Alfred's time. The British princes
of South and North Wales offered him their allegiance ; and
he welcomed at his court scholar-monks from Ireland.
But, great as he was as a soldier and an organiser of
victory, Alfred was much more. He not only gave to his
countrymen a noble tradition of steadfast valour ; he also
laboured to obtain a real improvement of civilisation.
For the Danish raiders had been terribly destructive. They
had brought anarchy and disorder everywhere ; they had
destroyed many of the monasteries, which were the chief
centres of enlightenment ; in short, they had woefully set
back civilisation. Alfred revised, improved and codified
the laws. He restored public order, and earned the title
of Protector of the Poor. Above all, seeing, as only a
really great man could in that age of brute force, that the
strength of a nation's life depends upon the chance
which it offers for making the best of the highest gifts of
its citizens, he laboured to revive letters and learning. He
restored monasteries. He started a school for the sons of
nobles at his own court. He began the history of real
English literature, by translating with his own hand the
books which he thought most likely to help his people to
think wisely. And in order to keep alive the traditions of
the past, which make the soul of a nation, he set his monks

CH. In.] INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 31
to work in compiling the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is
henceforth, for a long period, our chief source of informa
tion about the fortunes of the English. We know too little
about Alfred's many-sided work to be able to describe it in
detail. But we know enough to say that there has never
been in all history a more noble or devoted king.
During the seventy-five years following the death of
Alfred, his successors, building on the foundations he had
laid, established the supremacy of the reorganised Wessex
over all the other States in Great Britain (Enghsh, Danish,
or Celtic), and for the first time gave a semblance of political
unity to the whole island. Alfred's son, Edward the Elder
(899-924), with the aid of his warlike sister Ethelfleda,
gradually reconquered Danish Mercia and East Anglia,
securing his conquests, step by step, by the erection of
burhs or fortresses, some of which became the administra
tive centres of the new shires into which he or his successor
divided out this part of England. Unlike the southern
shires, the midland shires are of more or less equal size,
and are named after their chief towns. They are artificial
creations, and their formation shows that the old tribal'
divisions of this district had at last been got rid of, under
the pressure of the Danish conquest. When the Midlands
had been conquered and organised, the Danish king of
Yorkshire thought it wise to offer his submission, though
this region remained a distinct dependent realm for some
time. Farther north the little English region between the
Tyne and the Forth, which had escaped Danish conquest,
also recognised the overlordship of the West Saxon king,
while the princes of Wales, who had paid allegiance to
Alfred, continued to recognise, in a vague way, the superi
ority of his successor.
Scotland also now for the first time entered into political
relations with England. Scotland, as we have seen, had
suffered terribly from the raids of the Vikings, who had
sacked most of the Scottish and Pictish strongholds, and
devastated Iona and other monastic settlements. It was
partly, no doubt, the pressure of the Vikings that led to the
union of the two Scottish kingdoms, the realm of the Scots
in the west, and the Pictish realm of Alban or Caledonia
in the east. This was in 843, and from that date there is
always a united kingdom of Scotland. But it was a very
small and poor kingdom as yet. The Northmen held Caith
ness and Sutherland and the Western Isles. The British
kingdom of Strathclyde still survived in the south-west,

32 MAKING OF Tiiii FuUR jjiAnwa l^" -¦
though it was very weak, and was tending to pass under
the control of the King of Scots. In the year 919 both of
these kings, the King of Scotland and the King of Strath
clyde, recognised the supremacy of the English king,
' taking him,' as the Chronicle puts it, ' for father and lord.'
This was later made the basis for a claim of feudal supre
macy on the part of the English kings over Scotland. It
did not mean anything so definite as that. But it did mean
that the King of Wessex, who may henceforth be called
the King of England, was recognised throughout Britain
as the most powerful ruler in the island, and the best source
of protection against the Northmen.
But this vague superiority did not amount to much, and
Athelstan, Edward's very able successor (924-940), had to
fight hard to maintain it. He suppressed the Danish
kingdom in Yorkshire, and brought it under his direct rule.
And presently we find him at war with the King of Scots,
and invading his territory as far north as Aberdeen (933),
while his fleet penetrated the Moray Firth. The King of
Scots was apparently trying to extend his power by getting
control both over Strathclyde and over the English region of
Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed or Tyne,
both of which districts were ultimately to become parts of the
kingdom of Scotland. King Constantine did not submit to
his defeat of 933, which may be said to mark the beginning
of the long war of independence between Scotland and
England. In 937 he formed a confederacy against the
English king, which included not only Strathclyde, but
the Northmen of Cumberland, and even those of Ireland.
A great battle was fought at Brunanburh, which was
probably somewhere near the Solway Firth, though many
other places claim to have been the scene of the famous fight.
It is perhaps the best known battle of early English history,
for a long and stirring poem about it has been preserved in
the English Chronicle. The slaughter was tremendous, and,
at the end of a long day's fighting, three kings lay dead on
the field. Athelstan won a complete victory, and thereafter
enjoyed undisputed superiority over the island.
We must not exaggerate the reality of this general
dominion : Athelstan's successors had to fight against their
rebellious vassals time and again, and over the region north
of the Humber, or at any rate north of the Tyne, their
authority was never more than nominal. But, for all that,
they were great and formidable kings. They began to
assume magnificent titles, such as Rex totius Britannia

ch. in.] INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 33
and even to borrow titles used by the Roman emperors.
Their alliance was sought after by the ruling princes of the
Continent. For in this period Europe, like England, was
beginning to recover from the disorder of the previous time ;
from the ruins of the empire of Charlemagne the kingdoms
of Germany and France began to arise. At first, and for a
long time, Germany was the strongest State in Europe, and
its ruler, Otto the Great, revived in 962 the title of Roman
Emperor, which continued to be attached to the German
kingdom until the beginning of the nineteenth century.
France was for a long time much less powerful ; the
Capetian dynasty, which ascended the throne in 987, was
for nearly two centuries overshadowed by its great feudal
vassals, and could only count upon the allegiance of a little
island of land round Paris — the He de France. Still there
was now a kingdom of France as well as a kingdom of
Germany ; and with both of these realms, as well as with
some of the greater feudal principalities of France, the
powerful Enghsh State which Athelstan ruled began to
enter into relations. Otto of Germany married one of
Athelstan's sisters ; and Athelstan's four other sisters also
found husbands among the leading princes of Europe. The
realm of England was beginning to take a place among the
great States that were emerging out of the chaos of the dark
ages. With one exception, Athelstan's next successors were all
men of sufficient vigour and ability to maintain the high
standing of their kingdom. But it was under the rule of
his fourth successor, Edgar (959-975) , that the greatness of
the new empire-realm reached its highest point. The whole
reign was practically untouched by invasion from without
or disorder within, and in the troublous times that followed
it was looked back upon as a sort of golden age. The
vassal states remained submissive ; and the chronicles
record with pride how, during a visit to Chester in 973,
Edgar was met by eight vassal kings, who plighted their
troth to him, and rowed him in state up the Dee as far as
the Church of St. John. All these eight kings came from
Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. But the fact that
there were so many rulers entitled to bear the royal title
shows how insecure was the chief king's hold over his
extended realm.
The ' Emperor-Kings,' as the sovereigns from Athelstan
to Edgar are sometimes called, did their best to improve
and strengthen the organisation of their dominions. They
vol. 1. c

34 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
made many new laws, with the aid of the Witan. Edgar, in
particular, tried to strengthen the judicial system by creat
ing, or perhaps reorganising, a series of Hundred (or district)
Courts ; and, guided by his great archbishop and counsellor
Dunstan, he strove also to reinvigorate the Church, especially
by enforcing stricter rules upon the monasteries . But without
the development of an efficient machinery of government
any permanently effective control of the whole country was
impossible. Even Athelstan and Edgar had to leave a very
high degree of independence to great ealdormen and (in
the Danish districts) earls, who could only be kept in
subjection by constant vigour on the part of the king.
The strength of the united realm depended wholly upon the
character and ability of the king ; and when a weak ruler
succeeded to the throne, it rapidly fell to pieces.

§ 3. The Second Danish Conquest, and the Coming of the
Normans.
Such a$f one was Ethelred the Redeless, who became king
in 978, and whose reign, which lasted till 1016, was perhaps
the most disastrous that England has ever seen. During
this reign there was a sudden and violent renewal of the
Danish attacks ; for in Denmark and Norway new consoli
dated kingdoms were arising, and the more adventurous
spirits took to the old ways of piracy as a means of escape.
But the greater England they attacked ought now to
have been far more able to resist them than it had been
in the time of the first invasions ; and under a king like
Athelstan it would undoubtedly have done so. Ethelred
was quite incapable of showing the necessary vigour and
leadership. Local ealdormen or earls did their best to
resist the raiders, as in the battle of Maldon in 991, when
the local levies of Essex fought gallantly against a great
Danish host. But they got no help from the king, who was
never at hand, and whose only device for dealing with the
enemy was the fatal one of buying him off. Time and
again vast sums were raised by heavy taxes on land, to be
paid away as Danegeld : it was like trying to drive away
wasps with saucers of honey.
A still more fatal device was attempted in 1002, when
Ethelred organised a wholesale massacre of the Danes
many of whom had recently settled in England. This
only brought down upon the land a greater host than
ever ; ^and '[ its leader, Sweyn, who had at first been a

ch. in.] INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 35
pirate chief, but had since succeeded to the throne
of Denmark, deliberately set himself to subjugate Eng
land as a whole. The land was harried and desolated
in a continuous series of campaigns. At one moment,
in sheer despair, almost the whole country gave up the
struggle and accepted Sweyn's supremacy. But after
Sweyn's death in 1014 English patriotism revived, and the
wretched Ethelred, who had taken refuge in Normandy,
returned to ruin his subjects once more. His death, in 1016,
came too late to make the salvation of the country possible.
Sweyn's son, Canute, was already master of the greater
part of it ; and although Edmund Ironside, the gallant son
of the worthless Ethelred, and the last hero of the house of
Alfred, made a noble struggle in 1016, his premature death
rendered further resistance hopeless, and the line of Alfred
gave place to a Danish king, Canute (1016-1035).
The confusion of the Danish war was the occasion for a
very important change in the north. In the year 1018 the
King of the Scots attacked the English district of Lothian,
between the Tweed and the Forth, and being victorious
at the battle of Carham (on the Tweed) was able to
incorporate this region in his kingdom. Ever since 1018
Lothian has been part of the kingdom of Scotland, and its chief
town, Edinburgh, soon became the capital of the kingdom.
Canute, the first Danish King of England, was a very
powerful prince, one of the greatest sovereigns in Europe in
his time. For he was not only King of England, with a
vague claim to superiority over Wales and Scotland, and a
still vaguer over Ireland ; he was also King of Denmark
and of Norway.1 But he ruled all this extensive empire
from England; and, though he had shown himself both
brutal and treacherous in his early days, he did his best to
win the favour of his English subjects, filling his court with
Englishmen, and reviving and strengthening English laws
and customs. Yet even Canute was unable to wield effec
tive control over his whole realm, simply because there did
not exist any regular machinery for supervising the govern
ment of the various districts. He had to divide England
into a number of great earldoms, whose rulers were left
very much to themselves even under a strong king, and
became almost independent princes under a weak king.
This became very clear when, after Canute's death, dis
putes broke out between his two sons, Harold and Hardi-
canute. It became clearer still when, on the death of
1 See the map of Canute's empire, Atlas, Plate 33.

36 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
Hardicanute (1042), the short line of Danish kings of
England came to an end, and the exiled son of Ethelred
the Redeless came from Normandy, where he had taken
refuge, to assume the crown as Edward the Confessor.
During Edward's long and feeble reign (1042-1066), the
real rulers of England were the great earls, especially
Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and his sons, and Leofric, Earl of
Mercia, and his sons.1 England, which had been so pain
fully united, seemed to be falling asunder again, breaking
up into great vassal-states like the feudal principalities
into which France was divided.
Edward was an amiable, pious prince, quite incapable
of remedying this growing weakness of his realm. Indeed
he seems to have had httle interest in England. He had
been bred in Normandy, where during the last hundred
years (since 913) the Viking conquerors had thoroughly
settled down, and had adopted and improved upon all that
was best in the civilisation of France. Especially they had
established splendid and learned monasteries, such as that
of Bee, where the famous abbot, Lanfranc, was attracting
students from all parts of Europe to hear his lectures. To
the mild and religious Edward the disorderly and back-
"ward condition of England which had resulted from the
long Danish wars, and especially the corrupt and ineffi
cient state into which the Church had fallen, compared very
ill with the good order and civilisation of his Norman friends.
He filled his court with Norman favourites, much to the
indignation of the English. He appointed Norman bishops,
who were very unpopular with their unruly Enghsh clergy.
Above all he devoted himself to building a splendid new
abbey, on a greater scale than had ever before been known
in England, in the noble new style of architecture which
the Normans had developed. It is Edward the Con
fessor's chief claim to be remembered that he was the
founder of Westminster Abbey, the noble fane which has
become the very heart of the British Commonwealth ; though
the actual building as we know it belongs to a later date.
When Edward died (1066) there was no grown man of the
royal house available to succeed him ; and the nobles of
the realm elected Harold, Earl of Wessex, the most powerful
of their number. Harold was to be the last of the old
English kings. His position was very insecure from the
beginning. The greatest of the rival earls, Edwin and
Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, were jealous
1 See the map of the earldoms, Plates 32 (d) and 33.

ch. in.] INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 37
of his elevation to the throne, and acted as independent
rulers in their own provinces. Moreover England was
threatened simultaneously with attack by two formidable
foreign rulers, the King of Norway, and the mighty Duke
of Normandy, who was a cousin of Edward the Confessor,
and put forward a claim to the English throne. Harold
dealt valiantly with the invaders. He attacked the Norse
men at Stamford_Bridge, and gained a victory over them.
But while he was still in the north, came the news that
William, Duke of Normandy, had landed on the coast of
Sussex. Harold hastened south to resist him, but he could
get no help from any part of England except his own
earldom of Wessex. Nevertheless at the battle of Hastings
he fought a very gallant fight, which lasted all through a
long day, the English fighting on foot in serried masses,
against the clouds of Norman arrows and the fierce charges
of the mail-clad Norman knights. Only when the English
were persuaded, by a feigned retreat, to break their solid
shield-wall, did the Normans begin to get the better of
them. Even then, Harold and his personal retainers fought
on desperately, till all were slain.
The Normans had won. The last conquest of England
had begun ; and the half-unified realm was to pass under
the rule of hard taskmasters, but taskmasters who knew
how to hammer stubborn metal into shape.
§ 4. The Need for the Norman Conquest.
The old English kingdom, in spite of its apparently
brilliant prospects under the successors of Alfred, had indeed
failed just because its rulers had never found the means of
really welding together the varied races of whom their
subjects were made up, unifying their laws and customs,
and checking the tendency of various districts to break off
and become practically distinct States. This failure had
become most plain in the last generation before Hastings.
It was the disunity of England that made the Norman
Conquest possible ; but the disunity of England also made
the Norman Conquest a necessary, if painful, stage in the
development of the nation.
The Danish conquests had obliterated the old distinc
tions between the little English kingdoms, but they had
introduced new ones in their place. There were three
distinct bodies of law or customs among the English, as
King Canute noted when he tried to codify them : the law

38 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
of Wessex, the law of English Mercia, and the Danelaw,
and these three had to be somehow worked into one. There
were wide differences of language or dialect also. And on
the top of this, the independence of the great earls, who were
fast becoming the hereditary rulers of large semi-inde
pendent provinces, introduced new political distinctions.
The lesser nobility also were acquiring control over their
tenants and neighbours — a sort of control resembling what
later came to be known as ' feudal ' superiority. There
were still many thousands of free landowners in England,
who recognised no superior but the king and his courts ;
these were to be found more especially in the Danish regions.
But there were also many thousands who had given up their
full freedom, and had become, by what was called ' com
mendation,' the ' men ' or ' vassals '" of neighbouring thegns,
in order to be able to resort to their protection in the un
ceasing chaos. Shire Courts and Hundred Courts still went
on, and the freemen were supposed to attend them ; but
the king found it increasingly difficult to exercise control
over these courts, or to get into direct relations with his
free subjects, because he had no efficient machinery for
doing so : more and more he was content to leave them
under the management of the great earls and the thegns.
In short, there was neither order nor system nor clearly
understood law in England. That could only be given
by the firm hand of a master with a genius for organi
sation. Finally, in all the countries of the islands, it is unquestion
able that the arts of civilisation had suffered greatly from
the long turbulence of the last two centuries. Neither
Alfred's work, nor that of Edgar and Dunstan, nor all the
well-meaning laws of Athelstan and Canute, had availed
to prevent this. In the Middle Ages civilisation depended
especially upon the Church, and in England, Wales, Scotland
and Ireland the Church had fallen into corruption, and the
priests were ignorant and undisciplined.
On the Continent of Europe during this period a great
reform movement was at work in the Church. It had
begun, in the tenth century, at the monastery of Cluny inv
Burgundy ; and it was in the monasteries that it found its
chief strength, just because the monks were freer than the
ordinary or ' secular ' clergy from the corrupting influence
of princely and baronial ambitions. In many of the
monasteries there began a real revival of learning and
teaching : the abbey of Bee, in Normandy, to which we

ch. in.] INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN 39
have already referred, was only one of many such. And
gradually, through the influence mainly of the monks, the
idea grew that religion and civilisation could only revive,
and the miseries of men be relieved, if the Church, which
stood for Right in the midst of Might, could be made free,
and emancipated from the control of the Emperor, who
claimed to nominate the Pope, of the kings, who claimed to
appoint bishops, and of the nobles, who often sold benefices
to the highest bidder, thus committing the sin of ' Simony '
or selling the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Church must be
free ; it must also cut itself off from the world and from
worldly influences ; hence the demand for the enforcement
of celibacy among the clergy, for the rule of celibacy,
though recognised, was widely disregarded, especially in
England. These new ideals had a wide appeal, and they
did much to awaken a new spiritual and intellectual life
throughout Western Europe. They were winning their
greatest victories just when the Norman Conquest of Eng
land took place, and the Normans were the most enthusi
astic disciples and upholders of the reform movement. It was
from the Normans in Italy that the great Pope Gregory vii.,
who was engaged at this time in a desperate struggle with
the Emperor (Henry IV. of Germany) to secure the complete
freedom of the Church from lay control, got his main
support ; the Normans of France, and their great Duke
William, took the same side, and when William invaded
England he came with a banner which the Pope had blessed,
and with a commission to reform the lax and undisciplined
Enghsh Church.
The religious revival, of which we have given a quite in
adequate account in the last paragraph, was to bring about
an acute controversy between Church and State in all the
principal countries of Europe, which lasted, in one form
or another, right through the Middle Ages. The Norman
kings of England, though they were willing to reform the
Church, were not willing to sacrifice their real power over it ;
and we shall hear something of their struggles in the next
two chapters. But this was by no means the only, or the
most important, aspect of the movement. It produced
everywhere a quickening and revival of spiritual and
intellectual life. New monastic orders were founded.
Learning and letters began to thrive again. The brutality of
the Dark Ages began to be qualified by the ideas of chivalry,
which were essentially due to the teachings of the Church.
In all this England, and still more the other realms of the

40 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
islands, had hitherto scarcely shared at all. But the
Norman Conquest was to bring them under the influence of
this great movement of ideas.
Thus the battle of Hastings, bitterly as it was felt by
loyal Englishmen, was no unmixed disaster ; both by
bringing a firmer rule and a better organisation of the State,
and also by bringing the beneficent influence of the great
religious and intellectual revival which was at work on
the Continent, it formed a vitally important stage in the
development of the British peoples.
[Oman's England before the Norman Conquest ; J. R. Green's
Conquest of England ; Freeman's Norman Conquest ; Haskins' The
Normans in European History ; C. F. Keary's Viking Age. A good
little book on a small scale is Mawer's The Vikings (Cambridge
People's Books). For a selection of original materials, Wallis's The
Welding of the Race. For contemporary Europe, Church's Beginning
of the Middle Ages, Fletcher's Making of Western Europe, Tout's
The Empire and the Papacy, and Milman's History of Latin
Christianity. ,]

CHAPTER IV
THE WORK OF THE NORMAN KINGS
(a.d. 1066-1154)
William 1., 1066 : William 11., 1087 : Henry 1., 1100 : Stephen, 1135.
§ 1. The Norman Conquest and the Establishment of the
Feudal Order.
The Norman conquerors of England were descended from
the Viking hosts who had settled early in the tenth century
(913) in the region of France to which they gave the name of
Normandy. In the century and a half since their settlement
they had not only become Christians, but the most devoted
sons of the Church. They had adopted the French language,
and the civilisation of France. They had taken kindly to
the new methods of fighting in mail armour and on horse
back, and were already famous as the best fighting men in
Europe. They had learnt to build massive castles, and in
their devotion to their new religion they had developed a
distinctive style of church architecture, of a very beautiful
type. Vigorous, restless and adventurous, they spread their
activities over a great part of Europe. During the eleventh
century, even before their conquest of England, bands of
them were carving out another new realm in Southern
Italy and Sicily,1 and ere long they were to take the leading
part in the great adventure of the Crusade to rescue the holy
places of Palestine (1095-9). As rulers and organisers they
were yet more remarkable than as fighters and conquerors.
Their French duchy was the strongest and best governed of
all the great feudal principalities of France. Their Italian
kingdom was to become famous in the next century as the
model of good government for all Europe. It was a fortunate
thing for the islands that this great people was moved,
even though it was by mere greed, to take in hand the
organisation of the divided island-peoples into strongly
organised States. It was fortunate also that their leader,
1 See map of Europe, rroo a.d., where the Norman dominions are
specially shown, Atlas, Plate 6. 41

42 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS Lbk. i.
William the Conqueror,1 was perhaps the ablest and strongest
man whom the Normans ever produced. A man of iron
will, he was ruthless in crushing opposition, as was soon
discovered not only by the English, but also by his own
Norman followers and the miscellaneous adventurers who
had flocked to his standard in the hope of plunder. He
meant to be master in his own kingdom ; and he meant it
to be a prosperous and well-ordered realm.
The conquest of England was not completed by the single
battle of Hastings, which gave to the Norman duke direct
control only over the south-east. The Witan accepted
him, indeed, as king, and he was crowned in London.
But the great earls of the North and Midlands imagined that
they would be allowed to enjoy pretty complete inde
pendence. They did not know their new master. In five
years of hard fighting (1066-1071) William utterly sub
jugated one part of the country after another ; and in
Yorkshire, where the resistance was most troublesome,
the whole countryside was devastated and depopulated.
The conquests were secured by the erection of fortresses.
At first most of these were of a simple type, mounds sur
rounded by ditches ; but they were gradually replaced by
massive, frowning castles, one or two of which (including
the most famous of all, the Tower of London) were erected
in William's reign, and others under his successors. InY
pregnable to anything short of a slow blockade, these castles
made resistance or rebellion by the English impossible.
The only place where the English held out long was among
the marshes of Ely, under Hereward the Wake.2
As he conquered each region, William confiscated all the
lands of English nobles who had borne arms against him,
and distributed them among his followers, requiring each
grantee to provide him with a fixed number of fully armed
knights in mail. The few English nobles who were allowed
to retain their lands had to yield them up and receive them
back on similar conditions. Thus nearly all the land of
England came to be held on strictly feudal tenure ; scarcely
anybody owned land, except the king ; almost everybody held
it on the condition of yielding stipulated services. All the
king's tenants also were bound to attend his court if sum
moned, and to have their offences tried in it. The greater
1 A life of William the Conqueror, by E. A. Freeman, is included in the
Twelve Enghsh Statesmen Series. An excellent book, embodying recent
knowledge, is Stenton's William the Conqueror in the Heroes of the Nations
Series. 2 See C. Kingsley's novel, Hereward the Wake.

ch. iv.] WORK OF THE NORMAN KINGS 43
' barons,' as the king's immediate tenants were called, soon
began to let out part of their estates on similar conditions.
Thus a baron who had to provide five knights or fully
armed horsemen found it convenient, instead of maintain
ing them himself, to allot fixed holdings of land to each
knight on condition that he presented himself when re
quired. Such grants were called ' knights' fees.' The
danger of this system was that the knights might think
they only owed their obedience to their immediate lords, as
was the practice in France. William guarded against this by
making them all take a direct oath of allegiance to himself.
(Oath of Salisbury, 1086.)
As for the mass of ordinary cultivators of the soil, the
small freemen and the serfs, they were for the most part not
much disturbed. But the Norman lawyers assumed that
they were all the vassals of one lord or another, and subject
to the jurisdiction of their lord's court so far as concerned
their holdings ; and thus the feudal idea was logically carried
out in the lower grades as well as the higher. Everybody
was the vassal of a lord, who was responsible for him.
Everybody owed some sort of service to his superior in
return for his land, work in the case of a serf, prayer in
the case of a churchman, fighting in the case of a knight,
sand even in the case of a freeman, at least attendance at
the court. And everybody was bound to attend his lord's
court — the Court of the Manor if he was a serf, the King's
Court or Curia Regis if he was a direct tenant of the king,
owing mihtary service. The King's Court, thus defined, .
took the place of the old English Witan, and the king used
it not only for judicial business, but for consulting his
greater barons, who alone generally attended. In that
aspect it was often described as the Magnum Concilium, or
Great Council of the barons ; but it was essentially only the
highest of the series of feudal courts, even though it exer
cised some supervision over the older shire and hundred
courts. This was an orderly system, much better than the
confusion that had existed before the Conquest.
§ 2. The Beginnings of a National System of Government.
But the Conqueror knew, from his own experience in
France, that it was dangerous to let the great baron alone
have control over his tenants ; and if the king was to be the
real master in his own kingdom, some safeguard against this
danger had to be found. William found it in the relics

44 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. 1.
of the old English system, which had become much dis
organised, but which he revived and strengthened.
Under the old English system every freeman had been
liable to be called out by the king for military service.
-Such an arrangement might seem to be inconsistent with
the feudal order, but William saw its value and kept it
alive. Time and again he and his successors, when faced
by a rebellion of their barons, called out the English fyrd
or national levy of freemen, and the 4 Enghsh, who knew
that the mail-clad baron in his impregnable castle was their
worst oppressor, never failed to help the king.
Again, under the old English system there had been shire
courts and hundred courts for the trial of disputes between
freemen, where the freemen themselves were supposed to
attend and declare the customs under which a case should
be tried. These courts had also been used for organising the
people into groups who were mutually responsible for pro
ducing offenders, a system which the Normans greatly de
veloped, under the name of ' frankpledge.' And by an old
custom (no one knows exactly how old) certain very grave
offences, such as murder, robbery and arson, were regarded
as ' the king's pleas,' to be tried only by his officers and in his
courts ; and the shire courts had been used for the trial
of these pleas. William and his successors (especially
Henry 1.) saw the value of these courts, and, though they
had fallen into decay before the Conquest, they were
revived and reorganised. The barons found that they
were not allowed to try the offences of their tenants in
their own courts, except when they referred to the land
they held ; really serious cases were kept for the shire
courts. It was only in very rare cases that William allowed
his barons to enjoy even what was called ' view of frank
pledge,' that is, the right of organising and controlling their
own tenants for police purposes. The king's agents had
right of access to their estates and their courts to enforce
this system.
The chief of these agents were the Sheriffs, or shire-reeves,
one for each shire ; and the sheriffs were, so to say, the
men-of-all-work of the Norman government, and the
means by which the king kept control over his subjects, in
spite of all the power that the barons enj oyed. The Norman
sheriff was indeed an extremely active and busy person.
He collected the rents of the king's lands in his shire, and
the dues owed by his vassals ; he looked after the courts,
and rendered account of the fees and fines collected in them '

ch. iv.] WORK OF THE NORMAN KINGS 45
he was responsible for the maintenance of order and the
arrest of criminals, and he called out and led the national
levy when necessary, and saw that it was properly equipped.
If these courts and their sheriffs could be kept thoroughly
efficient, the king would have comparatively little to fear
from the most powerful of his barons.
But there was a danger that the sheriffs themselves might
become independent, especially as they had to be important
persons, usually barons holding property in the shires they
governed. How were they to be kept under control ?
The machinery for this purpose was gradually worked out,
especially under the Conqueror's sons and successors, the
brutal and violent but masterful William Rufus (1087-1100),
and the cool and clever Henry 1. (1100-1135). Within the
general body of the King's Court or Curia Regis there
was developed a group of permanent and skilled officials,
who travelled about with the king, and when he was away
in Normandy managed the affairs of the kingdom for him.
Most of them were churchmen — bishops or ordinary clerks
(clerici) . This little group, which included the great
officials, the Justiciar, the Treasurer, and the Chancellor,
tried cases affecting the king's interests, and also all sorts
of cases that were specially brought before them by a royal
writ or order. But they also kept a watch over the sheriffs.
Twice a year, at Michaelmas and Easter, all the sheriffs ¦
had to appear before them, and render a full account
of their government, and especially of the revenues of their
shires ; and wonderfully detailed records were kept by
the king's clerks, some of which still survive. And pre
sently, in the reign of Henry 1., these active and able officials
began occasionally to visit the shires themselves, sometimes
taking a hand in the proceedings of the shire court. Thus
the whole government of the country was brought under
the control of the King's Court, much to the advantage of
his subjects, in a way that had never been possible in the
old Enghsh period.
There was another practice of the pre-conquest kings
which also seemed to William 1. worthy of imitation. In
order to buy off the Danes, Ethelred the Redeless had
levied heavy taxes on all landholders, called Danegeld — ¦
so much on every 'hide' (a hide was about 120 acres).
The Conqueror saw no reason why, if the country could
pay money to the Danes, it should not pay it to him. He
therefore maintained this excellent custom, and he and his
successors frequently levied Danegeld. But in order to

46 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
make sure that the full amount was paid, he had a minute
and elaborate survey made of all land in the country, show
ing who owned it, what its value was, how it was stocked,
and how many tenants of various sorts worked upon it.
This wonderful survey, which still survives, is known as
Domesday Book. It was completed in iq86. It gives
us an amount of detailed information about the condition
of England in this period such as does not exist for any
other country. And it served many useful purposes. It
must have been of the greatest service to the officials in
checking the sheriffs and their accounts. Nothing gives a
clearer idea of the businesslike and systematic way in which
these Norman kings governed the country than a study of
this wonderful record.
It may be imagined that such efficient and masterful
control as the Norman kings exercised was far from popular
among their barons. William and his sons had to deal
with frequent revolts, some of them very formidable. They
were all sternly suppressed, often with the aid of the levy
of freemen.
One of the great difficulties of dealing with these rebellious
barons was that most of them had lands both in Nor
mandy and in England, and when they were defeated in
one country they took refuge in the other. Under William
ii. and Henry I., however, the connexion between Eng
land and Normandy became much less close. Both of these
kings were, in a sense, usurpers, having successively seized
the Enghsh crown to the exclusion of their elder brother
Robert, who kept the Norman duchy ; and thus, at a very
critical period, the kingdom and the duchy were separated
for nearly twenty years, until Henry i. completed the
injustice to his misused elder brother by invading and
conquering Normandy (1106). The barons seized the
excuse presented by the exclusion of Robert to revolt
against both William and Henry. But these astute princes
used the opportunity to confiscate the English estates of
the rebels, granting them to new proprietors who did not
possess land in Normandy. Even after the reconquest of
Normandy Henry I. continued this policy.
No doubt this treatment of Robert was an injustice
But it was very advantageous to England. Robert was a
first-class fighting man, and a lover of adventure, but he
had none of the genius for government of his father and
brothers. He was one of the principal leaders in the first
and greatest of the Crusades (1095-99), in which religious

ch. iv.] WORK OF THE NORMAN KINGS 47
ardour sent vast numbers of the most gallant knights of
Europe streaming over the Balkan Peninsula, across Asia
Minor and down the coast of Syria, to rescue Jerusalem
from the domination of the Moslems. The Normans of
France and Italy played a highly important part in this
gallant adventure, which was so successful that it estab
lished for a time a Christian kingdom in Palestine, and a
string of feudal States along the Syrian coast. But William 11.
was much too shrewd to go a-roving for religious reasons ;
he was well content that his dangerous brother should fling
off to the East, and take with him as many of the turbulent
Norman and English barons as chose to follow him. Eng
land played, indeed, a less important part in the First
Crusade than any other of the greater States of Western
Europe ; and perhaps its chief value to England was just
that it freed her to some extent from baronial troubles,1
and gave time for the new Norman system of govern
ment to get fairly started.
One very important result of these events was that in
the second generation after the Conquest the connexion
of the English baronage with the Continent had been
materially weakened ; and this made it easier for them
gradually to learn to think of themselves as Englishmen.
There is a curious illustration of the rapidity with which
this happened.. In the first years after the Conquest lonely
Normans caught by Englishmen in quiet corners were apt
to disappear. To check this, the Conqueror enacted that
when a dead body was found which could not be proved to
be the body of an Englishman, the whole hundred should
have to pay a fine, known as the murdrum fine. A century
later this fine had come to be exacted for every dead body
whose murderer could not be found ; and the reason given
is that it was no longer possible to distinguish between an
Englishman and a Norman. That gives a very clear idea
of the way in which the firm, harsh, efficient rule of the
Norman hammered disorganised England into a single
nation. One other great service the Norman kings rendered to
England ; they reorganised the Church, and by doing so
brought England into the full stream of the great intellectual
and spiritual revival that was transforming Europe. The
scholarly Archbishop Lanfranc, brought over from Normandy
for the purpose, took the "chief part in this work. Efficient
Norman bishops were appointed, and brought the undis
ciplined and ignorant clergy into better order. Splendid

48 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
new churches and cathedrals began to be built. Monasteries
were founded and richly endowed, and in the schools which
they opened the youth of England began to be introduced
to the best learning of the West.
One of the main features of this reform was the attempt
to cut off the Church from the world ; and as William the
Conqueror was a reformer he instituted special courts to
deal with the offences of the clergy and the spiritual
offences of the laity. It was the aim of the great churchmen
of this period to make the Church entirely independent of
lay control ; but the Norman kings, in spite of their zeal
for reform, were not ready to permit this, since they drew
their chief officials from among the bishops and clergy.
So long as the Conqueror lived he exercised a very strict
control over the clergy, not allowing them to hold councils
or send any appeals to Rome without his consent. But
after his death a quarrel broke out between the brutal
William n. and the gentle and learned Archbishop Anselm.1
Anselm had to flee for refuge to France, and when there he
imbibed the current ideas as to the wickedness of allowing
laymen to make ecclesiastical appointments or ' investitures.'
When he was recalled by Henry i., therefore, a new dispute
broke out over what is known as the Investiture question.
It was the same question over which a violent controversy
had been raging between the Pope and the Emperor for
some thirty years. It had led to the deposition of popes by
emperors, and of emperors by popes, and had torn all
Europe asunder. But in England it caused comparatively
little trouble. Henry i. and Anselm succeeded in arriving
at a reasonable compromise in 1107, very much on the
lines on which the European controversy was settled fifteen
years later ; and churchmen continued to be the right-hand
men of the king in the development of an ordered system
of government.
Thus in many ways the Norman kings had done splendid,
if often harsh and cruel, work for the consolidation of the
Enghsh realm. Unfortunately their work was not yet
strongly enough estabhshed to be able to work smoothly
under a weak ruler. When Henry 1. died, in 1135, a
dispute as to the succession to the crown broke out between
his daughter Matilda and his nephew Stephen, and for nearly
twenty years England was plunged into anarchy. Stephen
1 There is an excellent and interesting Life of St. Anselm, by Dean
Church ; it gives a very clear account of the mediaeval Church and its
problems.

ch. iv.] WORK OF THE NORMAN KINGS 49
quarrelled with the great clerical officials, and the machinery
of government broke down. The barons seized the oppor
tunity to shake off royal control ; they built innumer
able castles within which they defied all authority ; they
inflicted upon their unhappy tenantry every kind of tyranny
and oppression. The only interest of the period is that it
showed the Enghsh what they had been saved from by the
iron rule of their Norman kings, and made them realise more
clearly than ever the value of a strong hand enforcing
obedience to the law equally upon all men. Despotism was
necessary, as a safeguard against utter anarchy ; and there
was no Englishman who did not welcome its restoration
when Stephen died in 1154.
§ 3. Norman Influence in Wales and Scotland.
Such was the work which the Normans, with their
genius for organisation, did in England. It remains to
observe the extension of their influence to the" other parts of
Britain. Ireland they did not yet touch ; that remained
for the next age. But in Wales, which had never been
conquered by the English, but retained its purely Celtic
customs, the Norman kings encouraged some of their more
enterprising barons to work off their zeal for fighting.
Southern and Eastern Wales were gradually conquered,
and secured by the building of numerous castles, many of
which still survive.1 These 'Marcher Lords' (i.e. lords of
the marches or borderlands) were allowed to exercise a
much higher degree of independence than the baronage
in the rest of England, and they remained for nearly two
centuries a very warlike and turbulent body of men.
In Scotland the Norman influence was more indirectly
exercised. Since the conquest of Lothian by the Scots
in 1018, the Enghsh region which that conquest included
in the realm of Scotland had been exercising more and more
influence, especially as the new capital of the kingdom was
now fixed in that region, at Edinburgh ; and Normans, as
well as Englishmen, began to find their way into the king
dom and to play a part in its hfe ; to introduce some of
the institutions of the southern land, and in particular to
reorganise the Celtic Church of Scotland on more strictly
Roman lines. The change advanced most rapidly in the
reign of David 1. (1124-1153), which covered the later part
1 There are more castles in South Wales than in any other part of the
islands. See the map of Wales, Atlas, Plate 36 (c).
VOL. I. D

50 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. I.
of the reign of Henry I. and the whole of the reign of Stephen.
David had been educated in England, had married an Eng
lish wife, and inherited through her an English earldom. He
brought back to Scotland a great admiration for Norman
methods of organisation in Church and State, and a whole
train of Norman barons to whom he granted Scottish estates.
He has been described as ' the maker of Scotland ' because
he gave to his country the beginning of efficient organisation
along Norman lines. Celtic modes of land tenure, in the
Lowlands at any rate, were changed into feudal modes.
Tribal chiefs became earls, Norman barons settled them
selves in various parts of the country. There was a Curia
Regis, like that of the Norman kings in England ; and
there were sheriffs administering law in the king's name,
and labouring to maintain his authority at the expense
of the baronage. Even more important, the Church was
reformed and reinvigorated, and many monasteries were
built, the beautiful ruins of which at Holyrood, Melrose
and elsewhere, are still the noblest ecclesiastical buildings
which Scotland possesses. The wilder country of the
Highlands was not affected by these changes. But the
Lowlands were rapidly transformed ; and by the middle
of the twelfth century it is probable that the English
language was spoken in most parts of Scotland south of
the Forth, though, of course, the population, except in
Lothian, remained almost purely Celtic in race. Thus the
organising power of the Normans, which did its chief work
in England, was beginning to produce an assimilation of
the other parts of Great Britain.
[The best general accounts of the period will be found in H. W.
C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, and G. B.
Adams, England from the Norman Conquest to the death of John. See
also Haskins, The Normans in European History ; and, for consti
tutional developments, Stubbs' Constitutional History and Select
Charters. A selection of contemporary materials is given by Bland,
The Normans in England. For the contemporary history of Europe,
Fletcher, The Making of Western Europe, 1000-ngo a.d. ; Tout, The
Empire and the Papacy ; for the Crusades, Archer and Kingsford's
Crusades in the Story of the Nations Series, and the article
' Crusades ' in the Encyclopesdia Britannica. ~\

CHAPTER V
THE REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED
(a.d. 1154-1216)
Henry 11., 1154: Richard 1., 1189 : John, 1199.
§ 1. The Angevin Empire and Europe in the Twelfth Century.
If the anarchy of Stephen had continued, all the work of
the Normans would have been undone. Fortunately there
came to the English throne, in 11 54, a king who had all,
and more than all, the Normans' power of government.
There is no king in all English history to whom our people
owe a greater debt than to Henry n.1 He was the son of
Matilda, who was the daughteFof Henry 1. and the rival
of Stephen. As Henry 1. had married an English princess,
Henry 11. had the blood of Alfred in his veins. Henry's
father was Matilda's second husband, the powerful and
warlike Count of Anjou ; hence the dynasty which he
founded is known as the Angevin dynasty. It also bears
the name of Plantagenet, ffonT "fhebroom-sprig (planta
genista) which Henry's father adopted as his emblem.
These Angevin princes had been, generation after genera
tion, fierce, overbearing and warlike men. All alike they
were subject to bursts of almost maniac anger when opposed,
so that men thought there was something diabolical about
them ; and to explain this there was a story that one of
their ancestors had married a mysterious and weirdly
beautiful woman, who vanished into thin air when they
tried to make her go to church. ' From the devil we came,
and to the devil we must go,' said Richard 1. But un
governable as their tempers were, they were very able
men, and the ablest of them all was Henry 11.
He was already a very powerful prince when he succeeded
to the English throne ; for, besides his father's principality
of Anjou and Touraine, he had claimed and won Normandy,
as heir of his mother, and his marriage with the proud and
1 A life of Henry 11., by Mrs. J. R. Green, is included in the Twelve
English Statesmen Series. A more modern book is Salzmann's Henry II.
I 61

52 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
tempestuous Eleanor of Aquitairie brought him all the wide
and rich lands of South- Western France from the Loire to
the Pyrenees.1 The addition of the English kingdom to
these wide domains made him one of the two greatest powers -
of Western Europe ; his only rival was the Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa, King of Germany, under whom the mediaeval
Empire reached perhaps its highest point of glory. The
result was that the King of England began to play a very
important part in European politics, and England was,
more directly than before, brought into the full stream of
European civilisation. And this was a point of high
importance, because in the twelfth century European civili
sation was becoming a great and noble thing.
The main source of the new life which was now pulsing
through Europe was to be found in the Church, which was
the chief, though not the only, guardian of all that makes
civilisation most worth while. In the great struggle to
secure independence from lay control, to which we have
referred in the last chapter, the Church had won much ; but
it had not won a complete victory, and had many more
struggles yet before it. One of the greatest of these, between
the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander in.
(in alliance with the Italian cities), was about to begin when
Henry n. ascended the English throne, and Henry's own
conflict with Thomas Becket, to which we shall refer later,
was a sort of echo of this greater struggle. But the Church
had everywhere in Europe won a very high degree of freedom
and power ; and at the end of the twelfth century and the
beginning of the thirteenth, when Pope Innocent in. was
laying down the law to the sovereigns of Europe, the Papacy
reached the highest point of political authority which it
ever attained. The Popes did not, perhaps, always use their
power wisely ; but upon the whole they did represent the
conscience of Christendom, and the universal belief that
there ought to be some power capable of forcing even the
greatest sovereigns to respect the moral law by which all
men ought to be bound.
Yet the influence of the Church did not depend mainly
upon the Papacy, though without the support of papal
authority, as things were, churchmen in all lands might
not have enjoyed the same freedom and influence. It was
the fact that the Church produced many great and holy
men, and that its servants were the repositories and the
promulgators of all the growing learning of the age, which
1 See the map of Henry's empire, Atlas, Plate 35.

ch. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 53
formed the chief source of its beneficent ascendency. The
great monasteries were perhaps at their best during the
early part of this period. St. Bernard of Clairvaux,1 an
abbot of the Cistercian Order, had been able, during the
generation preceding Henry ii.'s accession, to become a
sort of moral dictator of Europe, by sheer force of elo
quence and sincerity ; and had sent forth the knights of
France and Germany in the Second Crusade, to protect the
holy places which had been won in the First Crusade, and
were now threatened by the Turks. England took prac
tically no part in the Second Crusade, because she was
torn asunder by the wretched wars of Stephen. But
England, like other countries, knew the zeal and ardour
of the monks.2 Cistercians, of St. Bernard's Order, were
building many monasteries, especially in the wilder parts
of the country, and were making the barren uplands of
Yorkshire famous for the wool of the sheep which they
bred. Some of the beautiful abbeys whose ruins we still
go to admire owe their beginnings to this period ; for it
was an age of great architecture, of the type which we know
as Early English, a very beautiful style.
One of the greatest services of the Church in the time of
its ascendency was the stimulus which it gave to the foun
dation of universities, practically all of whose teachers and
students were churchmen. At Paris the schools were
already at work which were soon to develop into the
mother-university of Western Europe ; and students were
flocking from all countries to study under their famous
teachers — from England among the rest. The rudiments
of universities were beginning to appear in England also.
Some teaching had been going on at Oxford since Henry i.'s
time ; and Henry ii.'s quarrels with the French king,
which brought many Enghsh students back from Paris,
strengthened these beginnings. The age which invented
universities, as corporations for the maintenance and
extension of learning, was certainly no barren age.
Moreover in these universities, but above all in the great
Italian University of Bologna, men were beginning to
study not only sacred learning, but also the science of law.
They were eagerly studying the code of Justinian — the
most complete treatment of the logical and lucid laws
1 Cotter Morison's Life of St. Bernard not only gives a good account of
this great man, but an admirable picture of the period.
8 The first part of Carlyle's Past and Present gives an interesting account
of the life and work of an abbot of this time, in a great Benedictine abbey.

54 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
of old Rome, which were known as the ' Civil ' law ; they
were also working out in a clearer form a system of Church
or ' Canon ' law. And the influence of an these teachers
was very great in helping the creation of orderly and just
systems of law in the principal States of Western Europe.
Nor was it only in the universities that intellectual life
was active. The knightly classes were beginning to rejoice
in poetry and music, and a new literature of love and
gallantry was arising in the native tongues of the singers ;
especially in France, where this was the age of the trouba
dours, and in Germany, where the minnesingers were busy.
Henry ii.'s knightly son, Richard, was himself a troubadour,
and the friend of poets and minstrels. It was at this time
that the competition of poets which forms the subject of
Tannhduser took place ; and Frederick Barbarossa himself,
the great Emperor, was surrounded by poets.
Lastly this was an age of remarkable commercial
revival. The First Crusade had brought Europe into con
tact with the luxuries of the East, and Italian merchants
were beginning to spread eastern goods over Europe, and
to enrich their own cities. In the north the German traders
of Liibeck and Cologne were equally busy, and the artisans
of Flanders were building up the great industries which
were to make Ghent and Ypres and Bruges rich and famous.
In all this England had but a small part ; her trade was
mainly in foreign hands. But the foreign merchants were
beginning to buy her wool, and to bring their wares to her
principal fairs, like those of Winchester and Stourbridge.
It was a great thing for England that she should be
brought into close contact with all this new life of Europe,
as she was by being associated with the wide-spreading
empire of Henry il, and with his far-reaching interests.
English commerce was on a small scale. But the English
trader could go freely over Henry's wide domains. He
could observe how the more prosperous traders of Europe
organised themselves. And as this was a time when traders
and townsmen were everywhere striving to win liberties
for themselves, there was much to be learnt in this field.
We cannot here pause to describe the politics of Europe
in Henry ii.'s time, or the part which he played in them.
There were, in effect, four great secular powers in Europe,1
along with a multitude of semi-independent feudal princes.
Greatest of them all was the empire ruled by Frederick
Barbarossa, whose reign ran parallel to Henry's (1152-1190).
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 6.

ch. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 55
He was King of Germany, King of Burgundy (South-Eastern
France) and King of Northern Italy, though he was never
well obeyed in the last two realms. As Emperor he was
in theory the successor of the Roman emperors, and
it was his dream (encouraged by the students of Roman
law) to restore the old supremacy of that power. He was
never able to do so, because, even in his own realms, he came
in conflict with the Pope and with the Italian cities, who were
too strong for him. Nevertheless he was a very splendid
and powerful prince, and a model of chivalry.
The second of the great powers of Western Europe was
the empire of Henry -n. The third was the Norman
kingdom of Southern Italy (Naples) and Sicily ; a small
realm, but rich and prosperous, and famous as the best
organised and governed country in Europe. It is not
impossible that Henry 11. learned some of his methods
of government from this Norman realm. At the end of
the century the Norman kingdom passed by marriage to
Frederick Barbarossa's son, Henry vi., the Emperor who
held Richard 1. in captivity. This accession to the power
of the Emperors filled the Pope with alarm ; if Henry vi. had
not died young, he and his successors might have dominated
Europe, and made the dream of universal empire a reality.
On his premature death there followed a final and most
desperate struggle between the Empire and the Papacy,
which ended in the ruin of the Empire and of the German
kingdom. The fourth of the more important powers of the West was
France. But more than half of France was included in the
dominions of Henry 11., a vassal too powerful to dream of
submitting to his nominal superior ; all the west of modern
Switzerland and the south-east of modern France — the
Rhone country — were included in the kingdom of Burgundy,
and subject to Frederick Barbarossa ; and, in what re
mained, the great feudatories were so independent that
the direct authority of the King of France was practically
limited to a narrow strip north and south of Paris, the
' He de France.' If France was the most important part
of Europe in this age, as she was, it was because she was the
source of all the greatest movements of the age, not because
of the power of her kings. Between the empire of
Frederick Barbarossa on the one hand, and that of
Henry 11. on the other, she seemed to be crushed between
the upper and the nether millstones. Yet the power of the
French kings was soon to increase. The first builder of the

56 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
political greatness of France, King Philip Augustus, came
to the throne in Henry ii.'s time, and was the constant
rival and adversary of Richard i. and John. And since the
greatness of France could only be created by tearing from
the kings of England their swollen French dominions,
conflict between France and England was inevitable.
The long series of Anglo-French wars with which the rest
of mediaeval history is filled, and the unhappy tradition that
England and France must be eternal and natural enemies,
were in no small degree due to the empire of Henry II.
Even the huge dominions which he possessed in 1154
did not satisfy the ambitions of -Henry 11. He led an
army into the mountains of North Wales, and forced its
princes to pay him homage ; and Welsh archers continually
fought in his armies. In 1174 he compelled William the
Lion of Scotland to recognise him in the most formal way
as his feudal superior ; and he made this superiority mean
something, as it had never done before. Above all, it was
in Henry's reign that the men of England for the first time
undertook the conquest of Ireland. In 1169 some half-
Norman and half-Welsh barons from South Wales were
brought over to take part in the feuds of the Irish tribal
kingdoms. Next year a greater conqueror, Richard Clare,
Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, who was a leader
of great skill and courage, crossed the Channel with licence
from the king to carve out a dominion for himself. And
in 1171 Henry himself passed over to Dublin with an army,
took the homage of the Irish chieftains and the Norman
adventurers, appointed a Justiciar to govern the island in
his name, and assumed the title of Lord of Ireland, which
his successors continued to bear until Henry viii. exchanged
it for that of King. The conquest of Ireland was not really
effective. Norman barons, indeed, settled down in many parts
of the country, and set up feudal principalities which waged
frequent war with the Celtic clans ; but they did not render
much obedience to the English king. It was an unhappy
thing that the conquest, once begun, was not as thoroughly
completed as had been the Norman conquest of England,
for this would have saved Ireland from many future woes.
As it was, the country's disunion had only been increased ;
and the seeds had been sown of a racial hostility which was to
have the most unhappy results. Nevertheless Henry n. did
wield authority over Ireland in a different sense from any
of his predecessors ; and he may be said to have been the
first king who reigned over all the islands. He thus

ch. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 57
established a tradition and claim for the unity of the islands
which was to have a lasting influence.
§ 2. Henry Ii.'s Work of Organisation.
But Henryil.'s greatestwork lay, not in conquest, but in the
strengthening of the government of England. The demands
of his French dominions, which gave him far more trouble
than his English lands, kept him for the most part abroad,
and he spent only a small part of his reign in England. Yet
in these few years he was able to achieve remarkable
results ; because he worked with a fierce and devouring
energy that knew no weariness, and his active brain was
always devising new expedients for strengthening his
control. At first, no doubt, he thought of England chiefly
as a source from which wealth could be drawn, to be spent
in extending his power on the Continent. But he saw that
the best way to make his kingdom profitable was to make
it orderly and prosperous ; and the further he went with
this work, the more difficult and fascinating he found it.
His ruling passion was the passion for good government, for
its own sake, quite as much as because of the increased
wealth and power it gave him. And gradually, by un
wearied change and experiments, he worked out a system
which rendered England the most justly governed country
in Europe ; a system, moreover, which was so well devised
that it was capable of working by itself even when the firm
hand of its maker was removed.
He began by crushing the feudal turbulence which had
raged in Stephen's reign, and by rooting out the innumer
able castles which had been nests of oppression. He
restored Henry i.'s machinery of government, immensely
increased its efficiency, and picked out and trained a body
of such capable administrators that the machine ran with
smoothness during the long absences of its master from the
country. Like his predecessors, he had to deal with
occasional revolts of _ his nobles, who disliked being kept in
order. But he crushed them all, until at the end of his reign
his own sons joined in a rebellion, and the great king's
heart burst with anger and sorrow (1189).
Like the Norman kings, Henry 11. saw in the old English
institutions of the Shire Court and the fyrd, or national |
levy, the chief means of freeing the Crown from the danger
of feudal independence ; but he strengthened and de
veloped these institutions so much that they became
almost new things. Distrustful of the sheriffs, he on one

58 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
occasion dismissed every one of them, after holding an elabo
rate inquiry into their misdeeds. He started the practice
of sending trusted officials of his court regularly on circuit
to all the shire courts of the country, where they not only
inspected the sheriffs, but took the trial of the most im
portant cases into their own hands ; thus, by the Assizes
of Clarendon (1166) and Northampton (1176), he organised
the system, which still continues, whereby the judges of
the realm regularly go on circuit to bring the king's justice
near to every man.
One result of this practice deserves to be noted. Until
this time the law administered in the shire courts had been
largely local customs, which varied a good deal from one
district to another. Now, administered by trained lawyers,
! it began to be uniform ; and the ' Common Law ' of England
came into existence. It was not a written body of laws.
It was based upon the ancient customs. But its growth
and form were mainly due to the successive decisions of the
trained judges who started in the reign of Henry 11.
The king also made remarkable improvements in the
procedure of the courts. The greatest of these was the
use of the Jury system, which he borrowed from the
Normans ; but he developed it to such an extent, and
used it for so many different purposes, that he may almost
be described as its inventor. One of its most striking uses
started in this way. Anxious to get rid of the disorderly
persons who had thriven during the reign of Stephen, Henry
decided in 1166 to have a catalogue of suspected persons
made, from district to district. William the Conqueror had
carried out his Domesday inquiry by calling together groups
of freemen and questioning them about the holdings and the
customs of their neighbourhoods. Henry determined to
apply this idea to the new problem. He ordered the sheriffs
to call together bodies of sworn men in the village's, the
hundreds and the shires, and to bid them make lists of all
persons reputed to be robbers or murderers in their district.
The persons thus listed were then tried, according to
custom, by ordeal ; that is, they had to plunge their arms
into boiling water or grasp red-hot iron, and if they healed
within a certain time they were innocent, or they were
thrown, bound, into pits of cold water, and if they did not
float they were innocent. Otherwise they were guilty, and
were punished in the appropriate way. But Henry felt
that this was not a very satisfactory decision ; and he
provided that, even if acquitted by the ordeal, all the

ch. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 59
notorious criminals whose names had been sent up by the
juries should be banished from the country. This meant
that in effect, though not in form, they had been tried and
sentenced by the verdict of their neighbours ; and it forms
the real beginning of the jury system in criminal cases,
though the system was to undergo a long process of develop
ment before it reached its modern form.
Having proved the value of the jury by this experiment,
Henry proceeded to apply it for many other purposes.
For example, cases affecting rights to or possession of
land had hitherto been tried in the lords' courts, and, in
the last resort, had been settled by fighting, under the name
of Ordeal by Battle. This system was manifestly un
satisfactory. Under what were known as the Grand andj
Petty Assizes Henry devised various modes of having these
questions settled by juries of neighbours acquainted with
the facts. Again, every freeman was bound to be equipped
for fighting in the fyrd "with arms according to his wealth,
and in the Assize of Arms Henry regulated the armour
required from each class with great care. But who was
to decide which individuals were liable under each class ?
If this was left to the sheriff, he might be bribed. Again the
jury was used, and ' the neighbours ' had to say what kind
of armour each man could afford to provide himself with.
Now these developments of the jury were an immense
safeguard of justice, and a very great improvement on the
old methods. But what is even more important, they
meant that the king was calling in the aid of ordinary
people, knights or plain freemen, to help him in seeing
that justice was done and the realm well governed. It is
usual to say that the practice of self-government, which is
the most characteristic of all English usages, took its origin
in the folkmoots and shiremoots of the old English, where
the freemen declared the custom. But, in fact, this had
long ceased to mean very much ; it would probably have
died out soon in England, just as it altogether died out
among the German peoples on the Continent of Europe.
And it is much more true to say that the use of the jury
system, which means the co-operation of ordinary men in
the securing of justice, was the real beginning of self-
government among us.
There is one other aspect of Henry's work which must
be touched upon, because it brought upon him the most
famous struggle of his reign : the conflict with the Church,
as represented by the Archbishop Thomas Becket. As we

60 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
have seen, the Church claimed to exercise a quite inde
pendent jurisdiction over its clergy, and to be entirely free
from State control. This often led to grave evils, for the
Church courts could inflict no punishment more serious
than the unfrocking of a cleric ; and thus even a murderer,
if he could claim to be in orders, might escape punishment.
This offended Henry's sense of justice. William the Con
queror had allowed the Church to set up separate courts ;
but that might be held to refer only to ecclesiastical offences
committed by the clergy, not to grave crimes. It was the
opinion of the bishops and barons, whose advice Henry
took, that by Enghsh custom clergymen might be tried
in the king's courts for grave offences. Henry therefore
decreed that all crimes committed by clergy should be
punished by the king's courts, after the criminal had
been tried and ' unfrocked ' by the Church courts.
Becket (who had earlier been the king's trusted friend
and adviser) chose to regard this as an attack on the
privileges of the Church, and a violent controversy broke
out. Unhappily Becket was murdered in his own cathedral
at Canterbury, by a group of knights who thought to
do the king a service. They could not have done him
a greater injury. Becket became a saint ; Henry was
made to appear the worst of criminals, and had to do
penance before the murdered archbishop's tomb. The
precious privilege had to be yielded to the Church, and
clerks (which came to mean every one who could read Latin)
enjoyed the right of being able to commit one murder with
comparative impunity. ' Benefit of Clergy,' as this privilege
was called, actually survived, in a very much modified i
form, into the nineteenth century ; it could be claimed by
the simple expedient of reciting a verse from a psalm in
Latin. The verse came to be known as the ' neck-verse,'
because it enabled a man to save his neck from the gallows.
Henry n. was a despot ; that is to say, his sole will was
law throughout his kingdom. He could appoint and dismiss
his judges and ministers at his pleasure ; he could raise
almost what taxes he liked, as when, in 1189, he demanded
a tenth of everybody's property to pay the cost of his pro
posed crusade ; he could make what laws he liked, and there
is no evidence that he had to consult even the Great
Council of his barons in any but the most formal way,
though he certainly liked to discuss big changes with his
barons before they were carried out. He was absolute
master of England, checked only by the danger of in-

ch. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 61
surrection. But he was a despot who loved order, and
made justice easier to obtain ; his absolute authority
was wielded according to fixed rules, which men could
understand ; his servants were competent and trained men,
who had to do their work in accordance with these rules,
and they established a tradition of law that was an invalu
able boon. More than any other single man, Henry il,
despot as he was, was the creator of the Reign of Law in
England ; and the Reign of Law is the only possible foun
dation upon which what we call political liberty can safely
arise. It is not until men have learnt to obey and know
the law as a matter of habit, that they can usefully begin
to co-operate in making and controlling laws. And there
fore the despotism of Henry il, like the despotism of the
Normans who preceded him, was a necessary and invalu
able stage in tne education of the English people for self-
government. § 3. Richard I. and John ; the Winning of Magna Carta.
Henry ii.'s son and successor, Richard 1. (1189-1199), was,
like all his family, an able man. He was a poet and a
musician. But he had none of his father's statesmanship.
He was, first and foremost, a superb fighting man, the
strongest and most daring knight-errant of his age, and
an excellent leader in war. His supreme delight was in
battle ; and this carried him away to Palestine, to do won
derful deeds of valour in the struggle with the Saracens
for the Holy Sepulchre, which is known as the Third Crusade.
To pay the expenses of this expedition, he used the vast
power which he had inherited from his father to bleed
England of money ; and one important result of this was,
that he sold to the King of Scotland the right of exemption
from the feudal supremacy which Henry 11. had imposed
upon him. On his way home Richard was taken captive
and held a prisoner by the Emperor Henry vi. of Germany,
and in order to release their very expensive king the English
had to be bled once more for a vast ransom. When he
did at length return, it was only to spend his last years
in hard and skilful warfare against the French king.
Picturesque as they were, Richard's romantic adventures
form no part of the history of the English people.1
But there were three ways in which Richard's short
1 Scott's Talisman deals with Richard's crusade, and his Ivanhoe gives
a lively though not very accurate impression of the state of England
during this reign.

62 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
and costly reign was useful in the development of the
English people. In the first place, their king's crusade,
even though few of them took part in it, gave them some
knowledge of remote countries, with which in the distant
future they were to have more intimate contact. In the
second place, the prolonged absences of the king showed
how solidly and well the work of Henry ii. had been done,
for the government went on quite well, and there were
even some improvements made ; rebellions, even though
led by the king's brother, John, were easily put down ;
and the huge sums required for the king's ransom were
raised with surprising ease. Nothing could show more
clearly how completely the government now controlled '
the country. Finally, during the king's absence, and be
cause of it, the Great Council of barons took a larger share
in discussing and criticising the government. Their share
did not as yet amount to very much. But at least it was
something that an organised and recognised body of leading
men was asserting the right to criticise the powerful system
of government which Henry ii. had set up. And this was
to have greater importance in the next reign.
John, the next king (1199-1216), had brains, like all the
Angevins, but he was an utterly treacherous man, whose
word could never be depended upon, and a mean, cruel and
cowardly tyrant. He was the worst man who has ever sat
upon the English throne ; and this, strangely enough, was
an extremely fortunate thing for England, for if John had
been a really able and honourable man, it is probable that
the efficient despotism developed by Henry 11. would not
have had to submit to limitations.
The early years of the new reign were occupied by two
great controversies. One of these was a prolonged quarrel
(1205-13) with the great and powerful Pope Innocent in.
over the right claimed by the Pope to appoint a nominee
of his own to the archbishopric of Canterbury. John
resisted this claim, as his father or William the Conqueror
would have resisted it. He brought upon his people (who
were not to blame) the terrible punishment of an Interdict,
whereby for seven years they were denied all the ministra
tions of the Church. But in the end he had to give way,
as his father would never have done ; and his submission
went so far that he even recognised the Pope as his feudal
superior, and undertook to pay him tribute for the kingdom
of England. This admission was deeply resented by the
English. Yet John's defeat by the Pope turned out to

ch. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 63
be a good thing for England, for the Pope's nominee to
the archbishopric was a fearless and patriotic Englishman,
Stephen Langton, who later took the chief part in drawing
up Magna Carta.
John's second controversy, which had begun before his
quarrel with the Pope, was a dispute with his suzerain,
Philip Augustus, King of France. He was condemned in
the French king's court as a contumacious vassal ; and he
did not improve his case by subsequently murdering his
nephew Arthur, who had a claim to inherit the French
lands of Richard 1. In 1202 Philip Augustus attacked
and overran Normandy and all the northern French lands
of Henry 11. with great rapidity. John offered no resist
ance, being a coward ; and the remarkable thing is that
these territories, though they had been so long connected
with the English Crown, accepted their change of masters
with the greatest readiness, while the English barons showed
no distress at the loss. Of all the French possessions of
Wilham the Conqueror, only the Channel Islands remained '
under the English Crown. The loss of Normandy (which
a more vigorous or more popular king might have pre
vented) was an extremely fortunate thing for England.
It left her more free to develop her own institutions and
modes of life in her own way ; for though parts of the
southern French territories of Aquitaine, which had come
to Henry 11. with his wife, still remained in the possession
of the English kings for more than two centuries to come,
they were too far away to exercise the same kind of influence
that had been exercised by Normandy.
It is a surprising thing that neither the quarrel with the
Pope nor the loss of Normandy seriously weakened John's
absolute control over England. The governmental system
of Henry 11. was too strong to be shaken even by such
heavy blows. John was still the absolute master of England,
and he used his power ruthlessly to bleed the country
by excessive and oppressive taxation. The people and
the barons groaned, but scarcely resisted ; and the king
strengthened his authority by maintaining bands of plunder- v
ing mercenary troops. This went on until 1214.
During all these years John was planning vengeance
against the French king, and the reconquest of Normandy.
At length he succeeded in forming a coalition against
France, which included the Emperor (now his nephew,
Otto IV., who had been bred in the English court) and the
powerful Count of Flanders. But the main attack of the

64 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
allies against France was completely defeated in 1214 at
the battle of Bomones, which is one of the most important
battles in European history. If France had not won,
Germany might have been saved from the confusion and
disintegration into which she was rapidly falling ; France
herself, just rising from the long weakness of the early
Middle Ages, would probably have been thrown back again.
But, far more important for us, if John and his allies had
won, he would almost certainly have returned to England
with such increased strength and prestige that he would
have been able to defy all opposition, and Magna Carta
would never have been forced upon him. As it was, the
French king at Bouvines (though he did not know it) was
fighting the battle of English liberty as well as the battle
of French unity.
For during John's absence on campaign the forces of
discontent in England flared out. The dissatisfied barons,
especially those of the north, held meetings, and decided
that an end must be put to the bad king's oppressions, and
that definite limits must be placed upon his power. Arch
bishop Langton suggested that they should make an old
Charter of Liberties of Henry 1. the basis of their claims,
and upon this basis a draft of a great Charter was sub
mitted to the king. He struggled in vain, trying to detach
the Church from its alliance with the baronage. In the
end he had to give way ; and on the meadow of Runny-
mede, by the banks of the Thames, near Windsor, Magna
Carta was granted (1215).
This famous Charter is regarded, not without justice,
as the foundation of the liberties of England. Yet the
student who reads it through will be struck by the fact
that most of its sixty-two clauses deal with the rights of
the barons, not with the rights of the people as a whole.
And it is undeniable that the barons were chiefly con
cerned to secure their own position ; they wanted to be
safeguarded against paying excessive ' reliefs ' when they
succeeded to their estates, against abuses of the king's
rights of guardianship over heirs under age, against exces
sive demands of service or money, and so forth. Yet even
these concessions had a value ; they meant that the king
was no longer to be arbitrary master of his realm, but that,
in some cases at any rate, there should be definite and
recognised limitations to his power.
But the great feature of the Charter is its recognition
' throughout of the sovereignty of Law, and its demand that

CH. v.] REIGN OF LAW ESTABLISHED 65
even the king shall not have the right to break or evade the
law. For the most part the system established by Henry 11.
was tacitly accepted by the Charter. Very little was said
about the work of the shire courts and the juries and the
sheriffs and the travelling justices ; they went on as before.
But they were to administer the law, not the arbitrary will
of the king. The great expression of this idea is to be
found in Clauses 39 and 40.
'39. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or dis
possessed or outlawed or banished or in any way destroyed,
nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by
the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.'
' 40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or
delay, right or justice.'
Now these clauses do not mean quite as much as appears
at first sight. They only refer to freemen, and the majority
of Englishmen at this date were serfs. The ' legal judg
ment ' of a man's ' peers ' does not necessarily mean trial
by jury, though it came to be interpreted in that way :
strictly speaking, it means trial by men of the same grade
in the feudal hierarchy. And ' the law of the land ' needs
not mean anything more than the custom of the district./
Nevertheless these great clauses proclaimed the principle
of the sovereignty of Law; they proclaimed that no free
Englishman might be in any way hurt or punished by
any person whatsoever, however powerful and important,
unless he had first been tried and found guilty by the estab
lished courts of justice. The clauses, of course, were by
no means perfectly obeyed ; in the disorderly times that
were still to come men's lives, liberties and property were
often at the mercy of the strong. But when that happened,
it was not only a defiance of justice, it was a breach of the
established laws of England, capable of being punished if
the courts and their officers were strong enough. And, as
a matter of fact, this sort of oppression happened hence
forward far less often in England than in other countries.
As a result of these clauses, the practice grew up in course
of time that, when a man was imprisoned without trial,
he, or his friends, could apply for a writ ordering the sheriff (
or other officer to produce the prisoner in court and show
cause why he was held in duress : this was the famous
writ of Habeas Corpus, which has always been regarded as
one of the greatest bulwarks of Enghsh liberty.
Magna Carta did not set up a system of self-government.
It provided, indeed, that certain taxes called ' aids ' (which
vol. 1. E

66 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
affected only the barons) should not be levied without the
consent of the Great Council of barons ; but it did not
limit the king's power to exact money from the mass of
his subjects, and even the modest provision about feudal
aids was dropped in the first reissue of the Charter in 1216.
It did not in any way provide that the people of England
should be consulted as to the laws under which they were '
governed. All that was to be won later, by other means.
But it did provide that the Law as such was to be supreme ;
and it made men feel that the laws were not merely the will
of their master, to be obeyed merely because they must be
obeyed, but that they were a protection of the rights of all,
and therefore should be not only obeyed, but supported
and defended, by all good men. In this way Magna Carta
completed the work of Henry 11., because it established the
principle of the Reign of Law.
It was not in John's nature to abide by his word. No
sooner had he granted the Charter than he obtained from the
Pope a release from his oath, and, collecting his forces, began
to re-establish his tyranny. He was still so powerful that
the resisting barons found it necessary to offer the Enghsh
crown to the son of the King of France, in order to get
French help. Fortunately the bad king died before he
had time to do much mischief. His son, who succeeded
him as Henry in., was an innocent boy, whose guardians
wisely and promptly announced in his name that they ac
cepted the Great Charter with certain modifications. After
this it was useless for the French prince to continue the
struggle ; and after being twice defeated, on land and at sea,
he withdrew from England, and left the country to enter
upon a new stage of its history.
[The books by H. W. C. Davis and G. B. Adams referred to for the
last chapter cover this chapter also. Stubbs' Early Plantagenets
(Epochs of Modem History) is an excellent short book on this period.
For constitutional developments Stubbs' Constitutional History (with
Petit-Dutaillis' notes) and Select Charters, and M'Kechnie's Magna
Carta. Toyne's The Angevins and the Charter gives a short selection
of contemporary materials. For contemporary European history,
Tout's The Empire and the Papacy ; Fletcher's Making of Western
Europe, 1000-1190 ; Milman's Latin Christianity. For the Crusades
Archer and Kingsford's Crusades (Story of the Nations), and the
article ' Crusades ' in the Encyclopedia Britannica.)

CHAPTER VI
THE STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1215
We have now reached the end of the first stage in our long
story. All the races which have contributed to form the
Four Nations of the British Islands had by 1215 found their
homes in the islands. Stone Men and Bronze Men, Gaels
and Britons, Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes, Norsemen,
Danes and Normans, had been blended in various pro
portions in different parts of the islands ; and from the
blending had clearly emerged the Four Nations, English,
Scottish, Irish and Welsh, which were to contribute to the
building of the world-wide British Commonwealth. Only one
of these four, the Enghsh, had yet been thoroughly welded
into a nation, and that had been the work of the Norman
and Angevin kings. The Scottish nation had reached its
permanent national limits, but had not yet attained full unity ;
and the Irish and Welsh nations were still torn asunder by
unceasing war among their feudal lords and tribal chieftains.
But the main outlines were clearly drawn.
We may next turn to examine the mode of life which
these peoples had attained at this date. We shall especially
deal with the English nation, because its character and
organisation had alone been definitely fixed ; of the other
nations we shall have more to say when they reach a corre
sponding stage of maturity.
§ 1. A Land of Communities. •
The great mass of the Enghsh people drew their liveli
hood from the tillage of the ground, and for this purpose
the land was divided, not (as to-day) into big farms, but
into elaborately organised communities called vills or
manors} whose inhabitants, including men of many different
grades, worked together co-operatively in the cultivation
of the soil. The whole land of the vill or the manor was in
most cases, and for many purposes, a single unit ; and the
1 A vill is a township, a manor is a separately organised estate. The
two often coincided, but not always. 87

68 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
cultivated part of it was generally divided into two, three
or more huge fields, which were used for different crops, or
allowed to he fallow, in a fixed rotation. Each landholder,
great or small, from the lord of the manor down to the
humblest serf, usually had a varying number of strips scat
tered all over these fields, though the lord of the manor
often had his ' demesne ' or home farm in a separate block.
The whole working community of the village co-operated
in ploughing and reaping the fields, each man taking the
produce of his own strips ; and in the same way, the
meadowland on which hay Was grown, and the outlying
pasturage or waste land, were worked in common, each
man being entitled to a share of the hay and of the pas
turage proportionate to his holding.
Such a system needed very elaborate regulation, and
there was room for much dispute about the rights and duties
of individual villagers. It was also necessary to have a
number of village officers, such as a reeve or foreman, a
shepherd to tend the sheep of the whole community, or a
hay-ward to look after the fences round the big fields ; and
these had to be elected. This common business of making
regulations, settling disputes and choosing officers was
managed at the manor court, which was presided over by
the lord's bailiff, and all the villagers had to take part in
it. By means of this court the lord of the manor made
sure that his rights were enforced : that the villeins or
serfs gave their due number of days to work on his land,
that they sent their corn to be ground in his mill, and so
forth. But although it was under the control of its lord,
the manor or the vill was also in a real sense a community ;
and not only the free villagers, but the villeins and serfs
who were tied to the soil, and who were in a certain sense
the property of the lord, had a share in the community,
though they were very defenceless against an unscrupulous
or tyrannical lord.
The village community was almost entirely self-support
ing. It grew its own food ; its rough clothing was manu
factured by the women, from the wool of its own sheep ; its
implements were made from the wood growing on the waste.
Therefore it had but little contact with the outer world by
way of trade. Still there were some things that must be
bought from outside ; in most villages salt, and iron, and
fish (a necessity for fast days) had to be imported, as well
as the modest luxuries of the more substantial freemen of
the village or the lord of the manor ; while the villagers

ch. vi.] THE STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1215 69
would sometimes have cattle or surplus corn to sell. To
meet these needs, many little towns had grown up. Most
of them were no more than rather larger villages, engaged
in agricultural work during six days of the week, and only
blossoming out into trade on the weekly market day, or the
annual fair, when chapmen wculd come in from a distance,
and booths would be opened on the green.
There were very few towns (and these mostly ports) which
at this period amounted to more than this. Supreme among
them all was London, which had always been an important
trading centre, ever since the time of the Romans, and even
earlier. This was because of its position. Traffic coming
from the Continent across the Straits of Dover had to cross
the Thames before it could reach the rest of the country,
and London was the lowest point at which the river could
be bridged, while it also formed an island of higher ground
among the marshes which then fringed the river. For
these reasons the Roman roads (which were still the prin
cipal means of communication) radiated from London.
The river, moreover, gave safe harbourage for shipping,
and London was far enough from the sea to be safe from
piratical attacks : no hostile fleet has ever reached London
since the time of the Danish invasions. Finally, the
Thames, which is the largest stretch of navigable water
in England, gave access to the richest part of the country.
It is not surprising, therefore, that London should always
have been the greatest trading centre in England, that
the Conqueror should find it worth while to overawe it
with his biggest fortress, the Tower, and that the court
and government should tend to settle at this point ; for
from London, more easily than from any other place, every
part of England could be reached by road, river or sea.
The Londoners, unlike the men of other towns, were
numerous and rich enough to form an important political
factor, often sufficient to turn the scale. They had won
for themselves great privileges, including the right to elect
(the sheriffs of Middlesex, so that they were free from the
constant meddling of royal officials. And they counted
for so much that, as a community, they ranked with barons
and bishops, and had a place to themselves in Magna Carta.
But there was only one London ; there were, in this period,
very few towns (such as Bristol, Norwich, and Southampton)
which were what we should call towns at all ; the majority
were of the type of ' villages with a market ' which we
have described.

70 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
It was profitable to a lord to be able to turn one of his
vills into even a very small town, because he got market
dues, and could levy tolls from all who came to buy or sell ;
and it was therefore well worth while to offer special pri
vileges to attract trading residents. And as nobody could
offer such valuable privileges as the king, the great majority
of towns grew up on the king's land. The special rights or
privileges by means of which a village community was
turned into a town were generally of the same kind. The
first was the turning of the vill into a ' free borough.' This
meant that the villagers were freed from the payment of
all dues and services other than a fixed money rent. A
borough was therefore always a place of freedom, and the
custom was that if a serf could live in a borough for a year
and a day he thereupon became free, he and his children
after him. The next privilege was freedom from the pay
ment of market-tolls in the borough itself, and, in some
cases, in all markets throughout the country, or even
throughout all the dominions of the king. When, by the
grant of such privileges, a group of traders had been per
suaded to settle in a town, they generally began to organise
themselves into a gild or association for co-operation in
trade ; and the next stage in their development came when
they obtained from the king (usually by a heavy payment)
formal recognition for their gild and even the right to exclude
rival ^traders from the market, or to make them pay for
admission. When this privilege had been won, the gild
(which commonly included at first all the burgesses) became
a powerful self-governing body, and began to manage the
affairs of the town. And soon it was ready to take the next
step, which was to make a bargain with the king to pay
him a lump sum annually in composition for all the profits
he derived from the town. When that was achieved, the
gild collected the rents and the market dues and the fees
and fines in the court ; the king, had, therefore, no longer
any interest in maintaining his officials in the town, and
it became a surprisingly free and self-governing body ;
though if it happened to be overshadowed by a royal
castle, the constable of the castle might be troublesome ;
and the bishop in a cathedral town, or the abbot of a big
monastery, or a baron who had acquired some town land,
might sometimes interfere vexatiously. But in any case
it is plain that a free borough with a gild, especially if
it had a lease of the king's (or other lord's) rights, was a
very free community, and a real community. Many such

CH. vi.] THE STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1215 71
boroughs were rising in England in the period after the
Conquest ; and Henry 11. and his sons, especially, granted
a large number of charters to particular towns which in
cluded all or most of the privileges described above.
The manors and the towns were not the only organised
communities existing in England at this date, for the shire
also was fast becoming a real community, thanks to the
increasing amount of work which the Norman and Angevin
kings were throwing upon it. The community of the shire
found its expression in the shire court, and its head in the
sheriff. To the shire court were supposed to come all the
great barons of the shire, and all the lesser barons, knights
and freemen, together with five representatives from each
vill, and twelve from each borough. But the great mag
nates seldom troubled to attend, sending their stewards
instead. The ordinary freemen also can seldom have been
present, except when they were concerned in business before
the court : you cannot imagine the freeman from the
remotest corner of Yorkshire, for example, tramping through
the mud to attend the monthly shire courts at York. In
the main, it was the knights and lesser barons — whom we
should to-day call the country gentry — who took a hand
in shire court business, under the presidency of the sheriff.
They arranged for the proper equipment, and (when neces
sary) the calling out, of the levy of the shire for war. They
conducted the numerous ' jury ' inquiries which Henry ii.'s
system required. More and more they began to feel them
selves a community ; and although the sheriff was the
supreme responsible officer, the knights of the shire were
tending to take a larger part in its busine'ss ; and the king
was glad that they should do so, as a check upon the sheriff.
Already, under Richard 1., they had been charged with the
business of making the preliminary inquiries into ' pleas of
the crown,' and a great deal more business was to follow.
Soon the knights of the shire began to demand even that
they should be allowed to elect the sheriff, though that
was further than the king was ever willing to go.
Thus, encouraged by the Angevin and Norman systems,
England was developing into a land of communities, all
more or less concerned about common business — manor
communities, borough communities, shire communities. And
the king encouraged this development, because it was easier
for him to deal with a comparatively small number of com- '
munities than with the mass of individuals. Already, at
the end of John's reign, the idea had occurred both to the

72 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. i.
king and to his opponents that it might be worth while
to command all the shire communities to send two of their
number who should be able to speak for them, and thus
show what the judgment of the whole country was on the
questions in dispute. Nothing much came of this idea in
John's reign, and it is doubtful whether either of these
congresses of representatives ever actually met. But the
idea was to be greatly developed in the next period, and out
of it was to come the beginning of the House of Commons,
the name of which means not the House of the Common
People but the House of Communes or Communities.
§ 2. The Church and its Services to Civilisation.
Distinct from all these communities of manor, borough
and shire, and yet in a real sense including them all, was
the great community of the Church, with its elaborate
organisation of dioceses ruled by bishops and archdeacons,
and of parishes with their parish priests, covering the
whole area of the country, and its sub-communities of
cathedral chapters and monasteries. To the Church the
nation owed all the highest elements of civilisation that it
possessed. The Church alone cultivated letters and learn
ing, and provided instruction for those who desired it.
The Church alone kept alive the memory of the past, by
means of the chronicles which its diligent scribes compiled,
and to which we owe most of our knowledge of the course
of events. Without the aid of the trained and educated
churchmen it would have been impossible for the Norman
and Angevin kings to develop their efficient system of law
and government. It was to the Church that England
(and Europe) owed the wonderful development of the art
of architecture which is the glory of this age, though it
was to be surpassed by the still more beautiful work of
the next period. And finally the Church had already, in a
remarkable way, succeeded in exercising an ennobling and
refining influence upon the brutality of the fighting knights.
By giving a religious character to the young knight's initia
tion it had impressed upon him that he was devoted to a
high calling, and that he was consecrated for the defence
of the right and the protection of the weak. This was the
idea of chivalry ; and though few of those who swore its
vows were able fully to observe them, yet their influence
was real, and the sheer barbarity of the earlier ages began
to be diminished.

CH. vi.] THE STATE OF ENGLAND IK 1215 73
The great community of the Church, in a narrow sense,
included only ecclesiastics, and this view of it was too
apt to be taken by the clergy themselves, who insisted
(like Becket) upon special privileges and exemptions which
were unfair to the rest of the nation. But in a wider sense
the Church included the whole nation : it was the nation,
regarded in a special aspect. And in a wider sense still,
the nation found itself incorporated through the Church
in a yet greater community, the whole world of Western
Christendom, the respublica Christiana or Christian common
wealth, of which the spiritual head was the Pope. The
unity of Western Christendom (which was the same thing
as Western civilisation) was a very real thing in this age,
and was felt to be a reality by every man. Wherever a
man went, over all Western Europe, he could hear the same
holy offices rendered in the same tongue in every village
church. The Enghsh priest or monk was easily at home
in every other land, because Latin, still a spoken language,
was the universal speech of the learned. Moreover the
Church was in a real sense a democratic community. The
humblest lad might in its service rise to the highest offices.
During the reigns of Stephen and Henry 11. an Englishman
of modest rank, Nicholas Breakspear, occupied the papal
throne under the name of Adrian iv., and saw an emperor
holding his stirrup, and kings venerating his decrees. A
little earlier another Englishman, Stephen Harding, became
abbot of the monastery of Citeaux in France, and was the
real founder of the Cistercian Order of monks, the most
famous and powerful religious organisation of this age.
In England, as in France and elsewhere, the hfe and work
of the monasteries were at their best in the period with
which we have been dealing. The monasteries were of
different types, belonging to different ' Orders ' and under
different rules ; and they varied very much in size and
wealth. But in their broad features they all presented a
marked resemblance. All of them were communities of
men and women who had cut themselves off from the world,
abandoning all their personal property and even their
names, in order to live a religious life of labour and discipline
and- prayer. The houses in which they dwelt were all of
much the same type : a series of buildings erected in a
quadrangle.1 On the north side was normally the chapel,
1 See the plan of a typical monastery : Atlas, Introduction, p. 41.
There are good descriptions of monastic life in Church's Life of St. Anselm
and Morison's Life of St. Bernard.

74 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. I.
often a very large and beautiful building, on which the
monks lavished their wealth. For they spent a very large
proportion of their time in the chapel, their day being
broken up by a succession of services every few hours. At
the opposite side of the quadrangle, as far removed from
the chapel as possible, were the buildings in which the
needs of the body were attended to — the refectory, where
the monks ate their frugal meals together, and the kitchens.
The chapter-house, where they had daily meetings for dis
cipline and for the transaction of monastic business, was
always on the east side of the quadrangle ; the quarters
of the lay brothers were on the west side, and other build
ings, such as the library and the dormitories and the guest
house, found a place wherever might be most convenient.
But the main centre of the monastery's life was the cloister,
a covered and paved way which ran all round the inner
side of the quadrangle and looked out through the tracery
of unglazed Gothic windows, upon a grassy quiet square.
Here, very often, the monastic school was held. Here the
scribes indited their chronicles or transcribed holy books
or classical works.
But the work of the monasteries was not wholly religious
or intellectual. They devoted much of their income to
feeding the poor. Their doors were always open to tra
vellers, and most monasteries kept a large guest-house
for the entertainment of their visitors ; it was partly from
these travellers, no doubt, that they learned the facts
which they set down in their chronicles. Finally, in most
of the Orders, and notably in the Cistercian Order, the
monks devoted a great part of their time to actual bodily
labour in the fields, and in this way rendered real services
to the development of agriculture. The Cistercians, who
loved to establish their houses in remote and lonely places,
especially devoted themselves to the cultivation of sheep,
and it was largely due to them that English wool obtained
the high reputation which it acquired during this period;
wool formed the basis of a lively commerce with Flanders,
the great cloth-weaving district of the Middle Ages.
It was indirectly out of the educational work of the
monasteries and the cathedral schools that the universities
took their birth; both of the ancient English Univer
sities of Oxford and Cambridge were working some time
before the date of Magna Carta. Some important teaching
was going on at Oxford as early as the reign of Stephen ;
but it was in the reign of Henry n. that it began to be a

ch. vi.] THE STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1215 75
really active seat of learning, as a result of a great migra
tion of students from the famous schools of Paris (1167).
Cambridge is said to have been established by a similar
migration from Oxford in 1209.
§3. Contact with Europe.
Thanks to the Church, there was a good deal of coming
and going between England and the Continent. ; and new
ideas and intellectual movements had a chance to exercise
their influence upon the islands in a way that had been
impossible before the Norman Conquest. But this contact
was still further developed by the growth of foreign trade.
This, indeed, was still on a very modest scale ; for, as we have
seen, England needed little, and had little to give in exchange.
But barons and knights, bishops and monasteries, wanted
wine, which came mostly from France ; and there was a
certain demand among the well-to-do for silks and fine
woven stuffs, jewels and goldsmiths' work, swords, armour
and fine metal-work of various kinds, spices and rare foods.
These commodities came partly from the towns of Flanders,
which were becoming very busy and prosperous, partly
from Italy, and (in a less degree) France ; but many of them
came from the far East, from India and China, by long
and devious routes, which made them very expensive.
Borne by caravans of camels, the Indian silks, mushns,
spices and gems came through the Khyber Pass and across
Central Asia, passing either north or south of the Caucasus
Mountains, to the shores of the Black Sea ; while other
streams came down to the shores of Syria, or up the Red
Sea to Egypt.1 At all these points the goods were picked
up by Italian merchants and by them distributed through
Europe ; and that is why the owners of shops which sell
spices still sometimes call themselves ' Italian Merchants.'
Some of the goods from the East also passed from the Black
Sea up the rivers of Russia to the Baltic, where they were
bought and distributed by the German merchants of
Liibeck and Wisby and other Baltic towns, which later
developed into the Hanseatic League.
But the English purchaser knew as yet nothing of the
distant lands from which these rich commodities came,
though the time was coming when they were to be ruled
by his descendants. The English merchant scarcely came
1 See the map of Western Asia in the Middle Ages, showing the trade
routes, Atlas, Plate 59.

76 MAKING OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. I.
in contact even with the Italian traders. Such part of
this stream of traffic as reached England was in fact mainly
in the hands of German and Flemish merchants from
Cologne and Bruges. They had organised a sort of co
operative factory or trading centre in London, which was
known as the Steelyard, and by the end of our period they
had estabhshed an almost complete monopoly over the
foreign trade of England. So much was this the case,
that they have given a word to our language in memory
of their monopoly. When we speak of ' sterling ' money,
meaning money of full weight, we are using a corruption
of the word ' Easterling ' ; sterling money means money
of full weight, such as would be accepted by the Easterlings,
or men from the East. So far, as yet, were the English
from being a great trading or seafaring people.
In exchange for the wines and fine stuffs and spices
which the Flemish and German merchants sold, the chief
commodities which they bought in England were the pro
ducts of the sheep — wool, sheepskins and leather. These
were the only important exports of England. But English
wool was beginning to be highly valued by the weavers of
Ghent and Ypres, who were the great manufacturers of the
period ; and England was in that day what Australia is
to-day, the great wool-growing country. Such were the
humble beginnings of English foreign trade ; and it was
almost wholly under alien control. Naturally the English
kings tried to make their profit out of this trade, and they
were not sorry that it should be concentrated in the hands
of the foreigners, because this made it easier to tax. They
taxed the exported wool, they taxed also the imported
luxuries, and they derived from these sources an important
part of their revenue. Nobody controlled the amount of
these exactions, except when they were a matter of bargain
ing between the king and the foreign traders. But the
taxes came to be more or less defined by custom, and from
that fact they derived their name of ' customs ' duties.
§ 4. The Backwardness of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
It is not necessary to say so much about the other three
nations of the islands as we have said about England;
partly because we do not know a great deal about them in
this period, but mainly because they were all three in a
much more backward state than England. England, as
we have seen, was organised upon a feudal basis ; but along-

ch. vi.] THE STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1215 y;
side of the feudal order, and profoundly modifying it, was
that remarkable series of organised communities in which
the people were being trained to co-operate in the manage
ment of common affairs ; and over all was the power of
the Crown, so strong that it was generally able to maintain
fairly good order, and to give justice to the people. In the
greater part of Wales, Scotland and Ireland the outstand
ing feature of the people's life was the survival of a tribal
system, wherein power rested with hereditary chieftains,
constantly at war with one another. It is true that in all
three countries the immigrant Normans had introduced
some rudiments of a feudal order. But the feudal barons
of the three minor nations were not worked as yet into a
national system, as they were in England. With all its
defects, a feudal order is better than a tribal system, because
it does remind all its members, in aU its grades, that they
have a duty to the State as a whole, and it does provide
some sort of means of enforcing these duties. In Wales,
Scotland and Ireland, the feudal barons were as yet little
more than additional elements of turbulence and confusion.
In none of the three was there a central power capable of
maintaining peace and order with a strong hand. There
was no central power in Wales or Ireland at all, save the
nominal supremacy of the Enghsh king ; and therefore
there did not exist in either country anything that can
be called a national system of law and justice ; law and
justice were tribal affairs, not national affairs. Scotland was
struggling towards a national system, under her national
monarchy ; but her institutions were still in a very rudi
mentary state, and her history is a story of unending turbu
lence, not only in the thirteenth century but for long after
wards. In 1215, the English were the only one of the four
peoples of whom it could be said that they were organised
as a nation, and had begun to act as a nation ; and during
the next period they were to become acutely conscious of
their nationhood. The other three can as yet only be
described as ' potential ' nations. They were to begin to
realise their nationhood more fully in the next age, in a series
of struggles against England.
[Bateson, Medieval England ; Social England (vol. i.), preferably
the illustrated edition ; the Oxford Handbook of Mediaeval History;
Lipson's English Economic History (vol. i.) ; Ashley's Economic
History; Gross's Gild Merchant; Milman's Latin Christianity;
Gasquet's English Monastic Life.]

BOOK II
THE CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS: AND
THE GROWTH OF SELF-GOVERNMENT IN
ENGLAND (a.d. 1215-1485)

INTRODUCTION
Our First Book has recorded the making of four nations in
the islands, out of the many races who have contributed
to their population. It has dealt chiefly with the English
nation, because this was by far the most highly developed
of the four, and was to become either the mistress or the
model of the other three. In England we have seen how
the unity of the nation was finally welded by the firm rule
of the Norman and Angevin kings ; how these kings had
estabhshed the Reign of Law among their subjects, and how,
in the end, King John was compelled to accept definite limi
tations to the immense power which his predecessors had
built up.
During the period covered by our Second Book, 1215-1485,
these beginnings underwent a very great development,
and the islands were brought to the condition in which
they were to enter upon the period of British greatness,
which forms the main theme of our story, and begins with
the great discoveries at the end of the fifteenth century.
It is very important that we should clearly understand to
what state the Four Nations of the islands had been brought
at the opening of the modern period, and therefore we shall
study this second period rather more closely than the first.
In England perhaps the main features of the period were
the formation and growth of Parliament, which acquired
a considerable measure of power over the government of
the country ; and, alongside of this, the growth among the
most important classes of the people of the habit of managing
their own local affairs to an extent unknown in any other
country in Europe. In this period also the mass of the
English peasantry gradually ceased to be serfs, and became
free men ; and this happened in England earlier than in
any other European country. Alongside of these great
changes, the period also saw the rise among the English of
a very strong feeling of national unity and patriotism,
which finally obliterated the memory of old distinctions of
race, and became the chief bond holding the State together ;
it was now no longer the bond of feudal allegiance to the
vol. 1. F

82 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bK. II.
king as chief lord of the land which formed the real strength
of the English realm, but loyalty to the king as head of the
nation. This feeling of national patriotism and national pride led
the English to attempt to impose their rule upon their neigh
bours. They conquered Wales ; they tried vainly to conquer
Scotland, but only succeeded in giving greater strength to
the national sentiment of the Scots ; finally they tried to
conquer France, taking advantage of her disunity, but,
after long and desolating wars, marked by some brilliant
episodes, the English attacks in the end aroused to fever-
heat the patriotism of the French also, and the last relics
of the old French dominions of the English kings were torn
away. So the English national spirit was left to find a
new vent for its energy, and it was ready to take advantage
of the great discoveries of the fifteenth century.
In Wales, during this period, there was a great revival
of patriotic feeling, which even the English conquest was
not able to subdue. Yet Wales gained a good deal from
being brought under the English system of government.
In Scotland common resistance to the English attacks at
last welded the various races into a single nation, different
from the Enghsh in many ways, and yet not so different
as to make their future co-operation impossible.
Only in unfortunate Ireland there was no improvement,
but rather a falling back. Ireland was neither definitely
conquered like Wales, nor definitely able to secure her own
independence, like Scotland ; and this was to have many
unhappy consequences in the Modern Age.

CHAPTER I
THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON
THE ISLANDS
It is impossible to study profitably the history of the British
Islands, or of the world-wide Commonwealth which has
grown out of them, without some knowledge of the course
of events in Europe ; because the British Islands and the
British Commonwealth are only parts of the greater com
munity of Western civilisation, and what has been thought
and done by them has always been deeply influenced by
what was being thought and done in Europe, more especially
in France.
§ i. Changes in the Political Systems and Ideas of Europe.
In the Middle Ages men felt deeply the importance and
the value of the unity of Western civilisation, or (what was
substantially the same thing) Western Christendom ; and
at no time was this unity a more real thing than at the
beginning of the thirteenth century, when the great Pope
Innocent in., who compelled King John to obey his decrees
and even to become his vassal, almost ruled Europe from
Rome. All the rulers of Western Christendom equally
accepted the Pope as the mouthpiece of the will of God ;
and the Church, which was in every country the advocate
of justice and the nurse of learning, everywhere brought
home to men the fact that they owed allegiance to the
respublica Christiana, to the community of civilisation, as
well as to their own nation and its king.
The unity of Western Christendom was in mediaeval
theory represented not only by the Church and the Papacy,
but also by the Emperor, who was held to be the vice
gerent of God in secular affairs, as the Pope was in
spiritual. But in actual fact the power of the Emperor had
never, since the days of Charlemagne, extended beyond
the three kingdoms of Germany, Italy and Burgundy, and
it had never exercised any influence over the affairs of the
British Islands. In the first half of the thirteenth century

84 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. n.
a very brilliant Emperor, Frederick n., known as the
Wonder of the World, was striving to make his power
effective in Italy. This attempt brought him into violent
conflict with successive popes, and the intense struggle
between the two supreme potentates of the world was
followed with the keenest interest in England : the great
English chronicler of the period, Matthew Paris, was as
warmly interested in this struggle as in English affairs.
As long as he lived, Frederick n. held his own, though his
authority became very shadowy both in Germany and in
Burgundy, whose feudal nobles rapidly turned themselves
into independent princes ; his power rested almost wholly
upon the Norman realm of Naples and Sicily, which he had
inherited. And after his (1250) death the imperial power
almost wholly collapsed. Ifnever again counted for very
much in European history. The dream of its re-establish
ment as a real controlling force still survived, and influ
enced great thinkers like the poet Dante, whose treatise de
Monorchia is a plea for the restoration of the Empire as
the best hope of the establishment of peace and justice
on the earth. For men felt, as men still feel, the need
for some common authority to secure peace and justice
for the world ; and the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire
was in a sense the ancestor of the ideal of a League of
Nations. But every attempt to restore the Empire ended
in failure : and thus one of the two great symbols of the
unity of Christendom was more and more becoming a
patent unreality during the three centuries which are
covered by the present Book.
In the final struggle against Frederick ii.'s successors,
England was in a strange way involved. As the Enghsh
kingdom had been brought by King John into a relation
of special dependence upon the Papacy, the popes tried to
use her strength against their enemies ; and hence Richard
of Cornwall, King Henry in.'s brother, was set up as a
candidate for the imperial throne in Germany, where he
wasted his substance in a futile endeavour to win support ;
while Edmund of Lancaster, the king's second son, was
brought in as a candidate for the throne of Sicily. These
events, as we shall see, had a considerable influence upon
the course of events in England. They helped to produce
a growing reaction against the Papacy, which was blamed
for the burden and waste of these costly and futile adven
tures. One result of the downfall of the Empire was that Germany,

ch. i.] THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD 85
which had been since the tenth century the most powerful
of the European kingdoms, fell into a state of confusion,
from which it never succeeded in escaping1 until the nine
teenth century. It became a medley of little warring
principalities, all striving to extend their dominions at
the cost of their neighbours. During the confusion four
things happened which are worthy of note.1 The ambitious
family of Habsburg established itself in the district of
Austria, which was merely one of the frontier districts of
South-Eastern Germany; and this family, which took its
place among the chief ruling houses of divided Germany
in the second half of the thirteenth century, was to play a
very important part in the history of Europe for the next
six hundred years. At the same time the Swiss moun
taineers of the Forest Cantons established their inde
pendence,2 largely in the course of a struggle against the
Habsburgs : William Tell, the hero of Swiss independence,
belongs to the end of the thirteenth century and the begin
ning of the fourteenth, and during the next two centuries
the Swiss were gradually drawing neighbouring cantons
into their confederacy, and holding their own against all
attacks. Again, to protect themselves against the sur
rounding confusion, the trading towns of Germany, many
of which made themselves practically independent States,
were organising federations among themselves. The cities
of North Germany constituted the famous Hanseatic
League, of which Liibeck was the centre ; and for a long time,
especially during the fourteenth century, this League com
pletely dominated the trade of Northern Europe . They main
tained a great centre in London, and the bulk of English
trade was in their hands. For, in spite of her political divi
sions, Germany was a prosperous country down to the time
when the religious wars of the seventeenth century brought
ruin upon her. Her vitality was shown by the vigour with
which she was Germanising the Slavonic regions towards
the East; and this eastward expansion forms the fourth
significant feature of her history during this period. All
along her eastern frontiers this pressure was going on. But
it was most active on the shores of the Baltic,3 where during
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Teutonic Knights
were conquering the heathen Slavonic tribes of Prussia, and
forcing Christianity upon them ; while, further north, the
Knights of the Sword were imposing their sway upon what
1 See Atlas, Plate 23 (b). 2 See Atlas, Plate 21 (a).
' See Atlas, Plate 7.

86 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
later came to be known as the Baltic provinces — Kurland,
Livonia and Esthonia. These adventurous crusading ex
ploits attracted knights from all over Europe : the knight
in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales had spent some time in
fighting in Prussia. These events may not seem to have
any very direct bearing upon the history of the British
Commonwealth ; but in the far future their results were to
be important.
While Germany was thus falling into confusion, and at
the same time engaging in many-sided enterprises, Italy 1
also was developing along its own lines. On the ruins of
the Empire sprang up a large number of small city-republics
or territorial princes, of whom (as a territorial sovereign)
the Pope was one. During the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries some of these little States, notably Florence and
Venice, were making very interesting experiments in
government, which we cannot stop to examine. And,
under the shelter of their freedom, a brilliant outburst
of letters and learning and the fine arts was already
beginning. At the end of the thirteenth century thei
greatest of all the Italian poets, the Florentine Dante,
was writing his great epic The Divine Comedy, and in
the next century he was to find a brilliant successor in
Petrarch. Soon the glories of Italian painting were to be
displayed. And at the same time the daring seamen of
the great Italian ports, Venice, Genoa and Pisa were
brilliantly developing their trade in the luxuries of the
East, which the Crusades had begun. From among them
came great explorers, notably Marco Polo in the fourteenth >
century ; they were the forerunners of the wonderful
explorers of the fifteenth century, many of whom were at
first Italians. During all this period the city-states and
little despotic principalities of Italy were the centres of a
civilisation far more brilliant than was to be seen elsewhere
in Europe, and their wealth and fame far outshone those of
the greatest kingdoms of the more barbarous North.
During the twelfth century the leading position in Europe,
which had hitherto belonged to Germany, passed definitely
to France. From the time of the conquest of Normandy
in 1204 her kings went on rapidly extending their power,2
and reducing to dependence the great feudal vassals who
had hitherto been able to disregard them. The thirteenth
century was distinguished by the noblest of French kings,
1 See Atlas, Plate 17 (b). * See Atlas, Plate 15 (a).

ch. i.] THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD 87
Louis ix., known as St. Louis.1 He was the very model of
mediaeval kingship : a valiant crusader and a knight without
fear or reproach, a devout and cheerful Christian, a firm
ruler, and a man utterly faithful to his word, he won the
respect of all Europe, and was often referred to as an
arbiter, as by the English king and barons in the Mise of
Amiens in 1264. After him came a great lawyer-king,
Philip the Fair, the contemporary of the English Edward 1.,
whom in many ways he resembled ; and the legal organisa
tion of the despotic French monarchy was perfected. But
France was not yet welded together by the sentiment of
nationality ; and so, in spite of the formidable power of
her kings, her unity was in danger of breaking up under
the strain of internal dissensions and feudal ambitions,
which gave to the English kings the opportunity of making
fresh, though evanescent, conquests in France. Not until
the Enghsh had been driven out by the outburst of national
patriotism which centred in Joan of Arc was the greatness
of France to reach its full stature.
The gradual growth of national feeling in large and unified
States, is, indeed, one of the main features of this great
period. The national State, held together by the patriotism
of its citizens, was in fact a new thing in the history of the
world. It had never existed before this time, and it was
only slowly and unconsciously created. England was the
first of the nation-states to become fully conscious of her
nationhood, and we shall see in the following chapters what
great steps she was taking in this direction. France was
following more slowly along the same path. During this
period also the little Christian kingdoms of Spain — Castile,
Aragon, and Portugal — were getting the upper hand of
the Moors,2 and were in the conflict acquiring a strong
sentiment of patriotism which was to enable them to play
a great part in the later history of Europe. Before the
end of the thirteenth century the Moors had been penned
into a narrow strip of territory in the extreme south, and
the Christian kingdoms, now masters of almost the whole
peninsula, were able to play a considerable part in the life
of Europe as a whole.
Outside of Europe tremendous events were taking place.
The wonderful Mongol conqueror, Genghiz Khan, succeeded
during the first part of the thirteenth century in making
himself master of China and of the whole of Asia north of
1 There is an English translation of Joinville's charming Vie de St. Louis.
a See the maps, Atlas, Plate 18 (c) and (d).

88 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
the Himalayas ; * his armies pressed into Europe, reduced
the disorganised and backward peoples of Russia to a sub
jection which lasted for two centuries, and caused for a
time great alarm to the peoples of Western Europe. And
although this peril came to nothing, being stemmed mainly
by the valour of the Poles, it aroused for the first time in
Europe a keen interest in Asia and its affairs. Two courage
ous friars were sent out, the one (named Rubruquis) by
St. Louis of France, the other (Carpini) by the Pope, to
make their way to the court of Genghiz Khan ; and the
reports which they brought back gave to Europe its first
ideas about the East. In the fourteenth century a greater
traveller still, Marco Polo, was to carry out a wonderful
journey of exploration, right across Asia, through China,
and back round India to Europe.2 The Crusades had begun
the breaking down of European isolation ; but these journeys
carried the process much further. And while the Mongols
of Central Asia were building up their loose and ill-com
pacted empire, another branch of the same stock, the
Ottoman Turks, were establishing themselves first in Asia
Minor, and then, during the fourteenth century, in the
Balkan Peninsula.3 We shall see more of their achieve
ments later. In the meanwhile their aggressive activity
was making it certain that Europe would soon have to turn
its thoughts eastwards again, as in the days of the Crusades :
a new phase in the conflict between East and West, between
Christendom and Islam, was looming ahead.
It is one of the most surprising features of the fourteenth
century that Europe should have paid so little attention
to the aggressive activity of the Turks, and made so little
attempt to resist it. The main reason for this was that,
with the growth of national feeling and of the intense local
patriotism of city-states in Italy and Germany, the feeling
of the unity of Christendom and of its common interests
was gradually becoming weaker. Already, as we have seen,
the Empire, which had been one of the symbols of this
unity, had become manifestly impotent. Its decline was
soon followed by that of its great rival and partner, the
Papacy, which, though it retained its almost unchallenged
spiritual leadership, more and more tended to lose its
political influence in Europe. During the thirteenth century
the exactions which it made in carrying on its struggle
1 See the map, Atlas, Plates 59, 60.
2 His route is shown in the Atlas, Plates 59, 60.
* See the map, Atlas, Plate 25 (b).

ch. i.] THE MEDLEVAL WORLD 89
agamst the Empire produced a great deal of discontent in
all countries : we shall see in the next chapter how active
it was in England. At the beginning of the fourteenth
century the popes fell under the influence of the French
monarchy, and removed their seat of government from Rome
to Avignon, on the borders of the French king's lands. It
remained there for seventy years, a period which is known as
the Babylonish Captivity ; and during all this time the popes
were French, and followed a pohcy which was influenced
very deeply by France. This led to a great reaction against
papal claims, especially in England, which was engaged in
the long war with France, but also in other countries. Not
only was papal authority resented, but a remarkable revolt
against some of the doctrines and practices of the Catholic
Church began, and rose to a great height, especially in
England and in Bohemia. And this was increased when
(as we shall see later) the Babylonish Captivity was suc
ceeded by a papal schism, when rival popes anathematised
one another. Everywhere the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries were marked by a growing freedom of thought,
a growing challenge to the received doctrines of the Middle
Age, both in religion and in politics ; and this meant that
the strong sense of the unity of Christendom which had
earlier meant so much was steadily becoming weaker.
§ 2. The Enrichment of Civilisation : the Friars and the
Universities.
But though the political influence of the Church was
declining, the work of civilisation which it had fostered was
going on more vigorously than ever. It was still main
tained chiefly by institutions which the Church had created ;
but these tended, as time went on, to become more inde
pendent and more national in character, and they were
supplemented by institutions and movements with which
the Church had little or nothing to do.
Perhaps the most notable work of the thirteenth century
was that which was done by the great orders of Mendi
cant Friars, the Franciscans and Dominicans. These were
orders, semi-monastic in character, which at first showed
some signs of revolt against the orthodox system of the
Church ; but the Papacy was wise enough to recognise
them, and to make use of their zeal. This is not the place
in which to tell the story of St. Francis of Assisi,1 one of the
1 The best life, by Sabatier, is translated into English.

90 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
most lovable and beautiful characters whom the human race
has ever produced, or of the stern and ascetic Spaniard,
St. Dominic. But these two leaders started a movement
of the greatest value and power.
The older orders of monks had dwelt apart from the world,
cultivating their own souls ; and, although they had ren
dered many services to their fellow-men, the service of
their fellows was not their primary aim. But St. Francis
and St. Dominic invited their followers to ' take poverty
as their bride,' to give up all worldly possessions and live
by begging, in order that they might devote themselves
wholly to the service of the poor and needy, and to the
preaching of truth. Thousands of devoted men answered
the call, and in a very few years they were spread all over
Europe, preaching and teaching and tending the poor and
sick. They came to England first between 1221 and 1224,
and were eagerly welcomed, especially in the squalid and
insanitary little towns, which the monks had generally
neglected, and which were badly served even by the ordinary
priesthood. The friars were, in their best days, very demo
cratic communities. At first they would have nothing to
do with learning or with fine buildings. But they soon
found that if they wanted to influence men's minds they
must pay attention to these things, and especially try to
work upon the swarms of poor students who were haunting
the universities of Europe, and producing a general ferment
of ideas. So they started houses and gave teaching in
university towns : and many of the greatest scholars of
this and the following age were drawn from among them.
In this field many of the friars continued to do good work.
But their original|ardour soon died down among the majority.
The begging friar became something of a nuisance, and his
laziness and greed contributed to the reaction against the
Church in the fourteenth century and later. The noblest
movements are apt to outlive their usefulness, when their
zeal develops into formahsm : an ideal creates an insti
tution, and then the institution suffocates the ideal. But
nothing could destroy the stimulus which the friars had
given to the thoughts and hopes of poor and neglected men.
We have referred to the universities. All through this
period their activity was among the most powerful forces
shaping the thought and life of Western civilisation ; and
though they sprang from the Church, and continued to
be almost wholly ecclesiastical institutions, the ferment
of thought which they were producing was among the most

ch. i.] THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD 91
potent forces making for a new order of things in which
the dominance of the Church would be greatly reduced.
The great preachers of new ideas in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, Wycliffe and Huss, Marsilius of Padua
and Gerson of Paris, all came from the universities. The
universities had started in the twelfth century, but it was
in the thirteenth that the power of knowledge, which they
represented, began to make itself felt all over Europe, and
that the fame of great teachers drew throngs of students
together from every land. On every road that led towards
the university towns (which were steadily becoming more
numerous) the wandering students, mostly poor men,
became a familiar sight : squabbling and roistering, often
drunken and disorderly, and very difficult to keep in order,
they formed as distinctive a feature of the life of the
road as the mendicant friars. We still preserve and some
times sing the half-rollicking, half-melancholy songs which
they sang in taverns after great battles with the towns
folk, or under hedgerows by the roadside — songs like the
famous Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus. But, reck
less vagabonds as many of them were, they loved learning,
and pursued eagerly any teacher who could give it them.
The most famous of the European universities were
Paris, the great centre for theology and philosophy, whose
scholars wielded an authority scarcely less than that of
the popes themselves, and Bologna, where the best teaching
was given in law, and whence was drawn much of the
inspiration and guidance that produced the remarkable
law-making activity of this age. But Oxford formed a
good third to this famous pair ; and in the thirteenth
century some of the greatest of Englishmen were teaching
in Oxford, such as the noble and saintly Edmund Rich,
who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, or
Robert Grosseteste, afterwards the wise Bishop of Lincoln,
or, above all, Roger Bacon (1214-1295), perhaps the deepest
thinker of the mediaeval period. Bacon spent his life in
Oxford, much of it as a Franciscan friar. He is said to
have discovered gunpowder and the telescope and the
burning-glass ; whether these claims are true or not, his
books showed a deeper sense of the value of knowledge
and the best ways of extending it than was to be shown
by any other thinker for centuries to come. He was one
of the greatest of Englishmen, and deserves to be better
remembered. Another great Englishman of this period was the historian

92 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
Matthew Paris, who was during the first half of the thirteenth
century busy in the monastery of St. Albans writing the
most vivid, many-sided and impartial historical narrative
that had yet been produced in Europe. Perhaps the most
remarkable feature of his work is the strong sentiment of
English patriotism which pervades it. Earlier monastic
chroniclers had always written as loyal churchmen first, to
whom the interests of the Church ranked before every
thing, and as Enghshmen only second, if even that. But
when Matthew Paris thought the Pope was in the wrong,
or was levying unduly oppressive exactions, he did not
hesitate to say so ; and, although he was a friend of King
Henry in., he was equally fearless in condemning him when
he thought he was ruling badly and invading the liberties
of Englishmen. This national spirit is a new and striking
thing, and it forms a remarkable illustration of the new
temper which we shall see at work in England.
Even in the thirteenth century there were some begin
nings of intellectual activity independent of the Church
and the universities in England, though on nothing like
the same scale as in Italy. In the fourteenth century this
independent hfe was to come fully alive with the first great
efflorescence of a vernacular literature in the time of Chaucer.
That was itself a product of the stir of national feeling
which is one of the strongest notes of this age. We shall
have to deal with it more fully later. National thought
and its expression were thus gradually emancipating them
selves from the control of the Church.
A similar movement is to be seen, though less markedly,
in the sphere of architecture. All the best work of the
thirteenth century was still inspired by the Church, and
this was the greatest age of Gothic architecture. Very"
beautiful churches and abbeys had been built in the twelfth
century ; but the work of the thirteenth, in France above
all, but also in England and elsewhere, was yet more wonder
ful, and the carving of tombs and statuary, and even
of gargoyles, surpassed everything that had yet been
achieved. The noblest cathedrals and churches of France
and of England belong to this age — notably the greater
part of Westminster Abbey, which was rebuilt by King
Henry in. in place of the old one of Edward the Confessor.
In the next century architectural work became more
grandiose but less noble ; and it is noteworthy that some
of the best work began to be given to secular buildings.
The centuries which we have to cover in rapid review

ch. i.] THE MEDIAEVAL WORLD 93
in this Book were full of strife, and the ordinary narrative
of their events seems to be, like the story of most centuries,
a mere record of unceasing turbulence, war and treachery.
It is well to remember that alongside of the tumults and
intrigues of kings and barons, to which we must turn, the
Franciscans were labouring in the slums of the towns,
Roger Bacon was studying and teaching at Oxford, scholars
in their hundreds were tramping the roads in search of
learning, and the builders and sculptors were at their
wonderful work all over Western Europe.
And even the disputes of kings and barons were produc
ing great results. Out of their debates were arising, in all
the lands of the West, the rudiments of national represen
tative assemblies. The courts of feudal kings, which their
chief tenants were bound to attend, were being used as a
means of ensuring that the conditions of the feudal contract
were not interpreted to these tenants' disadvantage ; and,
though this was no new thing, it was becoming more im
portant now that kings were making their power more
effective. The minor feudal tenants, who had hitherto
not troubled to attend, were beginning to take part in these
discussions through representatives. And in addition to
these purely feudal elements, the two elements in a mediaeval
State which were in some degree non-feudal — the Church
and the semi-autonomous merchants of the towns — were
also, in many countries, being worked into the system, and
invited to take part in some of the more important delibe
rations upon national affairs. Thus there were being
formed assemblies of the ' Estates of the Realm ' — the great
orders or social grades into which every Western people
was divided. This development was taking place in every
country in Europe, almost simultaneously, though with
differences of form. Its importance was that it made
possible the gradual growth of a system of national co
operation in some of the ftmctions of government.
The rise of a system of representation of various social
grades or groups, out of which a parliamentary system
could grow, was in no sense peculiar to England ; it was
a common feature of the hfe of all parts of Europe in
this fruitful and active age. But it is significant that the
term ' Estates,' commonly employed in Scotland and on
the Continent, was never used in England. This difference
in terminology represents a real difference in fact. From
the first the assemblies which the king was beginning to call
into counsel in England were not strictly ' Estates,' or clearly

94 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
defined social orders. And this difference was to have
important results. England, in the long run, was to be the
only country in which these promising beginnings were to
lead to the creation of a real parliamentary system, repre
sentative not merely of privileged classes, but of the whole
community. The reasons for this peculiarly Enghsh
development can only be understood by following the
course of events which gave rise to it. Hence even the
story of royal and baronial quarrels, to which we must
next turn, has in it an element of nobility ; since out of
these quarrels there was to arise something as noble and
enduring as even the work of the cathedral builders — the
system of parliamentary government, which has been the
greatest contribution of the English people to the common
stock of civilisation.
[For European history during this period see Tout, The Empire
and the Papacy, and Lodge, The Later Middle Ages ; Bryce's
Holy Roman Empire ; Milman's Latin Christianity ; Jessopp, The
Coming of the Friars. On the universities the standard book is
Rashdall, The Universities in the Middle Ages.]

CHAPTER II
THE ORGANISATION OF THE ENGLISH NATION
(a.d. 1216-1307)
Henry m., 1216: Edward 1., 1272.
§ 1. The Rise of National Feeling.
Although Magna Carta had laid it down that the king
must rule in accordance with the law, it had not (in the
form in which it was revised in 1216 and 1217) given any
definite power to the Great Council of the barons, still less
to the people as a whole. The king was still master of
the realm. But fortunately John's son, King Henry in.,
was a minor when he succeeded to the throne ; and during
the years of his minority the Great Council of barons had
to be frequently consulted, and got into the habit of taking
an important share in the management of public affairs. They
even appointed the Regent or the Justiciar who wielded the
royal power. And they set alongside of him a small council,
whose advice he had to consider ; this was the origin of the
Privy Council, and from this time onwards it was always
held that the king ought to abide by the advice of his
councillors. Of course, when the king came of age, he
chose his own councillors ; but the barons showed an in
clination to think that they ought to be consulted in the
selection of them.
The real rulers of the country in this first period were
successively two patriotic English barons, William Marshall,
Earl of Pembroke, and Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, who
were greatly helped by the wise Archbishop Stephen
Langton. They were both strong men, and de Burgh
showed great vigour in crushing the bands of foreign mer
cenaries whom John had hired, and who showed themselves
exceedingly unruly after his death. But the Justiciar and
the barons were not the only controlling powers. Since
King John had become a vassal of the Pope, the Pope
claimed to supervise the government of England, and for a
number of years his legates, Gualo and Pandulf, successively
played a large part in the government. On the whole they
95

96 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. II.
used their influence wisely ; but the growing national spirit
of the Enghsh resented their presence, and still more the
very large demands in money which the popes now began
to make on England, as a tributary kingdom.
In 1232 King Henry in. dismissed and imprisoned Hubert
de Burgh, and began to rule on his own account. For a
number of years no Justiciar, or chief minister, was appointed,
and there was no properly organised royal Council.
Henry in. was not a bad man, but he was frivolous, infirm
of purpose and incompetent, and government soon began
to fall into confusion. Three things especially led to a
great deal of grumbling, both among the barons and among
ordinary people.
In the first place, Henry welcomed to his court a large
number of foreigners of high birth, relatives of his wife and
of his mother. Large estates and the highest offices in
Church and State were bestowed upon these strangers ;
the archbishopric of Canterbury itself was given to a
turbulent young noble, Boniface of Savoy, who formed a
very poor contrast to his predecessor, the saintly Edmund
Rich. The favours shown to these foreigners intensified
the growing national spirit of England.
In the second place, Henry was eager to regain|the lands
which his father had lost in France, or at least to consoli
date the southern territories in Aquitaine which John had
retained, but which were gradually being nibbled away by
the French kings. If he had been successful in these
ambitions, no doubt there would have been little com
plaint, though Enghshmen were beginning to think that
there was no reason why their hves and money should be
spent on the king's French lands. But Henry's attempts
were badly mismanaged, and led only to humiliation.
He lost the whole of Poitou in 1242-3, and soon the French
possessions were limited to Gascony and the neighbour
ing districts.1 Even these were in a state of disorder;
they were only preserved by the energy and vigour
of the king's brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, who was Governor of Gascony from 1248 to 1253.
But Montfort had to complain bitterly of lack of support,
and of the way in which his influence was undermined by
the king. All this, added to the money lavished on foreigners,
involved high expenditure and burdensome taxation.
Lastly, the deepest dissatisfaction was caused by the
king's relations with the Pope. Pope and king formed a
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 36 (a).

ch. il] ORGANISATION OF ENGLISH NATION 97
close alliance, whereby the Pope gave full support to the
king, and in return was allowed to levy immense taxes on
the Enghsh Church, and to fill Enghsh benefices with foreign
clerics. So great was the resentment against this, that a
secret society was formed by a body of English knights to
resist by force this plundering of the country, and to prevent
the payment of tithe and other dues to the Pope's nominees
and agents. But the culmination came when Henry was
persuaded by the Pope to engage in futile and wasteful
foreign enterprises. The Pope was striving to destroy the
last relics of the power of the house of Hohenstauffen, to
which the Emperor Frederick n. had belonged, and which
had ruled both in Germany and in Southern Italy. With
the Pope's encouragement, Henry iii.'s brother, Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, was elected as Emperor in Germany. He
never had a chance of becoming real master in that divided
country, because he had no lands of his own there ; and all
that his candidature meant was that English money,
exacted from Richard's tenants, was wasted in attempts to
buy the support of faithless German nobles. Worse still,
in 1254 Henry accepted, on behalf of his second son Edmund,
a papal nomination to the throne of Sicily, though Sicily
was entirely in the possession of the Pope's enemies. The
king undertook to meet all the expenses of the war, to send
an army at once, and to pay an annual tribute. As the
king was already nearly bankrupt, this undertaking could
never be carried out, and Edmund never reigned in Sicily.
But a new horde of papal emissaries arrived to exact still
further money from the English Church, and the church
men were soon as ready to revolt as the barons and the
hard-pressed taxpayers. In addition to all this, the Prince
of North Wales was using the opportunity of the king's
weakness to extend his power, and was overrunning and
conquering the lands of the ' Marcher ' lords.
§ 2. Montfort and the First Attempt at Parliamentary
Government.
Thus the result .of Henry m.'s personal government,
1232-1258, was that the whole nation was eager to see an
end of plundering foreigners, and of reckless foreign adven
tures, and of papal exactions. The barons had made up
their minds that the king must be brought under control.
And they found a leader in Simon de Montfort,1 who had
1 There is a life of Simon de Montfort by G. W. Prothero.
VOL. I. G

98 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
come home full of rage from his government in Gascony.
Yet Simon was himself a foreigner, being the son of the
fierce French noble of the same name who had carried out
a ruthless crusade against the Albigensian heretics in
Southern France. When he had first come to England to
claim the Earldom of Leicester by right of his mother,
and had married the king's sister, he had been regarded as
just another of the devouring foreign locusts. Now he
appeared as the leader of the patriotic party, and it is very
hard to determine whether he was a genuine reformer,
or merely an able man greedy for personal power.
Popular opinion gave its judgment in his favour ; he was
revered as a martyr to liberty after his death, and has
always been regarded as one of the great builders of the
English constitution. But popular opinion is not always
right, and we shall see that there is some ground for doubt.
The baronial opposition took shape at a council of the
barons, which the king was compelled to summon at
Oxford in 1258. It is known as the ' Mad Parliament,'
but it was drily an assembly of barons and great church
men, and included no popular elements : the word ' Parlia
ment,' which means simply a ' talking ' or conference, had
for some time been applied to these meetings. To this
' talking ' nearly all the barons came in armour and with
bands of retainers, and the king had no alternative but to
give way to their demands, which are known as the
Provisions of Oxford. They set up a committee of
twenty-four to revise the whole government and its policy,
and practically, for the time being, to take over the power
of the king. They also decided that the king should have
a standing council of fifteen, whose advice he should be
bound to follow ; and that three times a year there should
be a ' Parliament ' or conference between the fifteen and
twelve of the barons.
In effect this scheme meant that the authority of the
king was to be set aside, and that a group of barons were to
take his place. It was a purely oligarchical scheme, in
which neither the ' communities ' of the shires nor the
' communities ' of the boroughs had any part. The new
government promised further reforms, but delayed so long
that a great deal of dissatisfaction was caused ; the knights
especially began to protest, and the king's eldest son, Prince
Edward, placed himself at their head, demanding additional
reforms. When the barons did issue a further scheme of
reform, it included little beyond provisions to prevent

ch. il] ORGANISATION OF ENGLISH NATION 99
encroachments on their own feudal rights. Meanwhile they
had made a treaty with France (1259), whereby all claims
to Normandy were abandoned ; they had made terms with
Wales, recognising the power of the conquering Prince
Llywelyn ; and they had abandoned the mad Sicilian scheme.
But soon a quarrel broke out among them. Montfort seems
to have alienated the other barons, either by being too
anxious for reforms, or by his domineering temper. More
and more of the barons deserted to the king's party ; and
at length, supported by a papal absolution from the neces
sity of observing his oath to accept the Provisions of Oxford,
the king decided to strike for the restoration of his authority.
The King of France, asked to arbitrate, gave his decision
(1264) wholly in favour of the Crown, declaring the Pro
visions of Oxford invalid. But the barons refused to accept
this decision, and open war broke out. The king was
defeated and made a prisoner at the battle of Lewes (1264),
and this victory put England into the hands of "Montfort.
During the years 1264 and 1265, Montfort had the chance
of showing what were his ideas of government, but it cannot
be said that his policy made them very clear. In 1264
he summoned a Parliament, to which it seems likely that
knights elected by the shire courts were summoned. But
there were still elements of opposition. Some of Mont-
fort's escaped enemies were raising troops in France. Some
of the great barons on the Welsh borders were openly in
arms against him, and attempted to release Prince Edward,
who was kept a prisoner as a hostage for his father. Most
of the barons seem to have resented Montfort's dictatorial
rule ; and he seems to have drawn his support mainly from
the Church, from the class of knights, and from the towns
men. It was to strengthen himself against this growing
opposition that in 1265 he summoned a new Parliament,
of a new type, to which he invited only twenty- three of
the barons, but most of the higher clergy, and two knights
from every shire court. Above all, he invited certain
towns which were favourable to his cause to send two
representatives apiece ; and this was the first occasion upon
which borough representatives appeared in an English
Parliament. This assembly was not a full representation
of the nation ; it was rather a congress of Montfort's sup
porters. Nevertheless it marks an important epoch in
the history of English institutions. Prince Edward, in
his prison, was watching these proceedings. Though he
was naturally opposed to Montfort's high-handed super-

ioo CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
session of the royal authority, Edward knew that reforms
were necessary, and he was impressed by the value of
Montfort's innovations. The time was soon to come when
Edward was to imitate and improve upon the ideas of his
captor. But Montfort's power did not last long enough to let it
be seen how he would have constituted the government
of England, or whether his parliamentary system was
anything more than a device for supporting his declining
authority. In 1265 Prince Edward escaped from prison,
put himself at the head of the opposition, and at the battle
of Evesham defeated and slew the great leader.
Montfort's memory was long revered as that of the
founder of English liberties. ' He stood,' says one chronicler,
' like an impregnable tower for the liberties of England ' ;
and ' thus lamentably fell the flower of all knighthood,
leaving an example of steadfastness to others.' A bad man
does not leave such a reputation ; and whether Montfort
was a quite disinterested lover of the land of his adoption
or not, at any rate some of his work was lasting. He had
helped to stimulate into existence among the English not
only a feeling of patriotism, and a strong resentment against
foreign domination, but also a desire to see the government
of the nation carried out in accordance with the nation's
will. Many of the writers of the time, chroniclers and
ballad-writers alike, express this idea ; none more strikingly
than one of the political poems which this long controversy
produced. ' If the king alone choose,' says this bold
preacher, ' he will be easily deceived. Therefore let the
community advise, and let it be known what the generality
thinks, for they know best their own laws. Since it is their
own affairs that are at stake, they will take more care, and
will act with an eye to their own peace. . . . We give the
first place to the community ; we say also that the law
rules over the king's dignity, for the law is the light
without which he who rules will wander from the right
path.' When plain men were talking in this way, we may truly
say that the idea of self-government had come ahve in
England. The unified nation which had been welded by
the despotism of the Normans and Angevins had fairly set
out on the long and difficult task of learning to control and
direct its own affairs. And that is the most important
feature in the history of England in this period.

ch. il] ORGANISATION OF ENGLISH NATION lol
§ 3. Edward I. and the Establishment of Parliament.
But the work of the reign of Henry in. consisted only of
experiments and beginnings. It was the reign of Edward I.1
which gave clear definition to the new purely national policy
and to the new national institutions. Edward 1. has been
called ' the first Enghsh king since the Norman Conquest,'
and he bore a purely Enghsh name, the name of Alfred's
successor. From WiUiam the Conqueror to Henry in. all
the kings had been more French than Enghsh, and cared
as much for their French as for their Enghsh lands.
Edward 1. cared only for England, and from the outset of
his reign abandoned the intention of trying to regain the
lost French dominions of Henry 11., though he was ready to
fight to maintain these which still remained.
It was partly because he was so thorough an English
man that Edward was admired and loved by his subjects
as none of his predecessors and very few of his suc-
cessors# ever were. But it was also because he was a
splendid man, and an admirable ruler. Tall, deep-chested,
long of limb, he was hardened to every kind of exercise,
and was the equal of any knight in the field. But he was
also a skilful general, and a very cool-headed and practical
organiser. He was brave, obstinate and domineering ; he
could be very ruthless when angry, and it is recorded that
a priest dropped dead of sheer terror, caused by the sight
of the king's wrath ; but except in moments of passion, he
was generally merciful — ' No man ever asked mercy of me
in vain,' he boasted at the end of his hfe. He was scrupu
lously loyal to his plighted word, living up to his motto,
pactum serva, ' keep troth ' ; but he was apt to interpret
his obligations by the letter of the law, and to insist upon the
tenor of his bond as strictly as Shylock. He had in fact
the mind of a lawyer in the body of a hero of tournaments,
and this was a happy combination at a time when England
needed to have her laws defined and organised, but needed
also to be governed with a masterful hand. It is not
wonderful that such a king should be able to command
the affectionate loyalty of a nation that was just awakening
to a keen sense of its own nationhood.
Edward's greatest gift to England was the definite
organisation of Parliament. His actual reign did not begin
until 1274, for he was absent on crusade when his father
1 There is a good short life of Edward 1. by T. F. Tout, in the Twelve
Enghsh Statesmen Series.

102 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. h.
died. But his very first Parliament, in 1275, was a very
full representation of every element in the life of the nation,
such as had never been seen before. Barons, bishops, and
abbots were there, as in the old Great Council ; two knights
from every shire were there, as in several Parliaments of
Henry ni.'s reign. But more important, there were two
burgesses not merely from a few selected towns, as in De
Montfort's Parliament, but from every city and borough,
summoned by a general writ through the sheriffs ; and thus
the elements of the future House of Commons were for the
first time assembled. Finally, the Church was fully repre
sented. Thus all the most important elements in the
realm were represented in a single national body.
But this very full kind of Parliament, this formal confer
ence of the whole nation, was not frequently held, but only
on solemn occasions. The next occasion after 1275 was
in 1295, when the peril of a French invasion at the same
time as the Scottish war produced a crisis in the national
fortunes. Then, once more, a complete Parliament was-
called — even more complete in some respects that that of
1275. In one of the writs by which it was summoned, Edward
made a remarkable appeal to the patriotism of his subjects,
telling them that the French king wished to extirpate
the English language, and that the whole nation must
combine against the common danger. ' What touches all,'
he announced in a memorable phrase, ' must be approved
by all.'
But for all that, Edward was often content to call a
Parliament consisting only of the barons, or of the barons
and the knights of the shires, and sometimes he only con
vened special groups, or the representatives of part of the
country, to deal with questions which he chose to regard
as specially concerning them. It was the king who decided
when and on what questions he would consult the repre
sentatives of the nation. Nor did he allow them great
powers ; he held too high a view of the royal prerogative
for that. Parliament did not make the laws ; they were,
according to the regular phrase which accurately represents
the facts, ' made by the king with the advice of his Council,
and the assent of Parliament ' : all the long list of Edward's
laws were very genuinely the work of the king, with the
aid of his own selected ministers, and especially of his
Chancellor, Robert Burnell. They were merely accepted
by Parliament, which scarcely ever raised objections.
The chief function of Parliament, in Edward's view, was

CH. il] ORGANISATION OF ENGLISH NATION 103"
the voting of taxes ; indeed, that was practically the only
work in which the knights and burgesses had any real share.
And even here their share was but small. Normally the
king was able to ' live of his own,' on sources of revenue
with which Parhament had nothing to do — the rents of
royal estates, feudal dues, the profits of the courts, and
' tallages ' or special dues levied on towns at the king's
pleasure. It was only when the necessities of war demanded
extra funds that Parliament was asked to vote special^
grants. Even over the customs duties on trade Parlia
ment had no control. It is true that in the Parliament of
1275 the customs payable on wool and leather (the chief
exports of England) were defined. But this was not a grant
from Parhament ; the king had always received these dues,
and now in his orderly way he drew up a statute to regulate
and define their amount ; but he did not imagine that he
was abandoning the right to levy these dues without Parlia
ment's consent, or even to increase them. In the great
crisis of 1294-7 Edward increased the exactions on wool
to an unheard-of extent, without consulting Parhament ;
and it was only with difficulty that he was persuaded, in
1297, to agree to a clause in the Confirmation of Charters,
whereby he promised that no excessive duties of that kind
should be imposed in the future. Duties on imported goods
also (later known as tonnage and poundage) he held to
be entirely his own concern, and he fixed the rates at which
they were to be paid, by agreement with the foreign
merchants, without ever consulting Parliament. So that
the Parhament which Edward 1. created was far from being
the controlling body in the government : that position
still belonged very definitely to the king. But it was at
least a great thing that a body had been brought into
existence which represented the whole nation, and through
which the king could feel the nation's pulse.
§ 4. The Lawyer-King as National Leader.
Edward 1. was a very great lawgiver, and his statutes
covered almost the whole range of national life : the main
tenance of order, the system of national defence, the regu
lation of trade, the organisation of the law courts, the posi
tion of the Church, and, above all, the rules governing the
tenure of the land. It would be impossible to give a clear
idea of their character, without entering into far greater
detail than our space allows. But in general it may be

104 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
said that their object was to make clearer and more definite
the rights and duties of every class of citizens. Three points
which are illustrated in his statutes may perhaps be briefly
touched upon.
In the first place, it is plain that, though England was
probably the best governed country in Europe in that age,
there was still a great deal of turbulence and violence.
Private war between barons was not uncommon, and
brigandage was rife. It is significant that Edward found it
necessary to enact that all woods should be cut down for
two hundred yards on each side of public roads, so as to
prevent the ambushing of travellers by brigands. When
ever the king was out of the country, disorder was apt to '
break out ; and this fact is enough to show that a masterful
hand was still necessary at the centre of things, and that
anything hke parliamentary supremacy was a long way
from being possible. In his attempt to deal with disorder,
Edward adopted a very important device. He ordained
that every shire court should elect knights to act as con
servators of the peace ; and he thus began the policy of
entrusting to the lesser country gentlemen the business of
looking after local government — a policy which was to
have very important consequences in the future.
In the second place, Edward found a great deal of diffi
culty in dealing with the powers claimed by the feudal
lords, which conflicted with his idea of a strong national
government. When he tried to check feudal privileges by
instituting an inquiry into the right of their holders to have
them (quo warranto inquiries), he aroused a storm of opposi
tion, and had to give way to a considerable extent. The
greater barons were steadily diminishing in number, as
their families died out. This led, in part, to an increase
in the numbers, wealth and influence of the knights or
country gentlemen, and Edward did what he could to
encourage this process. But the decrease in the number
of barons also meant that those who were left were in many
cases richer and more powerful, having often added barony
to barony by marrying heiresses ; and this was to be a source
of great trouble in the next two centuries. The Crown
tried to reduce this danger by securing the greatest marriages
for members of the royal family, and by these means Edward's
brother Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, became an exceedingly
powerful person. He was the founder of the House of
Lancaster, which for a century to come was almost to
rival the king himself in wealth and influence ; and though

ch. n.] ORGANISATION OF ENGLISH NATION 105
Edmund remained on good terms with his brother, his
successors were not always so amenable.
Troubles with the barons, therefore, were by no means at
an end, though they were taking a new form. But the
barons now found it difficult to resist the king unless they
could associate themselves with popular discontents. They
found their great opportunity in the crisis of 1294-1297,
when popular discontent was aroused by Edward's heavy
exactions to meet the cost of the Scottish and French wars ;
and the proud king found it hard to stomach the defiance
which he then met, and the concessions which he was
forced to make in the Confirmation of the Charters. On 1
that occasion baronial opposition was useful to the nation,
because it put an end to what had been real abuses of the
royal power. But the episode showed that the barons were
still dangerous.
Lastly, in his endeavour to rule as a truly national king,
Edward found himself brought into repeated conflict with
the Church, which claimed privileges of independence of a
dangerous kind. As the lands of the Church never lapsed
through lack of heirs, like baronial estates, and as benefac
tions were constantly increasing its possessions, more and
more of the land of the country was falling into its con
trol. To put a stop to this Edward enacted the Statute
of Mortmain, which forbade the grant of land to the Church.
This naturally aroused indignation among churchmen. But
the greatest conflict of all was a financial conflict which
broke out in 1296. Pope Boniface viii. had issued a Bull
forbidding the clergy to make any grant of money to lay
princes without his consent, and Archbishop Winchelsey
used this as a ground for refusing clerical grants towards
the cost of the war with France. But this was as much as to
say that the Church was not part of the nation, and could
refuse to share in the national burdens. Edward's reply was
strong and effective. He declared the whole of the clergy
outlawed : that is to say, no protection would be given
them by the law courts. For if they would not share the
burdens, they should not have the advantages, of the
national government. The churchmen gave way. Later
the Pope ordered Edward to desist from his attacks on
Scotland, on the ground that Scotland belonged to the
Papal See. Edward left the reply to Parhament, which,
speaking for the whole nation, declared that even if the
king wished to give way to this claim the nation would
not permit him.

Io6 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. II.
Thus, in all ways, Edward i. proved himself a national
king. - He proved it in nothing so much as in his compara
tive indifference to his rights as a French feudatory, and
his strenuous activity in the attempt to extend English
power over the whole of Britain, by the conquest of Wales
and Scotland. When the French king Philip iv. on quite
unscrupulous pretexts attacked Gascony, Edward did his
best to make peace ; and although he fought to defend
his possessions, and fought on the whole successfuUy, he
never allowed the Gascon campaign to interrupt his struggle
for the mastery of Scotland. In this he fully represented
the feelings of his subjects. The barons made difficulties
about going to fight in France, but they made no difficulties
about fighting in Wales or Scotland. For they regarded
the French lands as the king's private concern, but the
conquest of all Britain was a national ambition.
[The best modern summaries of the periods are by T. F. Tout,
History of England, 1216-1377, and H. W. C. Davis, England under
the Normans and Angevins. For constitutional history Stubbs'
Constitutional History, vol. ii., is invaluable ; the first section of
Maitland's English Constitutional History gives an admirably clear
account of English institutions at the death of Edward 1. ; see also
Prothero's Simon de Montfort and Bateson's Mediceval England.
There is a good selection of extracts from the chronicles, etc., edited
by Miss Hilda Johnston, and a shorter selection is provided by
Robieson's Growth of Parliament and the War with Scotland.]

CHAPTER III
THE CONQUEST OF WALES l
Llywelyn the Great, 1 194-1245 : Llywelyn ap Gruffydd,
1246-1283.
The English were now a united nation, full of national
pride, and the result of this was that they began, under the
leadership of their national kings, to try to make conquests
at the expense of their more divided neighbours, the Welsh,
the Scots and the French. For more than a century and
a half we have now to trace a period of fiercely fought
national wars, which had a very important influence upon
the history of the islands.
Amid their rugged and beautiful mountains the Welsh
had been able to keep the English at bay during the
long centuries before the Norman Conquest. Though their
princes sometimes did homage to the English kings, and
though Enghsh armies sometimes made raids far into the
country, Wales was never conquered. On the contrary
Offa, King of Mercia, in the eighth century, had found it
necessary to build a long dyke to defend the Midlands
against Welsh raids, and Offa's Dyke long continued
to represent the boundary between two quite different
nationahties. Behind the Dyke the Welsh maintained their
own language and their own laws and customs.
They were in some ways a very rude and backward
people. Except in the low-lying lands of Anglesey, Pem
brokeshire and Glamorgan, the plough was scarcely known ;
and the people hved on the produce of their cattle and
sheep, eating little bread, but mostly milk, cheese and
meat, hke the Germans in the days of Caesar. Their rough
wooden huts were of little value, and they wore the simplest
clothing, shoes being almost unknown, except among the
rich. Hardened by constant exposure in the rough moun
tain uplands, they were very daring fighting men, excelling
especially in the use of the bow. When they were attacked,
it was easy for them to drive their cattle up into the recesses
1 For this chapter see the map of Wales, Atlas, Plate 36 (c).
107

Io8 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATI6NS [bk. II.
of the mountains ; they could leave their huts to be burned,
knowing that they could quickly rebuild them from the
wood of the forests. It was therefore a very difficult thing
to conquer Wales.
Politically the Welsh were very much divided. There
were three main provinces, Gwynedd or North Wales,
Powys or East-Central Wales, and Deheubarth or South
Wales. Of these Gwynedd had a sort of recognised leader
ship : it included the fertile and sacred Isle of Anglesey,
and the impregnable fastnesses of Snowdon. But between
the three principalities there was almost unceasing war,
and it was very rarely that the supremacy of a single
prince was recognised throughout Wales. Within the princi
palities there were many tribal divisions, and there were
constant feuds among these clans, as in the Highlands
of Scotland down to a late date. Even in the face of
English attacks these feuds were seldom dropped, and
Welsh chieftains were often to be found on the side of the
Norman or English conquerors from the time of William
the Conqueror onwards. In the end, therefore, the English
conquest was a good thing for Wales, because it brought
peace and order and systematic government. But this
need not diminish the admiration which we must feel for
the gallantry of the long resistance.
Although the Welsh were backward in the material aspects
of civilisation, they were ahead of their English neighbours
in at least one important respect. Wales was a land of
poets and singers ; and none were more honoured among
them than the bards, who were always welcome in the rude
hospitable halls of the chieftains, and who kept alive delight
in the beauty of Nature, and the memory of gallant deeds
in the past. Especially did they hand down the stories
of the long fight against the Teutonic invaders ; and the
legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table, which later became the delight of all Europe, took
shape in the ever-growing lays of the Welsh bards. The
great age of Welsh poetry came in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, when the national spirit of the Welsh was stirred
to enthusiasm by the successes of the great princes of that
period in the struggle for independence.
The Conquest of Wales began with the coming of
the Normans to England. In order to bridle the wild
mountaineers, WiUiam the Conqueror and his successors
allowed to the great barons whom they estabhshed on the
Welsh borders or ' marches,' a far greater degree of inde-

ch. in.] THE CONQUEST OF WALES 109
pendence than was permitted to their feUows elsewhere,
and encouraged them to undertake the subjugation of the
country : throughout the mediaeval period the ' Marcher
Lords,' as they were called, continued to be the most war
like and restless of the baronage. In the generation follow
ing 1066, it looked as if this policy was going to lead to the
complete conquest of Wales. In the north the powerful
Earls of Chester overran the modern county of Flint, and
often extended their power as far west as the river Conway ;
but they were never able to subdue the wild country of
Snowdon, and, though they built many castles to secure
their conquests, the unconquered hosts of Gwynedd con
tinually sallied forth and drove them back. In the centre
the Montgomeries, Earls of Shrewsbury, pressed into the
region of Powys, much of which became largely Anglicised :
the fact that one of the Welsh counties still bears the name
of Montgomery is a sign of their work. In the eastern part
of these lands they, and other border barons, built many
castles. But Powys, like Gwynedd, was never completely
subdued, though no part of it remained so continuously free
from Enghsh or Norman influence as Gwynedd. In the
south a whole series of Norman barons carved out estates
for themselves, and there is no part of the British Islands
where castles are so numerous as in Monmouth, Glamorgan,
Radnor and the South Welsh coast. At the beginning of
the twelfth century the rich lands of Pembrokeshire were
so completely conquered by the barons of the house of
Clare, that they were settled with Enghsh and Flemish
colonists, lost their Welsh character altogether, and became „
a ' httle England beyond Wales.'
But the rapid Norman successes during the generation fol
lowing 1066 roused to ardour the patriotism of the Welsh,
and, except in the south, the tide of Anglo-Norman conquest
received a set-back during the twelfth century. In vain did
Wilham n. and Henry 1. lead expeditions into Wales ; they
were never able to secure any permanent mastery. Even
Henry n. could not conquer the indomitable mountaineers,
and towards the end of his reign (Council of Oxford, 1177),
he was fain to be content with the formal homage of the
principal Welsh chieftains, leaving their customs and modes
of hfe undisturbed. The spirit of Welsh national patriot
ism had been strengthened by resistance to the conquerors.
When Henry n. led a formidable expedition into Wales in
1163, it is recorded that he asked a wise old Welsh chieftain
what he thought would be its result. ' I doubt not,' was

no CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
the reply, ' that now, as oftentimes of yore, this race of
mine may be brought low and much broken by the might
of English arms. Yet the wrath of man, if God's anger
be not added, wiU never utterly destroy it. For I am per
suaded that no other race than this, and no other tongue
than this of Wales, happen what may, will answer in the
great day of judgment for this little comer of the earth.'
The old man prophesied well. For Wales has remained a
distinct little nation even though it has been brought under
the same government as its greater neighbours.
The long absence of Richard i., and the anarchy of John's
reign, and the continual disturbance of the reign of Henry in.
gave to the patriotism of Wales a chance of expressing
itself. The chief hero of this period was the Prince of
Gwynedd or North Wales, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, sometimes
called Llywelyn the Great (1194-12457'.' He forced all the
Welsh chieftains to do homage to him, and so made himself
the head of the Welsh nation. He annexed Powys, greatly
reduced the power of the Marcher Lords, and forced even
the English-speaking district of Pembrokeshire to do
homage to him. And although he several times did homage
to the King of England, he was able to meet English armies
on equal terms, and was left to enjoy practical independ
ence almost throughout his long reign. Inspired by his
triumph, the bards of all Wales sang his praises, and Welsh
poetry underwent a great revival. He was the ' eagle of
men,' the ' devastator of England ' ; ' the sound of his
coming,' they sang, ' is like the roar of the wave as it rushes
to the shore ' ; and old prophecies of Merlin, the bard of
Arthur's court, were recalled and believed to refer to him.
There was an interval of confusion after the death of
Llywelyn the Great, but soon his place was taken by another
vigorous prince, his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (1246-
1283). Taking advantage of the strife between Henry in.
and the barons, the second Llywelyn was able to carry his
power to an even greater height than his predecessor. He
conquered a large part of the lands of the Marcher Lords.
He made alliance on equal terms with Simon de Montfort
(1265), on 'the basis of a recognition of all his conquests.
And even when the party of Montfort was defeated, he was
able to obtain in 1267 a treaty whereby he was recognised
as Prince of Wales — a title never before conceded to any
Welsh prince by the Enghsh kings— and as feudal superior
of all the Welsh chieftains, on condition of doing homage
to the King of England and paying a small tribute. For

ch. in.] THE CONQUEST OF WALES in
ten years his power remained almost undisturbed, except
by the treacherous intrigues of his brother David.
But the accession of Edward I. brought a change.
Llywelyn feared and distrusted the new king, who had
shown during Henry in.'s reign much unwiUingness to
accept the growth of Welsh independence. The ceremony
of homage was put off from year to year ; the tribute was
left unpaid. And at length, in 1276, two years after he
assumed the reins of power in England, Edward resolved to
organise an expedition for the final overthrow of the Welsh
prince. All the Marcher barons were glad to seize the
chance of breaking Llywelyn's power : even the prince's
own brother David joined the English king. A simul
taneous onslaught, by land and sea, from the south, the
centre and the north, was organised ; and in November
1277 Llywelyn was forced to make a peace (treaty of
Conway), by which he lost all his conquests, and was con
fined to the region west of the river Conway, correspond
ing to the modern counties of Anglesey, Carnarvon and
Merioneth. This was not the end of the struggle. In 1282 a revolt
suddenly broke out in the districts which had been taken
from Llywelyn, and spread rapidly over Mid and South
Wales. Llywelyn could not resist the temptation to throw
in his lot with the rebels ; and so a second elaborate Welsh
campaign had to be undertaken. But the most desperate
resistance was helpless against the English forces closing
in on aU sides. Llywelyn himself was killed in an obscure
skirmish in the south, and with his death all hope of success
vanished. Llywelyn left no son. His treacherous brother
David, who had begun the last revolt, was captured and
executed as a traitor. The triumphant lays of the bards
were turned to sadness as they saw Wales lie at the mercy
of the conqueror. ' O God ! ' cried one of them, ' O God !
would that the sea might engulf the land ! Why are we
left to long-drawn weariness ? '
To a certain extent Edward 1. recognised the distinctness
of Wales from England. He made no attempt to include
Welsh representatives in the English Parliament. He left
undisturbed many Welsh laws, such as the laws of succes
sion to land. When his son was born at Carnarvon in
April 1284, he presented the infant to the people as a prince
who could not speak a word of English ; and in 1301 the
boy was created Prince of Wales, as a concession to"Welsh
national sentiment ; the title has ever since been borne by

112 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
the heir to the crown. But Edward was determined that
Wales should never again be independent. He secured
the conquered territories by building a series of great
castles, Conway, Carnarvon, Beaumaris, Criccieth and
Harlech. He encouraged the growth of towns and of
industry. He introduced the English shire system, with
its sheriffs, baUiffs and shire courts, into about half of the
country, aU the land which was under his direct control
being divided into counties on the English model.1 The
other half remained under the feudal jurisdiction of the
Marcher Lords.
Wales was conquered, but not Anglicised. It remained
a nation, living its life apart ; though it now enjoyed a
growing prosperity, due to the banishing of the old cease
less clan wars. National feeling continued to be strong,
as was shown by the extraordinary enthusiasm with which
the rising of Owen Glendower was supported in the years
1401-1406.2 It was not until after a Welsh line of kings
had ascended the English throne in 1485, that Wales was
politicaUy incorporated in England ; and even then, and
down to the present day, it remains a distinct little nation,
with its own traditions and its own language and customs,
which no one has ever attempted to destroy, living in friendly
partnership with its greater neighbours.
[J. E. Lloyd's History of Wales (2 vols.) is the standard history
down to the reign of Edward 1. O. M. Edwards' Wales (Story of
the Nations) ; see also Little, Medieval Wales!]
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 36 (c), where these arrangements are shown.
2 See below, Chap, vii., p. 161.

CHAPTER IV
THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND
David i., 1124: Malcolm, 1153: William, 1165: Alexander
11., 1214: Alexander in., 1249: Margaret, 1286: John
Balliol, 1292 : Robert 1., 1306: David 11., 1329.
§ 1. The Development of the Scottish Monarchy.
After the conquest of Wales, the national spirit of England
next expressed itself in an attempt to subjugate Scotland.
The result was to create among the Scots, hitherto a much
divided people, a prickly spirit of- national pride, and to
initiate a long series of wars which lasted for more than
three hundred years, and only came to an end when a
Scottish king succeeded to the English throne in 1603.
Scotland was a smaU, barren and thinly peopled country ;
yet there was no country in Europe more divided in race
and language. The south-east, between the Forth and
the Tweed, which had formerly been part of the English
kingdom of Northumbria, was mainly English in race, and
whoUy English in speech : it had only been a part of the
Scottish realm since 1018. The south-west, between the
Clyde and the Solway, was almost purely Celtic in race,
though it had recently become English-speaking ; and it
had till the eleventh century formed a distinct State. Gal
loway, in the extreme south-west, was of Gaelic race and
speech. North of the Forth and Clyde the people were
mainly of Celtic blood. But along the north-eastern coast,
from Fife to Elgin, there had been many English, Danish
and Norman settlers, and these regions had begun to be
English-speaking, whUe the western and central Highlands
were stUl purely Gaelic-speaking. In the extreme north,
in Caithness and the Orkneys and Shetlands, the popula
tion was largely Norse; and the islands of the west had
long been ruled by Norsemen. How was a united nation
to be made out of these conflicting elements ?
The first step was taken during the reign of David I.
(1124-1153), who brought into Scotland many Norman
vol. 1. H

114 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
nobles, introduced with their aid a feudal mode of organisa
tion in a large part of the country, strengthened and en
riched the Church, founded many free boroughs, and tried
to diminish the endless tribal discord by reproducing in
Scotland the English system of county government under
royal sheriffs, and by substituting trial by jury for the old
blood-feud and trial by battle. From David's time onwards
Norman barons were among the chief magnates of the
country, and the more powerful clan chieftains tended to
imitate their methods of rule. But these Norman barons
were mostly also landowners in England, and therefore
could not feel an exclusive Scottish patriotism. Moreover
the Enghsh kings claimed a feudal superiority over Scotland.
It is certain that most of the Scottish kings, from the time
of Edward the Elder onwards, had rendered some sort of
homage to the King of England ; but their homage was
generally for lands which they held in England, or for parts
of Scotland which had formerly been under English rule.
The only case in which the English king was definitely
recognised as feudal superior of the whole realm of Scotland
was when William the Lion was taken prisoner by Henry ii.
(1174) ; but he bought back his independence from Richard 1.
in 1189. The question of the feudal relationship between
England and Scotland was an extremely complicated one,
and the English kings never wholly abandoned their claims.
But it was not a very important question : the reaUy
important question was whether a sense of national unity
was going to grow up in divided Scotland. For if this
happened, and as soon as it happened, it must become
impossible for the destinies of Scotland to be decided by
technicalities of feudal law.
During the reigns of David's sons, Malcolm (1153-1165)
and William the Lion (1165-1214), some advance was made :
the Southern Hebrides were conquered from the Norse
men, and the system of justice was improved. The reign
of Alexander n. (1214-1249) was honourably distinguished
in the annals of Scotland as a reign of peace. His successor,
Alexander in. (1249-1286), who married a sister of Edward 1.
of England, won a splendid victory over the Norsemen at
Largs (1263), finally drove them out of the Hebrides, and
compelled the chieftains of the Isles to recognise him as
their king. Although the island chieftains, and especially
the great Macdonald Lords of the Isles, long remained very
independent, they were henceforth subjects of the kingdom
of Scotland. The kingdom had therefore practically reached

CH. iv.] THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND ±15
its fuU extent, though the Orkneys and Shetlands were not
acquired until 1469.
§ 2, Edward I.'s Attempt to subjugate Scotland.
In 1285 Scotland had enjoyed more than a century of
comparative peace and steadUy improving government,
and her widely different peoples were learning to live
together. But their unity still depended mainly upon the
vigour of their king. And unfortunately, when Alexander
in. was kiUed by the fall of his horse from a cliff in 1286,
he left behind him no sons. His daughter (who was also
Edward i.'s niece) had married the King of Norway, but
had died in giving birth to a daughter, Margaret. This
infant of two years old, known as the Maid of Norway,
was the heiress to the Scottish throne, and was formally
recognised as queen at a solemn meeting of the Scottish
baronage. If she had lived the union of England and Scot
land might have been peaceably brought about, for Edward 1.
had conceived the idea of marrying her to the infant Prince
of Wales. But she died on the voyage from Norway (1290) ;
and at once Scotland was plunged into civU war between
the adherents of various claimants to the Scottish throne.
The chief claimants, John BaUiol and Robert Bruce,
were both Norman barons, with" lands and interests in
England as weU as Scotland. Both were descended from
daughters of Wilham the Lion. The friends of both appealed
to Edward 1. to support their claims. Edward saw in
this situation an opportunity for establishing the feudal
superiority of the English crown over Scotland. He came
with an army to the Tweed in 1291, and proclaimed himself
Lord Paramount. The chief Scottish barons (many of whom,
like the claimants, were half English) admitted his supre
macy. The community of Scotland, we are told, protested
in vain : Edward heard the claims, and in 1292 gave his
award in favour of John BaUiol, whose claiiri was indeed
the best.
The new king was compeUed to do homage, but Edward
meant to make his supremacy something more than a mere
form. He asserted his right to hear appeals from the
Scottish courts. He required the Scottish king to be present
at Enghsh Parliaments. He even demanded that Scottish
troops should be sent to fight on the Enghsh side in France.
BaUiol could not resist the growing anger of his subjects.
He made an alliance with France (1295), which was to last

n6 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
for nearly three hundred years, and openly defied the
English king. But he was swiftly defeated and dethroned,
and now Edward claimed that Scotland had lapsed to him
because of the treason of her king, and proceeded to under
take the direct government of the country. He carried off
the sacred crowning-stone from Scone, on which the
patriarch Jacob was believed to have laid his head on the
night when he saw the angels' ladder ; the stone was buUt
into the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, on which
every English ruler since that date has been enthroned.
All the Scottish nobles took an oath of aUegiance. AU
the castles were occupied and garrisoned by Enghshmen,
and English nobles were appointed to the chief offices
of state. It seemed, by 1296, as if Scotland had been
definitely subjugated.
§ 3. The Scottish Resistance under Wallace and Bruce.
But although the leading nobles accepted the situation,
the common people and the lesser gentry bitterly resented
the Enghsh supremacy ; and they found a wonderful leader
in Sir WiUiam Wallace, younger son of a smaU laird of
Renfrewshire. WaUace won his fame in a series of out
law raids against the Enghsh.1 We know very little about
his earher adventures. But we know that by the summer
of 1297 he had stirred the greater part of the country into
open rebellion, and men eager for the destruction of the
English power were flocking to his standard. In September
1297 he won a brilliant victory over the Enghsh governor,
Warenne, at Stirling Bridge. During the next few months
the greater part of the country was rid of its conquerors,
and Wallace and his men were harrying Northumberland
with the utmost ferocity. In 1298 Wallace declared him
self Guardian of the Realm, on behalf of the exiled and
deposed BaUiol. But this seemed presumption in the eyes
of the Scottish nobles, for WaUace was only a humble
knight. Most of them— especially Robert Bruce, who
himself hoped for the crown — joined the English side.
Edward was not the man to let his conquest slip from his
grasp. He marched into Scotland with a large army, and
in July 1298, at Falkirk, destroyed WaUace's army of
spearmen, mainly by tne~terrible fire of the Enghsh archers,
whose value in battle was now first established.
But the Scottish rising was a national revolt, and
1 For this chapter see the map, Atlas, Plate 36 (d).

ch. iv.] THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND 117
was not to be crushed by a single battle. Edward was
unable to pursue his success, because he had at the same
time a war with France and a quarrel with his Parha
ment on his hands. For five years a Council of Regency,
formed by some of the leading Scottish nobles, made a pre
tence of ruling the country — WaUace, the mere knight,
falling into the background. But in 1303 Edward was
able to return, with another large army, and subjugate the
much ravaged country. Once more the nobles abandoned
the national cause, and made their peace ; and Edward,
anxious for a settlement, offered pardon to all save ' Messire
WiUiam le Waleys,' who stiU strove to keep the struggle
for national independence ahve. WaUace - was captured
and betrayed for a reward by Sir John Monteith, and in
1305 was hanged, drawn and quartered in London. His
desperate heroism seemed to have failed. But he had
awakened a nation, and the Scots who had with Wallace
bled were not now likely to submit to his conqueror. ' The
ravens had not pyked his bones bare before the Scots were
up again for freedom.'
Their new leader was Robert_Bruce, grandson of the
claimant of 1291. A Norman baron, with large estates in
England as weU as in South- Western Scotland, he had
alternately supported and opposed Edward, and had
hitherto seemed to be governed by nothing but personal
ambition. Now he saw a chance of using the smouldering
anger of the Scots to seize the crown for himself. At the
beginning of 1306 he seems to have tried to enlist in his
conspiracy the Red Comyn, a powerful baron of the North,
and a rival claimant to the throne, who had been one of
the leaders of the Scottish resistance from 1298 to 1304,
but had then made his peace with the English king. Bruce
and Comyn had an interview in the Grey Friars' Church at
Durnfries, in February 1306. No one knows what passed
at the interview ; but the end of it was that Bruce slew
Comyn before the high altar. For such a deed there could
be no hope of pardon ; Bruce knew that he must either
lead a national revolt to victory, or perish hke WaUace.
It was a bad beginning ; and although some of the nobles
and some of the bishops (in spite of a papal excommuni
cation) joined Bruce, all the friends of Comyn, who were
numerous and powerful, took up arms against him, while
Edward prepared a new expedition. Bruce was hastily
crowned at Scone. But he had only a smaU force, which
was promptly defeated near Perth by an English army.

118 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
His queen was captured ; one of his brothers was executed ;
and he himself had to flee into the wUd west country, where
he spent a desperate winter, hunted among the hiUs by
enemies on aU hands.
The early part of Bruce's career was discreditable ; but
in this time of trial he showed himself a great man and a
great leader, dauntless in adversity, full of resource, a daring
and skilful captain, able to inspire his followers with enthu
siastic devotion. And some of the captains who gathered
round him, Edward Bruce, and the Black Douglas, and
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, were pure heroes of
romance. We cannot here foUow their thriUing ad
ventures : they are spiritedly told in Scott's Tales of
a Grandfather. In 1307 Bruce had landed again in
his own country of Ayrshire, and was fighting with a
mobile httle force there and in GaUoway. MeanwhUe the
great Edward of England was drawing near, with an iron
resolution to destroy him and a mighty force to back bis
will. But before Edward had even crossed the border
he died, at Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle. His weakling
son, Edward 11., gave up the expedition after a quite futile
march into Scotland ; and a second expedition in 1311 was
equally ineffective.
§ 4. Bannockburn and the Establishment of Independence.
Throughout his reign, indeed, Edward n. was distracted
by unceasing disputes with his barons, of which we shaU
have something to say in another place. And the result
was that Bruce was left free, during seven years, to over
come his Scottish enemies, and to conquer one after another v
the castles, with their English garrisons, by means of which
the country was held in control.1 We cannot trace this
exciting story ; but by 1314 every castle had fallen save
Stirling, which, because it controUed the passage from the
Highlands to the Lowlands, was regarded as the key of
Scotland. To relieve this fortress and preserve the last
chance of subjugating Scotland, a huge English army, in
cluding levies from Ireland and Wales and the chivalry of
Aquitaine, advanced through the Lowlands. Bruce, with
inferior numbers, met them on June 24, 1314, on the field
of Bannockburn, to the south-east of Stirling, and won a
glorious'victory, which secured the independence of Scot
land. Eight years earlier the cause of Scottish freedom
1 See the maps, Atlas, Plate 36 (d) and 39.

ch. iv.] THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND 119
had seemed an utterly forlorn hope ; but the gallantry of
Brace and his captains, backed by the resolution of a now
united people, and helped by the incompetence of Edward n.,
had redeemed a desperate chance. The Scots had become
an indomitable nation ; Bannockburn had made it clear
that if ever the peoples of the islands were to be united,
it must not be by conquest, but by an equal partnership.
The war, indeed, did not end with Bannockburn, for
fourteen years passed before the results of the great battle
were recognised by treaty. Merciless Scottish raids into
England filled the next years, and the border country was
desolated, as it was so often to be during the next three
centuries. Encouraged by the success of the Scots, the
Welsh broke into a revolt, which it took hard fighting to
subdue. The Irish also rebeUed, and offered the crown to
Brace's brother Edward, who, during the years 1315-1318,
devastated the country, until he was killed in battle. The
only result of this expedition was /to weaken permanently
the Enghsh power in Ireland, and to plunge that unhappy
country into a lasting anarchy. After the fall of Edward 11.
a fierce Scottish invasion of Northern England brought on
a new bout of heavy fighting, in which the Scots had much
the better ; and in March 1328 peace was at last concluded,
the English king definitely abandoning aU claims upon the
Scottish crown, and acknowledging Bruce as king. Next
year (1329) Robert Bruce died, leaving to his infant son,
David n., the throne of the united Scottish nation, which
he had done so much to make.
But the troubles of Scotland were not yet at an end.
Torn asunder by a whole generation of incessant warfare,
the unhappy land was impoverished and largely depopu
lated, while its nobles and gentry had acquired a habit of
fighting, which made them very difficult to keep in restraint.
An infant king could not cure these ills ; and the quarrels
of the nobles who desired to act as regents only made them
worse. Moreover many nobles who had opposed Bruce
had lost their estates and been exiled to England ; they
inevitably plotted for revenge, and in spite of the treaty
of 1328 the English king, now the ambitious and warlike
Edward in., was very ready to give them his backing.
In 1332 John BaUiol's son Edward, with a number of exiled
nobles of the BaUiol and Comyn parties, made a sudden
raid in English ships upon Northern Scotland. They landed
in the Tay, beat the regent at Dupphn Moor, and seized
Perth. Edward BaUiol got himself crowned at Scone,

120 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS Lbk. ii.
and in order to obtain English support acknowledged
Edward in. as his liege lord. He was soon driven out of
Scotland again by the patriot party. But next year,
I333. an English army came to his assistance, and inflicted
a disastrous defeat upon the Scots at Halidon Hill, near
Berwick. This gave the English party fof~a™time the upper
hand. The young King David had to be sent to France
for safety, and Edward BaUiol actually ceded to the English
king aU the south-eastern counties, from Edinburgh to
Berwick. But this monstrous surrender destroyed aU
chance of his being accepted by the Scots. Desperate and
confused fighting went on during the next few years, and
at some moments it looked as if, despite all the labours of
WaUace and Bruce, Scotland was going to be subjugated by
English arms. What saved the situation was the outbreak
of war between France and England, which made it impos-"
sible for Edward in. to devote his strength to the conquest
of Scotland. In 13J.1 King David thought it safe to return
from France, and from that date onward it may be said
that the independence of Scotland was never in perU.
David n. , unfortunately, was a foolish and reckless ruler.
In the hope of helping his French allies, he invaded England
in the year of the battle of Cressy, and was defeated and
taken prisoner at Neville's Cross, near Durham (13^6) . He
remained in captivity till 1357, and the impoverished
country had to pay a heavy ransom for his release. In his
absence desperate feuds among the nobles tore unhappy
Scotland asunder ; nor was there much improvement after
his return. In 1371 he died, and the direct line of Robert
Bruce came to an end. His successor, Robert n., was the '
son of Bruce's daughter, and the first of the tragic house of
Stewart. With the appearance of that historic dynasty we
may perhaps close for the present the restless and warlike
story of Scotland. Wars and intrigues among the Scottish
nobles stiU went on ; border frays with the English were
stiU unceasing, and for two centuries to come there was no
peace along the frontier lines, where every house had to be
fortified, and every man had to be at all times ready to
defend himself in arms. But this border fighting did not
seriously disturb the situation, though its story is full of
romantic episodes like the wild fight of Otterburn in 1388,
which gave birth to the great ballad of Chevy Chase. Indeed
the most valuable product of all this wild work was the
wonderful ballad literature, which can be studied in Percy's
Reliques and in Scott's collection of ballads.

ch. iv.] THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND 121
In truth the independence of Scotland had been securely
estabhshed. Behind the screen of the border fighting clans,
the Scotts and the Kers, the EUiots and the Armstrongs,
she lived her own rude and turbulent life, and through
many troubles was moulding her own strenuous, dogged
and gallant national character. Scotland was poor, thinly
peopled and disorderly ; but there were great qualities
in the little nation that had been welded in the fires of war.
On the surface it may appear to have been a misfortune that
Great Britain should have lost the chance of complete unity
which seemed to be so near in the time of Edward 1. ; yet
the distinctive qualities bred in the Scots by their long
struggle for freedom were to form a great contribution in
the future to the common life of the islands, and it was a
good thing that they should be left free to develop in their
own way. The peoples out of which the British Common
wealth was to grow were not to be a single unified nation,
but a brotherhood or partnership of free and different
nations. It took them a long time to learn to live together
in peace and mutual respect, but the lesson was worth
learning, and it had great effects.
[Hume Brown's or Andrew Lang's History of Scotland (vol. i.).
Scott's Tales of a Grandfather are still eminently worth reading.
The story of the battle of Bannockburn has been reconstructed in
Mackintosh's Bannockburn.]

CHAPTER V
THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE
§ i. The Motives of the Attempt.
It had been the dream of Edward I., one of the greatest
of English kings, to unite aU the peoples of the islands
under a single rule, and he had come near to success. Al
though he never visited Ireland, a mass of documents shows
that he did not neglect Irish business : the supremacy of
the English crown was recognised throughout that country,
and there was no period of the Middle Ages when the final
triumph of English over Celtic civilisation seemed nearer
at hand. But under the flaccid rule of Edward n. (1307-
1327) the authority of the English crown in Ireland rapidly
declined ; before long it was hmited to a smaU district near
Dublin, which was known as the Pale. From Edward 1. down
to the end of the mediaeval period, though there were frequent
mUitary expeditions, the control of the Enghsh govern
ment over Ireland was almost negligible. Again Edward 1.
had, we have seen, conquered Wales, though without
destroying the distinctive Welsh nationality. But his suc
cessors throughout the rest of the Middle Age did nothing
at aU to make the relations of the two countries more inti
mate. FinaUy, Edward 1. had twice conquered Scotland,
and if he had lived ten years longer might have subju
gated it completely. But the frivolity and incompetence of
Edward n. allowed Bruce to establish Scottish independ
ence ; and although the warlike Edward in. very nearly
succeeded in achieving his grandfather's ambition, he
aUowed himself to be drawn off to other enterprises before
the task was accomplished. The unity of the islands had
seemed to be within grasp at the end of the thirteenth
century ; at the end of the fourteenth it seemed quite
beyond realisation.
This faUure was due in the first place to the weakness and
foUy of Edward n. But his successor, Edward in., might
have taken up the idea again, and perhaps carried it to
m

ch. v.] FIRST ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE 123
success ; instead, he was tempted to engage in fraitless
enterprises of conquest in France, which led to a hundred
years of foreign warfare, and in many ways, as we shaU
see, changed the course of Enghsh history.
It was partly the character of Edward in. that led him
into these adventures, but stiU more the spirit of the age.
For the ruling classes of aU Europe in the fourteenth century
were influenced by a sort of spurious chivalry, which
rejoiced in war for its own sake as the most knightly of aU
occupations, and counted it greater honour to win glory
in fighting, for whatever cause, than to give happiness or
justice to the mass of labouring men and women. The
spirit of this decaying chivalry is wonderfully rendered in
Froissart's Chronicles of the English Wars in France} and
the reader of that fascinating book, who is at first likely
to be captivated by the glamour of knightly deeds and
knightly courtesies, wiU presently be chiUed and disgusted
by the total indifference of these gay and valiant knights
to the misery and suffering which they inflicted upon the
poor. In their eyes the peasant or the citizen was a mean
soul, for whom no consideration was demanded, and who
existed only to render possible the splendours of knightly
adventure. Edward in., who founded the most noble order
1 of Knights of the Garter in honour of the fair Countess
of Salisbury, thought nothing of breaking his pledged word
to the burgesses of Parliament, and was only with difficulty
persuaded by the implorings of his queen to spare the hves
of the merchants of Calais, who came out from the besieged
city to beg his mercy. His son, the Black Prince, the most
gallant and chivalrous knight of his age, waited humbly as
a servitor on the captive King of France, after the battle
of Poitiers ; but he thought it an equaUy chivalrous thing
to squander the hves and revenues of Englishmen in restor
ing to the throne which he had justly forfeited the treacher
ous tyrant, Pedro the Cruel of Castile ; and he saw nothing
unchivalrous in ordering the cold-blooded massacre of
three thousand men, women and children of Limoges, who
had angered him by defending their city. Wars under
taken in such a spirit could bring no lasting benefit even to
the conquerors ; and the men who conducted them, daring
and brilliant fighters as they Were, could achieve no per
manent results. The victories they won were often of a
dazzling brilliance ; but they appear profitless and even
sordid against the background of utter misery and poverty
* There is an abridged edition included in the Globe Library.

124 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
which resulted from them. Yet because these wars deeply
affected the future fortunes of the islands, both for good
and UI, it is necessary to say something about them.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century the French
monarchy had been altogether overshadowed by its great
vassals, and especiaUy by the Angevin rulers of England,
who held more than half of the kingdom of France. But
during the thirteenth century, whfle the Enghsh were
achieving national unity, and while the once powerful
kingdom of Germany was falling into confusion, a suc
cession of great kings, Phihp Augustus, Louis ix. and -
Phihp the Fair, had buUt up the power of the French
monarchy with such rapidity and success that by 1300
it had become, beyond rivalry, the greatest power in
Europe. They had reconquered almost the whole of the
French lands of Henry 11. ; they had brought to subjec
tion most of the other great French vassals ; they even
seemed to have tamed the Papacy. Everything seemed
to combine to secure for the French kings the supreme
position in Europe. Yet their position was by no means
as strong as it appeared. Their power had grown
too rapidly to be very deeply rooted. Their conquered
feudatories were restless and ready for revolt ; and the
sense of national unity and national pride had scarcely
yet had time to take possession of the long-divided French
people. For them, as for the Scots, an ordeal of fire was
necessary to weld them into a united nation ; and in both
cases it was the attempt of the Enghsh to impose their
dominion which produced this effect.
It was inevitable that an ambitious Enghsh king should
remember that his not very distant ancestors had ruled
more than half of France. It was inevitable also that the
powerful French kings should cast longing eyes at the smaU
province in the south-west, behind Bordeaux and Bayonne,
which stiU remained in Enghsh possession. There had been
war between the two monarchies at such frequent intervals
ever since the Norman Conquest that it seemed to be in the
natural order of events ; even Edward 1., though he cared
little for his French lands, was drawn into war against his
wiU by the aggressions of Philip the Fair. Another cause
of friction was that France gave continual assistance to
the rebellious Scots : John BaUiol made an alliance with
France in 1295, and it was in France that the young King
David took refuge in 1334. Again the French kings were
striving to subjugate Flanders, which, though nominaUy a

ch. v.] FIRST ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE 125
part of France, had long been almost independent ; and
the great Flemish manufacturing cities, Ypres and Ghent
and Bruges, had intimate commercial relations with England,
for they bought two-thirds of the English wool-crop every
year. When the Flemish towns asked for Edward in.'s
help to maintain their freedom against France (1337), it
seemed wise policy to give it. Yet again, exUed claimants
to two French feudal States appeared at the Enghsh court
to beg Edward's assistance, and this was just the sort of
demand that was likely to appeal to the spurious chivalry
of the age. Finally, the direct male line of succession to
the French crown had come to an end ; and Edward in. '
could put forward a plausible claim to the succession, his
mother being the sister of the last king in the direct line.
This claim to the throne was not, indeed, the real ground
of the war. Edward in. had recognised the succession of
the reigning king, PhUip of Valois (PhUip vi.), in 1328, and
had done homage for his lands in Guienne. But the claim
to the throne could be put forward as a pretext when the
great adventure was undertaken on other grounds.
§ 2. The War and its Consequences.
It was in 1332 ^at Edward determined to attempt the
conquest of France. This was in the middle of the struggle
to estabhsh Edward BaUiol upon the throne of Scotland,
and the assistance which the French were giving to the
Scottish patriots certainly formed one of the chief reasons
for the new adventure. Edward's first idea was to form a
great league of North German and Belgian feudatories,
who were to supply troops for an attack on France in
return for substantial subsidies. They accepted the
subsidies, which necessitated heavy taxation in England ;
but they did not supply the troops. Edward himself
took an army to Flanders, but could not bring the
French to action ; and the only important event of the
first phase of the war was the sea-fight of Sluys (1330), in
which an English fleet completely destroyed a large assem
blage of French vessels. This may be described as the
first great English naval victory, though the ships engaged
were mainly merchant vessels. It gave to England the
mastery of the Narrow Seas. But no other result foUowed ;
and having spent aU his money without achieving anything,
Edward was fain to make a truce and go home. He tried
an invasion of Brittany in I3J-2, in support of a claimant to

126 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
the duchy, but again achieved nothing, and once more had
to make a truce.
At length, in 1346, nine years after the beginning of the
war, a real success was obtained. The French made an
attack upon the English province of Guienne, whose governor,
the Earl of Derby, was hard beset. In order to relieve him
Edward formed an army of some thirty thousand men. It
was an army unlike any other that had yet been seen in
European warfare, for, while it included a large number of
maUed knights, its main strength consisted of footmen,
and above all of archers, whose value had been demon
strated in the Scottish wars. Instead of taking this army
to Guienne, Edward landed at La Hogue, in Normandy, with
the idea of marching northwards to Flanders.1 But he found
all the bridges over the Seine broken, and he had to go
nearly as far as Paris before he found a bridge at Poissy.
Meanwhile the French had gathered a huge host, mainly
consisting of heavily armed feudal cavalry, but also includ
ing a number of Genoese crossbowmen and other auxiliaries.
Pursued by this great army, Edward next found himself
checked by the river Somme, which he only succeeded in
crossing in the nick of time by a ford near its mouth. On
the northern side he took station to fight, on some rising
ground near Cressy. Here was fought, on August 26, 1346,
the first of a series of famous battles which proved the superi
ority of a small force of highly-trained soldiers to over
whelmingly greater numbers of the old-fashioned feudal
cavalry. In a fierce fight, in which the brunt was borne by
the advance division of the English army commanded by
the young Prince of Wales, the number of Frenchmen slain
exceeded the total number of the English army. Among
the faUen was the romantic knight-errant, the blind King
John of Bohemia, who had come to fight for his aUy the
King of France. His crest, three ostrich feathers with the
German motto ich dien, ' I serve,' was adopted in memory
of the glorious day by the young Prince of Wales, and has
been borne by every successive holder of that title.
The battle of Cressy at one blow raised the military
prestige of the Enghsh to the highest pitch, and the simul
taneous victory at Neville's Cross, in which King David
of Scotland was taken captive, stiU further increased the
glory. Away in the south the pressure on Guienne was at
once relieved, and the Earl of Derby was able to begin
raiding and plundering the French territory. Edward
1 The route is shown in the Atlas, Plate 36 (a).

CH. v.] FIRST ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE 127
himself pushed on to Calais, which he besieged. The capture
of this town, in 1.347, &ave *° *^e Enghsh a secure hold over
the Straits of Dover, an always open gateway for new
attacks on France, and a continental market, under English
control, for the sale of English goods. For that reason it
was highly valued and jealously guarded for two hundred
years to come. A permanent garrison was maintained ;
aU inhabitants who would not swear to be loyal English
subjects were expeUed ; and Enghsh colonists were brought
to replace them.
It might have been expected that after such brilliant
successes Edward would have pursued his campaign with
the utmost vigour. Yet eight years passed before there
was any serious fighting. The king was, indeed, short of
resources ; and both England and France during this
interval were suffering terribly from the ravages of the
appalling plague known as the Black Death, which reached
England in 1348-1349. It swepFaway~at least one-third of
the population, and produced profound and incalculable
effects upon the economic condition of the country.
In 1355, however, the war was renewed. The plan of
campaign was that Edward should himself lead an expedi
tion from Calais, and his son, the Black Prince, another
from Bordeaux. The Calais expedition came to nothing,
because Edward had to hurry home to deal with an invasion
by the Scots, who now, as so often, came to the aid of their
French allies. But the Black Prince conducted with a small
army a murderous raid far into Southern France, burning
and plundering in all directions, and destroying in seven
weeks over five hundred viUages and towns. Next year
the Prince tried a repetition of his previous exploit, turning
this time northwards. But he was intercepted by an
enormously larger army, led by King John of France himself.
Defeat seemed so certain that the Prince would have
accepted any reasonable terms, but John would hear of
nothing but unconditional surrender. Under these circum
stances the battle of Poitiers was fought (1356) . It resulted in
an even more dazzling victory for the English than that
of Cressy. The French king himself was taken prisoner
and carried to England, where he shared the captivity of
King David of Scotland until a vast ransom had been
wrung out of unhappy France.
Victories won over impossible odds ! Two kings in
captivity, and two ravaged and devastated nations bled
to raise ransoms for the restoration of their worthless

128 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
monarchs ! These triumphs seemed, to the spirit of the
fourteenth century chivalry, to represent the very culmina
tion of glory. And undoubtedly they were received with
enthusiasm in England. If the wars were very costly
and led to burdensome taxation, there were compensations
in the rich plunder which English soldiers brought home
from the ruined towns of France. But what use was to
be made of these brilliant victories ? Neither Edward in.
nor his gaUant sons showed any desire to turn their successes
to any statesmanlike ends. The miserable war went on in
France. Even during a short period of truce the ravages
and plunderings of the English soldiery never ceased. For
they were now organised into bands of professional bravoes,j
known as Free Companies, and these roamed the country,
pillaging and destroying at wUl.1 The unspeakable misery
of the French peasantry expressed itself in fierce insurrec
tions, the risings of the ' Jacquerie,' while the mob of Paris
took the law into their own nands. France seemed to be
utterly ruined and undone. Yet her rulers steadily refused
to yield up to the English any part of her soil. In 1360
Edward himself led a gigantic raid across the north of
France and tried to capture Rheims, in order to be crowned
there. But he had to faU back, because the devastations of
his own army made it impossible to support himself. And
at length, in May 1360, he accepted the tieatyjrf_Bretigny,
whereby he abandoned his claim to the French crown, but
was released from the obligation to do homage for his
French dominions, which were increased by the cession of
Calais and Ponthieu in the north, and by a great enlarge
ment of his territories in the south.2
But the treaty of Bretigny did not end the war, as it was
meant to do. The horrible Free Companies, which were
entirely beyond Edward's control, continued to plunder
and devastate the country, and their activity daUy inten
sified the hatred of the French for the English. The nobles
and knights of the ceded territories refused to submit to
their transference to English rule, and broke into revolt.
A national hero, the gaUant du_Guesclin, emerged to lead
the national resistance against the English ; and when the
Black Prince undertook the adventure of restoring the
iniquitous Pedro^ the Cruel to the throne of CastUe, the
French tooklhe other side, and the old enemies met once
1 A good impression of this aspect of the war is conveyed by Sir A.
Conan Doyle's stirring tale, The White Company.
2 See the map, Atlas, Plate 36 (a).

CH. v.] FIRST ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE 129
more, on Spanish soU, in the hard fight of Navarete (1367.).
It was another brilliant victory for the unconquerable hero.
But it led to no result, except that to meet the cost of the
expedition Guienne had to be heavily taxed, and became
more and more discontented, until its people appealed to
the King of France to come to their rescue.
This led to a new outbreak of war, the French violently
attacking the English territories in the south (1369). But
now the conditions were changed. England was" weary of
the war, whUe the French were fired with a new patriotism.
Edward in. had grown old before his time, and was sunk
in self-indulgence at home. The Black Prince was frail
and ill : he summoned up his strength sufficiently to make
a fierce attack on the revolting town of Limoges (1370), in
which the whole population were put to the sword, except
a few knights whom ' chivalry ' demanded that he should
treat with generosity. Next year he returned to England,
broken and dying. Things had been going badly for the
Enghsh even before his withdrawal ; after it, they lost
ground rapidly, and by 1374 England had lost all her posses
sions in France save Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne, and a
smaU district in the neighbourhood of the latter towns.
To add to the humUiation, the Spaniards of Castile, driven
into hostility by the English support of Pedro the Cruel,
attacked the English fleet off La Rochelle in 1372, and
completely destroyed it. Yet, though so much had been
lost, the war stiU dragged on its weary length. Year after
year expeditions were sent to France ; they never reaped
any material success. For half a generation the English
Channel was unsafe for English ships, and the coasts of
England were frequently attacked by French raiding bands.
And when, at last, in 1396, Richard 11. made a truce which
marked the close of the first phase of the Anglo-French
wars, England was left with no French possessions save
Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne.
After fifty-seven years of war, and a vast expenditure of
blood and treasure, the English possessions in France were
less than they had been at the beginning. Such were the
results of war for the sake of glory.
[Tout, History of England, 1216-137-/ ; Vickers, England in the
later Middle Ages; Warburton, Age of Edward III. (Epochs of
Modern History) ; Longman or Mackinnon, Edward III. ; Oman,
Art of War in the Middle Ages ; Kitchen, History of France ; Lodge,
The Later Middle Ages.]
VOL. I. I

CHAPTER VI
CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS
§ i. Changes in the Character of the Feudal Baronage.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and
especially during the fourteenth, the conditions of life in
most of the countries of Western Europe were rapidly
changing. The feudal organisation of society was breaking
down, or altering its forms ; luxury was growing, and letters
and the arts were reviving, especially in Italy ; trade was
becoming more active, and the influence of the classes
which conducted it was rapidly increasing : everywhere
the money-power counted for more, and in Flanders,
Germany and Italy the thriving towns in which commerce
and manufacture found their chief centres were able even
to establish their political independence. But there was
no country in which social change went on more rapidly
during this period than in England ; among the other
peoples of the islands it was much slower and less potent.
It is not possible to give precise dates to these changes,
because they were mostly the result of a gradual and insen
sible process ; but they were so transforming the character
and life of the English people, and they exercised so profound
an influence upon their future history and their institu
tions, that it is necessary to obtain as clear an idea of them
as we can.
Perhaps we may begin by noting that London was becom
ing the political and social capital of the country. Until
the thirteenth century, we may almost say that England
had no capital, or fixed centre of government : the centre
of government was wherever the king happened to be, and
the king spent his time in travelling through the country.
But now London, or rather Westminster, had become his
most frequent place of residence. Even in his absence it
was the seat of his Treasury and of other administrative
offices. In Westminster the chief national law courts now
held their sessions ; and near by, in the Temple, which had
been the headquarters of the Order of Knights of the Temple
13Q

ch. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 131
until the order was suppressed in 1308, the new and very
important profession of trained lawyers had taken up their
abode and established their training schools. London had
become the place to which men from aU parts of the country
resorted for their most important legal business. In London
also were held most of the numerous Parliaments of the
fourteenth century, which brought barons, knights and
burgesses together from all parts of the country. It was
London which most often saw the garish splendour of the
court, the visits of ambassadors, the celebrations of great
victories. Some of the leading nobles were now finding
it necessary to keep permanent town houses in London,
like the Savoy Palace of John of Gaunt ; and their osten
tatious display of their wealth added to the gaiety of the
capital, and made it the social as well as the political centre
of the whole country.
The nobles resorted to London ¦ mainly because it was
there that they could play their part in national govern
ment. And here we come upon a marked feature of this
age. The great nobles were as turbulent as ever, and as
difficult to keep in order. But they had changed their
aims. They no longer strove, like the feudal barons of an
earlier period, to establish local independence, and to secure
their uncontroUed jurisdiction over their tenantry, for the
growth of the power of the royal law courts and the royal
agents had enormously weakened their hold over their
feudal inferiors, everywhere except in the Marcher lord
ships of Wales. Their aim now was to control or influence
the national government. The numbers of the great
nobles, the earls and barons who were entitled by hereditary
right to be summoned to the King's CouncU, were steadily
shrinking throughout this period. But on the other hand,
their wealth, or the wealth of the greater among them, was
as steadUy increasing, through the union of many inherit
ances in the same famUy. By the deliberate pohcy of
the Crown a large proportion of the great feudal estates
had been acquired by members or connexions of the royal
family, either through the grant to them of lapsed fiefs
or through their marriage to great heiresses. Hence the
English baronage was coming to consist of a comparatively
small number of very rich and powerful nobles, whose
lands were in many cases scattered over the whole kingdom,
who were closely connected with the royal house and with
one another, and who took a keen interest in the national
government. They no longer based their influence mainly

132 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
upon their power to command the obedience of large numbers
of feudal vassals, because they could no longer be sure of
their obedience. But they increasingly expended a large
proportion of their wealth in the maintenance of great
bands of paid retainers, who wore their colours and ' liveries.'
This practice became commoner owing to the French wars,
for which they were encouraged to raise companies of soldiers
who served under their banners ; hence many of these
retainers, even in times of peace, were experienced men-at-
arms, who had learnt to fight, and to despise law and order,
in France. Supported by these formidable bands, the
greater nobles could wage private war, and were often
tempted to override the laws of the land, or to defy the
decisions of the courts. This was an ominous develop
ment, which was gradually taking shape during the four
teenth century, encouraged by the wars : it was the direct
cause of the Wars of the Roses in the next century, which
were neither more nor less than faction fights between
groups of nobles, closely connected with the Crown, eager
to establish their power over the national government,
and supported by bands of armed retainers. But at least it
was a good thing that they were no longer striving to split
up the country into a multitude of semi-independent States.
The new feudalism was just as disorderly as, the old, but it
accepted the national unity, and was in a sense patriotic.
The lower grades of the landed gentry were during this
period rapidly increasing in number, wealth and import
ance. Owing to a unique and most fortunate peculiarity
of English feudal law they were not sharply distinguished
from the greater nobles. In other Western countries aU the
sons of a count were counts, and aU the sons of a baron were
barons : that is to say, the baronage was a hereditary caste.
But by English custom only the eldest son of a baron ranked
as a baron, and that only when he succeeded to his father ;
his younger brothers all sank at once to the rank of knights,
so that the class of knights always included a large number
of men who were closely connected with the nobility, and
there was no cleavage of castes. Nor were the landed gentry
divided among themselves. According to strict feudal rule,
they included three distinct classes : those who held
their land direct from the king, and who were described
in Magna Carta as ' minor barons ' ; those who held their
land from other barons on condition of military service, and
who were knights proper ; and those who held their land
as freeholders. These distinctions had still survived in

ch. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 133
the thirteenth century, but they had disappeared in the
fourteenth, especiaUy since Edward 1. had laid down the
rule that every holder of land to the value of £20 per annum
was bound to assume the burden of knighthood. Thus
the class of country gentry had become a very large one ;
and it was an extremely important class. Its influence
was greatly increased by the wars ; because the king,
instead of trusting to the feudal levy, preferred to empower
nobles or knights to raise companies of soldiers, for whom
he paid, but whom they led : this produced a far more
efficient fighting force. But one of its results was that a
quite humble knight of smaU means might become a great
captain in war ; indeed the most trusted of Edward in.'s
generals, hke Sir Walter Manny and Sir John Chandos,
were simple knights.
The knightly class was a good deal enriched by the
plunder of France. It was stUl further enriched by the
prosperity of English trade ; because the backbone of this
trade was wool, which was produced by the sheep on the
knights' lands. And this had the happy effect of bringing
the landed gentry and the traders into close relations with
one another, and made it easy for them to work together,
as we shah see them doing in the House of Commons. The
importance of ,. wool in early English history is commemo
rated by the fact that the Chairman of the House of Lords
sits upon a woolsack. The woolsack might still more
suitably have been introduced into the House of Commons,
where knights and burgesses were united by wooUy bonds.
The growth in numbers, wealth and importance of the landed
gentry is a very significant feature of this age ; it explains
why they were able to play the important part which we
shaU see them playing both in Parhament and in the sphere
of local government.
§ 2. Peasants and their Landlords : the Black Death.
But far more important than these developments is the
fact that during this age the mass of the Enghsh peasantry,
who formed the great majority of the population, were
passing from serfdom to freedom. The process was a very
gradual one, and it was not completed tiU almost the end
of the sixteenth century. But it was going on during the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and very rapidly
during the later par t~ofHhis period. At the date of Magna
Carta, in 1215, probably the majority of the English people

134 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. II.
were serfs ; that is, they were tied to the soil, and bound
for hfe to render certain services, denned by custom, to
their lords. In 1399 the great majority of the Enghsh
people were free men,(who could go where they would and
change their employment^ and the remainder were on the
path to freedom.
This vital change was not due to any enactment or action
of government, but was the result of the silent working of
economic factors. In some degree it was helped by the
wars ; the thousands of stalwart young peasants who were
enlisted for service in France naturally never returned to
the state of serfdom. But far more important was the fact
that landlords, great and smaU, increasingly wanted money :
money to buy the luxuries introduced by growing trade ;
money to build the more pretentious houses they were
beginning to erect ; money to pay for their maintenance
at court ; money to provide their equipment for service
in France ; money to meet the cost of their bands of
retainers. Now in the earlier system of land management
money had played a very smaU part. A landlord's estate
or ' manor ' was usually divided into two parts : the one
consisted of his ' demesne ' or home-farm ; the other of
the holdings of his viUeins or cottars, who paid for their
land partly by working on the demesne so many days a
week, and so many extra days in harvest, and partly by
payments in kind — chickens, eggs, and so forth — at fixed
seasons ; so that very little money passed between landlord
and tenant, and the landlord simply lived on the produce
of his estates. So long as this system lasted, it was important
that the villeins should be retained under control, because
without them the estate could not be worked, and there
fore the lord was not likely to let them or their children gain
their freedom. But now that money, which could be spent
anywhere, was more useful than produce, which had to be
consumed on the spot or sent to market, the old system
began to break up. Sometimes a landlord would agree
with some of his viUeins that they should pay him in money
instead of in services, and the amount due would be calcu
lated on the basis of the amount of service due, according
to the ordinary rate of wages. If an arrangement of this
kind was made permanent, the villein would become a
copyholder, paying a customary rent that could not be
altered in amount, the amount being fixed by the records
of the manor ; and as he could not be dispossessed so long
as he paid his due rent, he became practically a free pro-

CH. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 135
prietor. Or -again, a lord might let his demesne or home-
farm to a farmer at a fixed rent, leaving him to hire labourers
as he thought fit. In that case the customary services
due from the viUeins would no longer be of any use to the
lord, and he would commute them for money ; moreover
it would no longer matter to him whether they, or -their
children, stayed on the land or not. It must not be sup
posed that this kind of arrangement was universal, or that
it was always even permanent : sometimes a lord would
commute the weekly services of the viUein, but retain the
right to special services at harvest time ; sometimes the
arrangement would be only temporary, and the lord would
reserve the right to return to the old system if he thought
fit. But throughout this period a steadily increasing
number of English peasants were either becoming ' copy
holders,' freely controUing their own little farms, or free
labourers, able to move from place to place, and to accept
whatever wages they could get. By the middle of the
fourteenth century probably about one fourth of the
peasantry had been thus graduaUy emancipated.
In 1348 and 1349 an event happened which rapidly
accelerated this process, and at the same time produced
a great conflict between the landlords and the peasants.
The awful plague known as the Black Death struck England,
and suddenly swept away between one-third and one-half
of the population. This created a serious shortage of
labour : there were not enough men to cultivate the land.
The free labourers found themselves in clover : they could
get almost what wages they asked for. On the other hand,
the viUeins or cottars who had not obtained their freedom
felt it to be a great grievance that they should have to give
their old services, and get no advantage at all ; many of
' them ran away, even deserting their plots of land in order
to get the high wages which were now obtainable. The
landlords on their side were hard hit. They began to
regret having commuted the services of so many of their
viUeins for money, and to try, wherever possible, to go
back to the old system. They resented acutely the high
rate of wages which they had to pay to the free labourers,
or the escaped villeins from other estates. And, as they
entirely controlled Parliament, they tried to force back
the peasantry into their old dependent state by law. In the
Ordinance of Labourers, 1349, which was frequently re-
enacted and strengthened~~a!uring the second half of the
century, they tried to compel the half-emancipated peasants

136 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. it.
to perform their old services ; they also tried to enforce a
maximum rate of wages for free labourers, imposing penalties
on any labourer who accepted, and on any farmer who
paid, more than a fixed rate, and they decreed that labourers
should be compelled to work at these rates.
This legislation had some effect, because the execution of
it was put in the hands of knights in each county, who were
interested parties. But it was powerless to stop the move
ment, though the attempt aroused great bitterness and class
enmity. After all, the peasants had the whip-hand, because
their labour was indispensable ; the landlords had to break
their own law, in order to get their fields tiUed. Besides,
the growth of the wooUen manufacture gave an alternative
employment to many labourers ; for it also was short of
men, owing to the ravages of the plague. For more than
a generation there raged a bitter conflict between the land
holder and the peasant ; and this formed the principal
cause of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, in which, for the
first time in the history of England, labouring men boldly
repudiated the right of their masters to dictate the condi
tions of their work, and demanded that serfdom and forced
labour should be altogether abolished in England. In this
revolt the peasants won a momentary victory ; but the con
cessions made to them were almost immediately withdrawn.
Nevertheless in the long run victory lay on the side of
the peasants. Though in some cases the landlords were
able to restore the old state of things, on the whole the
troubles of the period made them more ready than ever to
give up trying to farm their own demesnes, and to accept
money payments instead of services. In the half century
following the Black Death the proportion of free peasants!
to serfs seems to have been multiplied almost threefold,
and the process went on steadily during the next century.
Earlier than in any other country of Europe, the mass of
the English people were ceasing to be serfs, and were
becoming free men ; the process was almost completed
before the beginning of the great age of English history,
at the end of the fifteenth century.
§ 3. The Growth of Trade and Industry, and their
Organisation.
Almost as important as the change in the condition of
the rural classes was the growth of English trade and
industry which took place during this period. The foreign

CH. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 137
trade of the country was rapidly increasing, because there
was a greater demand for luxuries, while the most profit
able and important of English exports, wool, was being
produced in larger quantities. It was mainly to the
great Flemish manufacturing towns, Ghent and Ypres, that
English wool was exported : indeed, these towns were
largely dependent upon the English supply, and this was
the main reason for the very close relations which were
maintained between the Enghsh government and the rulers
of these towns. But Enghsh wool was valued everywhere.
The duties payable on the export of it formed a very im
portant item in the king's revenue, and for that reason the
king was always anxious to keep a sharp control over it.
Partly for that reason it was the policy of the government
to insist that aU the wool should be sold at fixed places,
where the royal agents could see that the proper dues were
paid. These places were known as ' staple ' towns ; some
times they were fixed in England, sometimes abroad, and
there was keen competition among various continental
towns to have the ' staple ' for English wool fixed among
them. In the end Calais was chosen for this purpose,
because, while convenient for foreign purchasers, it was
under Enghsh control. English merchants made large
profits by buying the wool from the growers to seU it at
the ' staple.'
The bulk of English foreign trade was stUl in the hands
of foreign merchants, who had their headquarters in London.
During the fourteenth century the German traders of the
Hanseatic League were at the height of their wealth and
power, and they combined to maintain in London a great
joint factory or warehouse known as the Steelyard, which
was probably the most important trading centre in England.
If the reader ever visits Bergen in Norway, he wiU find there,
stiU preserved as a sort of museum, an old Hanseatic factory,
which wiU give him a very clear idea of the sort of place
the Steelyard must have been (on a greater scale) in its days
of prosperity. Besides the Germans there were a number
of Italian merchants in London, who did a great trade in
the spices and other luxuries of the East, which were annuaUy
brought by fleets of Venetian ships. They also acted as
bankers or moneylenders, and the riame of Lombard Street,
which is stiU the financial centre of London, is a reminder
of the financial ascendency of the Lombard and other
Italian traders. They frequently financed the king on a
great scale, advancing money for his use pending the

138 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. II.
payment of the taxes, and sometimes taking the crown
jewels as a pledge for repayment. Without the aid of
these Italian financiers, it is hard to see how the govern
ment could have been carried on in time of war. But the
foreign merchants were exceedingly unpopular in London,
especially the Italians. They were sometimes the victims
of riotous attacks, for many Englishmen thought they were
unduly favoured and had an unfair advantage over Enghsh
traders. Yet English merchants were showing themselves to be
far more enterprising during this period than ever before.
The English were beginning to be a trading and seafaring
people ; and London, the Cinque Ports (on the coast of
Kent and Sussex),1 Southampton, King's Lynn, HuU and
other places were becoming busy seaports, which owned
a sufficient amount of shipping to be able to transport the
king's armies when required, or to provide him with a fleet
such as that which won the battle of Sluys. There was not,
and there could not be, any distinction between ships
of commerce and ships of war ; for there was no law or
peace on the sea, and every trading vessel had to be ready
to protect itself. It was in the fourteenth century that
England began to become a considerable maritime and
trading country ; and the merchants who carried on this
traffic, which had to face not only many dangers, but acute
competition, especiaUy from the Hanseatic League, needed
to be men of much resolution and enterprise. For their
mutual protection and assistance they formed themselves
into a sort of loosely organised company or society, which
was known as the Merchant Adventurers. It exercised a
general control over English enterprises abroad, and was
encouraged by a series of royal charters. The Merchant
Adventurers carried on trade over a wide area, stretching
from Spain to the Baltic Sea. There was thus coming into
existence a small but important class of rich English
merchants, increasingly able to hold their own against the
foreign competitors who had hitherto controlled Enghsh
markets. Lastly it was in this period that England began to
address herself seriously to the business of manufacture,
and especiaUy to the cultivation of the woollen industry;
and it is one of the chief credits of Edward in. that he did
his best to encourage this development, partly by protec-
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 34, where the Cinque Ports are specially
marked.

CH. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 139
five devices, and partly by inviting Flemings to settle in
England and teach the mysteries of their craft to English
men. The Enghsh woollen industry was as yet quite
unimportant in comparison with that of Flanders, which
long continued to use the greater part of the English wool-
crop. But English cloths and worsteds were beginning to
acquire a good reputation, and the trade in them was
bringing a good deal of wealth into the districts where it
chiefly throve, such as Norfolk, where the astonishing
number of handsome viUage churches which still exist is
due mainly to the generosity of the new class of prosperous
clothiers of this period. England was thus beginning to be
a manufacturing and commercial country on a considerable
scale, and henceforth the merchants and the clothiers
always count for a good deal in the life of the nation.
One of the most interesting features of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries is the rise of what are known as
Craft GUds, or associations of the men engaged in various
trades or industries. In the fourteenth century these
craft gilds had become a most important feature of English
society, and in aU the larger towns there were many of
them. Their objects were to protect the common interests
of their members and of the trade in which they were
engaged. They have sometimes been compared to modern
trade unions, but there is no real resemblance between
them ; for whUe trade unions are associations of employes
in an industry, and have generaUy a common organisation
for the whole country, the craft gilds were associations of
master-workmen, and every town had its separate group
of gilds. But they performed some of the services which
the trade unions perform, providing assistance for their
members when in trouble, and protecting them, so far as
possible, against oppression. They also aimed at excluding
all non-members from practising their trade in the town,
and preventing unfair competition. They fixed the prices
at which various types of goods should be sold, and endea
voured to secure good workmanship and uniformity of
quahty and size. They also made their own regulations
regarding the conditions under which apprentices might
be taken, and the number whom any member might take,
and the wages of journeymen or hired workmen. Broadly
speaking, their aim was to secure that an adequate liveli
hood was obtained by all their members, in return for
honest work, and on the whole they were not unsuccessful,
though they were often short-sighted, narrow-minded, and

I40 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bK. ii.
unfair to non-members. The craft gUds frequently had
to fight very hard against the older merchant gilds, which
in most towns had obtained the control of borough govern
ment, and which were very jealous of allowing the regula
tion of any part of the trade of the town to pass out of their
hands. But in most towns they were successful in estab
lishing themselves, and they had become a valuable and
important element in English life. While they continued
in fuU vigour, and before they became too narrow and
endangered the progress of industry, they made a notable
contribution to the training of Englishmen in freedom,
co-operation and self-government.
§ 4. Intellectual Ferment : Wycliffe and the Church.
One interesting activity of the gUds was that in some
towns they formed the habit of organising pageants and
simple little morality plays, which they performed, at
intervals, on great occasions : some of the ' moralities '
written for this purpose still survive, and very curious and
interesting they are. This practice (which became more
general during the next two centuries, and at which Shake
speare pokes fun in his account of the revels of Bottom and
his friends in A Midsummer Night's Dream) is especiaUy
interesting, because it shows that inteUectual interests were
no longer confined to the Church but had become very
general. In the fourteenth century, for the first time in
Enghsh history, it is true to say that the most interesting
and important writing was the work not of churchmen, but
of laymen. It was mainly laymen who, during this period,
turned English into a literary language. Chaucer, the very
great poet who in the second half of the fourteenth century
was drawing the picture of Enghsh society in the most
vivid and charming verse, and who was the first of
the line of great English poets, was a layman, though
Langjand, the author of Piers Plowman, a very simple and
moving portrayal of the sufferings of the poor, seems to
have been a priest ; and laymen were probably the authors
of most of the numerous political satires in rhyming verse
which were circulated during the period.
All this means that the national spirit, which was now
so strong in England, was expressing itself in language and
literature, as weU as in politics and war. One of the inter
esting features of the period was the gradual establishment
of English as the language of society and of the law courts

CH. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 141
and of government, in place of Latin, which was supported
by aU the influence of the Church, and had hitherto been
the language of learning, or of French, which had been the
ordinary speech of the Norman baronage, and therefore the
language of government. In 1362 English was for the first
time used in the debates of the""House of Commons, and in
the same year it was ordained that English should be used
in the law courts. The statutes and the rolls of Parha
ment continued to be written in bad Norman-French until
the reign of Richard in. But this was only conservatism ;
even to-day we stiU retain a reminder of the days when
French was the language of government, in the phrase Le
roy le veult, which is used when the king's assent to an Act
of Parliament is given, and that also is a proof of the extra
ordinary conservatism of the English in little things. But
the outstanding fact is that the Enghsh language had
become the language of the whole nation, and that it had
been dignified and glorified, and had received a literary
form, in the poetry of Chaucer. Chaucer may weU count
among the makers of the British Commonwealth, since he
did so much to fix the noble and rich language which is one
of the chief bonds that hold it together.
AU over England, then, and in aU classes of society, there
was going on during this age an inteUectual ferment which
had a great effect upon the development of the nation.
The people were awakening. They were beginning to
discuss and reflect upon the way in which the nation was
organised, and the way in which its organisation affected
their own hves. And the more they reflected, the more
dissatisfaction they felt. The rhyming satires, to which
we have already alluded, are full of shrewd criticism of
everything, of the burden of the wars, of the load of taxa
tion, of the unfairness of landlords, of the idleness and luxury
of monks and friars and churchmen generally. Both in
these satires and in Piers Plowman there is a remarkably
democratic note to be observed. In Piers Plowman a
pilgrim of humble rank sees representatives of aU classes
of society pass before him : he finds vices and defects in
them aU ; none can lead him in the right way ; until the
humble, honest labourer, Peter the ploughman, comes and
shows that he, in his uncomplaining toil, has the secret of
virtue. Perhaps the bitterest and the most persistent of all these
complaints were those which were directed against the
Church, which was, indeed, in the fourteenth century,

142 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
rapidly losing its hold over the mind of the people, not in
England only but throughout Western Europe. The
popes, now at Avignon, were regarded as being mere agents
of French policy ; and their use of their power to fill Enghsh
benefices with idle foreign clerics who drew their salaries
but seldom troubled about their parishioners, led to a re
markable series of parliamentary enactments for the restric
tion of papal power, of which we shall have more to say.
But it was not the papacy only, or chiefly, that was criti
cised. The Church at large had become worldly. The
monks were often idle, vicious and luxurious. The begging
friar, once so nobly self-sacrificing, had become a mere
nuisance. The bishops were often mere courtiers and
politicians. Many of the parish priests neglected aU their
duties except the collection of tithes and dues. And the
wealth and luxury of churchmen were all the more bitterly
resented, because in the midst of the struggle of the peasants
against their landlords, and in the face of the burdensome
taxation caused by the French wars, men were beginning
to feel that it was the labouring men who had to bear all
the burden.
A very powerful expression was given to aU this dis
content with the condition of the Church by John Wycliffe,
Master of BaUiol College, Oxford, and afterwards rector of
Lutterworth in Leicestershire, who began to be prominent
about i^6o. He began by inveighing against the wealth
and idleness of the monks and friars. He went on to urge
that the Church would never be healthy until it ceased to
be worldly, abandoned its wealth, and devoted itself to
its true spiritual labours. In order to make religion real
once more, Wycliffe translated the Bible into Enghsh
for the first time. In order to give effect to his ideas, he
founded an Order of Poor Priests, who were never officiaUy
recognised by the Church, but who rapidly spread over
England, preaching and teaching; and the subversive
doctrines which they taught contributed to the general
political and social unrest. It has sometimes been said
that they helped to produce the revolt of 1381. This is
not strictly true, because the ' Poor Priests ' of Wycliffe
only began their work about the date of the revolt. But
there were other agitators besides the followers of Wycliffe.
John B_all, the socialist priest, who was one of the leaders
in I38i7was not the only man of his kind at work. For
his own political ends the most powerful of the Enghsh
nobles, John_of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for a time gave

ch. vi.] CHANGING SOCIAL CONDITIONS 143
his protection to Wycliffe and the movement of which he
was the head ; and partly owing to his powerful patronage,
partly because of the general discontent with the corrup
tions of the Church, the movement made very rapid head
way. Long after John of Gaunt withdrew his patronage
it was estimated that one-third of the population of England
was under the influence of the Lollards, as Wycliffe's
followers were caUed ; nor was the movement wholly crushed
out ; it lasted on, underground, in spite of persecution,
until it was merged in the Reformation movement of the
sixteenth century.
Thus on all hands, and in all classes, English society was
undergoing a very rapid transformation during this period.
The national spirit was everywhere powerfully aroused,
and everywhere a ferment of new ideas was at work. The
great nobles, no longer dreaming of local independence/-
were beginning to strive, in rival factions, for the control
of the national government. The country gentlemen were
becoming richer and more important, and more ready to
demand for themselves a share in national affairs. Eng
land was an increasingly rich and prosperous country,
and her merchants were beginning to compete on equal
terms with their foreign rivals. But the humbler classes
also were for the first time stirring into life. The crafts
men in all trades were organising themselves to defend
their common interests, and fighting against the ruling
classes in the towns. The peasantry were struggling out
of serfdom into freedom. Everywhere there was ferment
and movement and change. Everywhere also this ferment
was stimulated by the new feature of the rise of a popular
literature. And everywhere there was growing turbulence
and disorder, increased by the influence of the soldiers
returning from the anarchic wars in France.
It is only when we have formed some idea of this general
breaking up of the old order, and of the change in the rela
tions of classes which it brought about, that we can appre
ciate the significance of the political history of the period,
to which we must next turn.
[Lipson's English Economic History ; Meredith's Economic His
tory ; Ashley's Economic History ; Cunningham's Growth of English
Industry and Commerce ; Thorold Rogers' Six Centuries of Work and
Wages ; Hasbach's The English Agricultural Labourer ; Trevelyan's
England in the Age of Wycliffe ; Poole's Wycliffe (Epochs of Church
History) ; Ward's Chaucer (Enghsh Men of Letters) ; Jusserand's
English Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century.]

CHAPTER VII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT
(a.d. 1307-1422)
Edward 11., 1307 : Edward in., 1327 : Richard 11., 1377 :
Henry iv., 1399 : Henry v., 1413.
The fourteenth century was a period of the greatest import
ance in the development of the English system of govern
ment. During this century the form of Parliament was
fixed, and its powers began to be extended and defined.
During this century also the Enghsh system of local govern
ment was greatly developed. And as it has been the
machinery of self-government which has formed the greatest
contribution of England to the progress of civilisation,
and which has been the main secret of the success of the
Enghsh in planting daughter communities over the face
of the globe, we shaU not be equipped for the study of the
great age of British history until we have grasped the
significance of these events.
As we have already seen, Edward 1. was the real creator
of the English Parliament. But the Parliament which he
organised was quite different from the Parhament which
we know. It was an assembly of four distinct groups
— the nobles, the clergy, and the ' communities ' of shire
and borough, represented by the knights and the burgesses.
These four groups — which might have grown into some
thing like the clearly marked ' Estates ' of other countries
— at first voted their grants to the Crown separately, but
they often seem to have sat together in one assembly,
which was simply an expansion of the old King's Council.
And there was no clear definition of their powers. They
were consulted about exceptional taxation. But the king
did not think it always necessary to summon a fuU Parha
ment, and he certainly did not think it always necessary to
consult the knights and burgesses about legislation or
national policy. It was in the fourteenth century that
this assembly, instead of developing into clearly marked
' Estates,' became a real ' Parliament ' of two houses, Lords

ch. vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 145
and Commons ; and that this Parliament secured the right
of being consulted about aU laws, of controlling nearly aU
taxation, and of exercising a general supervision over the
government. The development of Parhament was very
rapid throughout the century : indeed it was too rapid,
because the nation was not yet sufficiently law-abiding to
be ready for self-government, which demands a long and
painful training. And the result of this over-rapid growth,
forced on by the wars and the social changes of the age,
was the anarchy and disorder of the following period.
§ 1. Edward II. and Thomas of Lancaster.
The dreary reign of Edward 11. is chiefly important
because it snowed that England was as yet unready for
self-government, and needed a strong and masterful king
if peace and order were to be maintained. Edward n. was
not an actively vicious man, but he was incapable of vigour
or steadfastness, frivolous, sometimes childishly obstinate,
and easUy influenced. Partly through laziness, and partly
because he wanted to be free of baronial control, he was
apt to lean upon favourites. This gave a good ground of
attack to the great barons, who had often shown their
distaste for the masterfulness of Edward 1., and who once
more began to pursue the same policy that their predecessors
had pursued in the reign of Henry in. But there was no
Simon de Montfort among them. Their principal leader
was Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the king's cousin, and the
richest noble in the realm. Although Lancaster was
revered by the common people after his death as a sort of
martyr to liberty, there seems to have been no ground for
this reputation except the fact that he opposed the govern
ment; hewasquite selfish, andjustasincompetentastheking.
Lancaster and his friends first demanded the exile of
the king's favourite, Piers Gaveston, an impudent, witty
and irresponsible young knight of Gascony ; and as Gaveston
was a foreigner, and the country was certainly ill-governed
during the period of his influence, their demand received
much popular support. Three times banished, Gaveston
three times returned, and in the end he was brutaUy mur
dered by Lancaster's chief supporter, the Earl of Warwick
(1312). Meanwhile (1310) the barons, imitating their pre
decessors of Henry ni.'s reign, had appointed a committee
of twenty-one, known as the Lords Ordainers, who were
empowered (like the committee of 125^ to draw up a scheme
vol. 1. k

146 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. 11.
of reform, and meanwhile to conduct the government of
the country. We need not stop to examine the Ordinances
which this committee issued in 1311, because they never
really came into operation. Their chief provisions were
that Parhament was to meet at least once a year, and that
it should have the right of approving or dismissing the great
officers of state ; but as the Parliament which they had in
mind was a purely, or at any rate a predominantly, baronial
body, the scheme meant no more than the overriding of
the royal authority by an oligarchical group, and it would
have brought no improvement.
The prolonged disputes about Gaveston and the Ordi
nances prevented any effective interference in Scottish
affairs, and gave Robert Bruce time to conquer the whole
of Scotland. When Edward n. did at length endeavour
to regain the lost kingdom, in the campaign of Bannock-
bum, Lancaster and his chief foUowers significantly stood
aloof ; and it was suspected that they were in traitorous
relations with the Scots, as they certainly were at a later
date. The half dozen years following the issue of the Ordi
nances were perhaps the most wretched period of this
unhappy reign. Neither the king nor Lancaster's party
was strong enough to get effective mastery, or showed any
capacity for statesmanship. In 1318 Edward n. was at
last compeUed to accept the Ordinances. But his cause
soon began to revive. He found in the Despensers, father
and son, two new ' favourites ' or ministers who were men
of real abUity, and who were also English barons. In 1322
Lancaster was defeated and taken prisoner at Boroughbridge,
and was put to death as a traitor.
After Boroughbridge Edward's first action was to have
the Ordinances rescinded at a Parliament which met at
York (1322). They, were declared to be invalid on the
significant ground that they had been made by the barons
alone without consulting the knights and burgesses ; and
it was laid down, in a very important statute, that no laws
concerning the estate of the king or of the realm were valid
unless they had been approved by the prelates and barons
and by the commonalty of the realm. Thus was for the first '
time declared the necessity of the concurrence of Parlia
ment as a whole in legislation.
Even after the defeat of Lancaster, Edward ii.'s govern
ment was little more efficient than before. His unhappy
reign was ended by a conspiracy led by his queen and
her favourite, Roger Mortimer, who, after defeating and

ch. vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 147
capturing the king, had him formally deposed by Par
hament, and his young son Edward in. crowned in his
stead. Parliament was in this doubtless acting merely
as the instrument of the dominant faction ; but it was a
remarkable addition that was made to its power when it
was invited actuaUy to depose a king on the ground of
misgovernment. Thus the miserable reign of Edward n.
in two ways led to a great expansion of the authority of
Parliament ; and this, along with the practical establishment
of the independence of Scotland, forms its chief importance.
§ 2. Edward III. and the Growth of Parliamentary Power.
The first five years of the reign of Edward in., during
which power remained in the hands of IsabeUa and Mortimer,
were as disturbed as the previous reign had been. But
when in 1332 the young king overthrew Mortimer, and took
the direction of affairs into his own hands, a very important
new period began. It was important not only or chiefly
because of the wars with Scotland and France by which
it was filled, but stiU more because of the rapid develop
ment of Parhament which it saw.
Almost at the opening of the period Parhament appeared
in the form which it was to retain throughout its history,
divided into the two houses, of Lords and Commons ; who
in 1332 and thereafter met in two separate chambers.
What might have become the Estate of the Clergy had
silently dropped out. The clergy had their own Convoca
tion, arid they preferred to vote the supplies required from
them in that assembly, instead of joining in the national
Parliament: though they long continued to be formally
summoned to send their representatives, they never did so.
And in the course of time their vote of supplies became
also a mere formality automatically foUowing that of Par
hament. They had thus failed to estabhsh their position
as a separate estate. How nearly they had done so is
shown by the fact that even to-day no clergyman of the
Church of England may be elected a member of the House
of Commons.
What might have become the Estate of the Nobles had
now definitely become the House of Lords. Its members
consisted of those who had a hereditary or official right to
a writ of summons to the King's Countil. But it also in
cluded the bishops and greater abbots, who, in a strict
system of estates, would have belonged to the estate of the

148 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
clergy. Formerly the king had exercised some freedom of
choice as to whom he could summon, at any rate among the
less important barons, and a baron who had lost his lands
would cease to receive a writ. Now the right had become
more strictly hereditary ; and if the king summoned a new
baron custom dictated that he would have to go on summon- '
ing his heirs. The membership of the House of Lords was
therefore becoming clearly defined. It could only be increased
by the creation of a new hereditary right by the king ; it
could only be diminished by the extinction of a noble famUy.
FinaUy, the knights and burgesses were now definitely
grouped together as the House of Commons. They might
easUy have developed, and very nearly did develop, into
two separate estates, sitting in different houses, as happened
in some other countries. It was a very fortunate thing
that they were combined, because this ensured the strength
and influence of the House of Commons. The chief reasons
why knights and burgesses so easily fell into their places,
side by side in a single chamber, were firstly that they had
been in the habit of working together in the shire court, and
secondly that they were closely united by their common
interest in the wool trade, and in the heavy duties which
were imposed upon it. Between them, the knights, who
represented not merely the landed gentry but the whole
communities of the shire, and the burgesses, who repre
sented the numerous little trading boroughs, could in a real
sense speak for the whole English nation ; and it was an
extraordinary piece of good fortune for England that its
House of Commons should have taken this form! Else
where (as in France) the minor nobles joined with the
greater nobles, or (as in Aragon) formed a separate estate.
Only in England did there grow up a single assembly which
stood for the nation as a whole.
During the first period of Edward ni.'s reign (1332-1370),
when he was winning great glory in the French wars, the
powers of Parliament (including both the Lords and Commons)
steadily increased, and were more clearly defined. This
was because, in time of war, it was impossible for the king
to ' hve of his own,' as mediaeval kings were expected to do,
and he had to ask for special grants. Parhament seized
the opportunity to attach conditions to its grants, and so to
enlarge its power. Parliamentary grants usually took the
form of a sort of rough income-tax, one-tenth of the revenue
of townsmen, and one-fifteenth of the revenue of rural land
holders ; but as it was impossible to make a fresh estimate

ch. vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 149
of everybody's income every time a grant was made, the
tenth and fifteenth early became stereotyped at a fixed
sum of £39,000, each shire or town always paying the same
amount. Sometimes Parliament also made a grant of a
tax additional to the customary rate on wool, or other
commodities. But in this sphere the king had a way of
trying to go behind Parhament by making private bargains
with the exporters of wool. In 1362 this was stopped by a
statute which provided that neitner merchants, nor any
body else but Parliament, had any right to grant such
taxes ; and thenceforward Parliament effectively controlled
the customs duties as weU as the direct taxes. Again, the
king sometimes levied special feudal dues like scutage, or
old customary taxes like ' taUage,' which earlier kings had
always claimed the right to levy from towns. But in 1340
another statute, obtained as a condition of grants which
the king desperately needed, laid it down that ' no charge
or aid should be imposed on the nation except by common
consent ' of both Houses of Parliament.
Both Houses took an equal share in making these grants ;
it was not until the end of the century (1395), that the
House of Commons was recognised as having a'preponderant
share in taxation. But at least this much is clear, that
Parhament as a whole was acquiring a real control over aU
ordinary taxation ; though the king's regular revenue was
still large enough to keep the government going without
taxation in times of peace, if it was economicaUy managed.
Parhament was also in this period beginning to claim some
oversight over the expenditure of the money which it voted :
it insisted repeatedly upon knowing what it was wanted
for, and on several occasions, as in 1341, it demanded an
audit of accounts to make sure that the money had been
spent for the purposes for which it was given.
In regard to the making of laws, the power of Parliament
was not yet fuUy developed. According to the statute of
1322, no laws could be made without the approval of both
Houses of Parliament, but it was still the king and his
officials who actuaUy drew up the laws. The most that
the House of Commons could do was to petition the king
to make a law on such and such a subject, and to make their
grants of money conditional upon his doing so. The king
would give his promise ; and the desired law would be
embodied in a statute drawn up by the king's officers at
the end of the session of Parliament. This was not quite
satisfactory ; the royal statute did not always correspond

150 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
with the intentions of Parhament. Nevertheless the influ
ence, not only of Parhament as a whole but of the House
of Commons, upon legislation was very great during this
period. The influence of the burgesses largely accounts for
the great activity of Edward in. in enacting laws for the
protection and encouragement of English trade and in
dustry, which formed the most creditable feature of his
reign. The influence of the knights is to be seen in the
successive Statutes of Labourers, by which it was attempted
to bring back the escaping peasantry into their old depend
ence. For it must be remembered that even the House of
Commons was an aristocratic body governed by the interests
of the powerful middle classes of country gentlemen and
traders. Perhaps the most significant feature of the action of
Parhament during these years was its steady resistance
to papal claims and exactions, which were arousing a grow
ing resentment throughout England. The papacy was, in
fact, making more vexatious financial claims than it had
done even when its spiritual influence was highest ; but
the main reason for this anti-papal policy of king and
Parliament is to be found in the growing national feeling
of the English, who did not see why Enghsh money should
be drained out of England, even at the wiU of the Pope.
In 1366 Parhament flatly refused to go on paying the
tribute which had been demanded ever since King John
became the Pope's vassal. In 1351 their petitions pro
duced the first Statute of Provisors, to prevent the Pope
from ' providing ' English benefices for foreign clerics. In
I353 they obtained the first Statute of Praemunire, whose
object was to limit appeals to' Rome and the introduction
of papal bulls into England. All this shows that the
national Parliament was jealous to secure what it regarded
as the national freedom from ' foreign ' interferences ; and
that they shared the general dissatisfaction with the state
of the Church which caused the Wycliffite movement to
be so widely welcomed.
§3. The Invention of Impeachment : the Justices of the Peace.
The last ten or twelve years of Edward in. were years
of gloom and of growing discontent. The war was going
badly ; from 1370 onwards the French were rapidly recon
quering the English acquisitions. The burden of taxation
was as heavy as ever, but it was not lightened by victory.

ch. vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 151
The deep discontent of the peasantry, which was to break
out in the revolt of 1381, was growing daily. The king
had grown old before his time, and gave himself wholly to
mean pleasures. His eldest son, the Black Prince, was
gravely UI, and died in 1376 ; and the reins were seized
by the king's fourth son, Jomfof Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
who was the richest noble hi England, having acquired by
marriage aU the lands of the house of Lancaster. His
dependents filled and often misused the great offices of
state. Although John of Gaunt tried to win support by
attacking the Church and protecting Wycliffe, he was very
unpopular. It was widely believed that he was aiming
at the throne ; though, even if the Black Prince and his
young son should die, there was a nearer heir in the Earl
of March, who was descended from the king's third son.
It was in these circumstances that the House of Commons
entered upon a bolder line of action than any they had yet
attempted. In 1376, the ' Good Parliament,' led by the
Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Peter de la Mare,
chaUenged the abuses of the government, and laid formal
charges against two officials, adherents of John of Gaunt,
before the House of Lords, as the supreme law court of the
realm. This was the first use of the process called ' impeach
ment/whereby the House of Commons, acting as the guardian
of the nation, prosecutes dangerous officials of state before
the House of Lords. When the House of Lords received
these charges, and tried and condemned the two ministers,
the great weapon of ' impeachment,' which was to be a very
important means of securing control over the government,
was definitely forged, and placed in the armoury of the
House of Commons. The Good Parliament also drew up
an elaborate scheme of reforms, much to the indignation
of John of Gaunt. ' What do these base and ignoble knights
attempt ? ' he is reported to have exclaimed. ' Do they
think they are kings or princes of the land ? '
The actual work of the Good Parliament did not last long.
In the next year, 1377, another Parliament reversed all its
decisions, and John of Gaunt's power seemed as firmly
estabhshed as ever. This sudden change of attitude on the
part of Parliament is at first sight bewildering. It becomes
intelligible when we learn that the Speaker of the House of
Commons in 1377 was actuaUy John of Gaunt's steward,
and that Sir Peter de le Mare, the Speaker of the Good
Parhament, was the steward of the Earl of March. This
suggests that the growing power of Parliament was being

152 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
used by the rival court factions of great nobles, and
that these factions had learned how to influence the'
elections. The knights arid the burgesses, though
they understood their own interests, scarcely possessed
either the knowledge or the courage necessary to enable
them to hold their own against the factions of the great
nobles. Because the great nobles were learning that they
could get control over Parliament and use it for their" own
purposes, they were not as jealous of the growth of the/
power of the House of Commons as might have been ex
pected. But for the same reason, the rapid develop
ment of a nominal parliamentary supremacy did nothing
to ward off the disorder which was threatening England,
but on the contrary increased the danger. This was already
clear in the reign of Edward in. ; it became clearer still
under Richard n. and the kings of the House of Lancaster.
The powers of Parhament and especially of the House of
Commons were growing more rapidly than the capacity
of its members to use them, and anarchy was the result.
Nevertheless the working out of the form and powers of
Parliament which marked this period was a very great
gift to the future. The time was to come when they would
be rightly used.
But if even the knights or country gentlemen (not to
speak of the burgesses) were not yet able to use wisely their
powers as members of Parliament, there was one sphere in
which they had been long practised, and had learnt to do
good work — the sphere of local government. Since the
time of Henry n. the knights had been more and more
employed by the king in the work of the shire courts.
Edward i. had required the shire courts to elect knights
who were to act as conservators of the peace. From 1327
onwards these ' constables on a large scale,' as they have
been called, were nominated by the king, a group of them
for each shire. They were soon entrusted with minor
judicial functions. And in 1360 a statute laid it down
that henceforth there should be in every shire ' a lord and
three or four of the most worthy,' to act as justices
of the peace, with power to arrest, examine and punish
disturbers of the peace, or to commit them to prison
for trial before the king's travelling judges. For most
purposes these groups of Justices of the Peace, nominated
by the king from among the leading gentry of the
country, henceforward took the place of the sheriff and
his shire court ; and in course of time fresh functions were

ch. vn.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 153
heaped upon them, until they came to be the chief
representatives of the national government in their own
districts. They were paid no salary ; and although they
were royal agents, nominated by the king, they were also,
as the leading gentry of their neighbourhoods, in close
touch with the needs and opinions of the districts they had
to rule. For that reason their rule was in a real sense
' self-government ' by the natural leaders of each county ;
and these justices remained, for six centuries to come, one
of the most distinctive and valuable of Enghsh institutions.
In other countries, as in France, the work which the Enghsh
justices did came to be done by paid experts, sent down to
the provinces by the royal government ; no doubt such
experts were often more efficient, but they were also far
more dependent upon the king, and far more easily turned
into the tools of despotism. English kings henceforth had
to work through unpaid and therefore independent local
gentlemen, not through paid professional administrators ;
and this made it very difficult for them to establish a reaUy
despotic power, however much they might desire it. More
over the establishment of this system meant that a large
number of the men from among whom the members of
Parhament were drawn had enjoyed a wide and varied
experience in actual administrative work ; and this made
English Parliaments practical and businesslike bodies,
which knew what they were talking about. Thus the
establishment of the Justices of the Peace was to prove an
extremely important event in the development of the
Enghsh system of government, though it took place very
quietly and almost unnoticed.
§ 4. Parliamentary Supremacy and the Revolt of the
Peasants.
If a vigorous prince in the prime of life had succeeded
Edward in., it is likely that the remarkable powers which
had been won by Parliament during Edward's reign could
have been successfuUy chaUenged. But the new king was
a boy of ten. His accession caused the faU of John of
Gaunt from power ; and the affairs of the kingdom were
managed by a Council of Regency, which could not afford
to disregard Parliament ; all the more because the French
war was going disastrously, and hostUe French fleets con-
troUed the Channel and even raided Sussex and the Isle
of Wight. These failures discredited the government;

154 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
and as they were compeUed to ask for large grants of money,
they had to give way when Parhament demanded a re-
modeUing of the Council itself, and even claimed that the
ChanceUor, Treasurer and other great officers of state should
be in future appointed in Parliament. A little later Parha
ment actuaUy deposed the whole of the CouncU and aU the
officers of state. This assertion of direct control over the
executive government represents the highest point in the
growth of the power of Parliament. It could not be per
manently maintained ; and though it provided precedents
for the future, its results were far from satisfactory.
For parhamentary supremacy did not bring success.
The war continued to present, year after year, an unrelieved
series of faUures. And it was in the period of parhamentary
supremacy that the terrifying revolt of the peasants broke
out in 1381 : it was, indeed, immediately due to a new
method of taxation invented by the omnipotent Parha
ment of these years to meet the cost of the war. This
new impost was a poll-tax, to be paid by every man
and woman over the age of fifteen. First levied in 1377,
it was repeated in 1380 on a severer scale. It was
levied on a basis which made the burden on the poor man
far heavier in proportion than the burden on the rich man.
But although this unfair tax, and the severity with
which it was enforced, formed the immediate cause of the
rising, behind it lay an accumulation of grievances. There
were the grievances of the peasants against the Statutes of
Labourers, which Parhament was perpetually making more
severe ; the peasants demanded the total abohtion of villein
age. There were the grievances of the humbler classes in
the towns, who found themselves in most cases excluded
from equal rights by the oligarchies of substantial merchants
who had begun to monopohse the government of most
English boroughs. And perhaps above all there was a
widespread indignation against the waste and luxury, the
pride and injustice, of the ruling classes, great nobles and
great churchmen alike. This feeling had expressed itself
in a remarkable current of extreme democratic sentiment,
which may have been to some extent fostered by the teach
ing of Wycliffe. But it was still more formidably expressed
by the passionate denunciation of the mad priest of Kent,
John BaU, who had been at work long before the Wycliffite
movement became important. ' Things WiU never go well
in England,' the mad priest asserted, ' so long as goods be
not in common and so long as there be villeins and gentle-

ch. vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 155
men. By what right are they whom we call lords greater
than we ? If aU came of the same father and mother,
of Adam and Eve, how can they prove they are better than
we ? They are clad in velvet, and warm in their furs, whUe
we are covered with rags. They have wine and spices and
fine bread, and we have oat-cakes, and water to drink.
And yet it is by our toU that they hold their state.' The
whole of this spirit of defiance of the existing social order
was summed up in the famous distich which John BaU
used as his text when he preached to the rebels on Black-
heath : ' When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then
the gentleman ? '
It was the revolt of the disinherited, of the men who
had always hitherto submitted humbly while kings and
great lords fought over their heads, and whose function
in the State had been to labour and suffer and bear the
ultimate burden of misrule. They had no share in the
growing power of Parliament, and if they had had it they
would notjyet have known how to use it. But they were
slowly emerging into freedom, and therefore becoming less
submissive ; and although a violent outbreak of this kind
seldom or never leads to good results, it was a good thing
that the mass of English people should be stirring into hfe,
and demanding the means of a freer and nobler existence.
The revolt began in Kent and Essex, and it was the men
of these counties who marched on London under the lead
of an ex-soldier, Wat_Tyler, and the enthusiastic priest,
John Ball. But because the whole country was ripe for
revolution the rising spread like fire among the heather,
northwards as far as Scarborough and westwards as far
as Winchester, rioters everywhere burning manor-houses,
destroying the records of viUein-services, and terrorising
the magnates of the little towns. The men of Kent under
Wat Tyler organised themselves with remarkable skill,
and made themselves masters of London ; and, while the
king and his ministers took refuge in the Tower, they burned
the archbishop's palace at Lambeth, and John of Gaunt's
great mansion of the Savoy, and the Temple, where the
hated lawyers lived, and the houses of many of the foreign
merchants. At first the government was as much taken
aback as a shepherd faced by a sudden rebeUion of his
flock. The young king, however, with admirable pluck,
met the rebel host at MUe End, and, by promising every
thing they asked, persuadecTthe more weU-disposed to dis
perse. But a great number of the more reckless remained

156 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
in control of London, plundering and murdering ; and these
were only disbanded by another plucky venture of the boy
king. Meanwhile forces of resistance had been collected,
and the suppression of the rising began. There was fight
ing in some districts, foUowed by a number of executions ;
but before the end of the year the revolt had been com
pletely subdued. On the whole, considering the panic
which the rising must have created, the rebels were not
very severely dealt with according to the standard of that
age, and in December an amnesty was granted to aU who
had taken part.
The king's promises, by means of which the rebel host had
been broken up, were never fulfilled ; they had perhaps never
been intended as anything but a ruse de guerre, and although
the government suggested to Parhament that viUeinage
might be abolished, the nobles and the knights flatly refused
to consider the suggestion, saying that their viUeins were
their own property, of which no one had a right to rob
them. The great revolt seemed to have faUed utterly, and
indeed it did nothing or little to accelerate the emancipa
tion of the peasants, except perhaps by persuading some
landlords to seize favourable opportunities of escaping
from the troublesome business of dealing with fractious
viUeins. Nevertheless the movement towards emancipa
tion went on steadily ; it was almost completed by the
end of the next century.
§ 5. Reaction and Revolution.
During the years foUowing the great revolt the young
king, having proved his courage, began to take a more
active share in the government : he was now fifteen years
old, and married. He tried to free himself from the control
of Parliament, dismissing the ministers whom Parhament
had appointed, and taking others of his choice, who were
of course described as favourites. One of them, Michael
de la Pole, was the son of a merchant of Hull, who had
given long service to Edward 111. in war and government,
and who now rose to the rank of Earl of Suffolk— an inter
esting example of the way in which the baronage was being
recruited from below. His policy was the restoration of
the royal authority, as the only means of restoring order,
and he also wished to bring to an end the dreary and profit
less war with France. With him was linked a young noble
of the most ancient Norman descent, Vere, Earl of Oxford ;

CH.Vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 157
and the aims of this new royal party seemed to be made
easier to achieve when John of Gaunt went off to Spain
on a wild-goose chase to claim for himself the throne of
CastUe. But John of Gaunt's place as opposition leader was
taken by his younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who,
supported by barons and Parliament, started" a violent
campaign against Suffolk. The Commons declared that
no grants should be made until Suffolk was dismissed. The
hot-tempered young king angrUy replied that he would
not remove the meanest scullion in his kitchen at their
bidding. Nevertheless he was forced to dismiss Suffolk
(1386), who was promptly impeached and imprisoned.
Gloucester then proceeded to the old device of the barons,
the appointment of a committee of reform. Richard deter
mined to resist, and instructed Vere to raise troops. But
the attempt at a coup d'etat was rendered hopeless when
Vere was defeated at Radcot Bridge, on the Thames (1387),
and the Gloucester party remained triumphant. Five of
them (known as the Lords_ Appellant) brought charges of
treason against Richard's principal advisers ; and in 1388 a
shamelessly packed Parhament was summoned, which
earned the name of the ' Merciless Parliament,' by carrying
out a series of judicial murders by which they got rid of
nearly all Gloucester's leading opponents. Even clerks
and under-sheriffs were not spared ; and ' the king's old
tutor, the gaUant old knight, Sir Simon Burley, who had
been a companion-in-arms of the Black Prince, was beheaded.
The victorious faction proceeded to divide the spoils of
office among themselves, and, although their loudest com
plaints had been of the waste of public money, they actuaUy
got their obedient Parliament to vote £20,000 as a testi
monial to the five Lords Appellant.
In a sense this struggle established still more clearly the
authority of Parhament, but it also showed how easily
Parhament could be turned into a tool of baronial ambition.
Richard 11. had to submit for the moment. But he never
forgot the humiliation to which he had been subjected ;
and his mercurial spirit soon rose again. In the very next
year, 1389, he announced that he proposed himself to
resume the control of government ; and the Gloucester
faction, discredited by their own ferocity and greed, did
not venture to resist. Moreover John of Gaunt had come
back, and, whatever his faults, he was a better man than
Gloucester.

158 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
During the next eight years Richard ruled with a good
deal of success, and with remarkable moderation. He took
no steps against his enemies, but nursed his resentments
in secret. He succeeded at last in bringing the dreary
French war to a close, by a truce in 1389, which was
succeeded by a peace in 1356. He professed to be wiUing
to rule in conjunction with Parliament, and acted up to his
professions. He even aUowed his great officers to resign
formally (1390), in order that Parliament might review their
conduct ; and, although the Commons continued to make
complaints, there was no sharp friction. A working system
of limited monarchy seemed to have been estabhshed. But
the great danger stiU remained : the richer barons were
stiU surrounded by great bands of paid and liveried retainers,
who formed a constant menace to the peace of the realm.
More than once the Commons petitioned that this practice
should be forbidden by law, but government was not strong
enough to carry out such a policy. Limited monarchy
overshadowed by .an armed baronage could only have a
precarious existence.
The chief interest of these years is to be found in the
growing strength of the Wychffite movement, and in the
increasing hostUity of the nation to the political power of
the papacy. In the earher part of his career Wycliffe had
been content to declaim against the luxury of the Church,
and in this he had the sympathy of the greater part of the
nation. But in 1379 or 1380 he had become an open
heretic, rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation ; and
it was about the same time that he began the translation
of the Bible into English and sent forth his ' poor priests.'
The politicians now withdrew their patronage from him.
The orthodox churchmen began to clamour for the sup
pression ol heresy, and in 1382 Wycliffe's doctrines were
formally proscribed by Parhament. Yet, to the disgust
of the more active bishops, there was no serious persecu
tion of the Wycliffites. The University of Oxford was fuU
of them. Several nobles and many influential knights
advocated their cause ; and they were strong even at
court, where Richard's dearly loved queen, Anne of Bohemia,
was apparently friendly to them. It was' through her
followers that the doctrines of Wycliffe reached Bohemia,
where they profoundly influenced the preaching of Huss,
and helped to produce the great Bohemian revolution of
the early fifteenth century. The LoUards (as they began
to be caUed) were increasing rapidly in number, and it was

ch. vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 159
during these years that Wycliffe's ' poor priests ' were
spreading aU over England. In Parhament a group of
Wychffite knights demanded (1395) the immediate refor
mation of the Church, and the confiscation of Church
lands for the needs of the State was frequently urged.
Parhament as a whole was far from sharing Wychffite
opinions. But it was more resolute than ever to free the
English Church from the control of the papacy in all respects
except doctrine. In 1393 it obtained the enactment of the
final Statute of Praemunire, which imposed the penalties
of outlawry, forfeiture and imprisonment on any man
who should obtain or publish any papal bull or other
instrument from Rome. In short, it seemed in these years
as if the Reformation of the sixteenth century was going
to be anticipated. NaturaUy the bishops and clergy were
seriously alarmed ; and they were graduaUy ahenated from
the king by the fact that he took no vigorous steps to crush
out this dangerous movement.
In 1397 Richard n. at last decided that the moment had
come to carry out the design which had been frustrated in
1386-1388, but which he had never abandoned, in spite of
ah his seeming moderation — the design of throwing off
baronial and parhamentary control, and re-establishing
the authority of the Crown. He had made friends with
some of his old opponents, notably his cousin Henry, son
of John of Gaunt. Gloucester and his leading supporters
were suddenly arrested. Gloucester was persuaded to
make a confession, and then murdered. His supporters,
by a grim reproduction of their own methods ten years
before, were ' appealed ' of high treason, and, though they
were formaUy pardoned, one of them was executed. An
obsequious Parliament, ' packed ' by the king as the Merci
less Parhament had been ' packed ' by Gloucester, obedi
ently carried out aU the king's behests, voted large taxes
for the period of the king's life, and actually con
sented to delegate almost aU its own powers to a com
mittee composed of the king's friends. Thus not only was
the dangerous baronial faction crushed, but Parhament,
which had been so often used as its tool, was suspended.
A quarrel between Henry of Derby and the Duke of
Norfolk, the only remaining members of the group of
Lords AppeUant, gave Richard a pretext for banishing them
both; and when John of Gaunt died in 1399 Richard
seized aU his lands, instead of aUowing the exiled Henry
to inherit.

160 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
If Richard had used his suddenly acquired mastery
wisely, it is not impossible that he might have estabhshed a
lasting despotic system, which would have seemed to be
justified by the need of guarding against baronial ambitions,
and which would probably have enjoyed a good deal of
popular support. For, after the events of 1381, Parliament
must have appeared to many elements in the nation a purely
class assembly governed by class interests. It might
reasonably have been thought that there was more chance
of justice under a despotic king than under such a body ;
and on this ground the advance that had been made towards
a system of national co-operation in government might have
been sacrificed. But, perhaps fortunately, Richard abused
his power in such a way as to arouse widespread discontent.
He could only count upon some of the lesser nobles whom
he had himself exalted and enriched. The most powerful
families, with their great bands of retainers, were nearly aU
hostile. The knights were alarmed by the practical sup
pression of Parliament, and they controlled the machinery
of local government. The great churchmen were alienated
by Richard's lukewarmness in the suppression of Lollardy.
In 1399 the exiled Henry (now Duke of Lancaster) seized
the occasion of Richard's absence in Ireland, and landed on
the coast of Yorkshire. He was quickly joined by great
forces, and especially by the northern barons ; the greater
part of the country readily submitted to the invader, and
on his hurried return Richard found all resistance hope
less, surrendered to his triumphant cousin, and agreed to
abdicate. Meanwhile a Parliament had been summoned;
with practical unanimity it declared Richard n. deposed,
and, although the nearest heir to the throne was the
young Earl of March, accepted Henry of Lancaster as
king. This was the second occasion within a hundred years
on which a king had been deposed by the authority of Parha
ment. But in 1327 an unquestionable successor had been
at hand. In 1399 the new king was not the direct heir,
and owed the validity of his title to parliamentary enact
ment. For that reason he and his next two successors were
dependent upon Parliament to an extent hitherto unknown.
In 1398 it had seemed quite likely that Parliament would
decline from the predominant position it had won during the
previous century ; in 1399 it had become more powerful
than ever. That is one of the main aspects of the revolu
tion of 1399. But there were others also. Henry iv. owed

ch.vii.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 161
his throne in actual fact rather to the armed bands of the
great nobles, which were strong enough to overpower the '
royal army, than to the mere decree of Parliament, and this
was an ominous fact. He owed his success also in part to
orthodox bishops of the Church, and they too had to be
paid for their services.
§ 6. The Lancastrian Experiment of Limited Monarchy.
The character of the reign of Henry iv. was determined
by the circumstances of his accession. Because his title was
insecure, he had to combat a continual succession of revolts
and plots during the first nine years of his reign. The most
remarkable of these was a great national rising in Wales,
the hero of which was a Welsh gentleman, Owen Glendower.
He began to be troublesome at the opening of the reign. He
was complete master of Wales from 1401 to 1406. A long
series of annual campaigns had to be directed against him,
in which the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry v., had his
apprenticeship to war. But Owen was a brilliant leader',
and held his own staunchly. His power was not really
broken until 1409 ; even after that, he held out as an out
law among tiie~riiountains for several years, and died un
subdued in 141 5. Even more serious was the rebellion of
the Percies of Northumberland, who had been Henry iv.'s
warmest aUies in 1399, but were dissatisfied with their
rewards. Led by the reckless Hbtspur, they tried to make
a junction with Owen Glendower, but were defeated after
a hard-fought battle at Shrewsbury in 1403 ; but Hot
spur's father long continued to~Be troublesome.
These long struggles showed how dangerous was the
military strength which the greatest nobles derived from
their bands of armed retainers. But Henry iv. was a solid,
hard-working and capable prince ; and by 1409 he seemed
to have overcome every danger,, and to have seated his
dynasty securely on the throne.
His aUiance with the Church committed him to a reversal
of the tolerant policy which Richard n. had pursued towards
the Wycliffites, and for the first time in her history England
* experienced a period of religious persecution. On the demand
of Convocation, the statute de hceretico comburendo, which
imposed the penalty of death by burning for heresy, was
adopted ; and no objection was made by Parliament.
But Henry iv. was a persecutor for political reasons, not
from fanaticism. Few LoUards were burnt in his reign ;
vol. 1. l

162 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
it was under the rule of his cruel-hearted son, Henry v.,
that the persecution became reaUy severe.
The main feature of the reign, however, was the remark
able fulness with which the supremacy of Parhament was
established. Not only did Henry iv. owe his crown to
Parliament ; he had been compeUed to alienate so many of
the crown-lands to reward the nobles who had supported
him, that his non-parliamentary revenue was greatly re
duced, and as he was constantly engaged in war he had
to depend upon Parliament for regular grants. These
were pretty freely given, but they were accompanied by
hard conditions. The Commons established the vitaUy
important principle that ' redress of grievances must pre
cede supply.' They insisted upon appointing their own
treasurers to see that the money was properly spent ; and
they drasticaUy reduced the king's household and cut down
his personal expenditure. They frequently urged that the
king should confiscate i Church lands to meet his needs —
a step which he could not take without alienating his clerical
supporters. They appointed inquisitorial commissions to
investigate the detaUs of expenditure. They criticised his
policy with the most uncompromising frankness. They
kept a close control over the royal Council, which was as
fully dependent upon Parhament, during the greater part
of the reign, as it had been in the earlier years of Richard n. ;
and the king was expressly forbidden to take any step
without the approval of his CouncU. This practicaUy
meant that the king ceased to be the independent head of
the executive, which passed to a sort of ministry dependent
upon Parliament. Such was the effect of the ' Thirty-one
Articles ' of 1406, with which the power of Parliament seemed
to reach its culmination, less than a century after the death
of Edward 1. Above all, recognising the fundamental
weakness of their position, Parliament forbade any inter
ference by sheriffs in the elections to the House of Commons,
such as had rendered possible the ' packing ' of many pre
vious Parhaments ; and they repeatedly demanded legisla
tion against Livery and Maintenance — the system which
made the nobles so dangerous.
In short the government of England seemed definitely
to have become a very limited monarchy, in which the
ultimate authority resided with Parliament. The course
of events was to afford a terrible proof that England was
not yet ready for such a system, and that the ' Lancastrian
experiment,' as it has been called, was premature. The

ch. vn.] ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 163
king himself could scarcely be expected to accept the
position to which he was reduced ; and Henry iv.'s successor,
Henry v., was soon to attempt a method of strengthening
his power which kings have often tried — that of diverting
the attention of their people to the glories of foreign conquest.
The genius of Shakespeare has portrayed Henry v.1 as
the very model of generous courage, magnanimity and
patriotism, and has turned him into a national hero. The
Henry v. of history scarcely corresponds with this splendid
picture. He was a brave man, and an admirable soldier.
But he could be pitilessly cruel, as when he decreed the
slaughter in cold blood of the prisoners at Agincourt, or
as when he ordered the Wychffite martyr, John Bradby,
to be withdrawn from the flames because his moans of
anguish sounded like a recantation, but had him thrust
back again when he proved staunch. Henry was something
of a religious fanatic ; but it is hard not to find hypocrisy
in his assertions that he was the instrument of God to
punish the French for their wickedness when he had under
taken a war of pure conquest, devoid of any shadow of
right. Dissolute in his youth, he had during Henry iv.'s
last years given his father much trouble by his greed for
power ; but from the moment of his accession he kept a
strict rein upon his passions, and observed all the rules.
It is difficult to find in his life the record of any generous
action or of any natural impulse. Strong, unswerving,
efficient in whatever he undertook, religious according to
his lights, he is nevertheless an unsympathetic personality.
He succeeded to a throne apparently weU established.
Yet the real insecurity of the Lancastrian line was shown
by the troubles of his first two years. In 1414 a LoUard
conspiracy, real or imaginary, was disclosed, and crushed
with many cruel executions. These troubles were the out
come of the persecuting pohcy of the Lancastrians, which
Henry v. carried out much more systematicaUy than his
father. More alarming was the conspiracy of Cambridge
and Scrope, which was discovered on the eve of Henry's
embarkation for the campaign of Agincourt. The Earl of
Cambridge was Henry's cousin, son of the Duke of York ;
he had married a sister of another cousin, the young Earl
of March, who was the strict lineal successor of Edward ill.,
and his plot was to carry off his brother-in-law into Wales,
1 There is a short hfe of Henry v. by A. J. Church in the Enghsh Men
of Action Series, and a fuller and more scholarly one by C. L. Kingsford
in the Heroes of the Nations.

164 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
and there raise his standard as claimant to the throne. The
danger was easily averted, and the conspirators lost their
heads. But the episode showed that great nobles of the
court factions and their armed bands were stiU a danger.
The main interest of Henry v.'s reign was his deliberate
renewal of the war in France, and the briUiant success which
he achieved in it. The renewal of war gave the restless
magnates something to do, and found occupation for their
retainers ; and no doubt this formed one of the motives for
undertaking it. The war served another purpose also. It
raised the king's prestige to the highest point ; Parhament '
almost enthusiasticaUy voted the money required, and ceased
to meddle much in the affairs of a government whose effici
ency was proved by a succession of triumphs. But the
uneventful character of domestic affairs during the years 1415-
1422 did not mean that the nobles were no longer dangerous,
or that Parhament had abandoned its claim to supremacy;
as soon as the stream of success began to be interrupted,
a new period of trouble for the Crown promptly opened.
[Tout's History of England, 1 216-1377 ; Oman's History of England,
I377-jr4^S > Vickers' England in the Later Middle Ages ; Trevelyan's
England in the Age of Wycliffe ; Stubbs' Constitutional History
(vols. ii. and iii.) ; Maitland's Constitutional History ; Tout's Place of
Edward II. in English History ; Mackinnon's Edward III. ; Capes'
English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries ; Armitage-
Smith's John of Gaunt ; Poole's Wycliffe and Movements for Reform ;
Oman's Great Revolt of 1381 ; Rogers' Six Centuries of Work and
Wages ; Meredith's Economic History. A selection of contemporary
materials is provided by Locke's War and Misrule.]

CHAPTER VIII
THE SECOND ATTEMPT TO CONQUER FRANCE
(A.D. I4II-I453)
§ 1. The French Factions, and the Victories of Henry V.
The unhappy results of the first attempt to conquer France
ought to have prevented a renewal of the hopeless enter
prise. They failed to do so for a variety of reasons. The
Lancastrian House was committed to a war policy, having
taken the lead of the war party throughout the reign of
Richard 11. Henry iv. and Henry v. had strong reasons for
wishing to provide a distraction for the great barons and
their trains of retainers, such as a war would afford. Henry
iv., and stiU more Henry v., were very ambitious, and eager
to find a means of establishing the prestige of their dynasty.
Above aU, the conditions existing in France were such as
to make the task of conquest seem easy.
In France, as in England, great magnates related to the
royal house were disputing for the control of the organs of
government. But there was this difference, that in France
the greatest of the nobles, such as the Dukes of Burgundy,
Orleans and Brittany, were semi-independent rulers of very
large provinces. Notably was this the case with the House
of Burgundy, which played in French politics, on a greater
scale, a similar part to that played by the House of Lancaster in
fourteenth-century England. The greatness of this branch
of the French royal house only dated from the middle of the
fourteenth century, but already it was adding province to
province, and during the next generation was to control
so large an area both in France and the Low Countries,
that it could dream of creating a new middle kingdom
between France and Germany.1 The most important of
its acquisitions was the county of Flanders, including
the great manufacturing towns which purchased the bulk
of the English wool. The natural aUiance for the Enghsh
government was an alliance with the rulers of Flanders.
I 1 See the maps, Atlas, Plates 36 (b) and 23 (6).

166 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century the nominal
King of France, Charles vi., was subject to periodical fits
of insanity, and the right of wielding the royal authority
in his name was the subject of fierce rivalry between his
cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, and his brother, the Duke
of Orleans. When, in 1407, Burgundy procured the
assassination of Orleans, the" rivalry of the two factions
developed into a civU war, which desolated France for many
years. The opportunity seemed to Henry iv. too good
to be missed. In 141 1 he made an alliance with Bur
gundy, and was only prevented by Ulness from leading
an army into France to join his ally ; but an English con
tingent in that year helped to reheve the besieged city of
Paris, which was held by the Burgundian party.
As soon as Henry v. succeeded to the throne he pre
pared to take up the project which his father had enter
tained but had never carried into effect. He claimed the
French crown as the representative of Edward in. ; but
if Edward's claim was a bad one, Henry v.'s was worse,
since he was not even Edward's nearest heir. He offered
to abandon this claim at a price, and the Orleanist party
(who now had the French king in their hands) were wiUing
to go a good way to meet him. But his demands were so
monstrous that no Frenchman could possibly have assented
to them : they were obviously only a pretext for a war
of the most undisguised aggression. Yet the war was
popular in England, and Parliament gave its support,
voting large subsidies. Though few wars have ever been
waged with so small a semblance of right, there is no doubt
that the renewed attack on France was regarded by the
English as a national enterprise, and, until it became burden
some and unsuccessful, was enthusiastically supported by
the nation as a whole.
In August 1415, Henry set sail with a force of about twelve
thousand men.1 He began by attacking Harfleur, at the
mouth of the Seine, intending to use this port as a base for
the systematic conquest of the province of Normandy.
It took him more than a month to capture the town, and
October had come, and the campaigning season was nearly
over, before he was ready for a farther advance. The losses
of the siege, and the necessity of leaving a garrison, had
reduced his force to less than half of its original numbers.
Yet he resolved to march northwards to Calais, though
such a march could serve no useful military purpose. I
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 36 ifi).

ch. viii.] SECOND ATTEMPT ON FRANCE 167
Delayed by the difficulty of finding a passage over the
Somme, he found his provisions exhausted, whUe a French
army at least ten times as great as his own had been gathered
to destroy him. Under these conditions the dazzling
battle of Agincourt was fought, in which, with a loss of
httle over one hundred men, the English force utterly
defeated their opponents, kiUing more than their own total
numbers, and taking many prisoners. Agincourt was an
astounding feat of arms, far surpassing Cressy and Poitiers.
It at once restored, and more than restored, the damaged
military prestige of the English. But it could have led
to no important results, if the ugly civil strife between the
Burgundians and the Orleanists (or Armagnacs, as they
were now caUed after their principal leader, the Count of
Armagnac) had not continued. In 1416 the Duke of
Burgundy made a private peace with"TIenry ; and his
rivals were too much occupied in fighting him to be able to
devote their main strength to checking the English invasion.
During the next four years Henry devoted himself to the
systematic conquest of Normandy, steadily reducing one
fortress after another, and thus showing himself a far more
scientific soldier than Edward in. or the Black Prince.
By 1419 he had mastered and garrisoned the whole pro
vince, and had provided himself with a solid foundation for
further conquests. Only the unending strife of parties
in France had enabled him to achieve so much, for no
serious attempt was ever made to relieve the garrisons of
the Norman towns. Henry's progress, however, so alarmed
the French that it brought about a temporary reconcilia
tion between the rival leaders ; and they proposed a joint
campaign against the English. But when John of Bur
gundy rode over to the Dauphin's x camp to arrange the plan
of operations, the rancour of party once more overcame the
needs of the country, and he was basely murdered (141 9).
The murder of the Duke of Burgundy changed the whole
situation, and opened the second phase of the war. Hitherto
the Burgundians had been merely neutral ; for sheer shame
they had not dared to join the enemies of their country.
Now the new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the_Good, thirsting
for revenge, and determined that tnTTreacherous Dauphin
who had murdered his father should never succeed to the
French crown, made a formal alliance with Henry. By the
1 The Dauphin was the eldest son of the King of France ; the title,
which corresponds to that of Prince of Wales, was taken from the province
of Dauphine, acquired in the fourteenth century.

1 68 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
treaty of Troyes, 1420, it was determined that Henry
should marry the daughter of the insane French king, who
was now in the custody of the Burgundian party, that he
should act as regent, and that he should be recognised as
heir to the crown. The Burgundians already controUed
the greater part of Northern France, including Paris.1 The
Armagnac party held only the region south of the Loire and
a few outposts in the north ; and in the task of conquering
Southern France Henry could now count upon half the
resources of France in addition to his own English armies.
It might well seem that the mastery of the whole French
kingdom was within the grasp of the conqueror ; and the
English people at home were naturaUy intoxicated by these
wonderful successes.
But of course the dream was a wholly futile one. France
could never have submitted to a permanent English supre
macy. Even if Henry had succeeded in conquering the
whole of France, he and his successors could only have
retained their hold upon the French throne by becoming
French ; and then what would have become of the freedom
. of England, or of her parliamentary liberties ? The possi
bility of a complete conquest was as great a danger for
England as for France. And it was a happy event for both
countries when, after two strenuous years spent in reducing
the last Armagnac strongholds in the north, and at a moment
when his success seemed assured, the conquering king died
on the 31st August 1422, worn out by the strain of his
conquests. He had time to make arrangements for the
future government of his dual realm ; and he made a most
religious end. His last words, spoken as if to an unseen spirit,
were, ' You lie ! you lie ! my portion is with the Lord Jesus.'
Two months after Henry v., Charles vi., the imbecile
King of France, also died. His disinherited son, Charles vii.,
the true heir to the French crown, was king only oFa dis
credited and disunited party, and wielded no authority
north of the Loire. The two-year-old infant, Henry vi.,
who had already succeeded to the throne of England, was
now also burdened with the title of King of France, under
the terms of the treaty of Troyes. To maintain the
authority of government during a minority was sufficiently
difficult even in England, as the case of Richard 11. had
already shown. But to do that, and at the same time to
make the rule of a foreign prince acceptable in Northern
France, was a task beyond human powers. Yet this was
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 36 (6).

ch. vin.] SECOND ATTEMPT ON FRANCE 169
the task imposed upon the Duke of Bedford, Henry v.'s
younger brother, who acted as regent for his nephew ; and
Bedford, who was almost as great a captain as his brother,
and a much more generous-minded man, went near to
achieving the impossible. In face of immense difficulties,
he kept faction feuds quiet in England, he maintained a
cordial alliance with the Burgundian party, he won the
loyalty of most of the Northern French by strictly observ
ing French usages and by entrusting the work of govern
ment to Frenchmen ; and during the next seven years he
steadily kept the upper hand in the war.
§ 2. Joan of Arc, and the Ruin of the English
Ambitions in France.
By 1428 the ruin of the French monarchy seemed almost
inevitable. Powerful Enghsh forces were besieging Orleans,
which controUed the line of the Loire, and was the key of
Southern France. Charles vn. was hopeless and almost
pennUess, and possessed no leaders who could supply the
vigour and energy which he lacked. His last field army
had been destroyed, and he made no serious attempt to
reheve Orleans. He looked on supinely from Chinon,
whUe the very existence of France as an independent State
seemed to be at stake.
At this critical moment one of the miracles of history
happened. There came riding up to Chinon a girl of seven
teen, dressed in men's clothes ; she demanded to see the
king, because she had a message from heaven to deliver
to him. It was Joan of Arc,1 the daughter of a weU-to-do
peasant of Domremi in Champagne — a region where the
Enghsh and Burgundians were aU-powerful. For four years
this strong and healthy girl had seen visions and heard
voices, which promised that France should be delivered
from the English yoke : finaUy, in this winter, her angel
visitors had commanded her to go forth in arms, to drive
the Enghsh from Orleans, and to crown Charles vn. at
Rheims. The king saw her, and her simple and sublime
confidence roused him from his listlessness. She was
arrayed in white armour, and set at the head of a company
of soldiers, with whom she advanced towards Orleans,
sending before her a messenger to bid the English depart
ere they were swept away by the hand of God. The French
courtiers sneered at her. The English soldiers began to
1 There is a good book on Joan of Arc by Andrew Lang.

170 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
have superstitious fears of her as a witch. But the French
army and people saw in her the direct emissary of Heaven,
and followed her lead with utter devotion and assurance.
She had appeared as the very embodiment of the spirit of
France, to rouse her people from their factions and their
lethargy ; and from the moment of her coming aU chance
of an English conquest of France came to an end.
Inspired to heroism by the presence of the Maid, the
French compelled the English besiegers to withdraw from
Orleans. Then she led a force to Rheims, where, in the
ancient crowning-place of all the French kings, Charles vn.
was duly crowned and anointed. The Maid's appointed
task was done ; she had saved Orleans, and crowned the
king, and she would fain have withdrawn. But the court
found her too useful to let her go : she was employed upon
new tasks, upon which she felt no such supernatural assur
ance. She failed to capture Paris ; and in the end, in
March 1430, she was taken a prisoner by the Burgundians,
who soldner to the English for ten thousand pieces of gold.
She was taken to Rouen, tried for witchcraft before a court
consisting of doctors of the University of Paris, under the
presidency of the French Bishop of Beauvais, and burnt
alive in the market-place of Rouen, on 29th May 1431.
This was one of the most hideous crimes of history ; "and
the blame of permitting it must be laid at the door of the
great Duke of Bedford. But even deeper is the shame of
Charles vn., the king whose throne the heroic Maid had
saved. He made no attempt to rescue her ; though surely
every knightly sword in France should have leaped from
its scabbard to her aid. He did not even threaten to
retaliate on his English prisoners, some of whom were of
high rank, though such a threat would have been enough
to save her life. But as a martyr in the flames of Rouen
the Maid did even nobler service to France than when, in
white armour, she led her men into the breaches of Orleans.
She had shamed the selfish factions of the nobles. She had
aroused into passion the patriotism of the French people. She
had become for aU time the emblem of the spirit of national
freedom. She had created the indestructible unity of the
French nation. She had made the English conquest of
France for ever impossible and unthinkable.
Bedford and his captains struggled gallantly against the
rising spirit of the French. But during«the next five years
they gradually lost ground, and by 1435 held little beyond
Paris and the province of Normandy. Moreover Bedford's

ch. vtii.] SECOND ATTEMPf ON FRANCE 171
relations with the Duke of Burgundy, upon which every
thing depended, graduaUy became more strained, partly
owing to personal causes of friction on which we need not
dweU, and partly because Burgundy felt more and more
that the English cause was the losing cause. In 1435 an
attempt was made to make peace at a congress at~Arras.
It broke down on the absolute refusal of the English repre
sentatives to abandon the title King of France, which, with
foohsh pride, the kings of England continued to bear for
nearly four centuries to come. But meanwhile the Duke
of Burgundy had made peace on his own account, recog
nising Charles vn. as king, at the price of the cession to
himself of all the strong places in the province of Picardy,
which left him a more powerful and independent prince
than ever. Besides the wide lands of the duchy of Bur
gundy proper and the county of Flanders, for which he
owed allegiance to the crown of France, his family had
acquired, by marriage or conquest, the greater part of the
Netherlands (modern Belgium and HoUand) and the county
of Burgundy (Franche Comte), for which allegiance was due
to the Emperor. He was therefore more than a mere vassal ;
he was one of the most powerful princes in Europe.
The loss of the Burgundian alliance made the situation
of the English in France almost hopeless ; and the death
of the great Duke of Bedford, soon after this disaster, was
a culminating blow. Nevertheless the English captains
fought with great gaUantry. Though Paris was lost in
*436, Normandy was gallantly defended for fifteen years
to~come, and the narrow strip of territory in the extreme
south, from Bordeaux to Bayonne, which had survived
the disasters of the fourteenth century, still held out against
aU attacks. The final collapse of the English power in
the end came suddenly, and it was due mainly to the in
efficiency of the government of the Dukes of Suffolk and
Somerset, which was rapidly bringing about anarchy and
civU war in England. The battle of Formigny, in May
1450, sealed the fate of Normandy ; before the end of
August every Enghsh foothold in that great province,
which Henry v. had so laboriously conquered, and which
Bedford and his captains had so gallantly defended, was
finaUy lost. In 1451-3 the French concentrated their forces
for an attack on the ancient Enghsh province of Guienne,
which had been loyal to the English crown ever since the
time of Henry n. At the battle of CastiUon, in July 1453,
the last considerable English army in France was destroyed ;

172 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
and when', three months later, the city of Bordeaux sur
rendered to the French, no French territory remained in
English hands, save only the city of Calais, which was to be
retained for another century.
The dreary and futUe Hundred Years' War was at an
end. It had produced the most profound effects upon the
life and destiny of the two great nations whom it had
embroUed. A tradition of hostility between them had
been established ; and with few and rare intervals they
continued to regard one another as natural enemies for
nearly .four centuries to come — to their own great loss, and
to the impoverishment of the world. In France the long
strain of war had destroyed the possibility of parliamentary./
government, which had seemed within reach at the begin
ning of the fourteenth century ; government by discussion
is not practicable when hostile armies are actuaUy encamped
on the national territory, and France therefore inevitably
fell under the rule of an absolute monarchy which grew
more and more powerful as time passed, because it seemed
the only safeguard of national freedom and strength. On
the other hand, the long wars had created in the divided
provinces of France a genuine and profound sentiment i
of national pride and patriotism, which had been sanctified
and glorified by the hfe and death of the heroic Maid of
France. In England the national sentiment was already
powerful before the wars began, but no doubt their triumphs
and disasters helped to root and strengthen this sentiment.
The financial burden of the wars had contributed to shape
the growth of Enghsh institutions, and had made possible
the establishment of the supremacy of Parhament. On
the other hand, the wars had fostered among the Enghsh,
and especially among the great nobles, a very warlike and v
turbulent spirit, highly dangerous to the growth of orderly
freedom ; and, when at length the long conflict was over,
the restless spirits which had found occupation for so many
years in France returned only to find more mischievous
means of satisfying their love of fighting in the hideous
civil wars which broke out as soon as the long conflict in
France was over. Amid that conflict, as we shaU see, aU
that system of ordered freedom which had been so slowly
and painfully worked out was gravely endangered ; and
for a time it seemed as if England, like France, would become
a despoticaUy-governed land.
[Oman's History of England, 1377-14S5 ; Vickers' England in the
Later Middle Ages ; Kingsford's Henry V. ; Mowat's Henry V.]

CHAPTER IX
THE STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND
(a.d. 1422-1485)
Henry vi., 1422 : Edward rv., 1461 : Edward v., 1483 :
Richard m., 1483.
§ 1. Faction and Disorder in England.
The menace to national peace and good government arising
from the strife of factions among the nobles had been
always present during the fourteenth century. In the
fifteenth, after thirty years of growing discord and disorder
which foUowed on the death of Henry v., it came to a head
in the hideous Wars of the Roses. It is not worth whUe to
study in detail the course of these conflicts and wars, but
it is worth whUe to realise what they signified, and what
their bearing was upon the life of the nation.
Henry vi. was a chUd of two years old when he succeeded
to the throne ; and when he reached an age at which he
might have taken a part in the work of government he
turned out to be a mUd, timid and simple-minded soul, with
a strain of insanity which he inherited from his French
grandfather. This meant that the royal authority would
always be wielded by some one else ; and it placed the
government of the country at the mercy of factions of the
greater nobles.
At first sight it might have been expected that under
these circumstances the power of Parliament would become
more complete than ever, and during the early years of
the reign this seeined to be happening. Parliament set
aside Henry v.'s arrangement for the government of the
country during ,the king's minority, and provided that
supreme control of the executive should belong not to a
single regent, but to the King's Council as a whole, over
which Parliament itself had long claimed a controUing voice.
Moreover it was during these years that Parliament secured
effective control over legislation. Hitherto it had only
petitioned for laws, leaving the royal officers to draw them
173

174 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
up. Now the practice was established of putting the
petition into the form of a draft law, or bill, which was
submitted to the king for his acceptance or rejection ; he
practically lost the power of amendment. All this suggested
that it was Parliament which was going to step into the
place which the infancy and later the imbetility of the king
left vacant.
But this did not happen. Instead of being able to con
trol and regulate the court factions, Parhament increasingly
feU under their influence, and its powers of appointing or
dismissing members of the Council, or impeaching ministers,
were used by each faction in turn, simply as a weapon
against its opponents.
The elections to Parliament were in a large degree under
the influence of the magnates in each county ; and it was
perhaps in part to make this easier that the important Act
of 1430 was passed, whereby the right of voting in the
election of knights of the shire was limited to holders of
land in freehold to the value of at least forty shUhngs per N
annum — equivalent to about £30 of modern money. This
was a serious limitation of the franchise, for whereas before
1430 all freemen in the shire had had a right to vote, now
not merely those who did not hold land, but those who held
even large farms on leasehold or copyhold, were forbidden
to vote ; and the restriction of voting rights to landowners
made the control of elections by the nobles easier. Again
the meetings of Parliament themselves became more and
more turbulent, because the members were mostly adherents
of factions. The Parliament of 1426, for example, is signi
ficantly known as the Parliament of Bats (or bludgeons),
because the government found it necessary to forbid its
members to bear arms, and they therefore arrived with
clubs instead. More and more, a"s the century went on,
the meetings of Parliament became simply gatherings of
rival factions, groups of retainers foUowing the lead of
powerful nobles ; and, apart from the voting of supplies,
their proceedings were almost limited to attacks by one
court faction upon another.
The root of aU these evUs was to be found in that change
in the character of the nobility which we have already
described. The great nobles were few in number — never
more than about fifty during this period, even including the
less important among them. They prided themselves upon
maintaining large bands of paid and armed retainers, whose
numbers were?greatly increased by the French wars. They

ch. ix.] STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND 175
also persuaded the minor gentry of their districts to join
their foUowings and to wear their badges or hveries ; and
this practice grew because, owing to the disorderly state of
the country, to wear the livery of a great noble was the
best protection. The government was powerless to prevent
this development, and, indeed, scarcely tried to do so,
since the government itself consisted of these great nobles.
Law and order could not be enforced against these bands.1
When Mr. WUliam Poole of Liverpool, in 1437, raided the
house of Sir John Butler of Bewsey and carried off Lady
Butler by force, Sir John could get no remedy, because the
ruffian Poole was a proteg6 of the powerful house of Stanley.
Butler petitioned Parhament for redress ; but aU that
Parhament could do was to pass an act outlawing Mr.
Poole, which was no remedy at all. The growing lawless
ness of the country is the most marked feature of the period
preceding the Wars of the Roses ; and the only remedy
for this lawlessness must be some healthy blood-letting
among the nobles and their retainers. Not until this had
happened could order and firm government and strict
observance of law become possible again ; and from this
point of view the Wars of the Roses, horrible as they were,
served a useful purpose.
Between the great nobles personal and family feuds raged
merrily, and often led to private war. But besides this,
they were grouped into two parties, perpetuaUy striving
for the control of the national government, and for the
chances of enrichment, and of vengeance against their
rivals, which this control could give. The leaders of these
court parties were always princes of the blood-royal, who
commonly had an eye to the possibility of inheriting the
throne, for Henry vi. had no heir till 1453. One party
professed to favour peace, the other the more energetic
prosecution of the war ; and the party out of power always
posed as the constitutional party. But these were little
more than pretexts.
So long as the Duke of Bedford lived comparative order
was maintained. But even in this period there was acri
monious strife between the party headed by Henry Beau
fort, Bishop of Winchester, who later became Cardinal and
Papal Legate, and the party headed by Bedford's reckless
younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester. One of Bedford's
1 The best idea of the condition of England during this period is to be
obtained from the remarkable family correspondence known as The
Paston Letters.

176 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
greatest difficulties was to keep the peace between these
two parties. The Cardinal was the most active member
of the powerful Beaufort family, who were iUegitimate sons
of John of Gaunt, but had been legitimised by a statute
of 1407, which definitely excluded them from the succes
sion to the crown. On the whole the Cardinal held the
upper hand in the Council ; and he was undoubtedly a
more moderate and statesmanlike man than his nephew,
the Duke of Gloucester.
After Bedford's death in 1435 the Beauforts stiU held
the upper hand, but the leadership of their faction feU into
the hands of the Cardinal's nephew, Edmund Beaufort,
Duke of Somerset, and his aUy, the Duke of Suffolk, gland-
son of Richard n.'s unpopular minister. But now they
became more high-handed, and began to disregard and
defy Parhament and to summon it less frequently ; and
men began to suspect that, in spite of the Act of 1407,
the Beauforts were aiming at succeeding to the crown if
Henry vi. should die without heirs. Gloucester, stiU the
head of the Opposition, was supported by the Duke of
York, who, being descended through his mother from the
third son of Edward in., had a better hereditary claim
to the throne than Henry vi. himself. And the great
house of NeviUe, now the richest nobles in England, who
included no"less than five of the fifty lay peers, and were
related to many of the rest, took the same side. Suffolk
and Somerset attacked the Gloucester party with the
utmost violence. In 1444 they arranged the marriage of
Henry vi. to a French princess, Margaret of Anjou, and
this high-spirited and passionate girl, who from the first com
pletely dominated her feeble-minded husband, threw herself
into the faction fight whole-heartedly on the side of Somerset.
In 1447, at a packed Parhament at Bury St. Edmunds,
held in a town controUed by armed men, Gloucester was
charged with high treason, and condemned. He died
mysteriously immediately afterwards. York, his chief
supporter, was practicaUy banished to Ireland, as Lord
Lieutenant ; and the Beaufort party seemed to be trium
phant. They were intensely unpopular throughout the
country, but they maintained themselves in power despite
public opinion. Parliament, as the mouthpiece of the nation,
henceforward counted for almost nothing.
But the Beaufort-Suffolk domination was shaken by
the disasters in France, which were attributed, not alto
gether unjustly, to their incompetent rule. When Normandy

CH. ix.] STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND 177
was lost in 1450 public discontent expressed itself in an
alarming rebellion in Kent and Sussex, led by an old soldier,
Jack Cade, who for a time made himself master of London
as Wat Tyler had done in 1381. But the contrast between
the demands of the rebels of 1381 and those of the rebels
of 1450 is very striking. Jack Cade did not demand the
abolition of villeinage, or other social reforms ; villeinage
had almost come to an end. He demanded the dismissal
and punishment of the king's evU servants, and the restora
tion of good government, justice and order. And already
before the outbreak of the rebellion (May) a Parhament,
meeting in January, had impeached Suffolk. In order to
save him the king banished him before he was condemned ;
but when the hated minister tried to escape to the Continent
he was stopped by half a dozen ships, and beheaded across
the gunwale of a boat without trial ; the popular ballads of
the period are fuU of rejoicings over the death of the traitor.
Yet still the king, or rather the queen, clung to the un
popular faction. The Duke of Somerset, returning from
shameful defeat in Normandy, was welcomed hke a con
quering hero and made the Constable of England ; while
the Duke of York, returning from Ireland to take the lead
of the Opposition party, had to organise an army in order
to reach London in safety. In 1451 another Parliament
demanded the banishment of Somerset ; and the House of
Commons (convinced that Somerset was aiming at the
succession) asked that the Duke of York should be formally
recognised as heir to the crown. But the government still
defied the demands of Parliament ; and now the two factions,
the rival houses of Lancaster (represented by Somerset) and
York, were arrayed against one another. Their retainers
were embodied on each side : their armies were actually
in the field.
The outbreak of war between them was delayed for a
time by the great French attack on Guienne, the last English
possession in France save Calais. But in 1453 Guienne
was irrevocably lost ; the Beaufort faction was finaUy dis
credited. Almost at the same time a son was born to
Henry vi., and the poor king became insane. These events
brought about the downfall of Somerset. Even the queen
dared not support him. York, who had behaved with the
most careful moderation, was declared by the House of
Lords Protector and Defender of the Realm during the
king's illness (1454). Somerset was thrown into the Tower ;
and the chief members of the Yorkist party, including
vol. 1. M

178 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
the vigorous young Earl of Warwick,1 Richard Neville,
were given places in the CouncU. It appeared as if a
peaceful revolution had brought to an end the misrule of
the Beaufort faction. But the nobles of that faction were
openly getting ready for war, enlisting the returned soldiers
no longer needed in France.
UnhappUy the king recovered his reason before the end
of the year. York's regency came to an end. His partisans
were expeUed from the CouncU. Somerset was restored to
power, and he and the queen proceeded to summon, not a
Parliament, which they dared not meet, but a countil of
the nobles of their own party ' to provide for the safety of
the king's person against his enemies.' The meaning of
this was obvious. The Yorkists were to be destroyed.
They had no remedy but to take up arms. The Wars of
the Roses had begun. § 2. The Wars of the Roses.
These dreary and murderous wars were primarily a
straggle between factions of nobles, in which the rivalry of
York and Lancaster was crossed and complicated by aU
sorts of family feuds among the nobles themselves, and
private hatreds played quite as large a part as public pohcy.
1 The nation as a whole was little concerned. The most
highly developed parts of the country, the trading towns
and the rising manufacturing districts, favoured the Yorkist
cause, because it alone seemed to hold out any hope of
order and good government ; and it was mainly from the
more backward regions of the north, of Wales and of the
south-west, that the Lancastrian party drew its strength.
But in truth the mass of the people, the farmers, the traders,
the weavers, played almost no part in the war, and lucky
were the towns which were able to shut their gates upon it
altogether. The fighting was done, not by national levies,
but by the armed retainers of the nobles, and in most cases
the numbers engaged were comparatively smaU. But the
straggle was carried on in an extraordinarily ruthless way ;
on both sides, especiaUy after the battle of Wakefield (1460), it
became the regular practice to slaughter every leader who
feU into the hands of the victors, while those who escaped
were condemned without trial, by sweeping Acts of Attainder
rushed through packed Parliaments. The result of this
practice was, that the older nobility almost disappeared,
1 There is a good short life of Warwick the Kingmaker, by C. W. Oman,
in the English Men of Action Series.

CH. ix.] STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND 179
and the way was left clear for the re-establishment of
royal authority and the restoration of order and law.
A very brief narrative must suffice for the course of the
wars.1 The first battle (1 St. Albans, 1455) was a smaU affair,
in which the Yorkists won owing to the mihtary ability
of the young Earl of Warwick, and the pestilent Duke of
Somerset was slain. There foUowed an interval of four
years of restless peace, during which Queen Margaret was
engaged in reorganising her party and preparing to ruin
her rivals. Then (1459) strife broke out again ; and, though
they won a skirmish at Blore Heath, the Yorkist leaders
found their position hopeless, and had to flee, York to
Ireland and Warwick to Calais. A packed Parhament
(largely nominated by the sheriffs without even consulting
the electors) was employed to complete the ruin of the de
feated party by means of the new weapon of a wholesale Act
of Attainder, which, without any semblance of trial, simply
condemned a crowd of victims to death and confiscation.
MeanwhUe York made himself master of Ireland, and "the very
able and enterprising Warwick controUed Calais and the fleet.
In 1460 the exUes landed, Warwick in Kent and York
in Lancashire. Warwick defeated the main Lancastrian
army at Northampton, letting the rank and file escape,
but slaughtering all the knights and nobles ; and King
Henry vi. himself feU into his hands. Queen Margaret
fled to Wales. Here the Lancastrian cause was upheld
by a Welsh gentleman, Owen Tudor, who had married the
\ widow of Henry v., andTnis two sons, the elder of whom
1 (created Earl of Richmond) had married the heiress of the
Beauforts. But it was among the Percies and other great
houses of the north that the Lancastrian party was strongest.
Their forces, at the end of 1460, defeated and slew the Duke
of York at Wakefield, and most mercilessly slaughtered
not only aU the leaders, but their foUowers as weU. The
decapitated heads of the Duke of York and his seventeen-
year-old son were set above the gates of York. Then,
moving south, the queen's army defeated Warwick at the
second battle of St. Albans (Feb. 1461), and recaptured
Henry vi. But meanwhUe the Duke of York's eldest son,
Edward, Earl_of March, had won a complete victory over
the WeTsTTLancastrians at Mortimer's Cross (Feb.) ; and
in March 1461 the main Lancastrian army was utterly
destroyed at Towton in Yorkshire. The slaughter was
fearful; most of the Lancastrian leaders were killed in
1 For these battles see the map, Atlas, Plate 34.

180 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
the battle ; the rest were beheaded after it was over ;
and England lay in the hands of the Yorkists, while the
queen with her husband and son took refuge in Scotland.
§ 3. The House of York and the Re-establishment of
Royal Power.
With the battle of Towton the rule of the Yorkist dynasty
definitely began, though there was stUl to be a good deal
of fighting. Already, before the crowning victory, the Earl
of March had been declared king, as Edward iv., at a speciaUy
summoned Parhament. After the battle a new Parha
ment was employed to pass a wholesale Act of Attainder,
including fourteen peers, living and dead, and more than
a hundred adherents of Henry vi. That poor imbecUe
himself was condemned as a usurper and a traitor, and
deprived not only of the crown, but of the family estates
of the House of Lancaster. Out of the immense lands con
fiscated 'from the defeated party Edward's foUowers were
enormously enriched ; and above aU the Earl of Warwick,
to whom he mainly owed his crown, stood forth as themost
powerful subject in the realm, and its practical dictator.
And for a time the new king, who for all bis ability was a dis
solute and indolent man, was apparently content to leave the
supreme control in the hands of his masterful lieutenant.
The fierce heroic queen would not accept her defeat.
With indomitable energy she invaded Northumberland again
in 1463, without success. In 1464 the last levies of the
Lancastrian party in the north were defeated at Hedgeley
Moor and Hexham ; and these victories were foUowed by the
most bloody series of executions that had yet taken place,
The first act of the Wars of the Roses was over. And the
position of the new king seemed to be made absolutely secure
when in 1466 the unhappy Henry vi., who had been wan
dering in disguise from one house to another, was captured
in Lancashire, and imprisoned in the Tower.
The first period of the reign of Edward iv. extended from
1461 to 1471. It was marked by two main features. In
the first place, there was a steady decline in the influence
of Parhament. Enriched by the Lancastrian confiscations,
and unburdened by foreign war, the king, was not dependent
' upon Parhamentary grants ; and though Parhament met
several times, it did httle or nothing. The days of its
ascendency were at an end. And the nation, weary of
anarchy, was content that it should be so.

ch. ix.] STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND 181
In the second place, the relations between Edward iv.
and the great Earl of Warwick became steadUy more strained.
Warwick wanted peace and even aUiance with France,
where the curming King Louis xi. was rapidly establishing
the royal power, and was engaged in a keen conflict with
the powerful house of Burgundy. Edward, on the other
hand, preferred to continue the traditional aUiance with
Burgundy, and in 1467 he married his sister to the young
Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold.
But for a long time he aUowed Warwick to conduct negotia
tions with the French king, and even to make proposals for a
French marriage. Meanwhile the king had chosen his own
bride — a widow five years older than himself, belonging to
a famUy of the lesser nobility, which had hitherto been iden
tified with the Lancastrian party. He had actuaUy been
married to her five months before he announced the fact to
the indignant Warwick, who had been aUowed to go on with
the negotiations for a French match. And, what added
more than ever to the great earl's wrath, the king began to
shower estates and titles, out of the confiscated Lancastrian'
lands, upon the connexions of his wife. This was no mere
favouritism. Edward iv. — as subtle in his methods as
Charles n., who in many ways resembled him—was deliber
ately endeavouring to create a new nobility dependent upon
himself, as a balance to the overwhelming power of Warwick
and the rest of the NeviUe clan.
The result was that Warwick determined to overthrow
the ungrateful master whom he had enthroned. After a
confused struggle (1469-70), in the course of which at one
moment Edward was a prisoner in Warwick's hands, and
at the next Warwick was a fugitive at Calais, Edward was
himself compeUed to flee the country (1470), and the king
maker brought out the enfeebled old King Henry vi. from
the Tower and enthroned him. But next year Edward
was back, at the head of forces largely supplied by the Duke
of Burgundy. At the battle of Barnet (April 1471) , Warwick
was defeated and slain ; and at the battle of Tewkesbury
(May), the Lancastrians of the west were completely
destroyed ; the hideous slaughter included the young
Prince Edward, son and heir of Henry vi. The House of
Lancaster had come to an end. The only possible remain-
jing representative of that branch of the royal house was
j Henry of Richmond, grandson of the Welsh gentleman,
Owen Tudor, and son of Margaret Beaufort.
From 1471 to 1483 Edward iv.'s power was unchaUenged.

182 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
He showed himself a jovial, loose-living, easy-going prince,
extremely indolent and unwilling to take the trouble of
any great enterprise. He disgusted his brother-in-law,
Charles of Burgundy, whom he had promised to aid against
France, by aUowing himself to be bought off with a pension
by Louis xi. (1475). But he was by no means a mere
pleasure-lover. He could display a revolting cruelty when
it seemed to be useful for his security, as he had often shown
during the war, and as he showed again in the attainder
and murder of his brother, the Duke of Clarence (1478).
He was shrewd enough to see the desirabihty of dispensing
with Parliament as much as possible, and rarely sum
moned it. He systematicaUy endeavoured to create a
new nobility dependent upon the Crown. When he died
(1483), a worn out voluptuary not yet forty years old, he
had already gone far to turn England from a constitutional
monarchy into something very like a despotism.
But despite aU Edward iv.'s faults the House of York
seemed to be securely established on the throne when he
was succeeded by his young son, Edward v. Within two
years it had faUen in ruins. This was because its destinies
feU into the hands of a criminal, a man utterly unscrupulous
and as mercUess as Pedro the Cruel, whose blood ran in his
veins. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Edward iv.'s brother,
had won a good reputation both as an administrator and as a
general. But having no moral sense he could not resist the
temptation that beset him when he found only two boys be
tween himself and the throne. He bribed some of the leading
nobles to take his side ; imprisoned and beheaded without
trial those who were certain to oppose him, including espe
ciaUy the connexions of the queen-mother ; locked up his
two nephews in the Tower ; assumed the crown himself ;
and, a few days after his coronation, had the two young
princes murdered. These deeds were more than even
fifteenth-century England, sated as she was with blood and
cruelty, could tolerate. Even Richard's chief accomplice,
the Duke of Buckingham, revolted when he heard of these
pitiful murders ; but he, too, found his way to the block.
These horrors gave a chance to the ruined House of
Lancaster, and during the next two years widespread plots
for a general revolt were being made in England. The
plan of the conspirators was to bring back the exiled Earl
of Richmond, grandson of Owen Tudor the plain Welsh
gentleman on his father's side, and of John of Gaunt's
iUegitimate son, John Beaufort, on his mother's side, and

ch. ix.] STRIFE OF FACTIONS IN ENGLAND 183
to marry him to Ehzabeth, daughter of Edward IV., and a
sister of the murdered princes, thus blending the Yorkist
and the Lancastrian claims to the throne. Fearing some
thing of the sort, it was whispered, the criminal king thought
of divorcing his wife and actuaUy marrying his own niece,
the sister of the boys he had assassinated. But in August
1485, aided by money and men supplied from France,
Henry of Richmond landed in Wales, where he was, as a
Welshman, sure of support. He advanced through Wales
with growing numbers to Shrewsbury, where some English
malcontents joined him. But he had only a force of some
five thousand men when he marched against Richard, who
was coUecting his forces at Leicester. Meanwhile a third
army, from the Lancashire and Cheshire lands of the
Stanleys, was independently drawing near, not yet com
mitted to either side. On the 21st of August was fought
the decisive battle of Bosworth Field. Part of Richard's
own army played him false. The Stanleys joined in against
him when they saw that he was likely to lose ; and though
the criminal king fought to the end with desperate bravery,
he was utterly defeated, and lay dead on the field. His
battered crown, found in a hawthorn bush, was set on the
head of Richmond by Lord Stanley ; the army acclaimed
him as Henry vn. ; and the dismal Wars of the Roses were
over. The battle of Bosworth not only ended the anarchy of
the fifteenth century ; it ended the long preparation of
the Enghsh people for the part they were to play in the
modem age. For the mediaeval period was now at an end :
and aU the signs of the times, in world-politics, in the realm
of thought, and perhaps above all in the sphere of geo
graphical exploration, showed that a new era was dawning.
Not the least promising sign of this new era, so far as the
islands were concerned, was the fact that England, the
greatest of the four nations, received on Bosworth Field a
Welsh king, and the process of unifying the peoples of the
islands was carried a step further.
[Oman, History of England, 1377-1485, is the best modern summary
of thisdismal period ; see also his Warwick the Kingmaker ; Vickers,
England in the later Middle Ages ; Stubbs, Constitutional History,
vol. iii. ; Ramsay's Lancaster and York ; Gairdner's edition of the
Paston Letters, with long introduction; Gairdner's Richard III.;
Denton's England in the Fifteenth Century ; Mrs. J. R. Green's Eng
lish Town Life in the Fifteenth Century. A selection of contem
porary materials is provided by Garmon Jones' York and Lancaster.]

CHAPTER X
WALES, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND IN THE
LATER MIDDLE AGES
Our attention in this book has been mainly given to the
history of England, because the fortunes of England during
this period, and especially the development of her insti
tutions and her wars with France, were to have a very
great influence upon the history of aU the island peoples.
And as the other peoples lived a more or less isolated exist
ence, and were not so far advanced in their development,
we need only take a general survey of their history.
§ i. Wales.
From the time of Edward i.'s conquest onwards Wales
enjoyed a degree of internal peace such as she had never
known before ; and the maintenance of this peace was
helped by the foreign wars of the English kings, which drew
off the most turbulent and warlike of the' Welsh gentry ~
and their followers. Welshmen played a very important
part in the long wars with France — a part to which Shake
speare has paid some tribute in his character of FlueUen
(Llywelyn), the gallant Welsh captain. Because of this
peace, trade and industry for the first time began to make
serious headway among the Welsh. The Enghsh kings,
from Edward I. onward, encouraged this development by
granting charters to Welsh towns, which now first began
to play an important part in the life of the country ; and
the wooUen industry, fostered by the sheep on the Welsh
hills, began to bring some wealth into the little barren
mountain-land. But there was a good deal of hostility
between the towns, which were the chief centres of English
influence, and the rural districts, which remained purely
Welsh in character, and in which the lays of the bards still
kept alive the ancient poetical tradition of the country.
In spite of the peace and order which reigned in the country,
the spirit of Welsh nationality was still strong and living.
184

CH. x.] WALES, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND 185
The proof of this is to be found in the extraordinary success
of Owen Glendower's rising, of which something has been
said elsewhere.1 For half a dozen years Owen Glendower
was the unquestioned master of a practicaUy independent
Wales. His aim was the organisation of Welsh nation
ality ; he desired the establishment of a Welsh Parliament
on the model of the English Parliament, and he even sum
moned one meeting of such a body at MachynUeth, in the
buUding stUl known as Owen Glendower's Parliament House.
But in spite of its initial success his rising was from the
first doomed to failure, and its chief interest was that it
showed how strong Welsh national feeling stiU was.
In the Wars of the Roses Wales played a very important
part, and now first she began to influence the history of
her greater partner. The Yorkist party drew much of
its strength from the border lands of the earldom of March
— the lands of the House of Mortimer. But the real
Wales was mainly ranged on the Lancastrian side. This
was chiefly due to the influence of that gaUant gentleman
of Anglesey, Owen Tudor, who made so surprising a marriage
with the French widow of Henry v., and whose sons,
Edmund, Earl of Richmond, and Jasper, Earl of Pembroke,
were the most loyal supporters of the Lancastrian cause.
Edmund Tudor married Margaret Beaufort, the grand
daughter of John of Gaunt ; and their son, Henry Tudor,
became in the end the representative of the Lancastrian
claim to the throne. It was from Wales that Henry Tudor,
naturaUy enough, drew the bulk of the troops which won
the battle of Bosworth ; and with the accession of a Welsh
dynasty to the Enghsh throne — and that the most brilliant
dynasty that has ever ruled England- — a new era in the
history of the two nations began. One of the tasks of the
Tudor kings was to weld the two countries finally and
perfectly together ; and henceforth, though the two nations
remained distinct, they were indissolubly partners.
§ 2. Scotland.
Robert 11., 1371 : Robert in., 1390 : James 1., 1406:
James 11., 1437: James in., 1460: James iv., 1488.
The history of Scotland during aU this period is a rather
dreary record of desultory wars with England, and in
ternal feuds between the king and the nobles. There were
many wUd and romantic episodes in these struggles,
' Chapter vn., p. 161 above,

186 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
some of which wiU be found, picturesquely told, in Scott's
Tales of a Grandfather ; but these episodes had little bearing
upon the development of the nation, and we must leave
them aside. Scotland indeed possessed a Parhament, but
it never played a part in the nation's life such as was taken
by the English Parliament. This was partly because the
Scottish king was not only expected to, but generaUy did,
' live of his own,' and therefore the financial weapon for obtain
ing parliamentary supremacy was lacking. But the weak
ness of the Scottish Parliament was mainly due to its con
stitution. It consisted of aU the great barons, aU the great
prelates (bishops and abbots), and burgesses from the royal
burghs. The burgesses were first summoned by Robert
Bruce in 1326. But they do not seem to have been regarded
as a necessary part of Parliament until the middle of the
fifteenth century. What is more, they were from an early
date elected not by the whole body of townsmen, but by
the town councils, so that even the burgesses were not a
reaUy representative body. There was no element in the
Scottish Parliament corresponding to the elected knights
of the shire, who formed the most effective part of the
English House of Commons. King James 1., indeed, who
had spent a long captivity in England, in 1427 required
the gentry and freeholders of each shire to elect ' two or
more wise men ' ; but the precedent was not repeated, and
the Scottish Parliament remained an assembly of great
barons, prelates and burgesses, who all sat in a single
chamber. They formed the ' Three Estates,' and the word
' Estates ' was commonly used instead of ' Parliament.'
Moreover an unfortunate practice grew up by which the
estates delegated aU their power to a committee (the ' Lords
of the Articles ') which could be, and generally was, ' packed '
by the king or by a faction of nobles. For aU these reasons
the Scottish Parliament never became a nationally repre
sentative body like the English Parliament.
One of the chief sources of disorder in Scotland was the
incapacity of the Crown to deal with the turbulence of the
great nobles, and especially of the very powerful and unruly
House of Douglas, which during the greater part of this
period almost overshadowed the king. Whenever the
king tried to attack them they were apt to enter into rela
tions with England, and to stir into unrest the unsubdued
chieftains of the wild Highlands, which were never com
pletely conquered or brought under regular government,
The weakness of the Crown was increased by the character

ch. x.] WALES, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND 187
of the Stewart kings of this period, and also by a series of
unlucky accidents. Robert n. was a rather colourless
prince. His son, Robert in., was a weakling, who left aU
power in the hands of his brother, the Duke of Albany.1
Albany murdered his nephew, the Duke of Rothesay
(1402) ; and when Rothesay's younger brother, James, the
next heir, was by sheer bad luck captured by the English
on his way to France, and kept as a prisoner tiU 1424,
Albany and his son continued to rule as regents over a
country torn asunder by baronial strife. James 1., an
able man and a considerable poet, spent the first eighteen
years of his reign as a prisoner in the Tower of London.
He married one of the Beauforts, and was released in 1424.
He came back resolved to restore order. But he was too
fierce and too hurried in his attacks on the nobles ; and,
after a very stormy reign, was butchered by them in 1437.
James n. was a child of eight when he succeeded, and his
disorderly minority undid all the work of his father. When
he came of age he attacked the Douglases with some
success. But he was slain at the age of thirty in a raid
into England to help his Beaufort cousins. Once more
there was a long minority, during which the young king,
James in., passed from the control of one faction of nobles
to another. When he grew up he married a Norwegian
princess (1469), who brought Orkney and Shetland as her
dowry. But his reign was as disturbed as that of his pre
decessors. RebeUions and assassinations were unceasing,
and he especiaUy suffered from the treachery of his brothers,
who perpetuaUy intrigued with Edward iv. of England.
James in. would not have been a Stewart if he had not
died tragicaUy. He feU from his horse, and was murdered
in his bed by a priest who came to confess him.
It is a sorry story. Yet the history of Scotland during
this period is not merely an unrelieved tale of anarchy and
bloodshed. King James 1., who probably wrote The King's
Quhair during his imprisonment in England, was only one of a
series of poets who distinguished the period ; and the terrible
stories of vengeance and crime which fiU the annals of Scot
land at least provided material for a wonderful ballad
hterature. More important, Scotland was provided with
two universities in this age, St. Andrews in 1414 and Glasgow
in 1451. The poor scholar, who was to build the greatness
of Scotland in the future, ' cultivating the Muses on a little
oatmeal,' was beginning to take his place in the life of the
1 Scott's Fair Maid of Perth deals withjthis period.

188 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
nation. And that intense interest in theological questions,
which has been another of the main features of moderni
Scotland, may be said to have begun in this age. LoUardy,
spreading from England, won many adherents, especiaUy
in the west country. Its embers were not cold when the
Reformation broke into flame.
But the most persistent feature of Scottish history during
this age was the unvarying hostility between the Scots and
the English, and the equaUy steady friendship between
Scotland and France. It would be useless to record the
endless and usually futile raids of Scottish armies into
England, and of English armies into Scotland. They were
almost unceasing throughout the period, and on the Borders
a state of war was normal. The French aUiance brought)
large Scottish forces into the field against the Enghsh in 1
the second phase of the Hundred Years' War ; and through- j
out the remainder of the fifteenth century bodies of Scottish
mercenaries were always maintained by the French kings.1
It appeared, then, that the Scots and the Enghsh were
irreconcUably divided at the close of the Middle Ages ;
and the endless war between them formed a principal cause
of the backward and turbulent condition of Scotland. Yet
there were already factors making for unity. The most
important parts of Scotland spoke the Enghsh language.
The Scottish poets were deeply influenced by Enghsh
models. Scottish institutions were (at a great distance)
modeUed upon those of England. The movement of
Scottish thought on religious questions owed a great deal
to Enghsh thought. HostUe as they were, the two nations
were not unsuited to be close partners. But the greatest
days of Scotland were yet to come : they were to begin with
the Reformation of the sixteenth century.
§ 3. Ireland.
The most pitiful part of the story of the islands during
this age is that of Ireland. It had been a divided country
ever since the first Norman Conquest in the reign of Henry 11.
Down to the reign of Edward 1. the Norman barons had
made steady progress, conquering their Irish neighbours
and introducing feudal law in place of the Irish tribal
usages ; and it would have been a happy thing if this process
had been completed in Ireland, as it was in the greater part
1 Scott's Quentin Durward, one of his finest tales, narrates the adven
tures of a young Scot in the French service during this period.

ch.x.] WALES, SCOTLAND' AND IRELAND 189
of Scotland. But from the time of the invasion of Edward
Bruce (1315-1318) the power of the Norman baronage over
the greater part of Ireland was broken, and the authority
of the Enghsh government steadUy dechned. Irish chief
tains, like Lysaght O'More in the reign of Edward in.,
reconquered regions which had passed under English rule,
and re-established Irish customs and mode of life, and
especiaUy the Irish system of tribal landholding and the
Irish rules of succession to land. Some even of the Norman
barons, hke the de Burghs or Burkes in Connaught, became
whoUy Irish and adopted Irish rules of land tenure. This
was not, of course, in itself a bad thing ; but its evU
result was that there was an increasingly sharp cleavage
between the two races, and that the outlying regions of
Ireland were no longer bound to the Crown, even by the
formal tie of feudal obedience. In 1366 an attempt to
check this process was made by the Statute of Kilkenny,
which made it high treason for the Enghsh settlers to adopt
Irish dress and customs, or the Irish rules of succession to
land, or to marry native Irish women, or to trade with the
Irish. This monstrous enactment was in fact a confession
of defeat. It had no effect, but it naturally increased the
embitterment of the two races.
In fact, throughout this period, Ireland was broken
into three very unequal areas.1 There was a smaU region
round Dublin which was effectively ruled by the English
government, and in which English law was on the whole
satisfactorily administered. This region was known as
the Pale. Towards the end of the period it measured
about thirty miles from north to south, twenty from
east to west. Then there were some regions outside
the Pale, especially in Leinster and Munster, where
great barons of Norman origin ruled their estates almost
as independent princes, but still recognised their feudal
dependence upon the Enghsh king, and still maintained,
through their own courts, feudal modes of land tenure.
Of these the most important were the great famUies of
Butler, Earls of Ormond (Tipperary), whose title was
granted by Edward in., and the various branches of the
powerful House of Fitzgerald or Geraldine, notably the
Earls of Desmond (in Cork), who received their title in
1329, and Kildare (1316). These magnates ruled their
regions as independent feudatories, and constantly engaged in
private war with one another and with their Irish neighbours ;
1 See the map of mediaeval Ireland, Atlas, Plate 42 (a).

ioo CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
but they also maintained relations with the English Crown,
and took part in the proceedings of the Irish Parhament at
Dublin. The rest of Ireland — the great bulk of the country
— was under the rule of Irish clan chieftains, who gave a
formal and meaningless recognition to the English Crown,
but hved their own life apart. They were obviously
numerous enough to destroy the Enghsh colony if they had
united ; but they were incapable of co-operation, and the
traditional Enghsh policy was to play them off against one
another. Richard n., in two visits to Ireland, tried to establish
the supremacy of the Crown, but his success was only
momentary. Henry iv. was too busy with internal troubles
to give any serious attention to Ireland. Under Henry v.
the gallant Sir John Talbot carried on some misceUaneous
fighting, and acquired lands for his famUy in the south
east. But the area under effective Enghsh control went
on shrinking ; the Enghsh settlers became more and more
Irish, and it was of little use to pass such laws as that which
forbade Enghsh settlers to wear moustaches lest they should
be mistaken for Irish. The most successful Enghsh viceroy
during this whole period was Richard, Duke of York.
His policy was that of friendship with both races. It did
not lead to any improvement in the efficiency of govern
ment, or to any decrease in the local independence of barons
and chieftains. But it won for the Yorkist party the
loyal adherence of most of Ireland, with the exception of
the Butlers, who took the Lancastrian side. When Richard
had to flee from England in 1459, he was cordiaUy welcomed
in Ireland, and the Irish Parliament practicaUy declared
its independence of England. The chief friends of the
Yorkists were the Fitzgeralds, Earls of KUdare, who from
now onwards play a dominant part in the direction of Irish
affairs. But the continued conflict of chiefs and barons stiU
went on ; and the limits of the Pale were at their narrowest
when the period ended.
We have spoken several times of the Irish Parhament. It
had been set up in 1295 in imitation of the Enghsh Parhament,
and included barons, knights and burgesses. But it repre
sented only the Enghsh colony, not the Irish people. It
was an almost powerless body, and as a rule entirely under
the control of the Enghsh viceroy ; because the Enghsh
colony knew that its existence depended altogether on the
support of the English government.
Ireland, then, was the only one of the Four Nations which

ch. x.] WALES, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND 191
was not only deeply divided but torn asunder by acute racial
hostility, and devoid of any effective common government.
The problem of giving unity and peace to the unhappy country
was one of the most difficult of the island problems at the
opening of the modern age. It had never yet been syste
matically tackled, because, owing to her geographical posi
tion, the anarchy of Ireland did not seem to do any harm
to England. The problem was not insoluble ; but, as we
'shaU see, it was dealt with in the most unhappy way ; and,
as from the beginning, so in the modern age, circumstances
always seemed to suggest disastrous methods to the rulers
of the distressful isle.
[O. M., Edwards' Wales (Story of the Nations) ; Hume Brown or
Andrew Lang, History of Scotland ; Richey, Short History of the
Irish People.]

CHAPTER XI
EUROPE AND THE ISLANDS ON THE EVE OF THE
MODERN AGE
§ i. The Cosmopolitan Ideal of the Middle Ages and
its Breakdown.
By the common consent of historians the later years of the
fifteenth century are held to mark the close of the mediaeval
period and the beginning of the modern age. In aU spheres-
vast changes were visibly taking place. The general use
of gunpowder was transforming the conditions of warfare,
and dethroning the mailed knight from the ascendency he
had hitherto enjoyed. The revival of learning was under
mining the most cherished conceptions of the Middle Ages.
The invention of printing was making it far easier for new
ideas to be diffused and to influence men's action. The
non-European world was beginning to be disclosed to
Europe. Some of the greater European States were begin
ning to assume their modern form ; in place of a medley
of feudal principalities, a group of powerful and highly
organised Nation - States, England, France, Spain, had
emerged in Western Europe, and the character of inter
national relations was undergoing a rapid transformation.
Above aU, the ruhng political ideas of the mediaeval period
had ceased to exercise much influence upon men's minds.
The noblest dream of the Middle Ages was the idea that
the whole civilised world (or, what seemed to be the same
thing, the whole of Latin Christendom) was, or ought to be,
organised as a single great State, governed by a single moral
code. It was believed to be the will of God that all His
people should be shepherded by two ruling powers, a
spiritual power, the Papacy, and a secular power, the Holy
Roman Empire, the inheritor of the august sovereignty of
old Rome. There had always been a prince bearing the
title of Roman Emperor. But there had never been a time
when his direct authority was adcepted over aU Europe.
In fact the title had been, since 962, attached to the German
kingdom, and the power of the Emperor had been limited

ch. xi.] EVE OF THE MODERN AGE 193
to Germany and Italy. But so long as the Emperor was
reaUy the greatest prince in Europe, as he was down to '
1250, the ideal of his universal sovereignty did not seem
altogether meaningless. Since 1250, however, the Emperor
had eeased to be anything more than the nominal head of
the chaotic bundle of little States into which Germany was
now divided ; he was overshadowed by the far more power
ful rulers of the consolidated nations of the West ; and the
old dream of the Holy Roman Empire as the representa
tive of the unity of the civilised world was dead for ever.
The elected King of Germany continued to call himself
Emperor, and to enjoy a nominal precedence among the
rulers of Europe, down to the beginning of the nineteenth
century. But he was only one, and not even the most
powerful, of the European sovereigns.
The Papacy had done far more than the Empire to turn
the idea of the unity of Europe into a reality. Not only
was the Pope the undisputed head of the Church of all the
West, with a claim to the spiritual obedience of every
Western Christian, but he had also assumed very important
pohtical functions. During the great days of Rome's
political and spiritual ascendency, from the middle of the
eleventh century to the end of the thirteenth, the great popes,
such as Gregory vn. and Innocent in., had been guardians
of the moral law which was common to aU Europe. They
could outlaw princes or States which disregarded this law ;
they could depose unrighteous rulers ; they could arbitrate
in disputes between States ; and, though they could not
stop war altogether, they could and did impose restraints
upon the methods in which it was waged. They could do
aU this because of the moral ascendency which they wielded
over the consciences of men, and because the powerful
organisation of the Church in aU lands, which was under
their control, was a factor which no sovereign dare dis
regard. But during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
' pohtical authority of the popes had gradually broken down.
This was due to several reasons. On the one hand, the
Papacy itself no longer seemed to be so disinterested in its
aims as it had earlier been, but seemed to be using its
spiritual authority largely for the purpose of heaping up
riches. The Church everywhere had fallen into corruption ;
bishops had become intriguing politicians ; monks and
friars greedy and dissolute idlers. This had led to wide
spread protests and expressions of discontent in all countries,
VOL. 1. N

194 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
of which the Wychffite movement in England and the
Hussite movement in Bohemia were only the most violent.
On the other hand, the pride and power of the great con
solidated States like England and France were no longer^
willing to submit to the kind of papal influence which had?
been accepted in earlier days ; and we have seen how the
English Parliament had struck blow after blow at the claims of "'¦
the Papacy, culminating in the Statute of Prsemunire in 1393,
by which the introduction of a papal bull into England was
made a penal offence. And rinaUy, the influence of the
Papacy had been gravely reduced by the events of its
history during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For
seventy years it had deserted the holy city of Rome and
made its headquarters at Avignon, where it was supposed to
have become the creature of the French monarchy. Then had
foUowed the ugly episode of the Great Schism, when for forty
years (1378-1417) there were always two, and sometimes three,
rival popes, hurling anathemas at one another, and com
peting for the allegiance of the various European States.
During that period it was impossible to take seriously the
claim of the Pope to be the head of the European political
system and the guardian of European morals. The schism
had been ended by a series of Church Councils, notably those
of Constance (1414-18) and Basle (1431-49). These, councils
had for a time simply put aside the papal authority, and many
men hoped that they would be able to carry out a thorough
reform of the Church ' in its head and in its members.'
But the conciliar movement had failed. The popes had
resumed their unlimited sovereignty over the Church. And
unhappily the popes of this period were among the most
worldly men who ever occupied the papal throne. Thus a
great opportunity of restoring the purity, and with it the
unity and influence, of the Church had been lost. In all
countries the Church lost its independence, and feU under
the control of the government. In aU countries also it
had largely lost the aUegiance of the mass of men. The
moral unity of Christendom was breaking up.
In its place came the idea of the supremacy of the State—
the idea that whatever a State might do for the increase of
its own power was justified by success, and that there could
be no moral restraints upon the actions of States in their
dealings with one another. We have already seen that
the fifteenth century in England was marked by extra
ordinary ferocity, treachery and immorality on the part of
the leaders in the faction strife of the Roses. This feature

ch. xi.] EVE OF THE MODERN AGE 195
was by no means peculiar to England. It was common to
the whole of Western Europe in this age, and it was due to
the decay of rehgious behef, and to the break-down of
moral restraints which accompanied it.
§ 2. The Political Condition of Europe : the Rise of
Nation-States.
The new Europe,1 then, was a Europe of many States,
great and little, which no longer felt themselves restrained
by the common conscience of Christendom, expressed
through the Empire and the Church, but which felt them
selves justified in using all means for increasing their power
at one another's expense. Most of these States were nothing
more than ' estates ' — territories belonging to their ruling
princes. Their boundaries were quite artificial ; and their
subjects were not held together by any strong natural ties,
except such loyalty as their masters could deserve. But
there were a few States, and these the greatest and the
most powerful, which were Nation-States ; whose citizens,
owing to community of language or traditions or modes of
hfe, felt that they ' belonged together,' and could take a
pride in their common achievements, and be thriUed by
a common patriotism. We have got so much into the habit
of thinking that ' Nations ' and ' States ' ought to be
identified, that we do not realise how big and important
a thing the appearance of these Nation-States reaUy was.
There had never been States of this kind in the history of
the world before.
Of these new Nation-States England was the first to
achieve her national unity and to learn to be proud of it,
and we have traced the process by which this had come
about. Wales was a little nation which had been annexed
to the Enghsh nation-state : she retained her national
spirit, but accepted the position because her distinct char
acter and customs were not suppressed or interfered with.
Scotland, though in many ways deeply divided, had become
a nation in resisting the attempt of the Enghsh to conquer
her, and was fiercely attached to her national independence.
Ireland was, unhappUy, not a unified nation. But on the
whole the national idea was more firmly rooted in the
islands than anywhere else, and the national spirit was
producing great results.
Of the other nations, the greatest was France, which,
1 For Europe in this period, see the maps, Atlas, Plates 7 and 8.

196 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
after many troubles, had been welded into unity in the
fire of the Hundred Years' War. Her government had
been organised under the cunning, efficient and unscru
pulous despot, Louis xi., who, by breaking the power of the
House of Burgundy and reconquering from it most of the
French territories which it had long ruled, had almost
completed the unification of France.1 From this time
onwards, the united realm of France was always to play a
leading part in European affairs. Proud of her unity,
France was about to make a bid, under the guidance of
her despot kings, for the leadership of Europe.
Further south, the little nation of Portugal, graduaUy
reconquered from the Moors during the Middle Ages, and
fiUed with the crusading spirit, had already begun to pursue
her ancient enemies into Northern Africa, and was entering
upon that marvellous career of exploration and conquest
which will attract our attention in a later chapter, and which
was to be the great source of Portuguese national pride.
Her greater neighbour, Spain, had just begun to achieve
national unity at the end of the fifteenth century.2 Through
out the Middle Ages she had been divided into a number of
States. Their history had chiefly consisted in an endless
struggle against their Mohammedan neighbours, who had
in the eighth century very nearly mastered the whole of
Spain, and still retained, in the fifteenth, a shrunken but
rich little realm in the extreme south. When Ferdinand,
King of Aragon, in 1469 married IsabeUa, later Queen of
Castile, the first great step was taken towards the uni
fication of Spain. When these two princes in 1492 con
quered Granada, the last important stronghold of the Moors,
another great step was taken ; and the process was com
pleted by the conquest of Navarre in 1512. Spain was not
yet a reaUy united nation ; Aragonese and Castilians had
distinct systems of government, and were very jealous of
one another. But the united monarchy formed a very
powerful State, capable of rivalling France for the leader
ship of Europe ; and this rivalry began in the last years of
the fifteenth century.
These were the new Nation-States which were about to
play the leading parts in the great drama of modem history.
Perhaps we may add to them the kingdoms of Poland,
Bohemia and Hungary in Eastern Europe.3 Poland was
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 15 (c).
* See map, Atlas, Plate 18 (d).
» See Atlas, Plate 8.

CH. xi.] EVE OF THE MODERN AGE 197
a very extensive realm, and it was at the height of its
power in the fifteenth century. But its system of govern
ment was so weakly organised that it was destined gradu
aUy to faU into chaos. Bohemia had been for centuries
more or less nominally a part of the kingdom of Germany,
and her king was actually one of the seven electors who
chose the Emperor. There had been a great out
burst of Bohemian patriotism at the time of the Hussite
revolution, which had made Bohemia an independent
State, and it seemed as if Bohemia was going to play
an important part in the life of Europe. The kingdom
of Hungary had long carried on a very gaUant struggle
against the Turks, and the Magyars, who formed the ruling
race in Hungary, were full of patriotic spirit, and had
created a system of parliamentary government not unlike
that of England. But Hungary was not destined to become
a real Nation-State, because the majority of her popula
tion consisted of subject races, who were treated as inferiors
and kept quite apart from their Magyar masters ; 1 and
real nationhood is only possible when antipathies of this
sort between various sections of the population have ceased
to exist. In the far north the three kingdoms of Sweden,
Norway and Denmark had been united in a single realm
since 1397. But their union was a forced one, and was
soon to** break asunder. Nevertheless both Sweden and
Denmark were, after a time, to play a considerable part in
the affairs of Europe, as Nation-States.
Thus one of the main features of this age was that a
great part of Europe, in the west, the east and the north,
was divided into more or less consolidated Nation-States,
whose peoples were bound together by the sentiment of
national patriotism. But in the centre of Europe, and
in the south-east, there were great regions where the national
tie did not yet exist. The most important of these regions
were Germany and Italy, and their divided condition was
to form the chief source of unrest and war throughout the
modem period of history.
Italy in the fifteenth century was enjoying the greatest
period of her history. She was the wealthiest and the
most highly civilised of aU European countries. The
saUors and the traders of her great ports, especiaUy Venice
and Genoa, controlled the bulk of the rich traffic in the
luxuries of the East, and traded with them in aU parts of
Europe. Her merchants were the chief financiers and
1 See the racial map, Atlas; Introduction, p. 31.

198 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
moneylenders of Europe. Her factories in Lombardy and
Tuscany supplied the world with fine stuffs, and beauti
fully tempered arms, and all kinds of artistic objects. The
wealth of her merchant princes surpassed that of the
greatest kings of Europe, and her poets were everywhere
admired and imitated. Above all she produced in this
period the most wonderful succession of great painters,
sculptors and architects that the world has ever known ;
the principal art gaUeries of Europe to-day pride themselves
beyond everything upon their coUections of pictures
painted by the Italians of this age. But the wealth,
prosperity and briUiant civilisation of Italy were gravely
endangered by her political disunity, which was soon to
bring ruin upon her. Instead of being organised, like
France and England, as a unified Nation-State, she was
divided into a multitude of petty States, ruled in most cases
by despots.1 Five of these stood out above the rest. In
the south was the despotic kingdom of Naples and Sicily.
In the centre were the papal lands, or States of the Church,
ruled despoticaUy by the Pope, with the advice of his
College of Cardinals. Further north was the Republic of
Florence (centre of aU the noblest artistic activity), which,
without whoUy abandoning republican forms, had fallen
under the practically despotic rule of the great bankers, the
Medici, whose arms, the three golden baUs, are to be seen
to-day over every pawnbroker's shop in England. In the
north-east the great trading city of Venice had conquered con
siderable territories on the mainland and many dependencies
along the coasts and in the islands of the Mediterranean.
She was ruled by a close oligarchy of great merchants;
and her wealth aroused the envy of the world. Finally,
the central plain of Lombardy was controlled by a power
ful despot, the Duke of Milan. If these five States could
have been held together they might have defied the
greed of the European sovereigns. But they could not;
and because of their disunion ruin befell Italy in the next
century. The condition of Germany 2 was in some ways worse
than that of Italy. NominaUy Germany was a single king
dom, with an elective king who bore the title of Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire, and a Diet consisting of the
seven electors, the various ruling princes, and representa
tives of the self-governing towns. In reality neither the
1 See the map of Italy, Atlas, Plate 17 (c).
• See map, Atlas, Plate 23 (6).

11111/

CH. xi.] EVE OF THE MODERN AGE 199
Emperor nor the Diet had any effective power. The multi
tude of great and little princes, and the free cities, were
sovereign within their own territories ; could make war at
wiU, aUy themselves with external States, make their own
laws, hold their own courts, coin their own money. Many
of these independent princes were bishops and abbots ;
and the ecclesiastical States of Germany held among them
about one-third of the total area of the country. The map
of Germany under these conditions was incredibly con
fused. Only a few of the States covered an area greater
than that of an English county, and many were very much
smaUer. The chief lay States were those of the Electors of Saxony
and Brandenburg, the Duke of Bavaria, and the Arch
dukes of Austria. The last named belonged to the Habsburg
famUy, which had steadily grown in importance, and which
was to be, during the whole of the Modern Age, one of the
most important factors in European politics. Two succes
sive princes of this house held the imperial title during the
fifteenth century ; it was henceforth to be practicaUy
hereditary in their famUy. But although the Habsburgs
were the most powerful of the German princes their terri
tories were stiU smaU, and they were quite unable, as yet,
to hold their own against the Nation-States of the West.1
But the Habsburgs had a remarkable knack of marrying
heiresses, and they riever displayed this talent more success
fully than in the period we are reviewing. MaximUian,^
afterwards Emperor, married the heiress of Charles the Bold, I
Duke of Burgundy ; and this marriage ultimately gave to
the Habsburg family all the provinces of the Netherlands,
which the Burgundian dukes had gradually acquired.
Then Maximilian's son Philip married the heiress of
Ferdinand and IsabeUa of Spain ; and his son Charles,
born in 1500, was thus the heir of the Austrian lands,
of the Burgundian lands, and of the united kingdom of
Spain.2 We are looking forward a little in speaking of this ex
traordinary accumulation of territories in a single family.
But it was looming ahead at the end of the fifteenth century,
and it explains the rapid rise of the Habsburgs to a very
menacing position in Europe.
1 The growth of the Habsburg lands in Germany is shown in Atlas,
Plate 25 (a).
8 For the empire of Charles v., see Atlas, Plate 8.

200 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. m.
§ 3. The Turkish Peril.
A further aspect of European politics remains to be
noted. AU through the Modern Age one of the most per
plexing problems of European politics, and one of the most
frequent causes of war, has been the presence of the alien
and uncivilised Turkish Empire in the south-east.1 It was
during the period with which we are dealing that this
noxious and desolating power first established itself in
Europe. The Turks were a people of Mongolian stock,
who came from Central Asia. They had been converted
to Mohammedanism, but they never showed any of that
capacity for a high civilisation which was so remarkably
exhibited by other Mohammedan peoples, notably the
Arabs, and those Indian peoples who accepted Islam. The
influence of the Turks upon the life and culture of the
Mohammedan world when they became its leaders was
indeed altogether disastrous, and they were largely respon
sible for the lamentable decay of the once brilliant civilisa
tion which had marked the lands of Islam. They were
splendid fighting men ; but they have never in aU their
history shown excellence of any other kind.
Turks had conquered the greater part of Asia Minor in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But their power had
soon become disorganised. In the thirteenth century,
however, a group of them in the north-west corner of Asia
Minor, known from one of their leaders, Othman, as the
Ottoman Turks, began to conquer their neighbours, and
at the beginning of the fourteenth century they found a first
foothold in Europe, on the Gallipoli peninsula. At that
period the Eastern Roman Empire, which had had its
capital for a thousand years in the city of Constantine, was
in the last stages of decrepitude ; and the Serbians and the
Bulgarians — Slavonic tribes who inhabited the northern
part of the Balkan peninsula — had shaken off the yoke
of the Greeks of Constantinople. In the middle of the
fourteenth century it seemed as if the Serbians, under their
great king, Stephen_Dushan, were going to conquer the
whole peninsula. Unhappily he died in 1355 ; and soon
after his death the tide of Turkish invasion swept down upon
his people. The Serbians resisted with great gallantry,
but in 1389 they were defeated at the disastrous battle of
Kossovo, and this defeat sealed the fate of the Balkans.
During the next half century almost the whole peninsula
* The growth of the Turkish Empire is shown in Atlas, Plate 25 (b).

ch. xi.] EVE OF THE MODERN AGE 201
was subjugated by the Turks ; and the Greeks, the Serbians,
the Bulgarians and the Rumanians were brought under the
hideous Turkish yoke, from which they were not to escape
for five hundred years. The Turks contemptuously left
the decrepit empire in Constantinople to the last ; but in
1453 that ancient and glorious city was stormed, and became
the capital of the Turkish Empire. Europe had paid little
attention to these events. The Venetian traders, indeed,
were alarmed and offered some resistance, but they soon
made their peace on being given favourable trading con
ditions. The West was ,a little excited when the last of
the Eastern emperors came to beg for assistance to save
Constantinople, and there was some talk of a crusade.
But the days of crusades were over ; the European States
were too much preoccupied with their own affairs ; and the
desolating ascendency of the Turk was allowed to estab
lish itself over all the lands south of the Danube. This was
not the least unhappy result of the death of the dream of
the unity of Christendom.
§ 4. The Political Contrast between England and Europe.
Such in very shght putline was the new Europe with
which the Modern Age opened, and in whose complicated
affairs the peoples of the islands were to play a growingly
important part. It was a Europe which consisted of a
few powerful and consolidated Nation-States, a few possible
Nation-States, hke Poland, which were not yet consolidated,
and an immense number of tiny principalities. AU these
States, great and little, regarded themselves as sovereign
masters of their own concerns ; they had all ceased to
believe in the desirability of a supreme authority enthroned
above them, and enforcing upon them the same moral
laws ; their rulers had all, in a greater or less degree, per
suaded themselves that in the relations between States
moral considerations can have no weight. Moreover
nearly all these States were despoticaUy governed. The
few nominal republics, hke Venice, were controUed by close
oligarchies of leading men. In the Empire and in Poland
the monarch was elective, but the elective character of the
monarchy in these States was felt to be a great source of
weakness. In most countries the old mediaeval ' Estates,'
which had been the source of parliamentary institutions in
England, still survived. This was so in France, in Aragon
and Castile, in Hungary, and in the German principalities.

202 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. il.
But the estates were felt to be a source of weakness rather
than of strength, because they were a check upon the
vigour and efficiency of the monarch ; they were summoned
as seldom as possible, and were everywhere save in England
becoming a more or less unreal form. Everywhere the
anarchy and tumults of the last two centuries had given birth
to -the idea that a strong monarchy represented the only effi- j
cient means of enforcing order and peace within the State; of
protecting it against aggression from without, and of enabling
it to increase its power. Europe in the Modern Age was to be
everywhere save in England governed by despotic rulers;
and this state of things lasted in nearly aU countries through
out the Modern Age and down to the nineteenth century.
Only in England did there exist an organised system for
the control and limitation of the royal authority, and even
in England, after the tragic experiences of the previous
century, the nation was glad to allow to an able and efficient
king a very high degree of independent power, in order that
he might maintain peace. But this did not mean that
England was ready to pass under a purely despotic system
of government. Parhament stiU existed, and all its powers
remained unimpaired, even if they were left dormant.
Though Parliament no longer desired or attempted to control
the working of the king's government in detaU, it still had
the sole power of granting taxes, and its approval was
necessary for aU laws. It might vote taxes very readUy
to an efficient king, but they must not be too burdensome ;
it might very readily give its approval to the laws which
he desired, but they must be reasonable laws ; and no Enghsh
sovereign ever ventured wholly to disregard these powers
of the national representative body. This was a very
profound distinction between the condition of England and
that of all other European countries, even during the period
when the power of the Crown was greatest. And a still
more marked distinction was that the King of England,
unlike the King of France, had no permanent standing army
to enforce his wiU, or to enable him to override public
feeling. But more important even than this was the fact
that in England aU the king's agents, to whom the execu
tion of his will was entrusted, though they were appointed
by him, were not professional administrators dependent
upon his favour for their livelihood ; they were unpaid
country gentlemen, the Justices of the Peace, who were
fuUy in touch with the feehngs and desires of their neigh
bours, and who could not be compeUed to do anything

ch. xi.] eve Of the modern age 203
that outraged pubhc feeling. Therefore, however great
the king's personal power might become, it could never be
a mere arbitrary and despotic power. The government of
England was, and always remained, in a real sense a free
government, deeply influenced by national feeling.
If we ask ourselves what had been the effect upon the
four nations of the islands of the long period of training
which they had undergone, we are first struck by the fact
that one of the four had attained a far more advanced
state of development than the other three, all of which had
much to learn from their greater and more fortunate neigh
bour. It was in England, and not as yet in Wales, Scotland
or Ireland, that the habits of hfe and modes of organisa
tion had been developed which were to determine the future
growth and character of the world-wide British Common
wealth. In England, to begin with, as in no other part of the
islands and no other country of Europe, the mass of the
population had won their freedom from the dominion of
chieftains and feudal lords, and were for the most part
subject only to the laws of the land. These laws might be
cruel or unjust, but they were the laws of the land, not the
arbitrary wiU of individuals.
In England, again, to a degree unknown elsewhere, the
Reign of Law existed ; that is to say, it was only by process
of law that any free man could be legaUy constrained to
any particular act, or damaged in life or limb or property.
The supremacy of law had indeed often been violently
overridden during the disorders of the previous age ; but the
principle had been estabhshed, and it needed only firm and
strong government to carry it into full effect. Now this
is the foundation of political liberty. Even in the midst
of the anarchy of the fifteenth century, the great lawyer,
Sir John Fortescue, in his book on the Governance of England,
could boast of this sovereignty of law as one of the supreme
glories of his country.
In England, yet again, ordinary men of all ranks of
society were caUed upon to co-operate in maintaining the
law and adjusting it. The functions of police were carried
out by the elected constable and other officers of the villages ;
and for aU serious offences every freeman had a right to
have his case decided by the verdict of his fellows.
In England, further, there was a widespread participa
tion of freemen in the management of common affairs. The
most noteworthy iUustration of this was to be found in the

204 CONFLICTS OF THE FOUR NATIONS [bk. ii.
manifold activities of the country gentry, acting as Justices
of the Peace. But it was to be found elsewhere, for example
in the co-operative work of the manor courts by which the
agricultural affairs of village communities were directed :
and these manor courts were now attended, not by defence
less serfs, but mostly by freemen. It was to be found also
in the work of parish vestries, where all the freemen of the
parish were entitled to meet yearly, to determine various
matters such as the repair of the church, the management
of little charities, and sometimes the state of the local
roads. These features were not aU peculiar to England,
but it is certainly true that a larger proportion of the
nation's manhood took part in the co-operative direction *
of common affairs than in any other country.
In England, finally (and this is perhaps as important as
anything), there was no caste system, no unbridgeable
gulf at any point in the hierarchy of society, such as existed
in nearly every other country. The free peasant might
grow into a substantial yeoman by thrift ; the yeoman,
if wealthy enough, would rank with the class of knights
or country gentlemen ; the country gentleman was separated
by no impassable gulf from the great nobles, whose younger
sons, instead of bearing noble rank as in other countries,
sank at once into the rank of plain gentlemen ; the thrifty
master-workman might become a substantial merchant ;
the merchant class included many men of knightly family ;
and, if he bought enough land, or distinguished himself in
the service of the State, the merchant or his son might
become a peer of the realm. Distinctions of class existed,
and were often sharply emphasised ; but there was no
cleavage between them recognised by law. The Enghsh
society was the only society in Europe, at the opening of '
the Moderri Age, of which this can be said.
These were the most distinctive features of the English
people. They were to be extended, as time went on, to
the other nations of the islands. And, more than anything
else, they were to fix the character of the work which was
to be achieved by the British peoples in the great new age
now about to open.

BOOK III
THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE : THE
REFORMATION, AND THE OPENING OF
THE SEAS (a.d. 1485-1603)

INTRODUCTION
The sixteenth century was a turning point in the history
of the island peoples, and the events of this century very
largely determined the whole course of their future history.
It was a fortunate thing that in an age so critical the direc
tion of Enghsh affairs feU into the hands of a succession
of the ablest princes who have ever occupied the English
throne. AU the Tudors had great qualities ; Henry vin.
and Ehzabeth had gifts of a very high order indeed —
courage, resolution, imagination, subtlety and daring. They
were purely Enghsh, and genuinely patriotic. They had an
intuitive understanding of their subjects. And for these
reasons they were rewarded with a devoted loyalty, which
was not shaken even by their manifest failings. They were
trusted with a degree of independent power which no
English ruler had enjoyed since Edward I., or was ever to
enjoy again. Hence their rule has been described as the
' Tudor despotism.' But, as we shall see, this phrase is
misleading. The Tudors never attempted to overthrow
the system of self-government which had been created in
England. They ruled through Parliament and the justices
of the peace ; and were able to get their own way because
they were trusted — because their way was, on the whole,
the way which the nation desired to foUow. Hence England,
the most powerful of the four nations, faced the many and
grave perils of the new age as a united nation, inspired by
a very strong sense of national unity, and under extremely
powerful leadership.
There are four main features upon which the student
should keep his mind fixed in studying this period.
The first is the growing strength of the tendency towards
the unification of the four nations. The complete con
stitutional union of Wales with England was effected in
the reign of Henry vin. It is the first of the many ' unions '
which have formed landmarks in the history of the British
Commonwealth. The real conquest of Ireland was begun
by Henry vin., and practicaUy completed by Ehzabeth,
though it was carried out in so unhappy a way as to leave
207

208 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
a heritage of future trouble. Although war between England
and Scotland continued to fiU the first half of the period,
the two countries were gradually drawing together. The
Reformation made them partners in a common danger ;
and the most fortunate of royal marriages prepared the
way for the union of the two crowns, which took place in
1603. In 1485 the prospect of unity among the four
nations seemed very remote. In 1603 it was practicaUy
achieved, never (we may hope) to be broken again.
The second feature of the period is the influence upon
the hfe and institutions of the island peoples of that vast
upheaval which is known as the Reformation. Its effects
in England, Scotland and Ireland were widely different,
partly owing to differences of national character, but
mainly owing to the sharply contrasted circumstances of
its introduction into each of these countries. In England
it was directed and controUed by the monarchy, acting
through Parhament ; it was predominantly political in
character, and drew much of its strength from the senti
ment of national independence ; it ended in a character
istically English compromise ; and it turned the Church
into a sort of department of the State. In Scotland it
was carried out from below, in the teeth of royal opposition,
and, although it was deeply affected by pohtical factors,
it rested far more upon popular enthusiasm than it ever
did in England. For that reason it took an extreme and
a democratic form. The Scots became a nation deeply
versed in the knotty problems of theology, and therefore,1
intellectuaUy acute. They obtained also, in the Presby
terian form of Church government, a training in self-govern
ment which their political institutions had never given
them. In short, the Reformation affected the Scottish
people far more deeply than the Enghsh. It remoulded
their national character, and altered the course of their
destiny. In Ireland the Reformation came as a change
forced upon the people from without by a very cruel con
queror. It therefore achieved no victory, but only added
to the existing evils of the country.
The third feature of the period is the part played by the
island peoples, and especially by the English, in the common
life of Europe. It was in this period that European history
began to be, what it has continued to be ever since, the
story of the rivalry of consolidated Nation-States for
leadership or dominion. And the policy of England now
began to be fixed on the lines which it has foUowed ever

bk. in.] INTRODUCTION 209
since. It was the pohcy of abstaining from any attempt
to secure dominion on the Continent, because the Hundred
Years' War had shown the futility of any such enterprise,
but at the same time of preventing any single power from
attaining a position of overwhelming supremacy. This is
the pohcy of Balance of Power ; and it has led England
(and later Britain and the whole British Commonwealth)
to resist to the utmost every attempt on the part of any
single power to attain world-supremacy. There have been
four such attempts in modern history, and in resisting each
the islands have taken a leading part. The first of these
attempts was that of Spain, and it faUs into this period.
Its culmination was the defeat of the Armada.
The fourth feature of the period was the opening of the
seas, and the beginning of those overseas adventures of
the islanders which were to lead in the long run to the
creation of the world-wide British Commonwealth. These
events were vital for our whole story. The first stage,
covering the later years of the fifteenth century and the
first half of the sixteenth, was marked by the great explora
tions, mainly due to Spain and Portugal, which revealed
to Europe the vast lands of the East and West, but left
aU these inexhaustible resources to be enjoyed as a mono
poly by the two powers which had mainly discovered them.
The second stage, covering the second half of the sixteenth
century, was marked by the growing boldness of Enghsh
saUors in challenging this monopoly, first by piratical
raids or by attempts to discover new sea-routes, and finaUy
by open war. Here, again, the culmination of the story
was to be found in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This
momentous struggle, which was one of the turning points
in the world's history, broke the monopoly of Spain. It
opened the seas of the world not only to Enghsh sailors
and traders, but to the sailors and traders of aU nations.
It estabhshed for the first time the Freedom of the Seas.
And it made possible the creation of overseas settlements
by the island peoples. With the extremely doubtful
exception of Newfoundland, no oversea settlement had yet
been made when the period ended in 1603. Nevertheless
the underground foundations of the world-wide British
Commonwealth had been laid ; and on these foundations
buUding was to proceed very rapidly in the next age.

vol. 1.

CHAPTER I
THE RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT
(A.D. I485-I529)
England, Wales, Ireland — Henry vn., 1485 : Henry vm., 1509.
Scotland — James iv., 1488: James v., 1513.
§ 1. The Privy Council and the Re-establishment of Order.
After the battle of Bosworth Henry vn.1 was faced by
the dull but vitally important task of restoring order and
good government after the anarchy of the previous century.
The task was no easy one, for the habit of turbulence was
deeply rooted. Men of all ranks bore arms, and used them
too readily. Restless northern gentlemen of the Yorkist
faction eager for a change of government, London work
men or apprentices indignant at the favours shown to
German or Italian foreigners, Cornish miners and farmers
who saw no reason why they should be taxed for wars on
the Scottish border — all were too quick to try to remedy
their own grievances by force. ' There is no country in
the whole world,' said a Venetian observer, ' where there
are so many thieves and robbers as in England, insomuch 1
that few venture to go alone in the country except in the
middle of the day, and fewer stiU in the towns at night,
and least of all in London.' That was the result of a century
of disorder : the habit of accepting the Reign of Law, and
of trusting to the law for the redress of grievances, had
been terribly undermined. It had to be restored before
England could resume her interrupted progress, and it
could only be restored by firm government.
Henry vn.'s task was made easier by the fact that the
great nobles, whose lawlessness and whose bands of armed
retainers had been the chief source of disorder, had almost
destroyed one another. In Henry vn.'s first Parhament
only twenty^seven lay peers were summoned to attend the
1 There is a life of Henry vn. by James Gairdner in the Twelve English
Statesmen Series.
210

V

ch. i.] RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 211
House of Lords.1 Under these circumstances it was possible
to carry out effectively the prohibition of ' livery and main
tenance ' for which Parhament had so often and so vainly
asked. On the other hand, although many of the knightly
class were still unruly, the bulk of the nation, the country
squires and merchants who fiUed the House of Commons,
and the workmen and peasants in town and country,
desired nothing so much as good government, and were
very ready to see the king's authority strengthened as a
means of maintaining it.
Henry vn. had been raised to the throne practicaUy by
a coalition of the Lancastrians with the many Yorkists
who were disgusted by the iniquities of Richard in. His
marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Edward
iv., was part of the arrangement, and it was hoped that this
marriage would put an end to the long dynastic strife.
But it takes a turbulent country a long time to settle down,
once the habit of obedience to the law has been unsettled ;
and the first twelve years of the reign were fuU of plots,
riots and fighting. Henry had taken the precaution of
locking up in the Tower the young Earl of Warwick, who
was the only direct male representative of the Yorkist
line ; this unfortunate youth remained in prison for fourteen
years, until, in 1499, he was executed on a trumped-up
charge as the only means of putting an end to the Yorkist
plots. But his imprisonment did not deter the defeated
faction. They put forward impostors — Lambert Simnel
(1486-7), the son of an Oxford tradesman, who pretended
to be the Earl of Warwick, and Perkin Warbeck (1492-7),
the son of a Flemish boatman, who pretended to be Richard,
Duke of York, the younger of the princes whom Richard in.
had murdered in the Tower. Both gave Henry much
trouble ; but while Simnel got some support from the
surviving Yorkist nobles in England, and was able to fight
at Stoke (1487), a battle which practicaUy destroyed the
Yorkist party, Warbeck had few English foUowers, and
was easily defeated and captured when he tried a landing ;
he depended whoUy upon the support of the great Yorkists
in Ireland, upon the help of Edward iv.'s sister, the Dowager
Duchess of Burgundy, and upon the aid of Scotland ; and
he spent nearly aU the years of his notoriety in wandering
from court to court. There were other conspirators also,
but they need not trouble us. From 1487 onwards Henry
1 Not more than six of these are directly represented in the peerage of
the twentieth century.

212 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. lit.
vn.'s throne was quite secure, though the conspiracies (of
which Warbeck's was the most serious) worried him from
time to time, and especiaUy influenced his foreign pohcy. •*•
The main work of this king was, indeed, the restoration
of efficient government, and his main instrument in this
work was his Privy Council, which he fiUed, not, hke his
predecessors, with" great nobles, but with hard-working
practical administrators, churchmen, knights and lawyers.
Henceforward this very assiduous and industrious body
was the real centre and heart of the government of Eng
land, and its very willing local agents were the Justices of
the Peace, unpaid gentlemen of the country, who were
proud to be the king's helpers in restoring good govern
ment and repressing disorder. That was the essence oil
the Tudor system : government by the Privy Council,
acting through the justices, and aU under the real control
of the king ; and for a long time it worked admirably. In'
the Litany of the English Church (which comes down to
us from the Tudor age), the ' Lords of the Council ' and
the ' Magistrates ' (that is, the justices of the peace) are
the only ruling authorities for whom special petitions are
offered ; Parliament is very significantly omitted.
For Parhament no longer presumed to control the ordinary
course of government, as it had attempted to do in the time
of Richard n. and Henry iv. This was mainly because it
was no longer itself under the influence of great nobles,
as it had been in those days, and therefore was no longer
used by a faction out of power as an instrument for attack
ing the faction in power. It was more than content to
leave full power and responsibility for the execution of the
laws in the hands of the king and his chosen counciUors,
and to confine itself to what was held to be its own proper
business — the making of laws and the voting of taxes.
Even in these spheres it was willing to go far to meet the
wishes of a king whom it could trust. To Henry vn. andl
his successors it voted substantial revenues for life ; and
it made generous response when asked for special grants
for special needs. But this did not mean that Parhament
had abdicated its powers ; on the contrary, Henry vn.
and his successors knew that they would have trouble
if they aUowed themselves to get seriously out of touch
with the feelings of the nation, and it was only because
they were tactful and popular monarchs, whose pohcy was
generaUy approved, that they got so much of their own
way. They did not summon Parliament so frequently

ch. i.] RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 213
as it had been summoned in the Lancastrian period ; Henry
vn. summoned it only three times in the last ten years of
his reign, and Henry vin. went without a meeting for eight ¦
years (1515-1523). But nobody resented this, so long as
the government was efficient and successful : attendance
at Parliament was indeed a costly burden from which men
were glad to escape. And the Tudor kings were wise
enough not to attempt to override the legal privileges of
Parliament, either in taxation or in legislation. Thus, though
Parhament fell into the background during this period,
it did so largely by its own consent, because it trusted the
king and his countil ; but all its legal powers remained un
affected, and on the questions about which its members
felt they were entitled to speak, such as the state of the
Church, or the needs of trade, or the problems of agricul
ture and labour, or, above all, the burden of taxation,
Parhament repeatedly showed that it was very much alive,
and could not be easily overridden.
It was, then, the king and his countil who formed the
real centre of the government of England throughout this
period, and not Parhament. And the main work of the
countil was to bring the forces of disorder under control.
For this purpose they very strictly prohibited the main
tenance of armed bands by even the greatest nobles.
And as the ordinary law courts had been proved to be too
weak to exercise adequate control over the great men and
their foUowers, the countil obtained from Parliament in
1487 special jurisdiction to deal with such cases, and with
aU instances of improper interference with the ordinary
course of law. PracticaUy the Act of 1487 set up a new
court, closely connected and sometimes almost identical
with the Privy CouncU, and known as the Court of Star
Chamber. Its powers were not strictly defined, and its
procedure was not bound by pedantic usages. It served
an invaluable purpose in re-establishing the Reign of Law,
and thoroughly deserved the popularity which it continued
to enjoy until, under the Stewart kings, its jurisdiction, being
no longer needed, began to seem oppressive.
One of Henry vn.'s main objects was the acquisition of
a substantial revenue, such as should save him from the--
dependence upon Parliament which had weakened his
predecessors ; and this was wholly in accordance with the
desires of Parliament itself, which disliked having to vote
taxes, and still clung to the idea that so far as possible ' the
king should live of his own.' The wholesale confiscation

214 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
of great estates which had resulted from the Wars of the
Roses greatly enriched the Crown, and an enactment of
Henry's first Parhament rescinding aU alienations of royal |
lands since 1454 ensured that Henry should reap the full
benefit of the confiscations. With these resources and the
other traditional revenues of the Crown he was able, by
economical management, easily to cover the ordinary
expenses of government without recourse to special taxa
tion. In the later years of the reign, when the love of
money gained upon him, he aUowed a great deal of unjust
and even iUegal exaction to be carried on in his name,
especiaUy by the notorious Empson and Dudley, two hard
working and unscrupulous mefnbers of the Privy CouncU.
When Henry vn. died he had not only restored order, he
had accumulated a great treasure, said to have amounted
to four and a half millions of pounds — an immense sum for
that age. § 2. The Splendour of Henry VIII. and Wolsey.
Thus his brilliant successor, Henry vin.,1 began bis reign
(1509) as the wealthiest prince in Europe, and was able to
play a splendid part, such as his heart desired. Henry vm.
was perhaps the most arresting personality in the whole
long line of English kings. He was, according to the
Venetian ambassador, ' as handsome as Nature could form
him,' and fuU of strength and animal spirits. He was as
good an archer as any of the yeomen of his guard, a skilful
wrestler, a splendid horseman, and a lover of aU field sports.
Withal, though blunt and masterful, he was very good-
natured and easUy approachable. Such a figure was sure
of universal popularity, and ' Bluff King Hal ' kept the
warm affections of his subjects even during the darkest
episodes of his reign. But he was also a highly cultivated
man ; could play ' on almost every instrument,' and com
posed jolly baUad tunes, as weU as rehgious music ; could
speak several languages ; and was very well read, especiaUy
in theology. In short, he was as weU equipped inteUectuaUy
as physically, and earned the respect of scholars and
musicians equally with that of sportsmen and soldiers.
With aU his joviality, he never forgot his royal dignity. No
one ever dared to take liberties with him. He had a very
proud and high spirit, and an immense self-confidence ; and
even his most trusted ministers, even a Wolsey or a CromweU,
1 There is a good illustrated hfe of Henry vm. by A. F. Pollard.

ch. l] 'RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 215
always knew that the king was master, however much lati
tude he might aUow them, and that he was neither to be
cozened nor bullied into any course of action that he did
not hke. Above all, Henry was a thorough Englishman ;
and he had an instinctive understanding of his fellow-
countrymen's ideas and desires. What wonder that a
king so splendid and so masterful, and withal so rich, should
have the complete loyalty of his subjects, and be allowed
to do almost as he pleased, and to lead them into strange
courses ! Never has England been nearer to absolute
monarchy than under this brilliant and masterful king.
Yet even Henry vin. never dreamt of overriding or dis
regarding Parliament. He did not need to do so, because
Parliament was cheerfuUy pliant to his will, and gave its
assent to even his most tyrannical acts. The reign of
Henry vin. thus completed the work of Henry vn., by
bringing back aU England into cheerful obedience to its
government, and by raising that government high above
aU rivalry from nobles or other discontented elements.
Young, rich, handsome, and fuU of the joy of life, Henry
vin. was determined to enjoy himself, and to play a splendid
part in the exciting drama of European politics. He was
content, during the first twenty years of his reign, to leave
the detailed business of government in the hands of his
servants, and especiaUy of the great Cardinal Wolsey,1 the
son of an Ipswich grazier, whose immense abilities had
led him from promotion to promotion, until, from 1515
to 1529, he obtained practicaUy complete control of all
the business of the country, at home and abroad. Arch
bishop of York, ChanceUor of England, Cardinal and Papal
Legate, Wolsey seemed to control at once State and Church,
while the king enjoyed himself with jousts, dancing, hunt
ing, pageantry, and the excitements of foreign campaigns.
' The Cardinal is about forty-six years old,' wrote the
Venetian ambassador in 1519, ' very handsome, learned,
extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable. He.
alone transacts the same business as that which occupies
all the magistracies, offices and councils of Venice. He is
thoughtful, and has the reputation of being extremely
just ; he favours the people exceedingly, especially the poor,
hearing their suits and seeking to despatch them instantly.'
He maintained a splendour of life equal to the greatness
of his power, with a household of five hundred persons,
1 There is a life of Wolsey by Bishop Creighton in the Twelve English
Statesmen Series.

216 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
noblemen and knights, stalwart yeomen and grooms in
crimson velvet liveries, pages, minstrels, and choirs of
singing-boys. It is worth whUe to dwell for a moment upon this proud
and gorgeous figure of the Cardinal. He was the last great
churchman-minister in Enghsh history, for after him came
the deluge. And beyond a doubt the impressive splendours
of the gaUant king and his superb minister touched the
imagination of the English, and did much to establish the
ascendency of the national government over their minds,
and to exalt the spirit of national pride. It is no wonder
that such a king and such a minister should be aUowed a
very free hand in the conduct of national affairs, especiaUy
as, on the whole, they did their work extremely well. But
even Henry vin. and Wolsey had to learn that there were
limits to what is called the ' subservience ' of Tudor Parlia
ments. Their chief interest, as we shaU see, was in foreign
policy, with which on the whole Parhament did not pre
sume to meddle. Yet in the Parliament of 1523, when.
large supphes for a war against France were demanded,
there was a striking display of independence. One member
— afterwards famous as Thomas Cromwell — ventured to
make a strong speech against the whole war pohcy. The
debates lasted for seventeen days. Parliament granted
much smaUer supplies than were demanded. And when
the Cardinal, with his glittering train, came down to brow
beat them into submission, he was met with courteous
obstinacy. There was even some talk of refusing him
admission. When he demanded explanations of their
conduct from the members, all remained silent ; and at
last the Speaker, Sir Thomas More, explained that it was
not in accordance with the privileges of the Commons to
debate their decisions with strangers. Parliament was not
going to be browbeaten, or to abandon a jot or tittle of
its rights ; and Wolsey had to go away discomfited. Here
is a convincing proof that the quiescence of Parliament had
its limits ; and it was only by recognising these limits that
even the popular Tudor sovereigns were able to wield their
power without restraint.
§ 3. Growing National Strength.
In the domestic history of England during the long period
from 1485 to 1529, there are few outstanding events that
call for notice ; it was, as we have said, a period of settle-

CH. I.] RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 217
ment and preparation. But in several ways the events of
this period have a very important bearing on the future.
In the first place, a few burnings and imprisonments showed
that LoUardy and dissatisfaction with the condition of the
Church were still alive, though no longer so widespread
as they once had been ; whUe several episodes showed that
suspicion and hostility agamst the Church were very easUy
aroused. The second noteworthy feature of this period was a grow
ing expression of discontent with the changes which were
taking place in agriculture. Because of the wealth to be
derived from the wool-trade, owners of land had long been
tending to substitute sheep-farming for tillage ; and this
brought about in some districts the break-up of the old
system of communal cultivation by the bringing together of
scattered strips into more solid enclosed blocks. It also
tempted great landlords to enclose areas of the common or
waste land which had hitherto been used by all the culti
vators of the manor. And as less labour was required for
1 sheep-farming than for tUlage this process threw many
men out of work, and led to an increase of vagabondage.
The process had not yet gone far ; it did not reach its height
until the middle of the century, after the suppression of
the monasteries, and even then the greater part of the land
was unaffected by it. But it was already attracting notice,
and leading to repeated complaints in Parliament and to
attempts at legislation, as early as the reign of Henry vn.
Thus the two chief sources of trouble which were to engage
the attention of England later in the century, the rehgious
question and the agrarian question, were already emerging.
A third feature of the period was the systematic encourage
ment of Enghsh manufacture, commerce and shipping, for
which Henry vn. in especial deserves the highest credit.
He made a series of commercial treaties for the encourage
ment of English trade, and his foreign pohcy was much
influenced by this consideration. The most important of
his treaties was the Magnus Intercursus of 1496, whereby
mutual privUeges of trade were exchanged between English
men and Flemings. It was followed in 1506 by a treaty so
favourable to the English merchants "that the Flemings
called it the Malus Intercursus, or EvU Traffic. There were
also disputes with the Germans of the Hanseatic League,
who had so long dominated Enghsh trade, and had enjoyed
a speciaUy privileged position, but who now saw English
merchants invading their special preserves in Norway and

218 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
the Baltic. The controversy reached no decision ; but
Henry vn.'s declaration that ' our subjects must be as free
in aU places belonging to the Hanse towns as the Hanse
merchants are in England,' shows that the new strong govern
ment was anxious to use its power to support English trade,
and that the days of complete foreign ascendency were over.
One of Henry vn.'s chief preoccupations was to develop
English shipping as rapidly as possible. He gave bounties
for the building of large ships, and attempted to limit
various branches of foreign trade to English ships.
Lastly, this period may be said to have seen the real
foundation of the Royal Navy. Hitherto, though Enghsh'
kings had possessed a few ships, they had mainly trusted
to the commandeering of merchant vessels for the purposes
of war. It was Henry vin. who first began systematically
to build royal war-vessels, in order to secure the command
of the Narrow Seas for his continental wars ; and perhaps
the year 1512 may be taken as marking the date when for
the first time a permanent war fleet guarded the Enghsh
seas. In all ways, then, England emerged from this period of
settlement stronger, and ready to play a great part. She
had got rid of internal turbulence and disorder. She had
a powerful and respected government, fuUy in touch with
national feeling. She was rich, and growing steadUy more
prosperous. Her increasing mercantUe marine was showing
itself a serious competitor of the older mercantile powers.
Her war fleet dominated the seas about her coasts.
§ 4. England and her Sister Realms.
In regard to the relations between England and her sister
realms the period was one of beginnings, but not yet of
achievements. In Ireland the support given by the nobility to each of
the Yorkist pretenders in turn made it obvious that some
thing must be done to re-establish the royal authority.
But in fact Ireland was in such a state of chaos that a com
plete reconquest was necessary. ' There be sixty counties
inhabited by the king's Irish enemies,' said a rather pre
judiced English observer in 1516, ' where reigneth more
than sixty chief captains, that liveth only by the sword,
and obeyeth to no temporal person save only to himself
that is strong ; and there be thirty of the English noble
folk that followeth the same order, and keepeth the same

ch. i.] RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 219
rule.' Even within the narrow limits of the Pale there was
little order ; and its affairs were generally controlled by the
powerful Earl of Kildare, whose own lands lay partly within
and partly outside its limits. To restore order and establish
authority in Ireland would have demanded a great army and
a large expenditure of money, which the frugal Henry vn.
was not prepared to face. But he could not afford to leave
royal authority in Ireland, such as it was, stiU in the hands
of the Yorkist leaders. In 1492, therefore, he deposed
KUdare from the deputyship, and tried to make use of
the rival famUy of the Butlers of Ormond1 to keep the
KUdare Fitzgeralds in check. The only result was civil war.
It was of no use to ring the changes upon Irish factions.
In 1494 Sir Edward Poynings, a useful and industrious
member of the Privy Council, was sent across as deputy
with a force of one thousand men and a body of English
officials. But Poynings found it impossible to establish
the royal authority, with the resources at his command,
anywhere outside the Pale. AU that he could do was
to reorganise and strengthen the government in the four
coimties of the Pale, which he did with great difficulty.
An Irish Parliament summoned at Drogheda adopted
voluminous laws for the suppression of private war, the
protection of the Enghsh colony, and the establishment
of closer relations with England. Two of these, known
later as ' Poynings' Laws,' were intended to guard against
the employment of the Irish Parliament as the instrument
of the local ambitions or feuds of the great Anglo-Irish
nobles like Kildare. They provided that no Parhament
should meet until the king's deputy and the Irish Privy
CouncU had specified the statutes proposed to be enacted,
and the king and his Enghsh council had approved of them ;
and that all earlier English laws should have force in Ireland.
Thus the Irish Parliament was made entirely dependent
upon the Enghsh government. Yet this was not resented
by the Enghsh colonists in Ireland, who were alone con
cerned. They regarded these Acts as a protection for them
selves against Kildare and his like. For the Irish Parlia
ment was still in such a primitive stage of development
that it must depend either upon the king or the nobles ;
and^.of the two, dependence upon the king was better.
The' Parhament of Drogheda completed its work by attaint
ing Kildare, who was sent over to England, and kept a
prisoner for some months.
1 See map of Ireland, Atlas, Plate 42 (a).

220 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
But Henry vn. was not prepared to go on with Poynings'
work. It cost too much ; the Irish revenues were insuffi
cient to pay even the cost of a garrison. Henry therefore
fell back upon the old device, and having (as he hoped)
taught Kildare a lesson, he sent him back to rule Ireland
once more as deputy. He retained his office, and the old
anarchy continued until 1520, when once more an Enghsh
deputy, the Earl of Surrey, was sent across. But Surrey
reported that nothing could be done short of systematic
conquest, for which an army of six thousand men would be
required, and a systematic pohcy of Enghsh colonisation ; and
Henry vin., engrossed in the great wars of Europe, was not
prepared to face this programme. After five years of fruit
less fighting Surrey was recalled, and once more Ireland
was left in chaos ; neither subjected, not yet left free to
work out a system of government for herself. The Irish
question had been opened, but nothing had been done
towards its solution.
With Scotland also the domestic and foreign pohcy of
Henry vn. and Henry vm. brought them into very difficult
relations. The traditional hostility between England and
Scotland, and the traditional aUiance between Scotland
and France, were as strong as ever ; and this meant that
Scotland was the natural friend of every pretender to the
English crown, and that the outbreak of war between
England and France always brought war between England
and Scotland. From 1488 to 1513 Scotland was ruled
by a king more vigorous and successful than most of his
predecessors. But equally with his predecessors James iv.
had to fight frequently against baronial conspiracies, often
fomented from England, and against the rebellions of
Highland and island chieftains. Always in relations with
England's enemies, he caused anxiety to Henry vn., who
on his side kept up a connexion with some of the traitorous
Scottish nobles. In 1491, for example, Henry arranged
with one of them to kidnap James and his brother and
bring them to England, for £277, 13s. 4d. !
Henry found a better way of dealing with the Scottish
question when, in 1502, he gave his daughter Margaret in-
marriage to James iv. Just one hundred years later,
their great-grandson wTas to unite the two crowns. But the
marriage did not bring immediate, friendship, and there
was constant friction and border fighting during the next
years. When in 1511 Henry vin. joined the great con
tinental aUiance against France, known as the Holy League,

CH. l] RESTORATION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 221
James iv. felt himself bound to support his ancient ally
by invading England ; and he had a further ground of
quarrel, in that the fleet which he had been eagerly building
was attacked and almost destroyed by the English fleet
(15T1). In 1513 he invaded Northumberland with the
whole force of his kingdom, and, through foolish general
ship, was utterly defeated at the battle of Ffodden-, the
most disastrous in the whole gloomy history of Scotland.
The king himself, thirteen earls, an archbishop and two
bishops, and an unnumbered company of knights and men-
at-arms, were left dead on the c field. The bitter memory
of Flodden echoes through the later history of Scotland,
and there is scarcely a famUy of rank in the Lowlands but
counts an ancestor slain in this terrible slaughter, which
opened more widely than ever the gulf between the two
countries. Worst of all, it brought upon Scotland once
more the evUs of a minority, and the endless faction fights
of the nobUity which raged unchecked when a boy-king
reigned. James v. was only escaping from tutelage when
our period closes (1529) ; in the previous year the burning
of Patrick HamUton for Lutheran, heresy marked the begin-"
ning of the Scottish Reformation, and a new era opened in
the relations of the two nations.
[H. A. L. Fisher's History of England from the Accession of Henry
VII. to the death of Henry VIII. is the best modern book on this
period ; see also Brewer's Henry VIII., and Pollard's Factors in
Modern History ; for Scotland, see Hume Brown's or Andrew Lang's
History of Scotland ; for economic history see Meredith's Economic
History of England, and Cunningham's Growth of English Industry
and Commerce. There are two excellent lectures on the period in
Stubbs' Lectures on Modern History.]

CHAPTER II
THE RENASCENCE
§ i. The Meaning of the Renascence.
While the islands were plunged into anarchy and dis
organisation during the fifteenth century, there had been
blossoming, in Italy first, and in a less degree in other
parts of Western Europe, that efflorescence of hterary and
artistic activity which is caUed the Renascence, or re
birth. The name expresses what has always been felt
about this wonderful outburst — that it marked a turning-
point in human history. One of the greatest results of the
re-establishment of peace and order in England (and in a
less degree in Scotland and Ireland) was that it gave a
chance for the ideas of the Renascence to begin to work
freely in the islands.
In one way the name ' Renascence ' is unfortunate ; it
suggests that there had been intellectual sterihty or dead-
ness during the Middle Ages, which is far indeed from being
the truth. Nor is it right to suppose that the great change
in men's thinking and in their way of looking at the
world came suddenly. It used to be the fashion to give
the date of 1453 for the beginning of the Renascence,
because in that year many Greek scholars, driven from Con-^
stantinople when that city feU before the Turks, took refuge
in Italy, and stimvUated the study of the Greek classics..
But this is a very shaUow way of regarding a vast move
ment. It is true that a revival of classical learning had a
great deal to do with the birth of the new ideas. But the
Greek classics were being studied long before 1453 ; and
there were many other factors in the Renascence besides
the revived study of Greek. The truth is that the be
ginnings of the Renascence can be traced far back into
the Middle Ages. It was already very active in the four
teenth century ; and a great change in men's outlook was
already coming about. The enthusiasm of the fifteenth
century for Greek studies only gave a special direction to
the movement, and the reason why it produced such great

ch. il] THE RENASCENCE 223
results was that men had been prepared by earlier develop
ments to appreciate what the Greek classics had to teach
them. The most essential feature of the Renascence was the
wide diffusion of a new way of looking at the world and
at life, which formed a sharp reaction against the concep
tions that had dominated the best men in the Middle Ages.
This reaction would have come about in any case, and
had long been preparing : the revival of classical learning
brought it to a head by emphasising the sharpness of the
contrast between the outlook of the ancient world and that of
the mediaeval world. The scholars of the Middle Ages had
studied the classics ; but they had interpreted them in the
hght of their own ideas. The scholars of the fifteenth
century tried to understand what the ancients had reaUy
felt and thought about life and the world. They tried to
look at things with the eyes of Sophocles and Plato ; and in
proportion as they succeeded in doing so, they were driven
to realise that in the brilliant and noble civilisation of the
ancient world the governing ideas of men had been widely
different from those of the Middle Ages. The Greek view of
hfe (as they understood it) attracted and fascinated the
Italians of the fifteenth century so completely, that it
hastened the change of outlook which was already begin
ning, and gave to it a special character. Greek studies
seemed the key to a new view of the world, and for a time
nothing else seemed worthy of attention. All Italy went
mad about them. Princes lavished their treasures on the
purchase of manuscripts. A knowledge of Greek was the
surest passport to honour, and even to high office. And
when we reflect what a marvellous and beautiful civilisa
tion that of ancient Greece had been, it is not surprising
that the full revelation of it should have dazzled men's eyes.
Wherein lay the main contrast between the ideas of the
Middle Ages and the ideas of ancient Greece, which exer
cised so exciting an influence upon thinking men ? The best
men of the Middle Ages thought of the world as a place of
struggle and of discipline in preparation for another world :
the Greeks thought of it as a place of wonder and beauty,
which ought to be explored and enjoyed, and they thought
httle and vaguely about the idea of another world. The
preachers of the Middle Ages were apt to regard the
beauties of the physical universe as snares for the soul,
and man's body as the source of evils and temptations
which might lead him to destruction unless he kept it in

224 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
subjection : the Greeks thought of the human body as a
noble and beautiful thing which ought to be cultivated so
that it might be a worthy temple to enshrine man's yet more
marveUous mind ; they thought of man's capacity for the
enjoyment of beauty as something that ought to be trained
and made the most of. The mediaeval mind thought of
truth — the only truth that mattered — as something that
was communicated to men by God through His Church,
and regarded man's reason as a very imperfect instru
ment, which ought to be distrusted and condemned if
ever it should dare to chaUenge or question the revealed
truth of which the Church was the guardian : the Greeks
thought of truth as something that could only be attained
by the free and fearless exercise of man's reason, the noblest
and the most divine of aU his wonderful gifts. For the
best minds of the Middle Ages the highest duty of man was
to conquer his passions and to subordinate his arrogant
wiU to the wiU of God by obeying the rules of hfe set forth
by God's Church ; for the Greeks a man's highest duty
was to make the most of himself, and to develop all his
powers of mind and body in the most harmonious way,
so that he might enjoy the beauty of the world and be
able to seek for truth. To put the contrast in a single
phrase, self-repression was the highest ideal of the mediaeval
world, self-expression of the ancient world. In reality the
contrast between the two views of life was not so sharp as
these phrases make, it appear. Many great men in the
Middle Ages revered beauty as an expression of God ;
and all the best Greeks emphasised the obligation of self-
discipline and self-restraint far more strongly than the men
of the Renascence generally reahsed. But the contrast was
a real one ; and it is not wonderful that the revelation of a
conception of life so attractive as that of the Greeks, and so
different from that which had long been accepted, should
have had an intoxicating effect upon men's minds, and
should have led to an extravagant insistence upon the
supreme value and significance of man's reason and his
powers, and of the alluring beauty of the world.
The name of ' Humanism ' has been given to this tend
ency to emphasise the dignity and worth of man. It is a
useful word, though an ugly one ; its significance is best
realised if we think of it largely as a protest against what
we may caU the ' Divinism ' (to use a stiU ugher word) of
the Middle Ages. There is trath in both views, as the
best Greeks weU knew, and as many ' Humanists ' of the

ch. il] THE RENASCENCE 225
Renascence period, hke Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, knew
equaUy weU ; but in the excitement of a new revelation
most men were apt to be carried off their balance.
The new spirit stimulated men to marveUous deeds, and
especiaUy brought about a wonderful outburst of artistic
creation, in Italy first, and later and more faintly in other
countries of the West. This is not the place for any descrip
tion of the marveUous work of Italian painters, sculptors
and architects in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which
was the outcome of the impassioned worship of beauty
characteristic of the age ; nor can we stop to dwell upon
the new movements in literature, the new thought in
pohtics and phUosophy, the new speculations in physical
science, to which the proud trust in the power of men's
reason gave birth. In every field the stimulus was felt.
The Reformation in rehgion was one outcome of the Renas
cence ; the great explorations which we shaU describe in
a later chapter were another. Everywhere there was a
ferment of ideas. And, by a happy chance, one of the
most epoch-making of mechanical inventions came just at
the right moment to encourage the wide diffusion of the
new ideas : Gutenberg and Fust invented printing in the 1
middle of the fifteenth century ; and soon the classics were '
avaUable for aU readers, and the pregnant new ideas of
the Renascence were everywhere spread abroad.
§ 2. The Renascence in England.
The printing-press reached England before the influence
of the new thought had had time to exercise much influence
in the islands. Wilham Caxton, a London trader, brought
over a press from the Netherlands in 1476, and set it up
at Westminster ; and his services to English thinking were
of real importance. Caxton was no mere mechanic. He
was a man of letters as well as a practical business man,
and he made himself the centre of the dawning intellectual
life of England during the reigns of Edward iv., Richard in.
and Henry vn. Perhaps his greatest service was that he
did not content himself with printing learned works in
Latin, but issued a long series of translations of notable
works into English ; and in doing so did much to standardise
the rich andTlexible English tongue, and to prepare the
way for the great era which was to come. He had the
patronage of the most enlightened nobles of the time.
One of them, Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, had studied in
vol. 1. p

226 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
Italy, and was a master of the best learning of his age.
Tiptoft was an example of that strange combmation of
high inteUectual interests with extraordinary brutahty
which, as we shaU see, was characteristic of the Renas
cence age : even amid the barbarities of the Wars of the
Roses he earned the title of ' the Butcher.'
But it was not until the last years of the fifteenth century
that the influence of Greek studies and of the Italian Re
nascence reached England, and not until very much later
that it reached Scotland or Ireland. In 1488 Thomas
Linacre came back from Italy fired with enthusiasm for
the learning of the Greeks ; and on the basis of Greek
learning started in England the scientific study of medicine.
Three years later his friend William Grqcyn, an Oxford
scholar, went *to Italy to study ; and on his return became
the centre of Greek studies at Oxford. A little later John
Colet, an earnest and eloquent priest, foUowed in his foot
steps ; and began, also at Oxford, to apply the study of
Greek to the interpretation of the New Testament, brushing
away the cobwebs of scholastic interpretation and trying
to get at what St. Paul had really meant. The Oxford
group attracted to England the greatest scholar of the age,
the young Dutchman, Erasmus, who spent many years
and made many friends in England ; and Erasmus, hke
Colet, cared most of aU to use his learning as a means of
purifying men's thoughts about religion and stimulating
a ' Renascence ' in the Church. And in London aU the
group found a friend in the young lawyer, Thomas More,1
the noblest of them aU, who, like the rest, was concerned
to use his knowledge to bring about reforms in Church and
State. What we have said about the little group who were
the real parents of the English Renascence iUustrates a
marked contrast between the form which the Renascence
at first assumed in England and that which it had assumed
in Italy. The English Renascence was as yet far less
brilliant in its artistic achievement : the only great painter
who was working in England in these years was the German
Holbein ; and the wonderful literary efflorescence which was
the crown'of the English Renascence did not come until the
time of Elizabeth. But the forerunners of the movement in
England were deeply concerned about practical and moral >
issues, which in Italy counted for relatively little.
1 More's son-in-law, W. Roper, wrote a beautiful little biography of him,
which ought to be read.

ch. il] THE RENASCENCE 227
In none of them was this more clearly shown than in the
gentle and noble More. His greatest book (1516), the finest
product of the first stage of the Renascence in England,
was an earnest criticism of social and pohtical ills, and a
glowing picture of an imaginary world in which these Uls
shotUd disappear. Utopia x (or Nowhere) is, under the
semblance of a descriptiorrof a State in the newly discovered
land of America, at once a criticism of the present and
a dream for the future ; and it is so tender and so wise
that it can stiU inspire. It was an attempt to think out
how the State could be made to yield the greatest amount
of happiness to its citizens ; and in three respects it was
far indeed beyond its age. This noble and tender spirit
deplored the fact that the poor lay always at the mercy of
the rich, and suffered from their oppression : he comforted
himself by imagining a State in which all men had enough,
and the desire for possessions was no longer the governing
motive of men. He hated rehgious bitterness and perse
cution, since (being himself a deeply religious man) he felt
that religion ought to be the teacher of mercy and love ;
so he imagined a society in which there was complete tolera
tion of rehgious differences. He Igiew the enrichment of
life that came from knowledge, and lamented the ignorance
in which the mass of men still lived ; in his Nowhere all
cluldren were wisely trained at the public charge.
More was a personal friend of Henry vin., who delighted
in his wit, his high spirits, and his wide learning ; for Henry
himself was essentially a man of the Renascence, and a
master of the culture of his age. Unhappily the spirit of
More and his group was far beyond the apprehension of the
fuU-blooded, self-wiUed king. Yet Henry and his great
minister, the cardinal, were in sympathy with the demand
for greater enlightenment ; and in their time many schools,
inspired by the ideals of the new learning, began to arise.
Wolsey himself founded a great coUege (Christ Church)
at Oxford, and a school at his native Ipswich. The schools
of the new learning which arose during the next generation
were to be the training-grounds of the poets and sailors
and thinkers of the great Elizabethan age, and of the political
reformers of the age which followed. Perhaps the most
famous of these schools was that which Colet established
in connexion with St. Paul's Cathedral, when he was
appointed its Dean.
1 Utopia was written in Latin, but there are Enghsh translations.

228 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
§ 3. Moral and Political Aspects of the Renascence.
It would be a great blunder to suppose that the earnest
and lofty spirit of More and his friends was characteristic
of the Renascence movement either in England or else
where. For the brUliant achievements of the age had
dark shadows ; and the darkest of these was a grave re
laxation of moral standards, a sort of moral anarchy. This
was the natural result of the sudden casting off of old
restraints and old ideals of conduct, of the worship of
human individuality, and of the claim that every man had
a right to develop his own personahty unrestrained.
Read such a self -revelation as the Autobiography of Benvenuto
Cellini, a typical Renascence artist, and a naturally honest
and generous-minded man, and you will see what sins the
worship of beauty and strength could appear to cover : Cellini
feels that no apology is necessary for vices in which his tem
perament led him to indulge, or for crimes into which he was
led by self-wUl. The very definition of virtu among the Italians
of this age found no place for what we call the higher moral
quahties : the man of virtu is the man who can by craft
and courage impose his will upon stubborn clay or bronze,
or upon the still more stubborn human material presented
by his neighbours or his subjects. Henry vm. and Thomas
Cromwell were, indeed, far more typically Renascence men "
than John Colet and Thomas More.
This aspect of the Renascence spirit, this disregard of moral
restraints, this passionate egoism, found its most unhappy
expression in the sphere of pohtics. The records of the
petty princes of Italy in this age are full of incredible in
stances of briUiant, ruthless, non-moral cunning and cruelty
in the pursuit of power. Rulers learnt to regard themselves
as exempt from all moral restraints, and the ideal prince
seemed to be a sort of tiger-man, strong, pitiless and cunning,
using every device of force and fraud without scruple or mis
giving, to impose his will upon subjects or rivals. This view
of statecraft is set forth with extraordinary skUl in Machia-
veUi's Prince (1513), one of the classics of the age. The
assumption uponwhich the whole treatise rests is that moral
ity has practically no bearing upon politics. And Machia-
veUi's doctrine was in fact simply a translation into theory of
the practice of the age. Not the Italian princes only, but such
sovereigns as Ferdinand of Aragon or Francis 1. of France
held themselves exempt from moral restraints, and acted on
the assumption that morals have nothing to do with the

CH. n.] THE RENASCENCE 229
relations of States with one another, or of princes with their
subjects, but that ultimately force and cunning are the
only determining factors. This was, in effect, the pohtical
doctrine of the Renascence, of the period when absolute
monarchy was everywhere establishing itself, and when
monarchs were refusing to admit the right of any power to
control or criticise their actions. It is a doctrine which has
ever since had advocates, down to the time when the teach
ings of Treitschke dominated the mind of Germany in the
generation before the Great War. And the almost universal
acceptance of this view ought to be remembered when we j udge
the action of Henry vin. andThomasCromweU, or of Elizabeth.
In politics, as in other respects, the Renascence was in
fact a reaction against the ideas of the Middle Ages. The
Middle Ages had always held in theory (though theory was
often contradicted by practice) that there must be in the
world some power charged with the duty of enforcing the
moral law of God upon aU princes, and they had found this
power in the theoretical position of the Emperors, and in
the real authority of the Popes. The governments of the
Renascence age — even those which remained Catholic — ,
repudiated every claim to restrain or control their action,
and in effect repudiated the validity for them of the moral
law. But it was only for a time that this attitude was
triumphant. Even in the sixteenth century, since man is
a moral animal and even absolute monarchs are men, the
instincts of decency prevented the worst excesses. And
soon the old doctrine, the old ideal of a moral law
above the authority of aU governments, began to raise its
head again ; we shall see it emerging in the form of a system
of international law, early in the seventeenth century.
Generation by generation it has grown in strength, and it
wiU be part of our business, in later parts of this book, to
note its growth, and to trace the part which has been played
in its progress, either consciously or unconsciously, by the
British Commonwealth.
In the meanwhUe it must be remembered that throughout
the great age with which we are now dealing the spirit of the
Renascence, blended of good and evU, was working hke
yeast in the rapidly changing world.
[Burkhardt, The Renaissance ; Symonds, Short History of the Re
naissance in Italy ; Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers ; Hutton, Life
of More. The best English edition of Machiavelli's Prince is edited by
L. A. Burd, with an introduction by Lord Acton. Macaulay has an
essay on Machiavelli, and a lecture on the Renascence is included
in Lord Acton's Lectures on Modern History.]

CHAPTER III
THE NEW ERA IN FOREIGN POLITICS
(a.d. 1485-1529)
§ 1. The Beginning of National Rivalries : the Wars of Italy.
One of the distinguishing features of the Modern Age has
been that it has been filled with the rivalries of great
organised States for influence and leadership in Europe. In
this prolonged struggle every State, great or smaU, has been
more or less involved ; every controversy breaking out in
any corner of Europe has appeared to concern aU govern
ments, because it might affect the ' Balance of Power ' ;
there has been a long succession of wars, involving nearly
always a number of the powers ; and the intervals of peace
have been fiUed with restless, suspicious, and often un
scrupulous diplomacy. The date commonly taken for the
beginning of this inter-State rivalry is the year 1494, when
Charles vin. of France made a sudden raid into Italy, and
promptly found himself faced by a combination of other
powers, led by the now united kingdom of Spain.
In this long rivalry England, and in a less degree Scotland,
were necessarily involved, though owing to their insular
position they have not usuaUy been so deeply involved as
the continental powers. But the fortunes of the islands
have been very deeply affected by this unceasing European
strife. Their participation in the fray has been influenced
by various motives : frequently by the ancient hostility
between England and France ; frequently by anxiety as to
the fate of the Netherlands, which look across to England,
and in some degree control the North Sea traffic ; some
times by sympathy with causes which were being fought
for on the Continent — the cause of Protestantism in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the causes of national
freedom and popular government in the nineteenth. Once
the old mediaeval ambition for conquest in France was
fairly abandoned, England has never (unlike the con
tinental powers) desired to make territorial conquests on
the mainland. But always, from a very early stage in this
230

CH. in.] NEW ERA IN FOREIGN POLITICS 231
prolonged strife, it has been a primary aim of British pohcy
to prevent any single power from obtaining complete
dominion in Europe ; and it has been at the moments
when such a dominion seemed to be threatening that the
interventions of the island peoples in European affairs
have been most vigorous and effective. In this sense, but
only in this sense, England first, and then united Britain,
and then the British Empire, have always stood for what
is caUed the Balance of Power. The importance of the
period upon which we are now entering is that it sees the
definite abandonment of the old dreams of French conquest,
and the entry of England upon what was to become the
special British pohcy of the Balance of Power.
The transition, like aU transitions, took place gradually.
Henry vn. fought a rather aimless and half-hearted war
with France (1488-92), which recaUs the old mediaeval pohcy.
His object was to preserve the independence of Brittany,
the last great feudal State in France. But he willingly
let himself be bought off by the treaty of Etaples (1492),
thus showing that he did not take his French ambitions
seriously. And the fact that in this war he allied himself
with Spain and with the Emperor Maximilian shows that
the object of the war was rather to check the alarming
growth of French power than to acquire French terri
tory. France was, in fact, manifestly the greatest power in
Europe, and her unity was completed by the marriage of
Charles vm. to the heiress of Brittany. Charles now
entered upon a career of conquest by putting forward a
claim to the kingdom of Naples, which he invaded and con
quered in 1494 with surprising ease. But his success brought
a formidable coalition into existence against him, including
the Pope, Venice, MUan, the Emperor and Spain, and the
French rapidly lost their conquests in Southern Italy, which
passed for two centuries under the dominion of Spain. Henry
vn. joined the anti-French league, but took no part in the
fighting. Once again England and Spain were ranged against
France ; and their aUiance was cemented by a treaty of mar
riage between Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the King of
Spain, and Arthur, eldest son of Henry vn. The treaty was
concluded in 1497, though the marriage was not celebrated
.j till *59J- Royal marriages played a great part in the
' foreign politics of the next ten years, and this one was to
have momentous consequences. The Spanish alliance was
so much valued that when Arthur died, in 1502, a papal

^32 Beginning of the modern age [bk. m.
dispensation was obtained to permit his brother Henry to
marry the young widow.
But the defeat of the French attack on Naples did not
end French ambitions in Italy. In 1499 Louis xn., suc
cessor of Charles vm., again led a French army over the
Alps, and occupied the duchy of Milan, which he claimed by
inheritance. For some years he maintained possession of
his conquest, and in 1509-10 he joined with the Pope,
Spain, and the Emperor in an iniquitous attack upon the
republic of Venice. But the growing strength of the French
was alarming ; and in 1511 Pope Julius 11. made peace
with Venice, and set to work to form a great Holy League
to expel the French from Italy. In this league Spain and
the Emperor joined, as well as the chief Italian States,
The ambitious Henry vin. now reigned in England, and,
being eager to play a great part in the world, he enthu- -
siastically threw himself into the Holy League, and pre
pared to send English armies into Northern and Southern
France. The southern campaign (1512) was a dismal
failure. The northern campaign (1513), which was weU
organised by Wolsey (who thus won the favour of the king),
achieved some success, so that Henry vin. began to dream
of conquering or partitioning France. But the anti-French
league broke up promptly, as soon as the power of the
French in Italy was broken. Henry, convinced that he
had been tricked by his father-in-law, the King of Spain,
made a profitable peace and aUiance with France in 1514,
which was sealed by the marriage of Henry's sister, Mary,
to Louis xn. Shortlived as it was to be, this was the first
instance of an actual aUiance between England and France,
and it may be said to mark the final abandonment of
English ambitions for the conquest of France.
§ 2. Charles V., Francis I., and Solyman the Turk.
In the following years the European situation began to
change very rapidly. In 1515 Francis 1. succeeded to the
French throne. He was a young and brUliant man, ambi
tious, artistic, frivolous, superficial, and devoid of all
scruples ; and Henry vin. felt towards him an intense
personal jealousy which influenced his pohcy. Francis
signalised his advent to the throne by a raid into Italy,
where, after the brilliant battle of Marignano, he recon
quered the duchy of Milan, to the acute annoyance of Henry,
who thought of responding with an invasion of France.-'

CH. in.] NEW ERA IN FOREIGN POLITICS 233
But the circumstances were not favourable. For next year
the cunning old fox, Ferdinand of Spain, died, and was
succeeded by his grandson Tharles, already master of the
Netherlands, and heir to his other grandfather, the Emperor
Maximilian. Charles was a grave and shy boy of sixteen, who was
thought to be a fool, and seemed to compare poorly with
his dazzling rivals, Henry and Francis. He was to show,
in a long reign fuU of troubles, that he had a patience, a
courage, and a diplomatic skill which made him a greater
figure than either of them. The relations of these three
young sovereigns were to form for a generation the most
important question in European politics. Their rivalry
soon had a chance of showing itself in a curious way. In
1518 the Emperor Maximihan died. His famUy estates,
the- Austrian lands of the Habsburgs, passed of course to
bis grandson, Charles. But his imperial title could only be
bestowed by the votes of the German Electors. Charles,
Francis and Henry all became candidates for this, the
greatest of all earthly dignities. Charles was elected, as
was almost inevitable.
And now the Emperor Charles v. stood forth as the ruler
of the most extraordinary empire that had ever existed in
Europe.1 As heir to the House of Burgundy, he was master
of the Netherlands and their rich and prosperous cities,
and of the Franche Comte on the eastern border of France.
As heir to his Spanish grandparents, he ruled over the
united kingdom of Spain, over the southern part of Italy,
and over the vast empire in the New World which Columbus
had discovered for Spain, though it had not yet begun to
pour out the stream of wealth that afterwards made it so
valuable. As heir to the Habsburgs, he was master of
Austria and other lands in South-Eastern Germany. As
Emperor he had a theoretical title to the obedience of the
other German princes. It seemed as if, with these vast
resources, he ought to be able at last to give the imperial
title a real meaning, to make himself master of Germany,
and even of aU Europe. The only obstacles that seemed
to stand in his way were the French and Enghsh monarchies.
His own territories almost surrounded France ; whUe Eng
land was linked by a traditional aUiance to the owner
/ ) ) ) of the Netherlands, and the Queen of England was the
Emperor's aimt.
But Charles v.'s strength was more apparent than real.
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 8.

234 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. ill.
His widely scattered dominions had distinct governments.
and were jealous of one another. Communications between
them were interrupted by France on land, and dependent
upon the Enghsh by sea. Spain was almost ready to rebel
during the early years of the reign ; the rich Flemish cities
were very unruly ; the German princes were quite unaccus
tomed to obedience. And these were by no means the
worst of Charles' troubles. In 1517 the Reformation had
begun in Germany, and by 152 1, when Charles went to
that country to try to establish the imperial authority on
a firmer foundation, the whole country was already in an
uproar. In the Diet of Worms, at which the young Emperor
met the magnates of the land, he was confronted by the
troublesome monk, Martin Luther, who was the origin of
all these turmoils. He laboured in vain to restore the
authority of the Church, or even to establish a rehgious
truce : the conflict between the new and the old religions
ruined aU chance of his becoming master in Germany, and
eventually (1552) brought about his downfaU.
Finally in these very years the Turkish Empire, under the
rule of the most famous of aU the sultans, Solyman the
Magnificent, was becoming more threatening than it had
ever yet been.1 In 1521 Solyman captured Belgrad, the
warden-fortress of the Danube. In 1526, on the dread
field of Mohacz, he destroyed the armed might of the kingdom
of Hungary and slew its king ; and for two hundred and
fifty years thereafter, two-thirds of Hungary remained
under Turkish rule. The Turks were threatening Vienna,
the capital of the Austrian domains. It looked as if they
might even overrun the whole of Europe. To Charles fell
the main burden of defence against the Turk, though, to
ease his task, he transferred his Austrian lands to his
brother Ferdinand (1521).
These difficulties made the rivalry between Charles V.
and France less unequal than the map makes it appear,
and Francis did not hesitate to make use of them. He in
trigued with the Protestant princes of Germany, and at
the same time he intrigued with the Pope, who feared
Charles' power in Italy. He even made open aUiance withYf„,
the Turks, to the scandal of Christendom, and Turkish
galleys, loaded with Christian slaves, were welcomed in
the harbour of Toulon. During the whole of Charles' reign
the unceasing hostility of France was the greatest of his
many troubles. It is impossible not to sympathise with
1 See the maps, Atlas, Plates 8 and 25 (b).

ch. in.] NEW ERA IN FOREIGN POLITICS 235
the hard-pressed Emperor. But it is impossible also not
to recognise that the resistance of France saved Europe
from the danger of a universal monarchy, which could not
have lasted long, but which would have done much harm.
It also gave the Reformation time to get itself well rooted
in Germany and other lands.
§ 3. The Balance of Power.
What was to be the attitude of England in this acute con
flict between England's ancient enemy France, and the vast
but loosely organised power which seemed to threaten her
from aU sides ? That was the main problem which exercised
Henry vm. and Wolsey during the years 1519-1529. Both
parties in the conflict were eager for Enghsh co-operation.
But the advantage to Enghsh trade of friendly relations;
with the ruler of the Netherlands, the ancient tradition of
hostility to France, and the more recent friendship with
Spain, made an aUiance with Charles v. seem the more
natural, especiaUy in the early days, before his strength
was fuUy revealed. In 1520 the French and Enghsh kings
had an interview at the"Tield of the CJpjth j3f_Gold, when
they and their suites strove to outdo one another in lavish
magnificence, and the interview left Francis in the behef
that he could at any rate count on English neutrahty. But
Henry and Wolsey had already privately agreed to join
the other side ; their decision being helped by Charles v.'s
promise to support Wolsey's candidature in the next papal
election. When war between the two great powers broke out in
1522, an Enghsh expedition once more landed in France.
And once more, as an inevitable consequence, the Scots
made an ineffective raid into England to support their
French allies. But the war was not pursued with any
vigour on the Enghsh side, because Charles v., with the aid
of the Constable of Bourbon, a revolting subject of France,
achieved such overwhelming successes as to frighten his
allies. In the battle of Pavia (1525), he not only crushed
the French army in Italy, and finally deprived France of
the duchy of Milan ; he even took the French king himself
a prisoner. After this victory, it seemed, for the moment,
as if Europe lay at Charles v.'s feet, and as if the old dream
of the universal empire might be revived. To prevent this,
to preserve the independence of France and the Balance of
Power in Europe, Wolsey and his master carried out a

236 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. Hi.
sudden and complete reversal of Enghsh pohcy, and made
a close aUiance with France. Because the see-saw had
gone too violently down on one side, they threw their weight
on to the other ; and they undoubtedly helped to bring
about the revival of France which soon took place.
It may fairly be said of Enghsh foreign policy during this
period that, on the whole, it was more showy than advan
tageous ; try as he would, Henry vin. was never able to
play a dominating part in European affairs, but was at
most only a makeweight. It is often said, also, that Wolsey
was influenced mainly by personal motives, and that,
having supported Charles v. in order to be elected Pope,
he deserted him in 1525 because Clement vn. had been
chosen in his stead. This may have helped to influence
his policy. But the outstanding fact of the period is
that under Wolsey's guidance England had broken away ^
from mediaeval ideas of foreign pohcy. Enghsh pohcy
was no longer governed by such simple and unrealis-
able ambitions as the conquest of France. It was now
increasingly governed by the consideration of the position
in Europe as a whole, and it had arrived at the conclusion
that Enghsh interests would suffer if any single power were
permitted to dictate to all Europe. The doctrine of the
Balance of Power had emerged ; and with its emergence
the modern era in foreign relations had begun.
[Fisher's book, already referred to under Chapter 1. ; Creighton's
Wolsey (Twelve Enghsh Statesmen) ; Johnson, Europe in the Six
teenth Century ; Abbott, Expansion of Europe; Armstrong, Charles V.]

CHAPTER IV
THE UNVEILING OF THE OUTER WORLD
§ i. The First Great Discoveries.
While the fruitless and confusing wars of. the European
States, which fiU the pages of history books, were dragging
out their dreary course, another series of events was taking
place which was to have an infinitely more momentous
influence upon the destinies of the island peoples. The
most extraordinary outburst of exploring activity that has
ever taken place was transforming the aspect of the world.
Within the generation between 1490 and 1523 the twin
continents of the New World had been discovered, the coast
line of Africa had been explored, the waters of the Indian
Ocean and the China Seas had been for the first time ploughed .
by European keels, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans had
been mapped out, and the round world had been circum
navigated. No such transformation in the aspect of the
world has ever taken place as took place in this generation.
The area open to the exuberant enterprise of the European
peoples was multiplied a hundredfold. Western civilisa
tion, hitherto hmited to Europe, began that gradual con
quest of the world which has fined the last four centuries.
A new and far more fruitful field of rivalry was opened to
the European nations, whose narrower conflicts we have
just been observing. Above aU, the centre of balance in
the civilised world had begun to shift ; and the British
Islands, hitherto on the outer fringe of the known world,
were soon to find themselves in the centre of the main
streams of world traffic and enterprise. It is obviously
of vital importance that we should realise the nature of
the great movement which was to have so profound an
influence upon the fortunes of the island peoples.
Although mediaeval Europe had always used the luxuries
that came from the East, and above all from India, it had
known practicaUy nothing of the lands from which these
luxuries came, but had been content to pick them up on
the shores of the Mediterranean or the Black Sea from the
237

238 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
Eastern caravans that brought them thither. A few daring
traveUers, hke Carpini, Rubraquis, and the great Marco
Polo,1 brought back" wonderful tales from Mongolia and
Cathay and the hot lands of India, which every one knew
of as the land of gems and spices ; but the real ignorance
of even learned men regarding the shape of the Old World
may readUy be seen by a glance at any map of this period.2
A variety of circumstances during the fifteenth century
combined to bring about a sudden zest for exploration. The
discovery of the mariner's compass made distant sea
voyages possible even beneath hidden or unfamiliar stars.
The eager, questing spirit of the Renascence found a natural
expression in geographical exploration. The revival of
classical studies reminded men that Aristotle had asserted
thaFthe earth was a globe, and this was reinforced by the
astronomical discoveries of Copernicus : the map-makers
therefore began to apply their notions of the shape of the
earth's land-masses to the globular theory. The study of
Herodotus disclosed the fact that the ancient Phosnicians
had~iaUed round Africa, leaving by the Red Sea, and re
turning by the Straits of Gibraltar. The increasing pro
sperity of Europe demanded a greater abundance in the
supply of the luxuries which came from the East ; and
meanwhUe the disturbances caused by the Turkish con
quests interfered with (though of course they did not putv
a stop to) the already insufficient volume of these goods
that came by caravan.
FinaUy the Portuguese, having whoUy freed their country
from the Moors, were tempted to pursue these secular enemies v
into Northern Africa, all the more because the strength of
Spain gave them no room for expansion at home. The
motives of this enterprise were at first largely rehgious,
and they were strengthened by legends. Somewhere in
Eastern Africa, it was believed, a Christian emperor, the
famous Prester John, still held sway, and the Portuguese
dreamed of somehow joining hands with him, and winning
a great victory for Christianity by taking the Moslem world
on the flank. These were wild and impractical dreams ;
but no dream was too wUd, and no enterprise too daring.
for the men of this age, when the whole world seemed to he
open to the adventurer.
During the first half of the fifteenth century, inspired
by a prince of their royal house, Henry the Navigator,
1 See Book ii., Chapter I., p. 88.
8 See the medisval maps reproduced in Atlas, Plate 46 (c) and (d).

CH. iv.] UNVEILING OF THE OUTER WORLD 239
the Portuguese had taught themselves to build ships that
could stand the rough usage of the outer seas, and had
begun to push graduaUy southwards round the coast of
Western Africa.1 The barren shores of the Sahara Desert
delayed them long, but before Prince Henry died in 1460
they had rounded Cape Verde, and soon afterwards they
reached Sierra Leone, where the coast began to trend hope-
fuUy eastward. Here gold-dust and negro slaves were to
be got, and exploration began to reap its material reward.
But then the coast began to lengthen out endlessly south
wards ; and almost a generation passed ere, in 1487, Bar
tholomew Diaz found at last a point at which the trend
of the coast was unmistakably eastwards. He caUed it
the Cape of Storms : but when he returned, his master,
King John n., reahsing that now the route to India was
open, renamed it the Cape of Good Hope, and began to
make great preparations for exploiting this superb oppor
tunity. Ten years passed before the new route was actuaUy used. '
In the interval a stiU greater enterprise had been set on
foot. A Genoese sailor in the Portuguese service, Chris
topher Columbus, convinced himself that India could be
far more quickly reached by saUing due west across the
Atlantic, than by foUowing the slow and toilsome route of
the Portuguese. Queen Isabella of Castile, more than a little
jealous of the Portuguese achievements, thought it worth
while to risk three little ships in testing his theory. After a
voyage on the trade winds of only two months, Columbus
touched land at one of the Bahama Islands, October 12, 1492.
He had found a new world without knowing it ; and though
he made two more voyages, and on the third reached the
mainland of South America, and the mouth of the mighty
river Orinoco, he never knew what he had done, but died
in the conviction that the land he had reached was part
of Asia. He had also laid the foundations of a new empire
for Spain. At first it was limited to the island of Hispaniola
(Hayti) ; but though the gentle natives of this and other
West Indian islands were forced to labour as slaves for
their mysterious lords from across the sea, they produced
for a long time little wealth — nothing that could be com
pared with the vast profits of the Portuguese Eastern trade.
The Pope, by an award of 1493, divided the new discoveries
between Spain and Portugal by drawing an imaginary
1 The course of the explorations summarised in this chapter is illustrated
by the map, Atlas, Plate 47.

240 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
line north and south through the Atlantic; but as yet,
and for a generation to come, the Portuguese share seemed
vastly the more valuable.
§ 2. The Portuguese Power in the East.
The whole resources and energy of the Portuguese people
were thrown into their great enterprise, which opened when
the great navigator Vasco da Gama, after a voyage of
thirteen months, reached the coast of India at Calicut in
August 1498. It was a vastly more difficult and dangerous
enterprise than the two months' voyage of Columbus, and
it immediately led to far more brilliant results. On the
coast of India the Portuguese found many petty princes,
who were easUy dominated ; and they had no trade rivals
save the Arab merchants, who had hitherto carried the
products of India to the ports of the Persian Gulf and the
Red Sea. The Portuguese soon controUed the principal
Indian ports, where they purchased the merchandise of
India in their king's name, and shipped it to Lisbon. Here
the fine stuffs, gems and spices of the East were now to
be got far more abundantly than before. Lisbon became
the commercial capital of the world, displacing Venice ;
and the ships of all nations resorted to its busy and pro
sperous wharves.
During the first twenty years of the sixteenth century,
while the potentates of Europe were squandering blood
and money on the fight for Italy, the Portuguese were or
ganising an extraordinary commercial empire in the East.
The real organiser of their power was Aff onso de Albuquerque,
governor of the Portuguese Indies, 1509-15. He conquered
the valuable island of Goa, on the west coast of India — a
highly defensible position with a splendid harbour, which he
turned into the capital of the Portuguese Empire. Here
alone large numbers of Portuguese emigrants settled, strictly
enforced their own religion upon the native subjects, and by
intermarriage gave rise to a considerable population of mixed
birth. Other Portuguese ' factories ' or trading stations
were dotted round the coasts of India and Ceylon ; there
were garrisoned ports and caUing stations at intervals
along the east coast of Africa ; there were strong posts at
the mouths of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, almost
closing these ancient routes of commerce. Further east a
station at Malacca controlled the gateway to the Malay
Archipelago, where the rich Spice Islands, the centre of

ch. iv.] UNVEILING OF THE OUTER WORLD 241
the most lucrative traffic in the world, passed under Por
tuguese control. Eastwards again the Portuguese later
opened up a trade with China, where they acquired a fortified
base in the island of Macao ; and they dealt also with the
island empire of Japan. The whole of the trade between
the East and Europe was in their hands, and it brought
into Lisbon an incredible stream of wealth.
The Portuguese empire in the East was never more than
a trading monopoly, and it was absolutely dependent upon
the maintenance of naval supremacy. Except in Goa,
there were no settlements, and no considerable territorial
conquests. Moreover, from the first this vast trade was
turned into a monopoly of the Crown ; and, while it brought
wealth into the country, it did nothing to develop the
enterprise and initiative of the Portuguese people. It was
a marveUous enterprise for a little nation. But it over
taxed the nation's strength, and the process of decay set
in very early.
In the West, by a happy accident, the Portuguese at
the same time got possession of an invaluable territory. In
, 1500 one of their captains, Cabral, on his way home from
an Indian voyage, was driven out of his course, and touched
upon the coast of BrazU. Here, after a time, a real colony
was estabhshed. The coastline of Brazil was parceUed
out into a series of principalities which were granted to
great Portuguese nobles. They were given absolute power
over the native population, who soon began to melt away.
They brought out Portuguese emigrants in considerable
numbers, but members of the master-race were unwilling
to undertake heavy labour under a tropical sun. So the
Portuguese began to transport negroes from their West
African trading stations to their Brazilian plantations,
and this was the beginning of negro slavery in America.
§ 3. The Spanish Empire in America.
MeanwhUe the modest beginning of the Spanish empire
in the West Indies had undergone a wonderful expansion.
The greater islands had aU been explored and occupied.
The shores of the Gulf of Mexico had been marked out. A
footing had been obtained on ' Terra Firma,' or the ' Spanish
Main ' — the north coast of South America. Vasco Nunez
de Balboa had crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and dis
covered that a vast ocean separated the New World from
Asia (1513) . The most intrepid of all the explorers, MageUan,
vol. 1. 0

242 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
a Portuguese in the Spanish service, had made his way down
aU the coast of South America, seeking for a passage through
to Asia. He had found the tortuous and perilous straits
which stUl bear his name (1520) ; pushing ever westwards,
without map or chart, he had crossed the mighty Pacific,
and reached the PhUippine Islands and the Malay Archi
pelago ; and the remnants of his heroic company, after
their captain's death, had found their way home by the
familiar Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope,
after the most courageous voyage in the whole history of
exploration. It is recorded that, when the ragged handful
reached a Spanish port, their first duty was to go barefoot^
to do penance in church, because they had lost a day in
going round the world, and had observed aU the feasts and
fasts of the Church on the wrong days. But the main
result of these wonderful voyages was that the chief features
of the distribution of the world's surface between land and
water were now known ; and the Spaniard realised that it
was a new world that was in his grasp.1
This was at first a disappointment, for it was the fabled
wealth of the East that the Spaniard had hoped to tap;
and there was little wealth to be made out of the naked
natives of the Caribbean. Some of them were timid and
soft, so that they died out annoyingly under the stress of
forced labour ; others were ferocious and untamable ; and
it soon became necessary to replace them with negroes
from Africa, according to the Portuguese plan. But if
the first acquisitions in the New World brought little wealth,
and were disappointingly poor in gold, they at least pre
sented a field for adventure, which dehghted the hearts of
the fierce and daring Spanish gentlemen. The story of
the deeds of the conquistador es, as these romantic adven
turers were called, surpasses behef or imagination. They
were incredibly brave, incredibly brutal, incredibly avari
cious. And always they justified their worst ferocities by
the claims of religion. They were fighting the battle of
the cross against the infidel. It adds to the reputation
of their valour that they were convinced that evil spirits
fiUed the air about them, and battled against them in the
impenetrable jungles, the uncharted seas and the wild
mountains through which they forced their way.
Soon the daring of these fierce adventurers was rewarded
by the discovery of lands of inexhaustible wealth. Her-
1 Compare the two maps, Behaim's of 1492 and Schoner's of 1523, shown
in Atlas, Plate 47 (b) and (c).

CH. iv.] UNVEILING OF THE OUTER WORLD 243
nando Cortez and a handful of men, boldly advancing into
the plateau of Mexico, found there a civilised people, the
Aztecs, among whom the precious metals were so abundant
that they were used for the common implements of life.
In two years (1519-21), this little band conquered the
whole empire, wiped out its cruel religion in blood, enslaved
its people, and took possession of the mines of Potosi, from
which, thenceforward, a stream of bullion poured annuaUy
across the Atlantic into Spain. Presently a stiU wealthier
empire, that of the Incas of Peru, was discovered and con
quered by the detestable and bloodthirsty tyrant Pizarro,
in the ten years foUowing 1525 ; and from the second and
stiU richer Potosi another stream of wealth began to flow
through the Pacific ports over the isthmus of Panama,
whence it was shipped in the annual treasure-fleet from
Nombre de Dios to Cadiz.
Mexico and Peru — these with their mines formed the
main strength of the Spanish empire in the New World ; 1
and here a mixed population, sprung from the marriage of
Spanish soldiers with Aztec and Peruvian women, began to
arise. But Spanish daring spread further stiU. Up among
the Andes of Peru, OreUana found the head-waters of a
mighty river, the Amazon : he foUowed it down in boats
for nearly two thousand miles, tUl it brought him into the
Atlantic. Farther south, Spaniards discovered the fertile
plains of the La Plata river, and the rocky coastlands of
ChUe. Farther north Hernando de Soto made a marvel
lous journey through the forests of Florida, westwards over
one river and another, tUl he reached the vast stream of
the Mississippi.
But the fuU extension of the Spanish empire had not
yet been reached at the period with which we are dealing.
The amazing wealth of Mexico and Peru was only beginning
to be disclosed ; and it was not until 1542 that the Emperor
Charles V. took in hand the organisatiorioFthis vast dominion,
and tried to check the rapacity, the cruelty and the destruc
tive feuds of the men who had built it. The first half of
the sixteenth century was the age of the conquistador es. The >¦
second half was the age of the organisers. We are not here
concerned to explain in detaU how the gigantic Spanish
empire was organised and governed. But one main fact
must be noted. The settlers in America were aUowed no
share of control over their own affairs. Even the governors,
1 See the map of Spanish South America, Atlas, Plate 58 (a), and of
Central America and the West- Indies, Plate 53

244 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. m.
sent out from Spain, had little freedom of action. Every
thing was under the rigid control of the Council of the Indies
sitting at Madrid ; and its policy was to secure the absolute
mastery of the Crown over aU the resources of the New
World. Not only were other nations to have no share ; not
only were no commercial relations with other peoples per
mitted : even Spaniards were not aUowed to exploit these
vast resources, except under royal hcence and strict royaL
control. And the result of these restrictions was that the
abounding enterprise which the Spaniards had earlier shown
rapidly died down, and the huge empire, which included
some of the most prosperous regions of the world, feU into
a condition of stagnation with astonishing quickness, and
became httle more than the region within which the Spanish
king's mines produced bullion to meet the cost of his
European wars.
§ 4. The Modest Enterprises of England and France.
It was not to be expected that the other Western peoples
should permanently aUow the Portuguese and the Spaniards
to enjoy an undisputed monopoly of the outer world. But
they were very slow to take action. Columbus, indeed,
had sent his brother, Bartholomew, to England, to ask
Henry vn.'s support for his great idea, and the English
king had not been unfavourable ; but in the meantime
IsabeUa of Castile had taken up the project. A httle later
Henry vn. gave his patronage and some financial backing
to the Genoese saUor, John Cabot, who, with his three sons,
made two voyages from Bristol and explored the coast of
North America from Labrador to Virginia, being actuaUy
the first explorer to touch on the continent of the New
World. But this promising beginning was not foUowed up;
in truth the maritime resources of England were scarcely
yet sufficiently developed to be ready for great enterprises.
Nor did France play a much larger part. In 1523 Francis 1.
lent ships to another Italian sailor, Verazzano, who explored
part of the North American coast ; and in 1534 the French
man Carrier made his way into the estuary of the St.
Lawrence, and gave the name of Canada to the land he
found. He thought, as Cabot had thought before him,
that the Gulf of St. Lawrence might be the opening of a
north-west passage, parallel to the channel which MageUan
had discovered a few years earher ; and the dream of a north
west passage, by which the northern peoples could reach

ch. iv.] UNVEILING OF THE OUTER WORLD 345
the East by a route of their own without conflicting with
Spaniards or Portuguese, continued to haunt men's minds
for a long time to come. But nothing was done to follow
up these beginnings, except that English and French fisher
men sometimes found their way to the cod fisheries of the
Newfoundland banks. The world was in fact content for
the present that the first explorers should keep what they
had found ; all the more because they were supported by
the papal award, which was stiU universaUy respected.
Not until the Reformation did men begin to dream of a
direct chaUenge to the Spanish dominion.
The expansion of the British peoples had not yet begun.
But the transformation of the aspect of the world by the
great discoveries had made it possible ; and therefore, though
the islanders played so small a part in the task of explora
tion, it forms an essential chapter in their history.
[There is an excellent lecture by Lord Acton on the subject of this
chapter in his Lectures on Modern History ; E. J. Payne, European
Colonies ; Abbott, Expansion of Europe, vol. i. ; Beazley's Dawn of
Modern Geography ; Markham's Columbus ; Guillemafcl's Magellan ;
Stephens' Albuquerque; Danvers' Portuguese in India; Beazley's
/. and S. Cabot ; Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of
Peru; Bourne's Spain in America; Winsor's Narrative and Critical
History of America.}

CHAPTER V
THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE AND IN ENGLAND
(A.D. I5I7-I559)
Henry vm., 1509 : Edward vi., 1547 : Maxy, 1553 :
Elizabeth, 1558.
For more than two centuries, as we have seen, there had
been a deep and growing resentment among the English
against the powers claimed by the Pope over the English
Church and the way in which these powers were exercised ;
and this resentment had produced a long series of measures
for the restriction of papal authority. There had been
an equal dissatisfaction with the condition of the Church,
with the wealth, pride, corruption and idleness of many of
the bishops, priests and monks ; and these evils, instead
of diminishing, had grown steadUy worse. There had even
been, in the time of Wycliffe and his followers, a questioning
of some of the fundamental doctrines of the Church, and
an anxiety to repudiate the superstitions with which its
practice had been encrusted during the Middle Ages ; and
at the end of the fourteenth century it had almost seemed
as if the Protestant Reformation was going to be anticipated
in England by a century and a half. Sharp persecution
had faUed to crush out the LoUard movement, and LoUards
were still being burned or imprisoned at intervals in the
reign of Henry vn. and the early years of Henry vm. But
the revolutionary doctrines of the Lollards were not widely
held in England. It was not the doctrines of the Church
or its mode of worship which had, as yet, aroused any
widespread discontent ; it was the high claims of papal supre
macy, which seemed inconsistent with the proud national
spirit of England, the too frequent laxity and ignorance of
churchmen, and their vast and often iU-employed wealth,
which ahenated men's minds.
§ 1. The Reformation in Europe.
This dissatisfaction was by no means limited to England,
but was almost universal throughout Europe. In Bohemia
it had led early in the fifteenth century to a formidable
1846

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE 247
revolt, the Hussite movement, which in many ways anti
cipated the Protestant revolution. In Italy and in Spain
it was not so strong as elsewhere ; in Spain the long struggle
against the Moors had kept alive something of the spirit
of the crusades ; in Italy the Papacy was regarded as a
sort of national institution, and a very profitable one, while
the best Italian minds were engrossed by artistic interests,
and left rehgious questions largely on one side. Yet
even in Italy the revolt of the conscience of Christendom
against the condition of the Church had been expressed by
the fiery preaching of the monk Savonarola. But the dis
satisfaction was deep and growing in France, in Scotland and
in the Scandinavian countries. It was deepest of aU in
Germany, just because Germany was a weak and divided
country, which had no powerful government to protect it
against the worst abuses, as the kings of France, and the kings
and parliaments of England, could in some degree protect
these countries. A serious attempt had been made in the
first half of the fifteenth century to carry out a great reform
by means of a series of General Councils. But this had
failed, and the failure had intensified the universal dis
content ; while the character of the popes of the foUowing
generations had made it worse. Popes like Julius n. or
Leo x. or, worst of aU, the infamous Alexander VI., had
appeared to be altogether indifferent to the spiritual needs
of the world, whoUy wrapped up in political intrigues or
in their territorial ambitions as Itahan princes, and just as
unscrupulous and immoral in pursuing these intrigues and
ambitions as any of the lay princes with whom they dealt.
And in the midst of all this deepening discontent had come
the Renascence, with its spirit of free inquiry, its refusal
to be bound by old forms and rules, its adventurous daring.
Although in Italy the scholars of the Renascence con
cerned themselves httle about rehgious questions, in
Germany and England the new spirit of inquiry found its
chief vent in this sphere. The Hebrew and Greek texts
of the Old and New Testaments were revised and critically
studied. The extravagances of the mediaeval scholastic
phUosophers were attacked. The Humanists of Germany,
the Netherlands and England — such men as Reuchlin and
Erasmus, Colet and Sir Thomas More — cared more about
rehgious questions than about all others, and laboured to
bring about a purification of the Church. And the critical
attitude of the scholars strengthened the hostility of the
mass of ordinary men,

248 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
Since the heads of the Church had not done anything,
and did not seem likely to do anything, to remedy the ills of
which aU men complained, it was inevitable that the prevail
ing discontent should find some means of expressing itself,
Either there must come an outburst of reforming or destruc
tive energy from below ; or the lay princes, who were every
where establishing their despotic power over the lives and
property of their subjects, might be tempted to make use of
this current of opinion to obtain control over their subjects'
consciences by substituting their own authority for that
of the Pope, and to enrich themselves by annexing the vast
wealth of the Church. Both of these elements, popular)
discontent and princely acquisitiveness, were everywhere1
combined in the great upheaval known as the Protestant
Reformation. But there was a wide difference between a desire for
reform in the Church and a willingness to support its dis
solution into fragments or to sympathise with the violence
of hot-headed partisans. The unity of the Church had
long been the sole expression of the unity of Christendom
and civilisation. The spiritual supremacy of the Pope,
whatever its abuses might have been, had been the sole
means of enforcing the moral law upon aU States in their
relations with one another. For that reason many of the
most earnest preachers of the need for reform, hke Erasmus,
had no sympathy with the violent methods by which the
reformers proceeded ; and Sir Thomas More, the noblest
Englishman of his time, the free spirit that dreamed of
Utopia, was ready to die on the scaffold rather than give
his assistance in the rending of the ' seamless garment ' of
the Church.
The movement of the Reformation began independently
and almost simultaneously in Germany, Switzerland and
France. But it was in Germany that it obtained the most
rapid and striking triumphs, partly because the grievances
of the German people against the Church were greater than
those of other peoples, and partly because the divided con
dition of the country gave it a freer field of action. In
united countries like England, France or Spain, such a
movement would be either crushed by the power of govern
ment, or taken under its protection and control. But the
Emperor, nominal ruler of all Germany, was distracted by
his desperate wars with France and with the Turks ; and
the"-[numerous independent princes and free towns were
therefore able to follow the course that suited them best.

CH. v.] THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE 249
Some of them were influenced by genuine conviction ;
others simply by the chance of winning power and plunder,
which the attack on the Church afforded ; the majority,
perhaps, by a mixture of both motives.
In 15 17 the bold monk Martin Luther, Professor of Theo
logy at the Saxon University of Wittenberg, was roused
to make a protest against the open sale of ' indulgences '
(or exemptions from the performance of penance) as a
means of raising money for the building of St. Peter's
Church at Rome. To the door of the church at Wittenberg
he affixed a long series of theses, or propositions, regarding
indulgences, which denied the power of the Pope to issue
them, and asserted that forgiveness for sins was not to be
obtained by payment, or penance, or priestly intercession,
but only by faith. The theses of Wittenberg were rapidly
spread, by the aid of the printing press, throughout Germany,
and were everywhere welcomed with enthusiasm. They
led to a hvely controversy, which all Europe watched with
intense interest, and in the course of which Luther found
himself forced from point to point, until he had boldly
taken up the position of repudiating the papal authority
altogether, as weU as other fundamental doctrines of the
Church. In this controversy Henry vin. of England, proud
of his theological learning, eagerly took part, and in 1521
published a book against the heresies of Luther. The Pope
rewarded him by granting him the title ' Defender of the
Faith,' which is stiU borne by every British sovereign, and
in the form ' Fid. Def. ' or F. D. appears on every British
coin. The Pope himself excommunicated Luther (1520),
who replied, to the dehght of half Germany, by publicly
burning the buU of excommunication, and thus openly
defying the papal authority. The Emperor attempted to
stop the alarming movement by an edict issued at the Diet
of Worms (1521) ; Luther defied the Emperor also. He was
only able to act thus boldly because he was protected by his
master, the Elector of Saxony, who had the support of
many of the lay princes of Germany : without, as yet, com
mitting themselves too deeply, the princes saw many possi
bilities of advantage to themselves in this great upheaval.
Luther was removed by the Elector to a safe retreat in the
castle of the Wartburg, among the forest-covered moun
tains of Thuringia, whence he poured forth a stream of
pamphlets, in the intervals of translating the Bible into
German for the use of common men.
But during Luther's retirement the movement began

250 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
to get out of hand. Excited mobs took to destroy
ing images, sacking churches, and mobbing unpopular
churchmen. There was universal social unrest. Notably
the oppressed peasants saw in the new gospel a message
of hope for themselves, and broke into revolt ; rehgious
revolt and social revolution were as closely associated as
they had been in the time of Wycliffe and the Peasant
Revolt in England. The princes of Germany were alarmed ;
and, fearful of losing their protection, upon which his whole
cause seemed to rest, Luther violently condemned the
peasants, as weU as the Protestant extremists who were
getting the upper hand in many districts, and gave his
whole-hearted support to the brutal and ferocious measures
by which the princes crushed out the revolt. Henceforth
Lutheranism became a princely religion, whose tendency
was to place the minds as well as the bodies of the mass
of men at the mercy of their rulers. Even before the
Peasant Revolt of 1525, in trying to answer the question
where the ultimate spiritual authority should lie if the
papal supremacy were overthrown, Luther had practicaUy
answered that the responsibility must rest with the secular
sovereigns, who were answerable to God alone for their
deeds. Such a doctrine of course made the new move
ment very attractive to ambitious rulers, and persuaded a
rapidly increasing number of German and other princes
to give it their support, all the more because they were now
free to seize for their own use the rich property of the Church.
But it was in the end ruinous to the spiritual fervour of the
new religion, and before many years had passed the Lutheran
form of Protestantism had begun to be supplanted by another
form, Calvinism, in aU those countries where the new ideas
had to fight for their existence against principalities and
powers. Meanwhile, however, the reformer's surrender to the
princes had secured the existence of his doctrines in Germany.
When in 1526 Charles v., free from his troubles for the
moment after his victory over Francis 1. at Pavia (1525),
tried again to grapple with the religious revolution, he found
that a large number of the most powerful German princes
had identified themselves with it ; and though his influence
succeeded, at the Diet of Speyer, in carrying a new edict
against the heretics, there was a substantial minority of
princes ready to ' protest ' against its execution. Their
formal protest gave the name of Protestants to their party.
New wars with France, however, together with the terrible

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE 251
pressure of the Turks, prevented Charles v. from even
attempting to carry out his edict, and the moment passed
when the crushing-out of German Protestantism might
still have been possible.
During the next twenty years Charles v. was engaged in
almost endless wars. He often had to count even the Pope
among his foes, and was therefore unable, until it was too
late, to get a General Council of the Church summoned, by
whose means, as he had hoped, the whole controversy might
have been settled and the unity of Christendom restored.
When at length he was free from his troubles in 1546,
he did summon a council, the famous Council of Trent ;
and he did attempt to restore his own authority in Germany,
and almost succeeded. But it was too late; for during
these years Lutheranism had not only got itself firmly
rooted in Germany, it had spread into aU the neighbouring
countries ; a new and more militant form of Protestant
faith and discipline had been worked out by the stern and
logical Calvin in Geneva ; even Charles' own dominions
in the Netherlands were honeycombed with the new doc
trines ; and in England, Denmark, Norway and Sweden
strong kings had seen the advantage to be derived from the
attack on the Church, and in one form or another had
carried their peoples along with them into the great revolt.
It is, of course, foolish to trace so vast a movement of
the human spirit as the Reformation wholly to political
causes. No pohtical factors could have ensured its victory
unless the minds of men had been ready for it, and unless
it had possessed some power of appealing to their consciences.
But pohtical factors undoubtedly made its rapid triumphs
possible. And the prominence of pohtical factors largely
defiled it, and deprived it of the character of a purely
rehgious movement. In no case was this so apparent as
in the case of England.
§ 2. The King's Divorce and the Breach with Rome.
It was not to be through the influence of Lutheran ideas,
or by a process of gradual conversion, that England was
to break away from Rome, but by the high-handed action
of her masterful king. The Defender of the Faith plumed
himself upon his orthodoxy, and continued to do so to the
day of his death. He would have no dealings with Lutheran
heresy, and did his best to prevent the dissemination of
heretical ideas. The breach with Rome, which forms the

252 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
first stage in the Enghsh Reformation, was a purely pohtical
act, due whoUy to the determination of a wilful king to
have his own way at aU costs. It was carried through com
paratively swiftly, and with surprisingly httle trouble,
because Henry vin. was not merely wilful, but extra
ordinarily shrewd, resolute and ruthless, and because, as
he weU knew, the bulk of the nation, whose feelings he
thoroughly understood, had no tenderness for the papal
supremacy, though they had as little anxiety as the king
himself to change their beliefs.
The root of the whole matter was Henry's desire to be
divorced from his queen. Catherine of Aragon had been
his wife for eighteen years. She had borne him a daughter,
Mary, but no son ; and the lack of a male heir made the
Tudor dynasty seem insecure. Moreover Henry had
fallen in love with a lady of the court, the sprightly and
voluptuous AnneJBoleyn. Under these circumstances the
king's tender conscience was awakened. He remembered
that Catherine had first been married to his elder brother,
Arthur. Surely this made his own marriage invahd ? It
was true that a papal dispensation had been obtained,
But had the Pope fuUy understood ? And in any case,
could the Pope grant a dispensation from a divine law,
set forth in the Book of Leviticus ? The royal conscience
must be relieved ; and in 1527 Cardinal Wolsey was ordered
to obtain a divorce from the Pope.
Wolsey did his best, carrying on negotiations through
two long years. But unfortunately the Pope, Clement vn.,
was now at the mercy of the Emperor, who was the injured!
queen's nephew, and he dared not do what Henry required,
especiaUy as he believed it to be unjust. The most that
Wolsey could obtain was a commission to try the case along
with another cardinal, Campeggio. But the inquiry was
deliberately delayed by Campeggio, and finaUy adjourned
without a decision. Henry's anger knew no bounds. His
essentially tyrannical nature got the mastery. Without
thought of Wolsey 's long years of service, he stripped him
of all his offices and nearly aU his wealth, and started an
action against him for a breach of the Act of Praemunire \
(1393), in that he had acted as papal legate. He. had done
so with Henry's full assent. It was in 1529 that Wolsey's
vast power suddenly coUapsed. Next year he was saved
from even more complete ruin by death.
The faU of Wolsey made Henry feel the delightful sense
that his own power was irresistible. Henceforth he played

CH. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 253
the part of a pure tyrant ; but always of a tyrant who knew
what he was doing, and how far he could safely go. Wolsey's
place as Chancellor was given to that very perfect gentle
man, Sir Thomas Mojre, the witty and gentle scholar whom
the king had loved. But More was obviously not the man
to carry out the new plan which was shaping in the king's
mind : the plan of frightening the Pope into submission by
unchaining Parhament for an attack on the Church. This
plan was pursued for four years with the utmost cunning,
but entirely without success. The more obstinate the
Pope showed himself, the more obstinate the king became,
until he ended by abolishing aU papal authority in England,
and annexing it to the Crown. Then at last, having burned
down a venerable house to roast his pig, he was able triumph
antly to cancel his own marriage, and to give Anne Boleyn a
brief hour of splendour before sending her to the scaffold.
Having thus established his power, and proved it irresistible,
he found it fataUy easy to do other terrible deeds at the
dictation of bis tyrannous passions.
The king was the engineer of this tremendous revolution.
But he needed instruments. The chief of his instruments
was Parhament, which was by tradition very ready to
attack the Church, and was genuinely devoted to its master
ful prince. During the long period of seven years (1529- ;
1536), the ' Long Parhament of the Reformation ' carried J
out his wiU in aU particulars, accepting momentous changes
in the law, or sentencing the king's victims to death by Acts
of Attainder, with scarcely a quaver of opposition. But
even Henry vni.'s parliaments needed management ; and
for this work, and for aU the dirty work of these years,
Henry found an admirable instrument in Thomas CrqmweU,
formerly a servant of the fallen cardinal.
CromweU was an extraordinary example of the romantic
vicissitudes possible to a man of the Renascence age. He
was the son of a Putney blacksmith. He had traveUed in
Flanders and Italy, but even Italy could teach him nothing
in the unscrupulous arts of Renascence statecraft. He had
been in turn a soldier, a lawyer, a merchant and a money
lender. Then suddenly he became the feared and hated
master of a great kingdom, and the wrecker of ancient
institutions. He raised his master to such a pinnacle of
despotism as no Enghsh king had ever attained before,
or has ever reached since. But no one knew better than
CromweU himself that he was the creature of his master's
breath. When he had served his turn, he was flung aside

254 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
hke an old shoe, just as his patron the cardinal had been
before him ; and died on the scaffold to which he had sent
so many better men. He was courageous, fuU of ingenuity,
untiringly industrious, attentive to every detaU, without
sentiment, without pity, without scruple and without
remorse ; in short, an ideal organiser of despotism, and
an ideal tool for evil deeds.
The course of the great revolution of 1529-1536 is easUy
traced. First in 1529 Parhament was encouraged to attack
some of the profitable abuses of the Church — probate and
mortuary fees, and the plurahties for which popes often
granted hcences. But an embassy sent to Rome to report
these events, and to report at the same time that the
Defender of the Faith was most orthodoxly forbidding
Lutheran pamphlets, and had ordered Tyndale's transla
tion of the Bible into Enghsh to be publicly burned, found
the Pope still ruefully inflexible about the divorce.
So the king and CromweU next (1530) began a direct
attack upon the Enghsh Church, to prove to the Pope that
no resistance need be expected here. A prosecution was
started against the whole of the clergy of England for
having broken the Act of Praemunire by recognising Wolsey
as legate. They had recognised him by the king's orders,
but that made no difference ; they had broken the Act,
and the penalty was confiscation of all their property.
But Convocation was told that they might be forgiven
if they voted a very large subsidy, and formaUy recognised
the king as ' the sole protector and supreme head of the
Church and Clergy of England.' Ruefully enough they gave
way, only adding the timid phrase, ' as far as the law of
Christ allows.' The tyrant was learning how easy it was
to get his way. But still the Pope did not yield.
Now Parliament was again brought into play, petitioning
against the abuses of the Church courts, and the legislative
powers exercised by Convocation. In trepidation and at
the eleventh hour Convocation prepared a scheme of reform.
It was of no use. Convocation was told that it must agree
first, to make no laws in future without the king's licence,
and secondly, to accept beforehand a revision of the whole
existing body of Church law, by a committee nominated by
the king. This was to turn the Church into the mere crea
ture of the king's wiU. But resistance was hopeless. Con
vocation had to give way ; and the ' submission of the
clergy,' as this act is caUed, may be regarded as the turning-
point in the development of the royal supremacy.

CH. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 255
Next (still in 1532) Parliament was led to pass the Annates
Act, whereby the heavy payments customarily made by
newly elected bishops to the Pope were declared Ulegal,
But to give the Pope one last chance, the Act empowered
the king to bargain on the subject. His agents in Rome
were instructed to represent him as holding back the
hostUity of his people with the utmost difficulty. Never
theless the Pope refused to yield.
So in 1533 the breach was made definite. In January
Henry married Anne Boleyn, but for some months kept
the marriage a secret, so as to give the Pope another
chance. Parhament passed the A^ofAgpeals, forbidding
aU appeals to Rome ; and by Henry's orders his newly
appointed archbishop, the timid half-Protestant Cranmer,
assumed the papal prerogative of trying and determining
the great divorce question, and declared that the marriage
of Catherine had been invalid from the first ; which implied
that the king was stiU a bachelor, and that the Princess
Mary was Ulegitimate. Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn
was pubhcly announced; the new queen was crowned in
Westminster Abbey ; and in the autumn gave birth to a
daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. Elizabeth was not a
year old before the king had executed her mother, after
having declared this marriage also invalid, on the ground
that Anne had been previously contracted. Thus Elizabeth
was Ulegitimate in the eyes of aU orthodox Catholics, and
iUegitimate also by the edict of her father, and by the parlia
mentary Act by which her mother was attainted. Such
was the unlucky beginning of the glorious princess who was
to lead England through some of the most critical and
triumphant years of her history.
After the open defiance of the Boleyn marriage the breach
with Rome was incurable ; and it only remained to make
it formal and complete. This was done by means of a
very important series of Acts of Parliament, passed in 1534.
One of these, besides forbidding payments of any kind to
Rome, provided that henceforth bishops of the English
Church should be elected by the chapters of their cathedrals,
but that the chapters should be bound to elect within
twelve days the person whom the king nominated, failing
which, the king's nominee should be consecrated ; this is
still the practice of the English Church. A second Act
embodied in statute law the limitation of the powers of
Convocation already accepted by the clergy. A third
vested the succession to the crown in the heirs of Henry

256 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
and Anne Boleyn and, after elaborately setting forth the
arguments against the validity of the king's first marriage,
required all loyal subjects to take an oath to the whole
of this Act, and made it high treason to refuse. It was,
of course, an oath which no honest Catholic could take,
however willing he might be to recognise the accomphshed
fact ; and thus the Act formed a sword at the necks of all
who differed from the king even in thought. Lastly, the
most important Act of the series was the first of the long
line of Acts qfUnjiormity ; it declared that the king ' justly
and rightfuUy is and ought to be Supreme Head of the
Church of England.'
§ 3. The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Organisation
of Despotism.
The next six years (1534-1540) form a period of sheer
undUuted tyranny, directed on behalf of the king by the
hated CromweU, who bore the title of Vicar-General of the
Church. In the first place, a series of monstrous execu
tions or judicial murders aroused the horror of Europe,
and established a sort of reign of terror in England. Four
Carthusian monks, eminent for their piety, were hanged,
drawn and quartered for refusing to take the oath. For
the same reason the saintly and scholarly Fisher, Bishop
of Rochester, and the noblest living Englishman, Sir
Thomas More, once the king's famihar friend, went to
the scaffold (1535) ; though both were willing to recog
nise the new queen. These were the first martyrs of
the Roman faith in England, and the}7 died with a quiet
and heroic dignity that exalted the cause for which they
suffered. Within a few months (1536) Anne Boleyn,
having aroused the king's suspicions, was also beheaded;
and her marriage, for questioning whose validity such
noble blood had been shed, was declared to have been
invalid from the beginning. Henry, once more a bachelor,
consoled himself by marrying Jane Seymour, the daughter
of an old and rapidly rising English family. She was the
most happy of Henry's queens, first because she bore him
the long-desired son, afterwards Edward vi., about whose
legitimacy there could be no question, since Catherine of
Aragon had died shortly before ; and secondly, because she
died before her ruthless spouse had tired of her. As yet,
though aU connexion with Rome had been broken off, no
change whatsoever had been made in the doctrine or

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 257
practice of the Church of England. But CromweU was
reputed to have some leanings towards the new doctrines,
and the gentle Archbishop Cranmer, though dominated
by his formidable master, had reforming sympathies, which
were shared by several of the more recently appointed
bishops. Men hoped, or feared (according to their atti
tude), that the repudiation of papal supremacy might now
be foUowed by a doctrinal change. A certain freedom was
aUowed to Lutheran preachers. In 1536 the king issued a
statement of the beliefs which he required his subjects to
hold in the Ten Articles, in which, while there was no real
departure from the fundamental doctrines of the Roman
Church, notably Transubstantiation, some concessions were
made to the reformers, especially by the abandonment of
the doctrine of Purgatory. And in a series of Injunctions
to the Clergy, by which the Articles were foUowed, the
clergy were ordered to preach against ' the usurped power
of the Bishop of Rome,' to cease praising images and relics,
and to place in the choir of every church a Bible in Latin
and Enghsh for every one to read.
But the main work of these years was the suppression
of the monasteries. In 1536, after a very perfunctory
inquiry, brutally carried out, an appalling report on the
condition of the monasteries was issued. Some part of the
hideous charges of vice levied against the monks in this
document may have been true, but the method in which
it was drawn up deprived it of real authority. Neverthe
less Parliament decreed the dissolution of 376 monasteries
with an annual income of less than £200 apiece, and the
confiscation of aU their property to the Crown. This was
the last important Act of the Long Parliament of 1529-36,
which had been the instrument of such revolutionary changes.
It left the greater monasteries still untouched. But during
the next three years one after another of them was inveigled
or forced into a surrender of their privileges and property.
They resisted as much as they dared : the abbots of Col
chester and Reading had to be judicially murdered pour
encourager les autres, before the resistance was beaten down.
Finally a new Parliament in 15^9 gave the force of law to
aU earher surrenders, and to any that might yet be brought
about, and vested all surrendered monastic property in
the Crown. Under this Act the last monastic institutions
in England disappeared.1
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 37, where the numbers and distribution of
the monasteries are shown.
VOL. I. R

258 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
Many of the monasteries were undoubtedly corrupt and
badly conducted. The monastic system had outhved its
greatest usefulness. There were good grounds for trans
ferring their resources to purposes which they had once
fulfilled, but which were now met by other means ; Wolsey
had not hesitated to suppress monasteries in order to endow'
his coUeges, and many enhghtened churchmen were quite
ready to see this pohcy carried out on a large scale. There
were still important functions which the monasteries per
formed : they administered charity generously, they gave
shelter to the homeless ; and at this period, when economic
change was robbing many of their hvehhood, the necessity
of some organised system of poor rehef was greater than
ever. If the wealth of the monasteries had been devoted
to weU organised schemes for the rehef of poverty, the
encouragement of education, and the provision of rehgious
teaching, the suppression would have been justified ; and
there is reason for thinking that Parhament was led to
expect that much of the monastic wealth would have been
used in this way.
But no such use was made of it ; except that four new
bishoprics were endowed with monastic lands. Most of
the monastic estates, scattered over every part of England,
were granted, or sold at low prices, to nobles, courtiers,
officials, country-gentlemen, yeomen and men of even
humbler birth. About one thousand men participated in
the great plunder. They owed theirnew wealth to the king
and to the rehgious revolution, and therefore were bound
to be steady supporters of both. Out of the plunder of the
Church sprang a new nobUity, far more submissive to the
Crown than the older nobility which had been destroyed
in the Wars of the Roses. Many of the great houses which
have played leading parts in later Enghsh history thus for
the first time rose into wealth and prominence ; and in
many cases the splendid country mansions which have
been the centres and tokens of their greatness still bear the
names of abbeys or priories.
The wholesale and sudden transfer of vast estates to new
masters who had no traditional associations with their
tenantry quickened and intensified the economic changes
that were already taking place. The monasteries had not
always been good landlords ; but as a rule they had been
conservative landlords, slow to make sweeping changes.
The new-comers, whose first desire was to make wealth
quickly, had no such hesitations ; and on a wholesale scale

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 259
they began to enclose the monastic lands for sheep-farming.
This increased frieir own riches, and perhaps it increased
the total wealth of the country ; it undoubtedly stimulated
the growth of the wooUen industry which was to play an
increasing part in the development of English greatness.
But it also involved the dispossession or ruin of many
cultivators, and added to the number of wandering land
less men whose ' vagabondage ' puzzled statesmen during
the rest of the century. And at the same time all the relief
hitherto afforded by the charity of the monasteries came
to an end, and distress and discontent were greatly increased.
Thus a change which might have led to great national
advantage if it had been wisely carried out produced effects
that were almost wholly evil, because it was carried out
by a tyrant with a single eye to his own power and profit.
It was mainly the discontent caused by the suppression
of the lesser monasteries which led, in 1536, to two risings
in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, the counties' where the
monasteries had been most numerous. These were the
only revolts with which Henry vin. was ever troubled ; and
it is a striking iUustration of the loyalty of the nation to
its king that the rebels sincerely professed the most devoted
affection for him, and prayed only that the king's evil
counsellors — they meant CromweU — shoiUd be dismissed.
The Lincolnshire rising. was easily put down. The Pilgrimage
of Grace, as the Yorkshire rebeUion was called, was much
more formidable ; it was joined by many nobles and gentle
men, and most admirably and moderately directed by
Robert Aske, a barrister. Indeed, it was only broken up
by the promise that a new Parliament should meet, and a
free pardon be granted to aU who had taken part. Henry's
self-esteem found it hard to stomach such a check ; and,
taking advantage of a new and quite irresponsible outbreak,
for which the leaders were not to blame, he wreaked his
vengeance by executing all the leaders, and by command
ing a terrible punishment of the offending districts. ' You
shaU in any wise,' he wrote to his agents, ' cause such dreadful
execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants
of every town, viUage, and hamlet ... as well by the hang
ing of them up in trees or by the quartering of them, and
the setting of their heads and quarters in every town great
or small, as they may be a fearful spectacle to others here
after that they would practise any like matter.' At any
sign of resistance, the born tyrant sees blood.
To keep the disorderly North in good order there was

260 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
now set up, as a sort of branch of the Privy CoimcU, a body
caUed the CouncU qf_the North, which wielded large execu
tive and judicial powers for a century to come. The device
had already been adopted with good results in the case of
Wales, where the Council of Wales ancHJie Marches had
since 1534 done exceUent work, and had prepared the way
for the incorporation of that backward land with England.
The fuU union of England and Wales— the first of the long
series of unions in the history of the British Commonwealth
— belongs to this period. It was carried out by an Act of
1536, and completed in 1543. The special jurisdiction of
the Marcher Lords at lasfdfsappeared ; the Enghsh shire
organisation was extended to every part of the country ;
and the Welsh shires and boroughs were given represen
tatives in the Enghsh Parhament. But Wales was stiU
backward and apt to be lawless ; and therefore the special
jurisdiction of the council was retained here, as in the back
ward and lawless northern counties. As these councUs
were wholly dependent upon the king's wUl, this involved
a further extension of the royal power. But in this, as in
other instances, it cannot be denied that the increase of
royal power brought an increase of pubhc order and peace.
§ 4. The Culmination of Henry VI I I.'s Power.
One more service had yet to be rendered by Thomas
CromweU, the organiser of despotism : in 1539 he was
caUed upon to pack and to manage a new Parhament — the
most abject and servile which has ever met since Parha
ment existed in England. It was this Parhament which
completed the destruction of the monasteries. It also
accepted from the royal theologian a new and much more
drastic demonstration of his orthodoxy in the Six Articles,
which on all the main doctrinal points in dispute between
Catholics and Protestants decided unmistakably on the
Catholic side. While Parliament was sitting, a man was
hanged in London for eating meat on a Friday, so strict was
the Defender of the Faith ; and his servile Parliament now
endorsed the Six Articles with a ferocious penal statute which
made death the penalty for differing, even in opinion, from
the king. But the most remarkable achievement of this Parha
ment was the Act^ of Proclamations, which gave to all royal
proclamations the force of law, and thus resigned into the
king's hands the uncontroUed power of legislation. This re
presents the culminating point of the despotism of Henry viii.

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 261
Now, indeed, the fabric of despotism was completed,
and its architect, Cromwell, had done his work. Only one
use remained for him ; he could die on the scaffold as the
scapegoat for the unpopularity which recent events had
roused. The immediate occasion of his fall was that he had
persuaded the king to take, as his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves,
a stohd and unprepossessing Netherlander, with trieidea that
so a link might be forged between England and the Protestant
princes of Germany. But a single glance at the ' Flanders
Mare,' as he called her, was enough for Henry : the lady
was promptly divorced and pensioned off ; and CromweU,
loathed by the whole nation, and cast off by the king for
whom he had worked so many crimes, had his reward (1540)
in the joy with which his execution was haUed on all hands.
' Bluff King Hal ' became as popular as ever.
The last seven years of Henry's reign were comparatively
quiet, and were not dominated by the personality of any
single minister like Wolsey or CromweU. The king was
his own minister, wielding aU the despotic authority over
Church and State which CromweU had buUt up for him.
The chief event of the period was a war with France (1543-
6), and Scotland (1542-7), in which Henry was once more
ranged on the side of Charles v. It was conducted with
a good deal of vigour. On the seas the fleet, on which
Henry had never grudged money or thought, was steadily
successful. On land the useful port of Boulogne was
captured. In Scotland the death of James v., leaving a
girl-chUd, Mary Queen of Scots, as his sole heir, seemed to
renew the chance of uniting the two kingdoms by marrying
a girl queen to a boy Prince of Wales, which had attracted
Edward 1. nearly three centuries before ; and, owing to the
progress of the Reformation in Scotland, there were many
Scots who might have favoured such an arrangement. But
the despatch of an army into Scotland, and the burning
of Edinburgh, was not the best way of wooing. Henry's
tyrannical ways ruined a possible chance of peaceful union.
At home Henry in his last years was as tyrannical as
ever, and as resolutely orthodox. The burning of Anne
Askew, a lady of high connexions, for heretical opinions,
showed that the king was stiU mercilessly orthodox. The
marriage (1540) and execution (1542) of his fifth wife,
Catherine Howard, showed that he was still suffering from
the perversity of the wayward sex. The attainder of the
first of Enghsh nobles, the Duke of Norfolk, and his son,
the poet Earl of Surrey, who had indulged in foohsh talk

262 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. ill,
about his nearness to the royal house, showed that the most
powerful were not exempt from the terrors of the despot.
Surrey lost his head. Norfolk's remained on his shoulders
only because the despot died suddenly (Jan. 1547) before
his execution could be carried out.
The splendid and gallant prince who had won all hearts
at his accession had developed during the second half of
his reign into a ruthless, perfidious and hypocritical tyrant.
Yet it is not hard to understand why it was that he was able
to retain to the end the loyal affection of the mass of his
subjects. They did not know aU the meanness and ugli
ness of his acts, which are disclosed to us. Through all the
horrors he remained a masterful and kingly figure, steering
the ship of State through perilous channels with a firm hand.
The great changes which he carried through were, on the
whole, not unwelcome to his people ; and they laid the
blame for what was manifestly wrong upon the ministers
who seemed to abuse the royal confidence. Bloodshed was
lightly regarded by a generation whose fathers had lived
through the Wars of the Roses. Religious intolerance was
for that and many later generations a virtue rather than a
crime. If Henry was a despot, at least his despotism main
tained order ; and amid all his cruelties to great and pro
minent people the ordinary machinery of the law went on
unswervingly, meting out an even-handed justice in the
disputes of common folk such as had perhaps never been
known in England before. The land was prosperous,
though it had its social troubles. It was strong to meet
all dangers, on land and sea, and respected and feared
among the nations. Unlike other lands, it never saw the
tide of foreign invasion, or (except in the Pilgrimage of
Grace), the worse troubles of civil war. It was guided
securely through all the dangers and distresses of the great
religious change, which caused so much misery and suffer
ing in other countries. The man who achieved aU this was
a great man, if a hateful one ; and the formidable and
sinister personality of Henry viii., founder of the Enghsh
navy and organiser of the national Church, must rank high
among the builders of English strength.
§ 5. Edward VI. and Protestantism Triumphant, 1547-1553-
Edward was nine years old when his father died, and
therefore could not wield the vast personal power which
his father had wielded. Parliament was too well schooled

CH. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 263
to dream of resuming its old authority. The Privy Council
was filled with industrious underlings, afraid of responsi
bility. Inevitably, therefore, the dictatorship to which
the country had learned to submit fell to the individual who
was able to grasp it. It naturally fell first to the king's
uncle, Earl of Hertford and later Duke of Somerset, whom
Henry vin. had named in his will as Protector of the young
king. Somerset was a man of generous instincts, inspired by
sincere ideals, and he had a strong leaning towards the
Protestant side in the religious controversy. He had a
refreshing belief in the value of liberty, and resolved to
dispense with the terrific engine of despotism which Henry
vin. and Cromwell had created. Guided by him, the first
Parhament of Edward vi. rescinded the Act which gave
the force of law to royal proclamations, and thus resumed
its legislative powers. It abolished the monstrous exten
sions of the definition of treason which had been made
during the previous reign. It cancelled the ferocious per
secuting Act of the Six Articles, and even the ancient
statute de hceretico comburendo : religious persecution was
to cease in England. The immediate result was an inrush
of Protestant preachers, foreigners and exiled Englishmen.
Many of them came with far fiercer and more definite ideas
than their predecessors. For in the meanwhile the ' fight
ing doctrine ' of Protestantism, which tolerated no com
promise or palterings with princes, had been worked out
by Calvin, in the free city of Geneva, which he had domi
nated since 1540. Eager and violent religious discussion
began to be heard in England, as never before since the time
of Wycliffe ; and disorder followed in its train. It did
not much affect the stolid mind of England as a whole ;
but it largely increased the number of fervid Protestants
in London and the south-east, who desired the introduction
of sweeping changes. Hitherto their numbers had been
negligible. It was under the Protectorship of Somerset that Arch
bishop Cranmer first dared to let his real sympathies be
plainly seen. The religious policy of the country was in
fact at first determined mainly by these two ; they for the
first time made the Reformation in England something
more than a mere political device. In 1549, after full
discussion, the English Church obtained a full order of
service in the English language by the first issue of the Book
of Common Prayer. This was almost wholly Cranmer's

264 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. 111
work ; and its exquisite grave beauty forms the real title
to greatness of that gentle and weak man. He had giver
to his countrymen something that they could make a pari
of themselves, something that rose high above the squab-
blings over doctrine which surrounded its birth, and that
could command the allegiance not merely of men's intellects
but of their hearts. The first version of the Book of Common
Prayer was imposed upon all English churches by the Act
of Uniformity of 1549. It was intended to moderate the
storm of religious controversy, and the doctrines implied
in it were not violently out of sympathy with the old behefs.
But, taken in conjunction with the freedom aUowed to the
preachers, it produced a rebellion in Devon and Cornwall,
where loyalty to the old faith was still strong.
It was not only in religion that Somerset tried new paths.
He felt also much sympathy with the complaints of the
peasantry against the enclosure movement, and let his
sympathies be openly seen. When, therefore, a revolt
broke out in Norfolk, headed by a weU-to-do tanner, Robert
Rett, whose object was the restriction of enclosures, Somerset
was drawn in two directions by his sympathies with the
rebels and his sense of the necessity of maintaining order.
He let the rising attain formidable dimensions, and it was
only by the vigorous action of his chief rival in the council,
the Earl of Warwick, that it was finally suppressed. This
lost him the sympathy of the new nobility and the country
gentry, on whose support the Tudor monarchy mainly
rested, and who were chiefly responsible for, and profited
by, the enclosures. Thus in his management of domestic
affairs Somerset's good intentions had led to unhappy
results. In this age of rapid change and unrest a firm hand
was still needed ; and the hard efficient tyranny of Henry vm.
yielded, in the eyes of most men, better results than the
mild slipshod rule of his brother-in-law.
Nor was Somerset's management of foreign affairs any
more happy. In Scotland he endeavoured to continue
Henry vm.'s policy, and led an army over the Border to
compel the Scots to give their young queen in marriage to
the young English king. He won a victory at Pinkie
(1547). But force is a poor argument, and the result of
the victory was to throw the Scots again into the arms of
France, and to give the young Mary as wife to a French
prince — an event which was to lead to very dangerous
results. Again, he drifted into a war with France (1549).
The war was badly conducted, largely because Henry vm.

CH. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 265
had left an almost empty treasury in spite of his plunderings
and confiscations ; and the chief outcome was the loss of
Henry's conquest of Boulogne. At home and abroad in
efficiency and confusion seemed to reign ; men realised how
valuable had been the masterful competence of Henry vm.
These gathering discontents enabled Somerset's chief
rival, the Earl of Warwick (later Duke of Northumberland) ,
to supplant him (1549) '> and although Somerset was
aUowed to survive until January 1552, when he was judi-
ciaUy murdered in the manner made familiar under Henry
vin., the real ruler of England during the last four years
of Edward's reign was Northumberland.
The new dictator had none of Somerset's generous in
stincts. His power depended upon the remarkable personal
influence which he wielded over the boy king, and upon the
purchased support of a party of nobles and officials. To
satisfy his own greed, and to keep his supporters in good
temper, the treasury was so despoiled that neither fleets
nor armies could be kept efficient, and the safety and order
of the country were imperilled. For the same purposes,
the plunder of Church property continued more flagrantly
than ever. In 1547 the very numerous small endowments
caUed ' chantries ' had been suppressed ; they had commonly
been attached to parish churches, and provided mainten
ance for a priest, whose duty was to pray for the souls of
the founder and his family, and often also to keep school
for poor children. The proceeds of the chantries were
intended to be devoted largely to education, and the grammar
schools which bear the name of Edward vi. mainly came
from this source. But Northumberland intercepted the
greater part of the funds, and used them for his own ends.
He also seized and sold many of the lands of bishoprics,
and confiscated the jewels and plate of churches. He re
established in a large degree the reign of terror which
Somerset had abandoned, and made new treason laws. On
the question of enclosures he refused aU concessions to
the popular complaints, and gave fuU legal sanction to the
enclosures, because he wanted the support of their makers.
On the religious question, knowing that he could expect
no backing from the Catholics, he deliberately adopted an
extreme Protestant policy, all the more readily because
the precocious young king prided himself upon his reform
ing views. The Prayer Book of 1549, which had been
capable of a Catholic interpretation, was revised in an
entirely Protestant sense (1552). Cranmer was encouraged

266 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi,
to draw up a statement of belief in Forty-Two Articles
which was definitely Protestant in character, es^pecially in
its complete rejection of transubstantiation ; and this creed
was enforced by a new Act of Uniformity. For his private
ends, and without any sincere religious convictions, North
umberland was forcing England into extreme Protestant
ism. The mystery of the Mass, which had been a part of
the life of all men for many centuries, was suddenly abol
ished in every parish church by a mere edict of government.
But though the ultra-Protestant party was loud and vigor
ous, especially in London, the slow-moving mind of the
country was by no means ready for such sweeping changes.
Parliament became ominously restive. Northumberland
dared not ask it for money. It even plucked up its courage
to throw out a whole group of government biUs. Tudor
Parliaments were ' subservient ' only so long as they
believed that the country was being fairly and efficiently
governed. But still more marked were the expressions
of dissatisfaction throughout the country. Throughout
the years of Northumberland's rule there were sporadic
risings in almost every county. To keep them in check
Northumberland found it necessary to permit some of the
greater nobles to raise troops of cavalry at the public
expense ; and in every county lords-lieutenant were estab
lished to maintain public order. This became a permanent
institution, and survives to-day ; though the lords-lieu
tenant of to-day have only formal and ceremonial duties,
Lastly, even in the Privy Council, though Northumberland
had carefully purged and packed it, there was disunion and
distrust. For the lords of the council realised with fear the
deep and dangerous game which the dictator was playing ;
a game which, if they backed it, would make them guilty
of high treason, while if they opposed it, and it neverthe
less succeeded, they would assuredly be exposed to the
penalties of high treason.
Universally hated, except by the small group of Pro
testant extremists, Northumberland knew that his position
was only safe so long as he wielded the power of the Crown.
But the young king was ailing, and obviously could not
live long. If his sister Mary, the Cathohc princess, suc-v
ceeded, Northumberland was doomed. His only hope was
in filling the throne with some one whom he controUed.
If Mary and Elizabeth were passed over as illegitimate,
and if Mary of Scotland (granddaughter of Henry vin.'s
elder sister) were passed over as a foreigner, the next heir

CH. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 267
would be the representative of Henry vin.'s younger sister, v
who had married the Duke of Suffolk. Her granddaughter
was the gentle and cultivated Lady Jane Grey. Northum
berland resolved to marry this lady to his, son, Guilford
Dudley, and to make the young king devise the throne
to~ner by wUl. It was a daring plan. But in face of
the universal reprobation of the country it could never
have succeeded. Edward vi. died on July 6, 1553^ before
Northumberland's plans were quite ripe. By July 21
Queen Mary, daughter of the cruelly misused Catherine
of Aragon, had secured the throne, and Northumberland
was in the Tower. The four years of his power were like
a bad dream, and the nation rejoiced that it was over.
But a worse nightmare was about to begin.
§ 6. Mary and the Catholic Reaction, 1553-1558.
The new queen was thirty-eight years old. Since her
fourteenth year she had lived under the shadow of the cruel
wrong that had been done to her proud Spanish mother, with
whom she had spent the years when girlhood passed into
womanhood. She had been unjustly declared Ulegitimate.
She had been excluded from the natural surroundings of a
royal princess, and enveloped in an atmosphere of hostility
and intrigue. Her sole consolations had been her passionate
belief in her mother's cause, her pride in her near relation
to the Emperor and King of Spain, and above all her sense
that she, like her mother, had suffered as a martyr for the
faith. Now, after many dangers, she had been brought
to the throne, as by the very finger of God. She entered
upon her new task with a very solemn feeling that it was
her mission to restore England to the ancient Church, and
that in this task her natural aUy was the royal house of
Spain, from which her mother had sprung. She was the
most sincere and disinterested of aU the Tudors ; but just
because her mind was fixed on a single aim, she lacked the
instinctive understanding of national sentiment which was
the strength of her father and her sister. Her life had put
her out of touch with the moods and needs of the age. There
fore she faUed tragically ; and she knew that she had faUed,
though with Tudor courage and obstinacy she pursued her
aim to the end.
At first she acted moderately. Northumberland suffered
on the scaffold, as he deserved, after a base recantation of
his Protestant opinions ; but there were no other victims

268 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
during the first six months of the reign. The fuU restora
tion of Catholic practice could not be carried out until
Parliament had rescinded the Protestant legislation of
Edward vi.'s reign ; and the undoing of Henry vm.'s
breach with Rome had to be still more cautiously approached.
Meanwhile Mary had to use the royal supremacy (though she
regarded it as sacrilege) to displace Cranmer and other I
reforming bishops, and to re-establish the Mass. The queen'
found Parliament very difficult to manage : she held three
elections in the first eighteen months of her reign in the hope
of getting an amenable house ; and although she got her
own way she had to go warily. Nothing could show how
deeply rooted the parliamentary system was in England
more clearly than the fact that even a Tudor sovereign,
backed by the might of Spain, dared not dispense with it
or override it.
But the main event of Mary's first year was the announce
ment of the queen's intention to marry her cousin Phihp,
son and heir of Charles v., to whose dominions in Spain,
Italy and the Netherlands Philip succeeded when Charles
abdicated in 1555. Though the relations between England
and Spain, ancTstill more between England and the Nether
lands, had long been friendly, the announcement was
received with consternation. For it seemed to promise
that England would be absorbed in the vast Spanish
monarchy, just as Scotland appeared to have been prac
ticaUy annexed to France by the marriage of her young v
queen to the French Dauphin ; and the prospect out
raged the strong national feeling of England. From this
moment fear and hatred of Spain began to grow among the
English. It went on growing in strength until it culmi
nated in the Armada fight. It changed the direction of
English policy, and did more than anything else to make
Protestantism a national creed. But Mary's heart was set
upon the match. She disregarded the advice of many of
her most loyal friends, like Bishop Gardiner and Cardinal
Pole. She was not deterred by the manifest dissatisfac
tion of Parliament. Not even a formidable rebellion,
(Jan.-Feb. 1554), organised by Sir Thomas_Wyatt among
the gentry and yeomanry of KenTTspecmcahy as a pro
test against the marriage, made her pause ; though Wyatt
nearly made himself master of London, and threatened the
government more seriously than it had ever been threat
ened during the sixteenth century. The only result of
Wyatt's rebelhon was that the long-delayed vengeance

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 269
against the partners or instruments of Northumberland was
put into effect. Among the victims was the gentle, beau
tiful and cultivated Lady Jane Grey, little over sixteen
years old, who met her death with a calm fortitude that
made it one of the most affecting scenes in Tudor history.
Her death was as great an iniquity as that of Sir Thomas
More, and sanctified the cause of Protestantism as much
as his had sanctified the cause of Catholicism.
It was in 1554 and 1555 that the religious revolution of -f
Henry vin. was undone. Parliament was persuaded, not
without difficulty, to repeal Henry's anti-papal legislation,
and to petition for readmission to the Roman communion.
Cardinal Pole, an Enghshman of noble famUy who had been
exUed anaTattainted by Henry for his loyalty to the ancient
faith, was reheved of his attainder, was appointed Archbishop
of Canterbury in place of Cranmer, and undertook the direc
tion of the queen's religious policy. The old fierce heresy
laws, which Somerset had destroyed, were re-enacted, and
the bishops and the government were thus empowered by
Parliament to inaugurate a regime of persecution. But
on one point Parliament flatly refused to yield. It would
not agree to restore the confiscated monastic property ;
and only that small part of the plunder of the Church which
had remained in possession of the Crown was disgorged.
The feeling that their lands were endangered made the
gentry at any rate very half-hearted in their support of
the rehgious reaction.
Now began a fierce crusade for the extirpation of Pro
testantism by fire and sword. It began in February^ 1555,
and continued (with significant pauses duririgThe' sessions
of Parhament) throughout the rest of the reign. Men and
women were publicly burnt, singly or in batches, suffering
extreme tortures, in most cases with amazing heroism. Even
dead heretics were taken from their graves to be burnt. The
most notable of the Protestant martyrs were the four chief
Protestant bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper, v
Hooper, the most extreme of the Edwardian bishops, was
the first to suffer, in his own episcopal city of Gloucester ;
Ridley and Latimer followed at Oxford, dying in company.
Cranmer, the protagonist of the Anglican Reformation, and
the chief author of the Prayer Book, suffered last (1556), de
layed until his sentence was pronounced by the Pope. Before
his death he recanted seven times, not wholly from cowardice,
though naturaUy he was a timid man, but partly because
he profoundly believed in the necessity of submission to the

270 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
royal wUl. His courage returned to him before death ; he
calmly held in the flames, to be first burnt, the unworthy
hand that had signed his recantation ; and in the act of
death gave a new sanctity to the noble and beautiful Book
of Prayer which was his greatest gift to his people. With
all his faults, he was a good man, condemned by a hard fate
to live in an age too ruthless for his gentle temper.
The fires of Smithfield were meant to destroy Protestant
ism in England. They had the opposite effect. ' The blood
of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' and the flames
largely redeemed the Enghsh Reformation from the rather
sordid associations which had hitherto weighed it down.
The memory of these martyrdoms was seared into the mind
of the English people, and the mark they left has been in
delible. They gave birth to the fierce, bitter, unreasoning
hatred of Rome and all her works which has ever since
been a factor in Enghsh life. Yet in comparison with what
went on in other countries the Marian persecution was
extraordinarily light. Elsewhere the victims of fanaticism,
Roman or Protestant, were numbered by thousands. Not
more than three hundred lost their hves in England during the '
three years over which the persecution extended. And these
were nearly aU in a single district — London and the south-/
eastern counties. Except a single case at Chester, there
was no execution in England north of the Trent, and except
one case at Exeter there was none in the south-west. But
London and the south-east formed in this age, and for a
long time to come, the dominating section of England — the
area where wealth was greatest, education most advanced,
and population most dense. The main results, therefore,
of Mary's reign, were a wider sympathy for the ideas
of the reformers than had ever existed before, a burning
hatred of Rome, and a growing fear of Spain.
These feelings were already reflecting themselves in
Mary's parliaments. They did not yet dream of trying
to control or alter the government. But they gave an
increasing opposition to its measures. And this opposition
was intensified when England found herself drawn at the
heels of Spain into a war with France, in which King Phihp
showed himself entirely negligent of English interests,
and while winning victories on his own account aUowed the
precious possession of Calais to fall to a French attack
(1558) . This was the crowning humiliation of a bitter and
tragical reign. Too late, deserted and deceived by the
husband for whom she had sacrificed so much, disappointed

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 271
of her hopes of an heir, and recognising that she had failed
in her supreme aim, Mary realised that she, an English
woman and a Tudor, had brought nothing but misery and
humiliation to her country. She died in the year of the
faU of Calais, almost at the same moment as her friend and
helper, Cardinal Pole ; and on that sad November night
¦ all the churches in London did ring, and men did make
bonfires and set tables in the street, and did eat and drink,
and make merry for the new queen.'

§ 7. The Elizabethan Settlement.
To find a settlement for the rehgious question was now
more difficult than it had ever been, for there were com
paratively few men left to whom this was a merely pohtical
question, as it had been to the majority in the time of
Henry vm. Passions had been aroused to intensity by
the events of the last two reigns ; the number of Protestants,
and the number of those who regarded the papal supremacy
as an article of faith, had both increased, at the expense of
that middle body who could be caUed ' Nationalist Catholics.'
Moreover the same thing was happening on the Continent.
The great movement known as the Counter-Reformation,
which gave a new fervour of conviction to those of the Roman
obedience, was actively at work ; on the Protestant side
the strong and unflinching doctrines of Calvinism were in
the ascendent ; and the exUes of both parties who had
fled abroad during the last two reigns returned far more
violent partisans than they had left. It is probable that
the Protestants were in the majority in the south and east!
of England, but the Catholics had certainly the upper:
hand in the north and west. Yet it was essential for the
safety of England that national unity should be maintained,
and national unity would be easUy destroyed by any vehe
ment rehgious controversy. The political situation at the
opening of Elizabeth's reign was extremely precarious. Eng
land, exposed to dangers from France on the one hand
and Spain on the other, seemed to be ' like a bone between
two dogs.'
The new queen was extraordinarily weU fitted to deal
with such a situation. Though she was only twenty-five,
she had already steered a course through every kind of
peril. She was clever, quick-witted, secretive, without
scruple as to the means she used, an adept at conveying
impressions without committing herself. She prided herself

272 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. ra.
upon her purely English and Welsh blood ; no sovereign
has ever ruled England, since the Norman -conquest, in
whom there was so small a strain of foreign blood ; and to
keep her England purely Enghsh was the beginning and
end of her pohcy, the aim of aU the bewUdering tacks and
veers with ---^ch she steered her way through the perils
that surrounaed her. She had probably no sincere religious
opinions ; if she kissed with impressive fervour the Bible
that was presented to her as she rode through London to
her coronation, she kept a crucifix in her private chapel ;
but she did both things for political reasons. It is pro
bable that she was a natural sceptic, devoid of religious
emotion. But this meant that she had little patience with
the wranglings of the sects. It meant also that she could
have no credence in the incomprehensible mystery of the
Mass. Many expected a complete and sudden reversal of Mary's
policy, and were disappointed that it did not take place.
But Mary's laws were still Laws ; there was no interference
with Catholic services until Parliament had made them
illegal ; and not a single bishop, not even the persecuting
Bonner of London, was displaced otherwise than by his own
voluntary resignation. The religious settlement was left to
be. made by Parliament, and by a Parliament which was
apparently quite freely elected ; even the Marian bishops
were allowed to take their part freely in the discussion, as
members of the House of Lords. There were long debates
before a decision was arrived at ; there was almost an open
breach between the two houses ; and bitter complaints
were made of the frequent changes proposed by govern
ment in the measures which they introduced. In the end
two Acts were passed. The first was an Act of Supremacy, v v
which revived the control of the Crown over the Church ;
but Ehzabeth declined to accept the title ' Supreme Head
of the Church,' over which so much controversy had
raged. She preferred the more colourless title of ' Governor.'
The second act was an Act of Uniformity, which restored"' ^
the authority of the second Prayer Book of Edward vi.
But a few skilful changes were made in the book, which
had the effect of making it more inoffensive to Romanists,
so much so that an eminent Spaniard asserted that it con
tained not a word inconsistent with Catholic belief.
Elizabeth was as cautious in using her power over the
Church as in designing it. She left the actual direction of
Church affairs mainly to the bishops, though she watched

ch. v.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 273
them. She did not emphasise the royal supremacy as
Henry had done. She avoided as far as possible all down
right definitions of doctrine, and her Thirty-nine Articles,
the final creed of the Anghcan Church, issued in 1563, were
as carefuUy vague, for the most part, as her revised Prayer
Book. Her settlement has been described. "as Catholic,
as Lutheran, as Zwinglian and as Calvinist. c&ie rejoiced in
this indefiniteness, and made great play with it. It was
not for her, she said, to ' open windows into her subjects'
hearts,' and so long as they did not openly repudiate the
ordinances established by government she did not disturb
them. Not a single life was taken on religious grounds
during the first seventeen years of her reign ; and that is an
extraordinary tribute to her government, in an age when,
on both sides, fanatical persecution raged.
An obvious compromise, suc&f as that of 1559, could
arouse no fervour. But it maintained peace arid unity,
and enabled England to pass unscathed and triumphant
through a great crisis. And as the crisis developed, and
as the passionate national feeling of the English passed
from success to success, the national religion, which was,
to begin with, more national than religious, won for itself
a genuine loyalty and fervour of belief. The beautiful
forms of prayer that men had used in the days of dread
when the Armada was approaching English shores, and
when their anxiety was lifted by the news that it had been
broken and dissipated, thenceforward commanded a devo
tion that was no longer half-hearted or forced. The Anglican
Reformation was completed.
[Fisher's England from the Accession of Henry VII. to the
death of Henry VIII. and Pollard's England from the Death of
Henry VIII. to the Death of Elizabeth (both volumes of the Political '
History of England) supply the best modern survey of the period.
See also Lindsay's History of the Reformation, Pollard's Henry
VIII. and The Protector Somerset, Froude's History of England
(brilliantly written, partial and one-sided, but more vivid than
any other book on the period), R. W. Dixon's History of the Church
of England, Gairdner's Lollardy and ih~e Reformation, Merriman's
Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Gasquet's Eve of the Refor
mation, Henry VIII. and the Monasteries fsxiA Edward VI. and the
Prayer-book, Pollard's Factors in Modern History, Cunningham's
Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Meredith's Economic
History of England.]

VOL. I.

CHAPTER VI
THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
(a.d. 1528-1561)
James v., 1513 : Mary, 1542.
§ 1. Scotland in the Sixteenth Century.
In aU the countries which were affected by it the Reforma
tion brought great changes. But in none did it exercise a
more powerful influence than in Scotland. It changed
the course of Scottish history. It brought to a close the
long conflict between Scotland and England. It trans
formed the character of the Scottish people. And for one
brief period it made the domestic concerns of this small
and poor country a matter of the most vital importance
for aU the great States of Europe. If the Scottish Reforma
tion had not achieved its triumph in the year 1560, it is '
probable that the whole history of the islands and oTEurope
would have been widely different.
Scotland in the early sixteenth century was, what it
had been for hundreds of years, a land torn asunder by the
incessant strife of feudal nobles, border raiding chieftains
and Highland clans. Its history was made up of wfld
stories of fierce family vendettas and ruthless private war.
Even the ablest of its kings had never succeeded in main
taining peace or firm government. Most of them had died
violent deaths, while still young, leaving infant heirs to be
wrangled over by the magnates. The far too numerous
nobles, confident in the loyalty of their retainers, were
often able to defy the royal justice. The nominal Parha
ment of Scotland was in reahty little more than an assembly
of nobles : though the burghs sent representatives, they
had little or no influence, and the middle-class of landed
gentry had long ceased to take part in these meetings.
Although the country was by no means so wretched as
these facts would suggest, it was extremely poor, and its
trade and industry were negligible. One thing only pro
mised weU for the future : the Scots were already a weU
educated people — perhaps more generaUy educated than
274

ch. vi.] THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND 275
any other people in Europe. Their zeal for learning was
shown by the large number of young Scots who wandered
abroad to Paris and elsewhere, in search of learning — like
the famous scholar, George Buchanan (1506-1582), who had
the reputation of being the greatest Latinist of his age. It
was shown also by the fact that Scotland already possessed
three universities, all founded during the fifteenth century.
They were poor and Ul-endowed, and ranked far behind
great seats of learning hke Paris and Oxford. But there
were three of them — three for a population of much less-
than a million.
In the divided and feud-torn condition of this smaU,
barren land, one thing alone maintained a real unity : the
passionate devotion of the Scots to the national independ
ence which they had spent so much blood to defend during
three centuries of almost incessant war with England, and
of loyal friendship with France. This hostUity to England,
and this friendship with France, were the strongest things
in the Scottish tradition. Yet they had brought many ills
upon the land ; and perhaps the greatest had been the
appalling disaster of Flodden Field (1513), which was due
mainly to the chivalrous desire of James iv. to go to the
aid of France when she was attacked by England.
During the reign of James v. (1513-1542), which covered
the greater part of the reign of his uncle, Henry vin., the
traditional features of Scottish history stiU continued. The
years of James' minority were fiUed with the warfare of his
turbulent nobles ; the years of his active reign were fiUed
with a desperate straggle to reduce them to obedience. And
in spite of the fact that his mother was the sister of the
Enghsh king, James v. steadfastly pursued the traditional
Scottish policy of friendship with France and hostUity to
England. Both his first and his second wives were French
princesses — the second being Mary of Guise, a member of
a famUy that was to play a prorriinent part in French and
European history. And, as so often before, the declara
tion of war between England and France was always the
signal for war between England and Scotland. When
Henry vin. attacked France in 1523 an Enghsh army
ravaged the Scottish Lowlands, and over a large area left
(according to Wolsey's report) ' neither house, fortress,
vUlage, tree, cattle, corn, or other succour for man.' When
in 1542 England once more went to war, an Enghsh army
once more ravaged the eastern borders of Scotland, and a
Scottish host was organised to invade the western borders

276 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
of England. But the Scots met such a disastrous and
humiliating defeat at Solway Moss that the sheer shame
and vexation of it killed the unhappy young king — not
yet thirty-one years old. Very manifestly this traditional
policy was bringing nothing but evil to Scotland.
During this reign, indeed, there began to grow up in
Scotland, for the first time, a considerable party favourable
to an alliance with England. It drew its strength partly
from the rebellious nobles who resented James v.'s attempts
to subdue them, but there were also many Scots who
honestly felt that this ceaseless enmity was ruinous and
ought to be ended : and if Henry vin. had been less high
handed, less untrustworthy, and more conciliatory in his
relations with his nephew, the national friendship of the
sister nations might have been sealed in these years. But
James v. always felt that his uncle was intriguing against
him with his nobles. And as he had alienated most of
these nobles, he was driven back upon the support of the
Church. His chief adviser was the shrewd, able, immoral
Archbishop Beton. But in the eyes of Beton, as of all
churchmen, the heretic Henry was an enemy to be resisted
to the last ; all the more because heresy was beginning to
get a dangerous foothold in Scotland. Thus the unhappy
James v. was driven by his alliance with the Church
into hostility both to England and to Protestantism. And
thus also the Protestant cause was almost from the first
linked, in the eyes of most Scotsmen, with the policy of
friendship towards England. It was the development of
the Reformation which was to bring the two nations, after
so many centuries of strife, into a partnership which was
to be indissoluble.
There was no country more ready than Scotland for
religious revolution, because there was no country in which
the Church was in a more unhealthy condition. It owned
about half of the little kingdom's wealth. But its bishops
were mostly members of noble houses, as. violent and unruly
as their friends, in whose feuds they readily joined. Its
priests and monks and friars were notoriously ignorant and
corrupt ; and the Scottish literature of the period — which
was much more lively and vigorous than the contemporary
hterature of England — -was fuU of searching satire against
them. LoUardy, coming from England, had found a ready
welcome a century earlier, and had never died out : it was
strongest in the Western Lowlands, the district from which
Knox later drew his steadiest support, and which later

ch. vi.] THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND 277
stiU became the stronghold of the Covenanters. Now
preachers of Lutheranism and Lutheran books were begin
ning to appear in the country. In 1525 the Scottish Parlia
ment found it necessary to pass an Act .against the heretical
literature which was being freely imported. In 1528 — the
year before the meeting of the Reformation Parliament in
England — the first Scottish Protestant martyr, Patrick
Hamilton, was burnt at the stake ; and Knox dated from
this event the beginning of the Scottish Reformation. But
this did not stop the dissemination of the new ideas ; there
were not many burnings, but that was perhaps mainly
because the preachers were protected by powerful nobles.
Certainly the yeast was working in Scotland during the
years when Henry viii. was bringing about the severance
of the Enghsh Church from Rome. And naturally those
who sympathised with the new ideas tended also to favour
the idea of making friends with England.
§ 2. Scotland, England and France.
When James v. died his crown passed to an infant
daughter, born only a few days before his death — Mary •
Queen of Scots, who thus began her tragic career under the
most tragic auspices. ^This meant that unhappy Scotland
was once more sentenced to aU the miseries of a long minority,
with its accompaniment of unending strife between factions
of nobles. But in some ways the strife was now more
embittered than ever. There was the usual unresting feud
between the two great houses whose strife had long torn
Scotland asunder — the Hamiltons, led by the Earl of Arran,
and the Douglases, led by the Earl of Angus ; and with
this were mixed up many other family feuds. But there
was also the strife between the French party and the English
party, and the intensifying conflict between the Protestant
party and the Church party.
To Henry vm. the succession of an infant princess seemed
a wonderful opportunity. He conceived the plan of marry
ing Mary to his son Edward. And so strong was the grow
ing feeling of the disastrous results of Anglo-Scottish
hostility that the Regent Arran, who had Protestant lean
ings, was persuaded to agree to a treaty whereby the young
queen was to marry the Prince of Wales as soon as she
reached her tenth year. But Scotland was not yet
ready for so complete a reversal of her traditional policy ;
patriotic Scots felt that after such a marriage Scotland

278 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
would become no better than a province of England. The
churchmen especiaUy regarded with alarm the prospect of
an extension of the influence of Enghsh heresy. Cardinal
Beton took the lead of the French party, and the Regent
Arran, a very weak personage, was persuaded to throw over
the English treaty, and practicaUy to put himself in Beton's
hands. For the next four years (1542-6), though Arran
continued to be Regent, Beton was the real ruler of Scot
land, and the national leader in a desperate resistance
against England.
If Henry had shown patience and forbearance he would
have strengthened the hands of the English party, and even
if the marriage fell through he might have made a lasting
friendship between the two nations. But bis tyrannical
nature would not brook resistance. He resolved to teach
the Scots a lesson. He resorted to the argument of brute
force, which is always the worst of arguments with a high-
spirited people ; and during the remainder of his reign his
armies inflicted upon Scotland worse miseries, perhaps,
than she had ever endured. In 1544 an Enghsh fleet
brought an English army to Leith, and Edinburgh was
given to the flames. In 1545, though the Scots obtained
a success at Ancrum, a new Enghsh invasion wrought stiU
more brutal havoc. Melrose and other abbeys were
destroyed ; five market towns and 243 villages were
burnt ; and the harvests of whole counties were ruined.
This was Henry's mode of showing that friendship between
England and Scotland was desirable. As might have been
expected, it only had the effect of closing up the ranks of
the Scots, and practicaUy destroying the party which
favoured friendship with England.
After Henry vin.'s death the Protector Somerset (who
had led the expeditions of 1544 and 1545) stiU persisted
in pursuing the policy of force ; and he seemed now to
have a better chance of success, because in 1546 Cardinal
Beton, the leader of the Scottish national resistance, had
been murdered. Somerset led a great army into Scotland,
in order to compel the Scots to hand over their young
queen as a bride for Edward vi., and won a crushing vic
tory at Pinkie (1547). But this method of wooing only
strengthened" the determination of the Scots not to yield.
It drove them to seek the protection of France, as the only
means of saving the independence of Scotland. In 1548 a
French army of occupation arrived. But the French king
demanded a price for his protection ; and a treaty was

ch. vi.] THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND 279
signed whereby the little queen was to be sent to France
for safety, there to be married to the heir to the French
crown. Some of the Scottish nobles were aware of the
danger to Scottish independence threatened by this arrange
ment. But there seemed to be no alternative, and the
Estates accepted the treaty ' with one voice.' When the
beautiful little six-year-old queen arrived in France in
August 1548, the French king exclaimed : ' Now France
and Scotland are one State.' And so it appeared to be.
For the next twelve years Scotland was practicaUy a pro
vince of France. Her young queen, daughter of a French
mother, was to spend the most impressionable years of
her hfe amid the intrigues of the licentious French court,
married to a sickly prince whom she could not but despise,
and entirely out of touch with the events that were trans
forming the hfe and character of her own country. That
is the second act in the tragedy of Mary.
§ 3- John Knox and the Religious Revolution.
MeanwhUe, however, though the tyrannical policy of Henry
vm. had ruined for the time the chance of friendship between
the two countries, and had made the Protestant cause
appear unpatriotic in Scotland, Protestantism was still
growing in strength. During the years when Henry was
ravaging the country, a great preacher, George Wishart,
a fervid, learned, eloquent man, who had been driven from
the country in 1538, and had now returned after visiting
the centres of Protestantism on the Continent, was daring
the terrors of the flames, and preaching the new doctrine
under the protection of some of the nobles. In 1546 he
came to Haddington. Here one of his hearers was an earnest
and brave priest, some forty years old, called John Knox ; *
a man of such resolute and unbending courage that, once
he was converted, no terrors, would dissuade him. But
Haddington was in Cardinal Beton's diocese ; and by his
orders Wishart was seized and burnt in front of the Cardinal's
own castle at St. Andrews. Three months later a group
of desperate men, brought together by a mixture of religious
and pohtical motives with personal hatred, broke into the
castle, murdered the Cardinal, and hung his dead body
over the castle waU before the eyes of the citizens. Then
they prepared themselves for resistance. They were be
sieged by the Regent, and as their act was generally con-
1 There is a short hfe of John Knox by F. MacCunn.

280 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
demned they had no hope of relief. But they held out
for more than a year. During that period the castle of
St. Andrews became a place of refuge for all sorts of fugi
tives ; and among others John Knox, who had been hunted
from place to place as a heretic, came to join them, and
preached sermons to them that brought them to tears.
The castle was not captured until a French fleet with heavy
guns was brought against it. Most of its captured in
habitants were carried off to France, and sentenced to labour
as chained slaves in the French gaUeys. Among these
galley-slaves was John Knox. He remained chained to
the oar for nineteen months. Then he escaped and took
refuge in England, where he became one of the most strenu
ous of the reforming preachers under Edward vi., and was
offered and refused a bishopric. Before long he had again
to flee, in order to escape from the persecution of Queen
Mary. He betook himself to Geneva, where he learnt from
the great Calvin the stern system of theology which he
was to introduce into Scotland. Such was the training
of the grim, fearless, powerful spirit who was to play a
chief part in remoulding the character of the Scottish
people, and in bringing about the partnership of the sister
nations. While Knox was labouring at the oar or preaching in
England, Scotland was being turned into a province of
France. French armies cleared the soil of English invaders ;
but they also made themselves its real masters. And the
result of the French ascendency was that in 1554 the
French queen-mother, Mary_pf_ Guise, became Regent in
place of Arran, who was compensated by the grant of a
French duchy. Mary of Guise was an exceedingly able
woman ; and her policy was to turn Scotland into an
appanage of France. The most important offices of State
were held by Frenchmen. All the chief fortresses, except
Edinburgh Castle, were garrisoned by French troops. This
was an invasion of Scottish independence more grave than
had ever been known since the time of Edward 1. In a
very short time the dread of France had become as strong
among the Scots as the dread of England had ever been.
Opposition began to organise itself. And as Mary of Guise
was a strict Catholic, in close alliance with the Church,
the opposition was naturally inclined to take the Protestant
side. Protestantism, which had seemed unpatriotic when
Henry vm. was ravaging the Lowlands, now became the
patriot creed, and this made its progress far easier, But

ch. vi.] THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND 281
unhappily there was not now much hope of aid from England,
where the persecution of Mary Tudor was in fuU blast. To
the exiled Knox, who had dreamed of seeing England and
Scotland linked by a common loyalty to the new faith, the
outlook must have seemed dark indeed ; and as he brooded
on the evil that was being wrought by Mary of Guise in
Scotland, and by Mary Tudor in England, he became con
vinced that the rule of women had much to do with it. '
He issued the First Blast of the Trumpet against the Mon
strous Regiment (government) of Women — a violent diatribe
which did not make him beloved by Elizabeth and Mary
Queen of Scots, with whom he had to work later.
In 1555 John Knox returned, and, during a visit of ten
monthsTnot only preached the new faith with extraordinary
vigour and success, but did a great deal to organise the
opposition to the Regent as at once a Protestant and a
Nationahst party. The Regent did not dare to attack him,
because she was aware of her growing unpopularity, and
because he had the support of a powerful and growing
group of nobles. Chief among these was the Lord James
Stewart, afterwards Earl of Moray, who was an illegitimate
elder brother of the young queen. A steadfast, loyal and
honourable young man, he became a convinced Protestant,
and was to be the chief support of the Protestant cause.
In 1552 a grouP °f these Protestant nobles, henceforward
known as the Lords of the Congregation, bound themselves
in a solemn covenant never to rest till they had established
the reformedTreiigion as the national religion of Scotland.
This group became the centre round which gathered all
the enthusiasts for Protestantism, and aU the patriots
who- resented French domination. The national feeling
more and more supported them, and more and more became
identified with the Protestant cause. The Regent dared
not attempt to suppress the movement. She did indeed
bum one heretic in 1558, but the outcry was so great that
she could not venture to go further, and the Protestant
preachers became bolder than ever, teaching pubhcly and
openly in Edinburgh and Dundee and other centres.
§ 4. The Years of Crisis and the Anglo-Scottish Alliance.
Such was the situation when, in November 1558, Mary
Tudor died, and her successor re-established ProTestantism
in England. This made England the natural ally of the
Scottish nationalist and Protestant party. The freedom

282 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
of Scotland seemed to depend upon the triumph of Protest
antism in England. Not only that, but the safety of
England seemed to depend upon the triumph of the Pro
testant party in Scotland. For Mary Queen of Scots,
great-granddaughter of Henry vn., was now, in the eyes of
aU good Catholics, the legitimate Queen of England ; and
France saw the dazzling prospect of obtaining supremacy
over the whole of Britain. If England were to be invaded
from Scotland on the north and from France on the south,
and if the invaders were helped by a rising of the numerous
English Catholics, it seemed certain that Elizabeth's throne
would fall. Then France, Scotland and England would be
united under a single crown. And then, also, heresy
would be crushed out in the islands. The only protection
which Elizabeth seemed to have a right to hope for was
that of Spain, whose king had no desire to see France so
greatly aggrandised. But Philip of Spain was torn asunder
between his political interests and his desire to see the
triumph of Catholicism. It was certain that he would not
help France to conquer England. But he might stand
aloof. It was an alarming feature of the situation that, in
1559, he made peace with France at Cateau-Cambresis,
and there was a general belief that the two great Catholic
sovereigns had agreed to join in crushing out heresy once
and for aU. And if England and Scotland were subdued,
where else in Europe was there any Protestant power
capable of resisting trie forces of Catholicism ?
Thus everything seemed to depend upon the success of ,
the nationalist and Protestant opposition in Scotland. If
it could be enabled to win the day, Scotland would be freed
from French control, England would be saved from the
peril of a French conquest without the necessity of throwing
herself upon the support of Spain, and Protestantism would
be saved from the danger of extinction, not only in these
two countries but throughout Europe. So the eyes of the
whole world were turned upon Scotland.
In 1559 the great issue at last came to the test. The Pro
testant' revolt broke into flame over Scotland. The exiled
apostle, John Knox, returned to assume the lead (May
^SP/) • His fiery and passionate sermons carried his hearers
off their feet, and led, in one town after another, to out
breaks of destructive violence. Mary of Guise saw that
she must make a stand before her authority had been
completely broken down. She ordered aU the preachers
to appear before her. The result was that thousands of the

ch. vi.] THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND 283
Protestant gentry began to gather in bands for their defence,
while the Lords of the Congregation took the lead in a
national revolt. And the real leader and inspirer of all
was the stern and fearless preacher. English aid was
necessary : Knox was the chosen ambassador first sent
to persuade Ehzabeth to give it. But Elizabeth hesitated
— she always hated to commit herself to a definite line of
action ; and for the best part of a year the Scottish Pro
testants had to fight their own battle, against the disciplined
forces of France. Nevertheless, by the end of 1559, they
had succeeded in penning the main force of the Regent
into Leith, which they were besieging. But they were
only hoTding their own with difficulty, and were by no
means masters of the rest of the country. If a French
fleet, with reinforcements and money and supplies, should
succeed in getting to Leith, the Regent and the cause of
French and Catholic dominance might yet triumph. On
January 23, 1560, a fleet of strange vessels appeared in
the Firth of Forth. But it was not the expected French
fleet. It was an Enghsh fleet, sent to cut off the French.
Ehzabeth had at last made up her mind ; and the English
fleet had decided this momentous issue, as it was in the
future to decide so many more. Scotland owes her
freedom and her religion in a large degree to the English
navy. Meanwhile the subtlest of all the Scots, Maitland of
Lethington, had concluded with England the* treaty
which Knox had faUed to achieve. An English army
advanced to the aid of the Scots, and joined in the siege
of Leith, which they found a slow and difficult business.
But while they lay before the beleaguered town the Regent
Mary of Guise died, and with the death of this brave and
able woman the heart went out of the defence. A month
later the siege was ended, under the terms of & treaty
signed between England, France and the Scottish leaders.
Mary Queen of Scots was to cease to use the arms of England.
And so long as the queen should remain in France the
government was to be in the hands of a commission of twelve
Scottish nobles. The treaty of Edinburgh (1560) marks an
epoch in the history of the island peoples. For the first
time England and Scotland had co-operated in the common
interest. The long story of their wars was at an end.
Never again were England and Scotland to be arrayed
against one another as hostUe nations. The English army
marched back peacefully through a rejoicing countryside,

284 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
foUowed, as no English army ever had been before, by the
gratitude of all Scottish patriots.
§ 5. The Religious Settlement in Scotland.
It was now possible for the Scottish leaders to carry out,
fuUy and formaUy, the religious revolution. At a meeting
of the Estates (1560), a Confession of Faith drawn up by.
Knox and other ministers was formaUy adopted, the papal
jurisdiction was abolished, and the celebration of the Mass
forbidden. Henceforth Calvinistic Protestantism was the
national creed of Scotland. It is noteworthy that this
decision was not accompanied by persecution. There
were no burnings of Cathohcs. The bishops and abbots
of the old church were for the most part left in possession
of their lands. In spite of the law, the old faith continued
to be observed in parts of the country — in some sections
of the Highlands it has retained its unchaUenged ascend- •
ency to this day. But to complete the settlement, it was
necessary not merely to define the creed but to fix the
organisation of the new Church. For this purpose John
Knox drew up a ' Book of Discipline,' which forms pro
bably the greatest of his achievements. It dealt not
merely with the organisation of a Church, but with the
life of the whole nation. It suggested a very enlightened
scheme of national education, far in advance of anything
then existing in the world, and a system of poor relief.
It did not arrange for the full Presbyterian system of Church
government as it was later developed ; that was mainly
the work of Andrew MelvUle in the next generation. But
it provided that the minister of each parish should be
elected by his people, and that in the government of his
church he should be assisted by a body of elected lay
elders, the kirk session ; it was to be the business of the
kirk session to supervise the morals and the family hfe
of the community. At the head of the Church system was
to be a General Assembly, including elders as well as ministers,
a body which would obviously be far more representative
of the whole nation than anything that Scotland had
hitherto known. Thus it was not merely a system of Church
government which Knox contemplated, but a complete
reorganisation of the national life. The Scots were to be a
nation of educated men, guided by a trained ministry, and
controUing their own spiritual affairs.
' The Book of Discipline ' was not adopted by the Estates, .

ch. vi.] THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND 285
mainly because it could not be carried out unless the wealth
of the old Church was used for the organisation of the new ;
and the Scottish nobles had no intention of allowing it to
be so employed. Most of this wealth was in fact quietly
annexed by the nobles during the foUowing generation,
and thus some of the most enlightened schemes of Knox
could not be carried out : only a bare pittance was left
for the maintenance of the clergy. Nevertheless .the main-
features of Knox's scheme were brought into operation,
and the system was finally worked out in Andrew Melville's
' Second Book of Discipline,' which was adopted in 1581,
and received formal parliamentary sanction in 1592. It was
this system which has moulded the mind of modern Scotland.
One main reason for the delay in completing the new
system was that the young queen returned to Scotland in
the summer of 1561. Her weakling husband had died ; she
had had to descend from the French throne ; her mother's
famUy, the Guises, had for the time being lost their influ
ence in France. So the proud, beautiful, passionate girl
returned to the rugged land which she had scarcely known,
just at the moment when it had adopted a great change,
which she could neither understand nor sympathise with.
Fresh from the graces of the French court and the glowing
hopes of empire, she came to the gloomy capital of a barren
land, to be bullied by the rude Scottish nobles and preached
at by the grim Reformer, who feared no one, had no patience
with court etiquette, and had not changed his opinion about
the ' monstrous regiment of women.' The tbrilling and
tragic story of the foUowing years concerns English and
European quite as much as Scottish history, and will be
touched on in the next chapter.
But Mary's subtle and daring manoeuvres postponed the
settlement of the Church. Even when she was safely locked
up as Elizabeth's prisoner in England (1568), the legacy
of party strife which she had left kept many questions open ;
and though the reforming party preserved the ascendency,
they were never able to get a definite settlement of the
questions of Church government and Church finance.
There were some among the noble politicians who had no
love for the democratic system of Presbyterianism ; they
would have preferred an episcopal system, and they could
use the argument that an episcopal system would ease
relations with England. It was not until Mary's son, King
James vi. (afterwards James 1. of England), had come of
age.'That a settlement became possible. Even then it was

286 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
never frankly accepted. The king disliked the Presby
terian system. He disliked it the more the older he grew.
He did not relish the power which it gave to the people.
He detested the claim to complete independence of secular
control which the ministers of the Kirk boldly put forward.
He acutely resented being told, as Andrew MelviUe did not
hesitate to tell him, that in spiritual matters he had no
more power than any of his subjects, but was only ' God's
silly (simple) vassal.' He struggled untiringly to intro
duce episcopacy into Scotland, both before and after he
succeeded to the Enghsh throne. But though, by buUying
and corruption, he achieved some temporary success, he
was never able to shake the loyalty of the Scots to the
system Knox had given them.
For Knox, through his Kirk Sessions and General;
Assembhes, and the Presbyteries and Synods that grew
up later, had caUed the Scottish people into consultation,
had given them the right to decide about the questions
that interested them most deeply ; the townsman, the
farmer, the country gentleman, had learned to value the
right of taking a share in great decisions. They were not
going to yield it up. AU the prickly obstinacy which
Scotsmen had for centuries shown in the defence of their
national independence, they were now to show in defence
of their free system of Church government. Moreover, by
the long discussion on theological points, they had been
turned into a keen-witted and argumentative people, not
to be easUy deceived. Henceforward, ' Scotland ' means
no longer only a group of turbulent nobles : the nobles fall
more and more into the background. It means the Scottish
nation, a democratic and educated nation, poor, proud,
quarrelsome, obstinate, inteUigent, and deeply concerned
about profound questions. That is the nation which John
Knox had shaped.
[Hume Brown's or Andrew Lang's History of Scotland ; Lindsay's
History o~f~the Reformation; Hume Brown's Life of John Knox;
Lang's Knox and the Reformation ; Pollard's Factors in Modern
History. There is a masterly chapter on the Reformation in Scotland
by F. W. Maitland in the Cambridge Modern History. See also
Rait's Relations between England and Scotland.]

CHAPTER VII
ELIZABETH, MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, AND PHILIP II.
(A.D. I56I-I587)
§ 1. The Counter-Reformation and the Political Situation in
Europe in 1559.
Until the middle of the sixteenth century the Reforma
tion had advanced in Europe with very little check. But
then the leaders of the ancient Church began to realise the
dangers of the situation, to set their house in order, and to
coUect their resources for a struggle against the religious
revolution. This movement is known as the Counter-
Reformation. It led to a series of desperate and confused
wars which lasted for a century. AU the conspiracies, re
bellions and intrigues which fiUed the next half century in
England, Scotland and Ireland were simply parts of this
great conflict. So were the Enghsh struggle against Spain,
which culminated in the Spanish Armada ; and the desper
ate revolt of the Dutch under William the Silent, which
led to the creation of a new free nation ; and the confused
and bloody wars of religion in France. AU these move
ments were closely intertwined ; and the fortunes of the
islands in one of the most critical periods of their history
cannot be understood without some comprehension of the
course and nature of this vast conflict as a whole.
Four main aspects of the Counter-Reformation shotUd
be noted. In the first place there was a clear definition of
Roman Catholic dogma, of such a kind as to render a recon
ciliation with the Protestants impossible, and a systematic,
and on the whole successful, attempt to remove those cor
ruptions in the Church which had chiefly provoked the
Protestant revolt, and which aU good Catholics recognised
and deplored. This was mainly the work of the Council of
Trent, whose sittings were spread, at long intervals, over
the quarter of a century from 1542 to 1566 : the main work ,
was done in the sessions of 1546, 1562, and 1566. OriginaUy
intended to restore the unity of Christendom, the Council
was attended only by orthodox Roman Catholics ; and its
287

288 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
result was to make the cleavage between the two religions
definite and irrevocable, and to give to the Catholic party
a clear idea of these differences and a solid unity of aim.
In the second place, the further spread of heresy in Catholic
countries was checked by the work of the Papal Inquisition,
which chiefly affected Italy but also influenced other
countries. The Spanish Inquisition, which was quite dis
tinct, and was under the control of the Spanish Crown,
did the same work with far greater ferocity for Spain and
the Spanish dominions. In aU the Catholic countries fierce
persecution was raging during the second half of the century,
and the Protestant countries soon began to foUow suit.
In the third place, the foundation of the remarkable Order
of Jesuits by the Spaniard Ignatius Loyola placed at the
disposal of the Roman Church a very powerful instrument.
Established in 1539, the Company of Jesus consisted of
a body of men vowed to absolute obedience, and devoted to
the forwarding of the Catholic cause by every possible
means. Their numbers grew very rapidly, and they spread
into aU countries. By means of their admirable system
of education they obtained a great influence over the young
even in Protestant countries. As the father confessors
of ruling princes they could influence the course of politics
to the advantage of the Church. As missionaries of the
faith they showed often' incredible heroism in India and
in China and among the savages of the New World ; and
their emissaries never hesitated to dare the stake and the
block in Protestant lands in order to confirm the faith of
the Catholic remnant and to win new converts. Lastly,
the ruling princes who remained loyal to the old faith were
stimulated to use their power for its triumph, and every
attempt was made to combine them in a great crusade
against heresy.
When in 1559 the two greatest monarchs of Europe,
Henry n. of France and Philip n. of Spain,1 ended the long
Franco-Spanish wars in the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis,
it looked as if the triumph of Catholicism were at hand.
For there was no power in Europe that could resist these
two if they were united. Both were strong Catholics.
Both were engaged, in 1559, m rooting out heresy in their
own dominions by fire and sword, in the most pitUess per
secutions that Europe had yet seen. On the other hand
the Protestants were both weak and divided. The military
1 There is a short life of Philip ii., by M. A. S. Hume, in the Foreign
Statesmen Series.

CH. vn.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 289
strength of the numerous German princes counted for
httle ; moreover they were divided by the conflict between
Lutheranism and Calvinism, and the Lutheran princes,
who were the majority, thought they were quite safe, and
were unwilling to engage in dangerous adventures. Sweden
and Denmark also stood aloof from the struggle. England
was in 1559 the only considerable power in which Pro
testantism was officially established ; but the brand-new
Elizabethan settlement was as yet in a precarious posi
tion, and a majority of the population were still Catholic.
In Scotland the Protestants were a band of rebels in arms,
the government was in Catholic hands, and the queen was
herself a Cathohc. In Ireland anarchy prevaUed, but the
mass of the population was stiU Catholic, and could be made
a thom in the side of England. In the Netherlands there
were rumblings of discontent, but the Inquisition was busily
engaged in burning heretics in droves, under the shelter
of the might of Spain. The prospects of a complete Catholic
victory seemed to be very bright. These were the circum
stances in which Elizabeth's reign commenced. It is not
surprising that amid such perils she walked with very
gingerly steps, and hesitated to commit herself to any
definite line of action.
But there were two safeguards against these perUs. The
first was the rivalry of France and Spain. Both hoped to
obtain the mastery in Britain, and neither was willing to
give a free hand to the other. France seemed to have the
best chance in 1559, because she could hope to control
Scotland through her queen, and to conquer England,
with the aid of the Enghsh Catholics, on the ground of
Mary's claim to the Enghsh crown. This prospect made
Phihp 11. extremely nervous ; rather than see such an
increase of French power, he preferred to give his protec
tion to Elizabeth, who encouraged him by pretending that
she might yet marry a Catholic husband, or go back to the
Cathohc faith. Counting on this jealousy of France and
Spam, it was possible for Elizabeth and the Scottish Pro
testant leaders to achieve the victory of 1560 — to snatch
the bone of Scotland from between the jaws of the two
quarreUing mastiffs. For the moment — but only for the
moment — the independence of both countries was safe
guarded by this event.
The second favourable factor in the situation was the
fact that both France and Spain were hampered by troubles
of their own. In France, since the death of Henry. 11. (1559),
vol. 1. T

290 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
the court was torn asunder by rival factions, the Guises
(Mary Stewart's uncles) and the Bourbons ; whUe the Pro
testant party, though only a small minority in the country,
was very influential, because it included the Bourbons and
many great nobles, and was powerful in many of the great
trading towns. Civil war on pohtical and rehgious grounds
was already imminent in 1560 ; and although Elizabeth
did not like rebels, she kept in touch with the French Pro
testant leaders, and when the wars of religion actuaUy
began in 1562 she sent an Enghsh force to their aid. She
did not care" whether they won or not ; it was enough
that France should be kept occupied. She was a most un
trustworthy ally. But the French Huguenots were very
useful to her. They fought eight civil wars in France;
during the next forty years, and thus enormously reduced'
the French danger.
The troubles of Spain were not so serious as those of
France. But they were serious enough to make the cautious
and slow-moving Philip n. unwiUing to launch upon such a
difficult enterprise as the conquest of England, and ready
to let himself be deceived by Elizabeth's tricks and hes.
His main troubles were twofold. On the one hand he had
to deal with the Turkish naval power in the Mediterranean.
On the other hand he was perplexed by the growing unrest
in the Netherlands, where the cruelty of his rehgious per
secution and the generally tyrannical methods of his govern
ment were producing more and more violent opposition.
There was, indeed, no open revolt in arms until the Duke
of Alva was sent in 1567 to drown the discontents of these
heretics and agitators in blood ; and when the revolt did
come, it was ruthlessly and terribly crushed — for the time
being. But some of the Dutch rebels, the ' Beggars of
the Sea,' escaped and took to piracy on the Narrow Seas.
And they were joined by Enghsh and French pirates, who
continuaUy preyed upon Spanish commerce, using Enghsh
harbours, to a large extent, as their bases. Elizabeth pro
tested that she was not responsible for, and could not prevent,
these activities : the one thing certain is that she did not
try, and that she even gave underhand encouragement
to more distant piratical adventures at the cost of Spanish
commerce, of which we shall see something in the next
chapter. PhUip, of course, was not altogether deceived
by these assurances. But they made him realise (as Ehzabeth
meant that they should) how completely the communica
tions between Spain and the Netherlands were at the mercy

CH. vn.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 291
of England. For the sea route was the only line of con
nexion. He saw that a war with England would make
the complete subjugation of the Netherlands almost impos
sible. And therefore, even after the danger of a French
conquest of England had disappeared, he kept up the forms
of friendship : England's turn was not to come until the
Netherlands were finaUy settled. Thus the Netherlands
saved England and Scotland, and England saved the
Netherlands. In these circumstances, so long as nothing too violent
was done and the forms of friendship with Spain were main
tained, Ehzabeth might feel fairly secure ; and the two
British nations were left with a precarious freedom to work
out their own destinies. But the working out of events in
England and Scotland was manifestly of the most vital
importance for the rest of Europe. In both countries the
trend of events had identified the cause of Protestantism with
the cause of national freedom. And if these causes were
defeated — as it was still possible that they might be, even
without foreign intervention — then the same causes in
the Netherlands, and also elsewhere in Europe, would
almost certainly be ruined. If Mary of Scotland could,
with the aid of the Enghsh Catholics, win the throne of
England, not only would there be a rehgious reaction in
both of the British lands, but their weight would be thrown
on the Cathohc side in the great conflict. And that would
be decisive.
Thus issues of the most far-reaching importance turned
upon the dramatic rivalry of two young marriageable queens,
two cousins, ruling over two sister-nations. Seldom has a
purely personal drama had so close a bearing upon world-
events. § 2. Elizabeth and Mary, 1561-1571.
The two cousins were very markedly contrasted. Ehza
beth,1 the virgin queen, was in some ways a man in a woman's
body. Though she enjoyed dress and flirting and the
grossest flattery, it is doubtful if she ever felt or inspired a
deep, personal affection. These things were to her merely
relaxation ; her heart was in politics, and she had the cool
head and masterful wUl of aU the Tudors. She had also
their power of judging men and winning their respect and
loyalty. She was most faithfuUy served by a group of
1 there are short lives of Ehzabeth, by E. S. Beesly (in the Twelve
English Statesmen Series), and by the late Bishop Creighton.

292 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
very able and industrious ministers, of whom WiUiam
Cecil (Lord Burghley) and Francis Walsingham were the
best. Yet she loved to play off lesser men such as Leicester
against even these trusted counciUors : she would let no
man feel that he was all-powerful. Her greatest defects
were an incurable preference for deceitful methods, and
an incurable unwillingness to come to an irrevocable
decision : she loved to feel that she had several alternative
courses open to her, and Cecil and Walsingham, both of
whom desired a definitely Protestant pohcy, were often
exasperated and alarmed by her apparent vacillations.
But she knew what she was doing, and her decisions, if
generaUy made at the eleventh hour, were always made
before the twelfth. In the very dangerous condition of
European pohtics this habit of hers had its advantages.
No one was sure what line she would follow. Her hesi
tations were in nowise due to lack of courage : in a crisis
no one could be cooler. Nor were they due to uncertainty
as to her main aim : she meant to keep her England Enghsh.
That was the ruling passion of her life, with which nothing
else was ever aUowed to conflict.
Her cousin Mary 1 was far more of a woman. When she
returned to Scotland in 1561 she was a young widow of
eighteen. She carried about her from the first an atmosphere
of romance. She had beauty, grace, gaiety and wit in
such abundance that few could resist her charm ; it could
penetrate even the waUs of a prison ; it has penetrated
through the mist of centuries, so that even to-day learned
men wiU play tricks with the truth for love of her. She
had the spirit and bravery of a gaUant boy ; there was no
quality she adored so much as courage, even in a brute hke
BothweU, and none that she despised so much as cowardice
— that was the undoing of Darnley. She was extremely
clever and resourceful ; she could play the game of pohtics
with the skiU of an old diplomat, and wait patiently, con
cealing her aims and her disappointments with a smUe.
But beneath aU this was a nature that could be set aflame
by passion. Unhke Elizabeth she could be utterly carried
away by hatred or by love, and when that happened, aU
prudence and calculation went to the winds. She threw
away the chance of kingdoms for revenge and a worthless
lover. The ten years 1561-1571 are entirely dominated by the
charm and passion and cunning of Mary. During these
1 There is a shorl hfe of Mary Queen of Scots, by F. MacCuun.

ch. vn.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 293
years Elizabeth found little difficulty in keeping Philip n.
friendly : her saUors had not yet begun to do outrageous
things ; and the storm in the Netherlands was only brewing.
France was no longer dangerous, for civil strife had broken
out. The real danger to England, and to the Scottish Pro- ,
testants, came from Mary. At first she was ostentatiously
moderate. She only asked to be recognised as Elizabeth's
heiress, which Ehzabeth refused, saying that to agree
would be to sign her own death-warrant. In Scotland,
Mary made no attempt to interfere with the Protestant
settlement. She made friends with some of the Protestant
leaders, including her half-brother, Lord James, whom she
made Earl of Moray. She even joined him in an expedition
against the Catholic Earl of Huntly in the Highlands.
Moray felt sure that in good time she would marry a Pro
testant and make friends with Elizabeth, and all would be
weU. She won the hearts of many followers ; and, indeed,
the idea of putting a Scottish queen on the English throne
was attractive to many Scots. The only man who could
resist her charms was grim old John Knox, who thundered '
at the pretty creature as if she was a criminal. Knox knew
that Mary would never be loyal to the cause which was his
hfe. She was probably a sincere Catholic. In any case,
she was eager to be Queen of England, and it was as the
legitimate Catholic claimant that her chances were strongest.
In 1565 she threw off the mask, by marrying the Catholic
Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox. It was a shrewd
move. A~T:oreign match would have alarmed the patriotic
feeling both of England and of Scotland. This marriage
strengthened her party in both countries, for Darnley was
in the line of succession to both crowns. Moray fled to Eng
land in dismay. But others had been fully won to her side.
UnhappUy Darnley, though a good-looking youth, was a
mean-spirited and weak-minded person, and his high-
spirited wife soon learnt to despise him. Tragedy was
brewing. Darnley, slighted and humiliated, conceived a
jealousy of the queen's clever Italian secretary, Riccio,
who was the closest confidant of her political scheiries.
He listened to a group of grim Scottish nobles of the Pro
testant party, who blamed Riccio for the policy Mary was
pursuing. On 9th March 1566 they burst into Holyrood
Palace, and murdered Riccio almost before the queen's
eyes. It was a crime such as had often been done in Scot
land. But it turned the girl-queen into a tigress ; she was
ready to sacrifice everything for revenge. She even

294 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
excluded her husband from the christening (1566) of their
son — the child who was to unite the English and Scottish
crowns. Yet she strove to conceal her wrath and scorn.
For the best part of a year she fondled and wheedled the
fatuous Damley. When he feU iU she brought him to a
lonely house just outside Edinburgh, where on 9th February
1567 she paid him an affectionate visit. A room had been
prepared for her, but she did not stay. That night the house
was blown up, with barrels of gunpowder which had been
placed in the queen's private room ; and Darnley's murdered
body was found in the garden. The murderer was the wUd
and daring Earl of BothweU. He had of course to flee
from Edinburgh. To the horror of the world, the reckless
and infatuated queen fled after him, and married him three
months after the murder. There is no reasonable ground
for doubting that she had been a partner in his guilt.
This horrible crime ruined Mary's chances not only of
succeeding to the Enghsh crown, but of retaining her posi
tion in Scotland. With the proud courage which never
deserted her, she prepared to fight for her crown, and she
could stiU command the loyalty of many. She was defeated
at Carberry HU1 (1567), forced to abdicate in favour of her
infant son, and imprisoned in the island Castle of Loch
Leven. But Mary's spirit could not be broken. A year
later she escaped from her prison, raised a new army, and
took the field. Again she was defeated, at Langside, near
Glasgow (May 1568) . She would not submit" to a fresh
imprisonment ; but fled with a few foUowers, and after a
long ride of ninety mUes — filled with what thoughts ! — crossed
the Enghsh border, and threw herself on the mercy of her
English cousin (May 1568).
It was a shrewd step, based on a profound knowledge
of her cousin's character. Elizabeth had too high a sense
of ' the divinity that doth hedge a king ' to hand her back
to the Scottish nobles. She received her as a guest, and
for some years Mary moved from house to house in Northern
England. Even when the Scottish nobles brought con
clusive evidence of Mary's crime, Elizabeth refused to
judge her. And indeed there were some advantages in
the situation from Elizabeth's point of view. Mary was
under surveillance, and could be kept out of mischief." The
Scots were now securely Protestant, and could always be
kept in order by the threat of restoring their queen, who '
still had her loyal followers in Scotland. On the other
hand, the witch was dangerous ; especiaUy as the North

ch. vn.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 295
of England was the centre of Catholic feeling. From the
moment of her arrival Mary was the centre of plots. One
of these was discovered in 1569. Mary was to marry the
Duke of Norfolk, first of the'English nobles. There was
to be a rebeUion which was to be aided by Alva from the
Netherlands ; and Mary was to be placed upon her cousin's
throne. Norfolk grew frightened at the last, but the
Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland did actually
rebel without waiting for foreign aid. The rising was easily
suppressed. It was foUowed by a rebeUion of the border
Lord Dacre in 1570, which was also swiftly suppressed.
Even this was not the end of the conspiracies. Just at
this moment (i57_o) the Pope issued the long-threatened
excommunication of Ehzabeth as a heretic, by which aU
her Catholic subjects were released from their aUegiance.
A papal agent, Ridolfi, revived, on a more elaborate scale,
the plot of 1569, whereby Mary was to marry Norfolk, and a
Cathohc insurrection was to be aided by an invasion from
the Netherlands. Mary herself, Norfolk, the Pope, Phihp n.
and the Duke of Alva were all parties to the plot. But it
was discovered by the astuteness of CecU, before any overt
steps had been taken (1571) . Norfolk was sent to the block.
Mary was left untouched; but, having shown herself a very
dangerous person, she was kept in stricter confinement for
the future.
These events closed the first era of the struggle. They
cleared the air ; and during the next period, which may
be said to extend from 1571 to 1584, the issues of the great
conflict became more and more clear.
§ 3. Years of Intensifying Strain, 1571-1584.
In the first place, the relations between England and
Scotland, though stiU often difficult, were no longer very
dangerous. On the whole the Scottish Protestant party
steadily maintained the upper hand ; and the Kirk, with its
General Assembly, representing the whole nation, was able in
some degree to balance the power of the nobles. From 1567 )
to 1578 Scotland was ruled by a succession of regents, on
behalf of the boy king, James vi. The first of these, the
Earl of Moray — the ' good Lord James ' — was the staunchest
supporter of the new rehgion, and next to John Knox had
taken the greatest part in winning its triumph : he was
devoted to the English aUiance. He was unhappUy
murdered in 1570. But his successors, Lennox, Mar and

296 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
Morton, steadUy foUowed a Protestant and English pohcy,
ancTwere able to hold their own against the party favour
able to the exUed queen, which was stiU strong. They
disappointed the ministers by their failure to transfer the
endowments of the old Church to the new — nearly aU the
wealth of the old Church being annexed by the nobles.
But at least they maintained the Protestant settlement.
From 1579 to 1582 the situation again became dangerous,
for a Franco-Scot, Esme Stewart, Sieur d'Aubigny and
later Earl of Lennox, arrived from France with the object
of re-establishing French influence, and obtained for a
time a complete ascendency over the boy king, now thirteen
years old. His aim was to revive the cause of the exUed
queen, and to restore the Cathohc system. But he was
staunchly resisted by the Protestant group of nobles and by
the General Assembly of the Kirk, led by Andrew Melville.
He could not prevent the acceptance of the fuU Presby
terian system in 1581 ; and in 1582 a group of Protestant
nobles suddenly seized the person of the king, in what is
known as the Ruthven Raid, and compeUed d'Aubigny-
Lennox to flee from tfie^country. Henceforward, though
King James vi. as he grew older became more and more
hostile to the Presbyterian system, he was neither hostile
to Protestantism nor to England. He was kept quiet
partly by fear of his subjects and partly by the hope of
succeeding to the Enghsh throne. Thus on the whole
during these years the friendship of the sister-nations,
though not yet intimate, was maintained ; and Elizabeth
could generally feel that she had no danger to fear from the
side of Scotland.
In England the conspiracies and rebellions of 1569-71
produced a very great effect. They deeply discredited the
Cathohc party. The fact that the Catholics had actuaUy ^
been anxious to bring Spanish armies into England made
them appear unpatriotic. Protestantism became, more
clearly than ever, the religion of patriots, and patriotic
Catholics began to drift into the national Church in increas
ing numbers. There were stiU unending conspiracies.
But they were now mainly fomented by secret emissaries
from the Continent, and joined only by knots of extremists;
and the mere facts that they stiU continued, and that they
were engineered from abroad, made the mass of English
men more vehemently anti-Roman. It was becoming every
year more clear that England must look forward to a straggle
for her national existence, in which the supreme enemy would

ch. vii.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 297
be Spain, and in which the cause of national freedom would
necessarily be identified with the cause of Protestantism.
Hitherto there had been no persecution of Roman Catholics.
But in 1571 the law of treason was extended to include
such acts as joining, or persuading others to join, the Church
of Rome, or obeying a papal buU. This was the natural
result of the bull of excommunication of 1570, which com
manded loyal Catholics to play the part of traitors to the
national government. Now first began a definite persecu
tion of Roman Catholics, but it was hmited to those who
plotted the overthrow of the government. The mass of
quiet Roman Catholics, so long as they did not meddle in
pohtics, were left undisturbed ; their only penalty was the
payment of fines for non-attendance at church. The danger
ous people were the Roman missionaries, who began during
these years to venture into England. Some of them came
from the seminaries for the training of English priests
which were being founded abroad, at Douai and Rome ;
their first band of missionaries came to England in 1574.
Others were Enghsh members of the great Order of Jesuits ;
the first of these to reach England were Campion and Parsons,
who came in 1580. It is impossible not to admire the
courage shown by these missionaries. But it is also impos
sible not to recognise that, as things were, they were neces
sarily emissaries of treason as weU as of Catholicism, and
that the government could not safely leave them at large.
Some of them were imprisoned, others put to death. But
they were sentenced always for treason, not for their
rehgious behefs. Between 1575, when the executions
began, and the end of the reign 187 victims suffered the
penalty of death. This is a considerable number ; but it is as
nothing in comparison with the holocausts of victims who
suffered for their religion in the Netherlands, in France and
in Spain. In France, for example, over ten thousand
Protestants lost their lives in the single butchery of St.
Bartholomew's Day, in 1572 — just three years before the
Elizabethan persecution began. Even as compared with
the relatively hght persecution of Mary, the persecution
of Roman Catholics under Ehzabeth was mUd. The
average number of victims per annum was seven, as com-,
pared with eighty for each year of the Marian persecution.
A further feature of these years in England was that,
just because the struggle between the two religions was
growing more intense, the extreme Protestant party became
more active, and thus the Elizabethan compromise was

298 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
threatened from both sides at once. From the first the
extremists had been dissatisfied with the amount of ' papistry '
which, in their view, was aUowed to remain in the national
Church. At least four ' Puritan ' extremists were burnt
for heresy, while others were hanged for the treason of
denying the royal supremacy. The seeds of Puritanism,
and the demand for individual freedom of thought, were
actively germinating. And it is significant that in Parlia
ment sympathy with the Puritans was strong and growing.
As the crisis of her fate drew nearer, England was becoming
more intensely Protestant.
Meanwhile on the Continent the conflict of the religions
was becoming more acute. In 1572 — the year of the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew in France — a new revolt
broke out in the Netherlands, so formidable that it was
never to be crashed. It was begun by the ' Beggars of the
Sea,' who had hitherto devoted themselves to preying on
Spanish trade, largely using English ports as their bases.
Elizabeth had ordered them away from her harbours, ap
parently as a concession to Spain ; but it is probable that
she knew what she was doing. They descended upon the
Dutch port of BriU, and captured it ; and thereupon the
northern provinces (now the kingdom of HoUand) flared
out into rebellion, and placed themselves under the lead
of the noble patriot WiUiam the Silent.1 Spain found it
impossible to crush them. Within five years the revolt
had spread to the southern provinces (modern Belgium),
and it appeared as if Phihp n. was to lose the whole of his
northern dominions. Many Enghshmen were eager to go
to the aid of the Netherlanders. Ehzabeth was too cautious
to risk, as yet, such an open breach with Spain ; but she
gave them secret help and encouragement in many indirect
ways, and welcomed the intervention of France on their
side. From 1578, however, things began to go wrong with the
Netherlands. Alexander of Parma, a very able general
in the service of Spain, was gradually reconquering the
southern provinces, in which the Roman Catholic faith
was still predominant. Protestant Englishmen watched
his successes with intense anxiety, and longed to give direct
and open aid in a cause which, as they were convinced, was
identical with their own. But Elizabeth stiU held her hand.
In 1584 the noble WiUiam of Orange, heart and soul of the
1 There is a life of William the Silent, by Ruth Putnam, in the Heroes
of the Nations Series.

ch.vii.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 299
Dutch resistance, was murdered by a Roman Catholic as
sassin ; and the cause of the Netherlands, and with them
of Protestantism, seemed to be in a desperate case. When
the resistance of the Dutch was broken, aU men believed
that England's turn would come.
In France also the straggle was becoming more desperate
during these years. Elizabeth was anxious beyond every
thing to prevent France from joining hands with Spain.
Her method, during these years, was no longer that of
giving direct help to the French Protestants, but that of
holding out the prospect that she would marry a French
prince. She was busy flirting with Henry, Duke of Anjou,
brother of the French king, in 1570 and 1571. Then came
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, ordered by the
French king and his mother, which sent a shudder of dismay
and horror through aU the Protestant lands. Yet before
long, to the disgust and alarm of many of her subjects,
Elizabeth was again busy with French marriage negotia
tions, this time with the Duke of Alencon, who later suc
ceeded to his brother's title of Duke of Anjou. For ten
dreary years the empty flirtation continued; it did not
end till 1582. Ehzabeth had of course never for a moment
meant to~marry either of these princes ; but she believed,
perhaps rightly, that she was helping to prevent a Franco-
Spanish combination against England. MeanwhUe the
French wars of religion were raging at intervals : there
were four distinct wars between 1572 and 1584. But in
1584, by the death of the last direct heir to the French
throne, the leader of the Huguenots, Henry of Navarre,1
became the heir-apparent. The prospect of the succession
of a Protestant to the French throne aroused the more
extreme French Catholics to fury ; they formed themselves
into a league of resistance, under the lead of the Duke of
Guise, Mary Stewart's cousin, and made formal aUiance
with PhUip n. If they should win (and they were the
stronger party), the combination of France and Spain,
which had been dreaded ever since 1559, would become a
reality. Thus in every way the year 1584 represented a
crisis in the fortunes of England and of "Protestantism.
Moreover Phihp 11. had by this time made up his slow
mind that a direct attack upon England was necessary.
He had hoped against hope that the Protestant queen
would be overthrown by a Catholic rising, and had been
1 There is a hfe of Henry of Navarre, by P. F. Willert, in the Heroes
Of the Nations Series.

300 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
always ready to give his assistance ; but every plot
had faUed. His decision was helped by the fact that,
since 1570, the English saUors had been making ever
more daring raids against the Spanish empire in the New
World : the most dazzling achievements of Drake belong
to these years, and although Ehzabeth was always ready
to disavow them, she lent royal ships to these insolent
pirates. We shall see something of their achievements in
the next chapter ; they were ¦ dangerously undermining
the prestige of Spain, and it was impossible for Philip even
to pretend to overlook them any longer.
In all ways, therefore, it had become obvious by 1584 that
the crisis was at hand. Goliath had decided that David
must be destroyed ; and in his slow way he spent the foUow
ing years in preparing a crushing bk?w. In the eyes of
Europe it seemed inevitable that England must succumb.
For to aU appearance Spain was at the very height of her
power. In Europe Philip dominated Italy ; the Emperor
was his cousin ; the most powerful party in divided France
had accepted his protection ; his armies, under Parma, the
greatest captain of the age, had already subjugated half
of the revolting Netherlands, and seemed to be getting
the better of the Dutch provinces of the north ; his navy
had in I5_7_i won a resounding victory over the Turks at
LepantorC)utside Europe he was master of aU the wealth
of the New World, which poured a vast annual tribute into
his treasury. More than that, he had in 1580 annexed
Portugal, and added her immense and rich Eastern empire
to bis own. He bestrode the world hke a Colossus. Who
could hope that England could stand against him — England
which possessed no trained army at all, and whose only
defence lay in the ships of her daring pirate sailors ?
§ 4. The Open Conflict with Spain and the Execution of Mary.
From 1584 onwards the struggle became more open.
In 1585 Elizabeth at last resolved to throw in her lot
with the Netherlands. She accepted a protectorate of the
Dutch provinces, and agreed to provide five thousand foot
and one thousand horse. To command this force she sent
her favourite, Leicester — a very unhappy choice. Leicester
won no success ; he quarreUed with his Dutch aUies. His
expedition is redeemed only by the memory of Sir Phihp
Sidney's chivalrous death at Zutphen ; and in 1587 Leicester
was back home again. But the important thing was that

CH.vn.] ELIZABETH: MARY STEWART: PHILIP II. 301
this intervention was an act of war. The open -struggle
had begun. In the same year 1585 Philip also had com
mitted an act of war by laying an embargo upon aU English
ships in Spanish harbours. Elizabeth was not content to
retaliate in kind. She sent out Drake with a great fleet to
sack and piUage the Spanish cities of the West Indies.
Meanwhile Mary Queen of Scots still pined in prison.
Her youth had gone. AU the schemes of her friends had
faUed. Her only hope now rested in Phihp of Spain ; in
1586 she made a will disinheriting her son, and making
Philip her heir. What help should she give in the coming
crisis ? A Cathohc rising on a large scale in England was
now impossible. But she still had loyal friends, among
them Anthony Babington, a Derbyshire gentleman, who
had once been her page. Babington was approached by a
priest to join with a group of others in a plot to dispose of
Elizabeth ' by poison or steel,' and with her to get rid of
her formidable ministers, Burghley, Walsingham and others.
And Mary consented to write to Babington with her own
hand, urging him ' to be diligent in her service.' Alas !
aU the letters of the conspirators, and every step they took,
came to the knowledge of Secretary Walsingham. He let
their plot ripen ; then, in August 1586, arrested them all.
Fourteen of them were executed ; but not until Babington
had explained the cipher used in his correspondence with
Mary. Walsingham had long been anxious to be rid of Mary,
the centre of unceasing conspiracy ; but his mistress had
always refused to take the irrevocable step. Mary was now
tried before a special commission at her prison of Fother-
ingay, and found guilty of complicity in the plot. Both
Houses of Parhament unanimously petitioned the queen for
Mary's execution. She replied begging them to consider
whether there were no other means ; and Parhament replied
that there was none. Was this aU a piece of playing to
the gallery ? Clearly it was not ; it arose from Elizabeth's
feeling that the seal of sovereignty was indelible, and that
no earthly tribunal had the right to try an anointed queen.
She signed the warrant, but tried to thrust the onus of
executing it on her servants : the Privy Council found it
necessary to assume the responsibihty itself. On the
8th February IJJ87, in the hall of Fotheringay Castle, Mary
met her death on the scaffold with a dignified courage which
almost obhterates the memory of her misdeeds. In the
eyes of aU good Catholics she died a martyr to the faith ;

302 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
her death sent a shudder of horror through Europe, for
men stiU owned the sanctity of God's anointed ; and the
great array of tall ships which Philip n. was already gather
ing at Cadiz and at Lisbon was looked to as the destined
avenger of a great crime. But as the news of the decisive
act passed through England, beUs rang and bonfires blazed.
The die was cast; England must fight for her hfe, and,
trusting in her seamen, she fronted the issue unafraid.
[Pollard's England from the Death of Henry VIII. to the Death of
Elizabeth is the best modern summary of the period. Froude's
History of England is a vivid and enchaining narrative, and is
less open to challenge on this period than on the reign of Henry vin.
Lord Acton deals with the subject of this chapter in one of his
Lectures on Modern History, and one of Macaulay's essays deals
with Burghley. See also Hay Fleming's Mary Queen of Scots. For
contemporary European history see Johnson, Europe in the Six
teenth Century, Ranke's History of the Popes, Froude's Council of
Trent, Ward's Counter-Reformation, Armstrong's French Wars of
Religion. Motley's Revolt of the Netherlands is an admirable narrative
of great events.]

CHAPTER VIII
THE ENGLISH SEAMEN, AND THE DEFEAT OF THE
SPANISH ARMADA
§ i. The Search for New Trade Outlets.
When Phihp n. at last determined that England must be
crashed, the whole world was convinced that the doom of
the island State was sealed. For not only was the King of
Spain beyond all comparison the most powerful potentate
in the world ; not only had his troops the reputation of
being all but invincible, whUe England had no regular army
at aU : even at sea, the main defence of the islands, he
seemed to be irresistible. His fleets had in 1571 played a
main part in overthrowing the naval power of the Turks
at Lepanto. He disposed of aU the great ships that were
practised by the constant passage of the Atlantic. And to
aU his other resources he had, in 1580, added the naval
strength of Portugal. Even to the most patriotic English
men, even to the boldest of Enghsh saUors, the odds in
favour of Spain seemed to be overwhelmingly great.
Yet we can now see that the project of invading England
from the sea with Spanish forces was from the first doomed
to faUure, unless the Enghsh wholly failed to use their
advantages. It was doomed to faUure because the English
had, during the generation preceding the Armada, taught
themselves new methods of sea warfare, whUe the Spaniards
had been content to continue in the old ways. What had
given this advantage to the Enghsh — what had made the
sea, at last, their element — was a long series of wUd adven
tures pursued by individual Enghshmen.1 In the sea
war, as in other respects, it was the individual enterprise
of a freedom-loving people rather than the organised power
of the State which saved England and buUt her greatness.
Taught by experience, the seamen had wrought out new
devices in the structure, manning, arming and working of
ships ; and these devices were forced upon them just
1 A vivid account of these affairs is to be' found in Froude's English ^
Seamen of the Sixteenth Century. 303

304 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
because they had to depend upon their own resources.
Many of the enterprises in which these men were engaged
were of a dubious, even of a disreputable, character. But
beyond any question they made it possible for England to
save herself, and the islands, and perhaps Europe, from
the dominance of Spain ; they established the maritime
supremacy of England ; and at the same time they won for
the world the Freedom of the Seas. For since that time
no power has ventured to claim, as Spain claimed, the right
to exclude all other nations from some of the most important
seas of the world.
Many of the most interesting enterprises of the period
were undertaken purely for the purpose of opening out new
lines of trade ; for English traders were eagerly looking
for openings which would enable them to compete with
Spain and Portugal, and especiaUy to get access to the
lucrative traffic of the East and the tropical regions, which
Spain and Portugal monopolised. Several voyages were
made from time to time to the Guinea Coast of West Africa
— the earliest by WiUiam Hawkins of Plymouth, as early
as 1528. But the Portuguese regarded these as illicit in
vasions of their sphere, and until the English were ready
to challenge boldly the papal award of 1493, and to assert
by force their rights of trade, there was little chance in this
direction. Several ventures were made to Constanti
nople and the Eastern Mediterranean, the ancient sources
of Eastern goods. But trade in the Turkish realms was
never easy, and the competition of the Itahans was for a
long time too strong. At a later date, indeed, trade in
this region grew to considerable dimensions. A treaty was
made with Turkey in 1580 ; a Levant Company was started
in 1581, and there were English agencies at Constantinople ;
while in 1583 Ralph Fitch commenced from Aleppo an
eight years' journey, which took him to Persia, India and
far Siam. But these developments were only made possible
by the extraordinary growth of English prestige on the sea,
won in other fields.
Soon men began to be fascinated by the idea of find
ing a back way to the East, either round the north
of Asia, or round the north of America — a north-east
passage, or a north-west passage. The north-east passage
was first attempted. In 1553 WiUoughby and ChanceUor
set out round the North Cape. WiUoughby was wrecked,
but ChanceUor got as far as Archangel, and thence overland
to Moscow. From this beginning a trade with Russia was

ch. viii.] ENGLISH SEAMEN 305
opened out. In 1558 Anthony Jenkinson made his way
by this route down the Volga and across the Caspian to
Bokhara — a wonderful journey. But the hope of getting
at the East by so toilsome a route was vain ; it was soon
demonstrated that the north-eastern route could not be
profitably pursued beyond Archangel ; and though some
trade with Russia was developed by a Muscovy Company
estabhshed for the purpose, men's hopes soon turned in
other directions. Even the Russian trade was mainly
carried on by way of the Baltic, and here the English traders
had to deal with the hostUity of the Hanseatic merchants ;
their ships must always be ready to fight. The attempt to
find a north-east passage thus led to very little. But the
men and the ships which could face these rough seas were
capable of great things.
It was not until a good deal later that serious attempts
were made to find a north-west passage — at a time when
friction with Spain was very acute, and when Drake had
already begun to ravage the West Indies. In 1576-8 Martin
Frobisher made three bold voyages into the 'lands of the
Esquimaux ; in three voyages during 1585-7 John Davis
explored the coasts of Greenland and trie Straits that bear
his name. The gaUantry of these adventures with tiny
ships in stormy, ice-bound and uncharted seas was beyond
praise.1 But they only showed that there was no easy
passage by this route, and polar exploration for its own
sake had little attraction for the Elizabethan. Plainly, if
England was to have a share of the traffic of the tropics,
it could only be by forcibly breaking down the monopoly
of Spain and Portugal, which by 1580 had become the
monopoly of Spain alone.
§ 2. The Pirates of the Narrow Seas.
MeanwhUe the adventurous spirit of English seamen had
found an outlet in another sphere. They had taken in
large numbers to what can only be described as piracy in
the Enghsh Channel and the Bay of Biscay, where they
preyed upon the stream of shipping that passed especially
between Spain and her possessions in the Netherlands.
Piracy had always been common in these waters, and indeed
in aU waters. There was no law and no peace upon the
sea, which no power controUed ; for the very idea of inter
national law scarcely yet existed, and the pirate's trade
1 For Elizabethan explorations in the Polar seas, see Atlas, Plate 49 (6).
VOL. I. V

306 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
was regarded as quite respectable. In Edward vi.'s reign,
when religious differences began to give a greater force to
this irregular war against the great Catholic power, and
English gentlemen began to take to piracy, the king's own
uncle, Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England,
turned the SciUy Islands into a nest of pirates. But it was
in the reign of Mary that piratical adventures began to be
widely regarded as patriotic. They afforded the easiest
means of protesting against the humUiating subordination
of England to Spain, and against the fires of Smithfield.
A note of ferocity came into this irregular war, waged by
men who could count upon no help or support but their
own. The creeks and bays of the south coast, and especiaUy
of Devon, lent themselves admirably to these adventures,
and many young Devon men of good family, as well as
many mere scoundrels, threw themselves with zest into
this daring and lawless career. They believed they were
fighting for the freedom of England and for the Protestant
faith, and avenging the deaths and tortures of many English
sailors seized by the Spanish Inquisition. And the rich
plunder which they often won did not diminish their
ardour. But it was from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign onwards
that this fierce, irregular sea war became most, active,
because it was now plain how precarious the position of
England was, and how great the danger of a Spanish attack
if ever Philip's hands were free. Spanish ambassadors
protested bitterly, but in vain. Elizabeth disavowed all
responsibility for the pirates. But she did nothing to
check them. She was not sorry that Spain should learn
that the English could fight, and that these waters were
dangerous. Nor were the English alone engaged in these adventures.
Alva's persecution in the Netherlands drove patriotic,
Dutchmen to take to sea warfare, and the ' Beggars of the
Sea,' as they called themselves, had their position partly
regularised, according to the ideas of the time, by ' letters {
of marque,' which WiUiam of Orange issued. Until 1572
they freely used English harbours as their bases, and devoted
themselves to cutting off the supplies sent from Spain to
crush their compatriots. Huguenot sailors from France
also joined in the grim game, carrying ' letters of marque '
from the Prince of Conde. Their principal base was La
Rochelle, but they often used English harbours. English,
French and Dutch united in a tacit partnership against

ch. viii.] ENGLISH SEAMEN 307
the common enemy, and combined to make the passage
of the Channel exceedingly unsafe, especiaUy for Spanish
ships. As early as 1562 we are told that there were four
hundred Enghsh and French raiders in the Channel, and
that they had taken seven hundred prizes. Elizabeth
rejoiced that it should be so, and gave underhand help,
though she dared not give open recognition. In 1568— -
when the plot of the northern earls to enthrone Mary of
Scots with Spanish help was maturing — the Huguenot
rovers chased into Southampton a Spanish fleet, laden
with treasure borrowed from Genoese bankers, and destined
for the Netherlands — possibly also for an army of invasion
for England. Ehzabeth ' calmly took possession of the
treasure ' for greater safety,' and later arranged to borrow
the money for her own purposes from the Genoese.
In effect the pirates of the Channel were engaged in a
private and irregular war against an overwhelming power
which their country dared not yet defy. Their highly im
proper proceedings — which were sometimes denied by gross
cruelty — undoubtedly hampered the King of Spain, helped
to prevent him from crushing the revolt of the Netherlands,
and delayed his inevitable onslaught on England tiU she
was ready to resist. But above aU they trained a breed
of very daring and efficient sailors, who had learnt to despise
their Spanish foes, and to encounter the most desperate
adventures unafraid.
From these illicit and irregular enterprises sprang new
methods of sea warfare, which were to prove their efficacy
in the South Seas and in the Armada fights. The Spaniards
stiU clung to the old ideas. Their notion of sea warfare
was that it ought to be as hke land warfare as possible ;
they fiUed their ships with soldiers armed as for the field,
and often sea-sick in rough weather ; and they gave to
their saUors, whom they regarded as inferiors, merely the
duty of bringing their ships alongside the enemy, in order
that the soldiers might board, and fight with pike and
musket and sword. Their ships were great clumsy struc
tures, not easUy worked. For fighting, their experience
,in the calmer waters of the south had taught them to trust
largely to gaUeys and gaUeasses, partly worked by slaves
at the oar. Because their notion of fighting demanded close
quarters they paid little attention to gunnery, and frequently
carried only a few guns, high up at the bow and at the stem :
these guns could make a noise, but because of their height
they felt the full motion of the ship, which disturbed their

308 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
aim ; and they could not fire a broadside voUey. The
pirates had to invent quite other methods. They needed
swift and Tight vessels, which could saU close to the wind,
manoeuvre easUy, and get away from superior strength;
and they developed methods of rigging their ships which,
though mainly suitable for small vessels, enabled them
easUy to outmanoeuvre the Spanish floating castles. The
crews of their smaU vessels had to be ready to fight as weU
as to work the ship, and their methods of fighting were
not those of the land. And since their aim was always
to avoid close quarters they paid great attention to gunnery.
Small as they were, they commonly carried more andj
heavier guns than the Spaniards ; they could fire a broad
side ; and as their guns were fired from near the water,
they could inflict great damage upon the towering Spanish
ships. The pirate ships had to be smaU, partly because
private adventurers could not afford big ships, but mainly
because the easily worked fore-and-aft rigging was only
suitable for smaU vessels. But though many of them must
have seemed like mosquitoes in comparison with the proud
gaUeons of Spain, they moved so nimbly that there was no
dealing with them. These new methods of sea warfare,
graduaUy developed during the age of piracy, ultimately
ensured the defeat of the Armada. In the meanwhUe they
made possible the daring and intoxicating adventures of
the Spanish Main, for which they were a preparation.
§ 3. Drake and the Adventures of the Spanish Main.
The failure of attempts to find back ways to the East,
or lines of trade which could compensate for exclusion from
the tropics, had made it plain that it was only by a direct
chaUenge to the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly, sup
ported if need be by force, that English enterprise could be
given a new start. Now that England was Protestant,
there was no longer a religious motive for respecting the
papal award of 1493, under which this monopoly was
maintained. The English government dared not yet issue
an open chaUenge. But English sailors were very ready
to give it on their own account ; and, under the rose,
Elizabeth was very ready that they should do so. She was
even willing to lend them royal ships for these adventures,1
provided that there was no open war against Spain, and
that she got her full share of the profit. In this chaUenge
two stages may be recognised. The first was the stage of

ch. vm.] ENGLISH SEAMEN 309
honest trade, based on a denial of Spain's right to prevent
it, and backed by the employment of force when the right
of access was refused. This naturally and inevitably led
to a second stage of downright, if irregular, war, when the
Spaniard declined to abandon his pohcy of exclusion.
Though many men took part in these enterprises, and
achieved romantic deeds, these two stages are pre-eminently
summed up and represented by the work of two cousins,
both Devon men — John Hawkins and Francis Drake ; x
of whom the latter was to find, in this sphere, the chance
of proving himself a veritable hero of romance, the supreme
representative of the gaUantry and daring of the Eliza
bethan sea-dogs.
Hawkins was the son of the WiUiam Hawkins who had
ventured to Guinea in 1528, and it was to the trade between
Guinea and Spanish America that his mind naturally turned.
Thestaple of this trade was negro slaves, who were imported
to America to take the place of the rapidly decreasing
natives. Nobody of that age dreamed of objecting to this
horrible traffic on its own account. It had been recom
mended on humanitarian grounds by a very honest Spanish
ecclesiastic, the apostle of Spanish America, Las Casas.
But neither Spain nor Portugal wanted to see outsiders
meddling in it. On the other hand, the Spanish colonists
wanted more negroes than they could get, and were willing
to pay high prices for them ; and Hawkins denied the right
of Portugal to prevent him from getting negroes, or of
Spain to forbid him to seU them. In 1562 and 1564 he
made highly successful and profitable voyages, in the second
of which Queen Elizabeth was a partner. He did not
hesitate to use force when Spanish officials tried to prevent
him from carrying on his trade : sometimes a show of force
was alone needed, for the Spaniards were eager to buy. But
the ease with which he overcame serious opposition when
it was offered showed that, with sufficient daring, the
Spanish empire could be readily assaulted. Hawkins
prided himself upon always doing an honest deal when he
came to trade : he used violence only to open his markets.
In 1567-8 he undertook his third and biggest venture. This
time the" queen lent him two ships ; and Francis Drake
went with him in command of one of his smaUer vessels.
After a prosperous voyage he was compeUed to put into
San Juan de UUua, on the Mexican coast, for repairs. The
* There is a brilliant short hfe of Drake, by Sir Julian Corbett, in the
Enghsh Men of Action Series.

310 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
Spanish treasure fleet was there, but Hawkins did not
touch it, true to his r61e of peaceful, trader. A Spanish
war fleet came to the harbour : Hawkins could certainly
have barred its passage, but he preferred to bargain that
he should be aUowed to finish his repairs and go home.
Suddenly the Spanish admiral, breaking his pledge, attacked
the unprepared Enghsh in the confined waters of the
harbour, where they could not use their customary
manoeuvres. One of the queen's ships, and nearly aU the
profits of the voyage, had to be abandoned ; and Hawkins
and Drake reached England with only two smaU vessels
in a battered condition.
This was the end of the attempt at peaceful trading in
Spanish America : the sort of end that was bound to come.
The news was received with fury in England. It gave to
Elizabeth one of her pretexts for seizing the Spanish treasure-'
ships in Southampton. But, above aU, it made Francis
Drake resolve to wage war on his own account, without
disguise and without hesitation, against the Spanish
dominion in America. And this thickset young man with
the steel-blue eyes proved himself a terrible foe. He had
plied the seas since his boyhood. He had traded to the
Netherlands, and conceived a hatred of Spain's methods
there ; to Spain itself, and seen English victims of the
Inquisition. Now and henceforward he had no other aim
in life but war with Spain ; and war with Spain he waged
unrelentingly, tUl the day when, in 1596, he was buried off
Porto BeUo, in the seas where his name had for so long been
a terror. El Draque means in Spanish ' the Dragon ' ; and
a dragon indeed he was for more than twenty years to Spain.
For generations after his death Spanish children were
frightened to sleep by threats of El Draque.
We cannot here tell aU the story of his incredible deeds.
No enterprise was too daring for him : he would attack a
fortress with a handful of tarry saUors, or cut out a great
ship twice the size of his own from under the very guns of
forts, or venture in a mere cockleshell of a ship into seas
unknown and fuU of enemies. Yet there was always
method in his madness, and a sort of wUd humorous in
genuity in the devices he adopted. One rule he made for
himself, which distinguished him from most of his fierce
contemporaries . He never took the lives of non-combatants.
Of his many voyages and adventures three alone can
be recorded. In 1572 (after two previous voyages about
which we know very little) he set out with two ships, one of

ch. vm.] ENGLISH SEAMEN 311
seventy tons, the other of twenty-five, and a crew of seventy-
three all told, to attack the Spanish American empire at its
heart. For a moment he captured and seized the town of
Nombre de Dios,1 where the Spanish treasures coming across
the Isthmus of Panama were shipped for Europe, but had
to retire before he could seize the stacks of silver bars which
he found there. He attacked the fortified port of Carta
gena, and carried out in triumph to the sea a big ship which
was loading at the quay. He landed on the istbmus, all
unknown, and, with the aid of some wUd half-breeds with
whom he made friends, stopped the great train of mules
carrying the annual produce of the Peruvian mines across
to Nombre de Dios, and loaded the best of it on his ship.
He stopped and searched over two hundred vessels in the
Caribbean Sea, relieving them of their treasure ; and aU
the time never hurt a woman or an unarmed man. Then
homewards, loaded to the scuppers with his spoil. As he
passed Cartagena he saw all the great treasure-ships
crowded together for safety. With characteristic bravado
he stood close in, and ran past them with the flag of St.
George at the masthead and aU his pennons streaming.
He reached England again in August 1573.
During this voyage he had seen, frorii the isthmus, the
waters of the Pacific, hitherto the sole preserve of Spain.
To dare these inviolate waters was the next project of his
glorious insolence ; though the only known approach was
through the dangerous Straits of MageUan, past which he must
count on no help, and no place of refuge. After a spell of
service in Irish waters, he managed to form a company to
supply him with a little fleet ; and plenty of volunteers of
spirit were eager to join him. In the background was the
queen, whom he had secretly interviewed : Phihp 11. was
threatening, and she was glad to find a means of annoying
him. In December 1577 Drake saUed from Plymouth
with the Pelican of 100 tons, the Elizabeth of 80 tons, the
Marygold of 30 tons, aU weU gunned, together with the
provision ship Swan of 50 tons, and a pinnace caUed the
Christopher. Even with this force it was a bold endeavour to force
a way into the Pacific. But the squadron was soon to be
reduced to very modest dimensions. The Swan was broken
up for firewood and the Christopher abandoned before he
had reached the straits. Then, after that tortuous and
dangerous passage had been safely negotiated, a violent
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 53.

312 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
storm scattered the remaining ships. The Marygold foun
dered. The Elizabeth's captain gave up heart and saUed
home again. Drake was left alone with the Pelican, now
rechristened the Golden Hind, a vessel of ioo tons, alone
on the far side of the world. Who could have blamed
him if he had abandoned his enterprise ? Instead he
sailed boldly up the coast of Chile ; seized Valparaiso and
revictuaUed there, capturing a useful pUot ; landed at
one point after another to capture trains of treasure ;
entered the very harbour of CaUao, where the Peruvian
treasure was shipped for the isthmus, and, finding that a
rich load had just been sent off, pursued and captured the
ship that carried it, and took from it thirteen chests of
pieces of eight, 80 lbs. weight of gold, and untold jewels :
the silver previously captured had to be used as baUast.
With such a burthen it was worth going home. But the
Spaniards would be waiting on the route by which he had
come. He resolved to return by the north-west passage,
and settle that problem once for aU. But he saUed north
and north till he reached the. latitude of Vancouver, without
discovering any passage ; and, giving up this plan, he landed
in California, near San Francisco (he caUed the land New
Albion) to make ready for a voyage homeward by the Cape
of Good Hope. " It was a tremendous venture, only less
marvellous than MageUan's earlier circumnavigation. But
it was successfully accomplished, though with much weari
ness and peril. The Golden Hind, with its priceless cargo,
laboured into Plymouth in the autumn of 1580. The secrets
of the great Spanish empire were England's ; the inner
most penetraha of her power had been invaded and explored,
and she had been able to do nothing to protect them. In
Drake's absence the party which favoured peace with
Spain had been his enemies ; his troubles with some of
his gentlemen volunteers, which we have not been able to
touch upon, had been fomented by their agents in his ships.
But the treasure which he sent in loaded caravans to London,
and the exultation which his amazing exploits aroused in
aU Englishmen, overcame aU that. Elizabeth herself went
down to the Golden Hind, and knighted the ' master thief
of the unknown world.'
So good a sword as that of Drake could not be left to
rust. In 1585, when the long simmering conflict between
Spain and England broke into open war, when PhUip was
beginning to plan his Armada, when the English troops
were being sent to the aid of the revolting Netherlanders,

ch. vm.] ENGLISH SEAMEN 313
Drake was caUed upon to go once more to the West Indies,
this time no longer to wage private war, but with a royal
commission, and in command of a national enterprise. He
was given a fleet of two ships of the line and eighteen
cruisers, with attendant vessels, and a force of 2300 soldiers
and saUors. With these he saUed first to Vigo in Spain
itself, as if to give contemptuous warning of his intentions ;
then to the Cape Verde Islands, whose chief town, Santiago,
was sacked and burnt ; and then straight for the West
Indies. No plundering raid was this, but an act of war.
The strong waUed city of San Domingo, the capital of the
Spanish American dominions, and the rich town of Carta
gena, capital of the ' Spanish Main,' were in turn stormed,
plundered, and held to ransom, while aU the ships which
had crowded for refuge to their harbours were burnt. Sick
ness among his crews prevented Drake from crowning the
enterprise by the capture of Panama. But on his way
home he destroyed a Spanish settlement on the coast of
Florida, relieved Raleigh's exhausted colony of Virginia, -
and only missed the annual treasure fleet by twelve hours.
Not by accident, but in the most open way, and as it were
after due notice, the strongholds of the Spanish empire had
been destroyed, and the weakness of the colossus revealed.
The blow to Philip's prestige was immense. The limitless
possibUities of the new naval warfare were revealed. One
is tempted to wonder why men did not see that the Great
Armada was already defeated in advance.
Drake does not stand alone among the sea-dogs of Eliza
beth, though he stands supreme. But the thrilling exploits
of his feUows cannot be narrated here, even in the baldest
way. Their record, a record worthy of them, is to be
found in Hakluyt's Voyages, that epic of English sailor-
men.1 But one aspect of their work, not yet touched upon,
deserves to be noted. Some of them were bent not only
upon commerce, or upon hampering Spain, but upon found
ing new Englands in the vast lands across the Atlantic.
Here, said Sir Humphrey GUbert, in a book pubhshed in
1576, should be found a home for needy Englishmen ; and
in 1578 he obtained a charter ' to inhabit and possess at
his choice all remote and heathen lands not in the actual
possession of any Christian prince.' In 1583 GUbert set
1 An excellent selection from Hakluyt is pubhshed by the Clarendon
Press; edited by E. J. Payne under the title, Voyages of Elizabethan
Seamen. There is another selection by C. R. Beazley. Kingsley's West
ward Ho / captures something of the spirit of the time.

314 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
forth with five ships to plant a colony in Newfoundland,
which the Enghsh had claimed since Cabot's discovery in
1497. He started a settlement at St. John's, the first
English colony ; but he was drowned in a storm on his
return, and could not nurture his infant settlement into
strength. Gilbert's half-brother was Sir Walter Raleigh,
who took up his projects. In 1584 he sent an expedition
to find a suitable site for a colony north of Florida, and
nexjLyear Sir Richard GrenviUe was sent with seven ships
to plant a settlement at Roanoke, in the smiling land which
was christened Virginia, in honour of the virgin queen. But
the colony got into difficulties, and the colonists had to be
brought home by Drake (1586). In 1587 Raleigh sent out
150 settlers to renew the experiment ; but by 1590 they
were all scattered. These were the first English attempts
at colonisation, the first driblets of that vast stream of
migrants who have flowed from the islands in so many
directions. Colonisation was not the forte of the Eliza
bethans ; the men who achieved such marvels in adven
ture and in war were not the men to face the duUer labours
of settlement. Their task was to break down the barriers
and prepare the way ; to throw open the pathways of the
seas for the coming and going of the islanders, and of aU
the world. § 4. The Spanish Armada.
Before that task was finished the final challenge of
Spain had to be met ; and for that Philip was now labori
ously preparing. His best sea-captain, the Marquis of
Santa Cruz, was working out the plan of the great operation
while Drake was sacking the Spanish cities in the West.
He proposed to concentrate in the Channel the whole naval ,
might of Spain, and to disembark from a fleet of over
500 sail an army of over 50,000 with a hundred guns.
Though the plans were later changed, the size of the fleet
was much reduced, and the task of organising the invasion
was transferred to the Duke of Parma, in the main the
conception of the great expedition remained ; a fleet big
enough to crush all opposition was to hold the Channel,
and transport to England an army beyond the power of
English forces to resist. Preparations began at once.
The expedition was fixed for the summer of 1587 ; vast
stores were already being accumulated ; and ships were
under orders to rendezvous at Lisbon and Cadiz from aU
quarters.

ch. vin.] THE SPANISH ARMADA 315
AU through the spring of 1587 the ships were gathering
and the dockyard men were busy in the harbours of Cadiz
and Lisbon. But they were not aUowed to finish their
task in peace. On 29th April a squadron of six-and- ,
twenty English ships appeared off Cadiz harbour ; and
the admiral in command was the terrible Draque. The
harbour was fuU of transports and storeships ; and there
were ten galleys too, and gaUeys were held to be irresistible
in confined and calm waters. But Drake, boldly sailing
into the harbour, turned the gaUeys into mere sinking
shambles by weU-directed volleys, and then proceeded to
plunder and burn aU the other vessels, including eighteen
half -fitted great-ships. That done he withdrew, having
very effectually, in his own characteristic phrase, ' singed
the King of Spain's beard.' In the open seas he captured
and destroyed some twenty-four vessels, many of them
bringing supplies for the Armada. He hung about off
the Portuguese coast tiU June, but no squadron of the main
Armada in Lisbon was ready to come out for him. Before
he returned to England he captured the great East India-
man, San Felipe, the biggest ship afloat, with a cargo of
gold and gems, sUk and spices, worth something like a million
of our money : the richest prize ever yet seen in England.
WeU might the Spaniards dread El Draque, and the English
feel confident in the coming fight, which this daring raid
postponed for a whole year.
Ere the great fleet was ready again it had lost its able
and brave captain, Santa Cruz ; and, as if the fates were
luring him to his ruin, PhUip n. insisted upon filling his
place with a man wholly ignorant of the sea, and lacking
in aU gifts of leadership — the Duke of Medina Sidonia,
whose only claim was that he was one of the greatest of
Spanish nobles. Incapable of vigour, Medina Sidonia
delayed the sailing of the great fleet from February to May,
1588 ; even when it sailed, it was scattered by a storm, and
forced to refit in Spanish harbours, and it was the 19th of
July before it sighted Enghsh land.
It was a very great and splendid fleet which came crowd
ing up the Channel ; a fleet of 130 vessels, of which 77
were fighting galleons, seven of them being over 1000
tons, and the average over 550 tons ; there were also four
great galleasses and four gaUeys, propelled in part by oars,
and 45 storeships and lesser craft. They carried among
them 2400 guns, 19,000 soldiers, and 8000 sailors. The
ships looked larger than their tonnage, for the Spaniards

316 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
built their ships high out of the water, making real ' castles '
of the forecastle and the poop. But they were but slightly
provided with ammunition, since they counted on engaging
their enemy at close quarters ; and most of their burthen
of men, being soldiers, were of no use unless they could
be employed in this kind of fighting. In the Netherlands
were waiting 30,000 veterans under the Duke of Parma, v
the greatest captain of the age ; and the business of the
great Armada was simply to hold the narrow seas till
these should be ferried over — a great flotilla of smaU boats
being ready to transport them.
MeanwhUe, during the spring, England, in a fever of
alarm, was making preparations. Trained bands of the 'J
militia and volunteer levies were being driUed : but they '
could have done nothing against Parma's veterans, once
these were landed. The safety of England depended
whoUy upon her ships. The queen's navy counted 34
vessels, three or four of them of as great tonnage as the
biggest of the Spaniards, though less loftily built. Some
of them bore names which tradition has continued in each
age of the navy : the Victory, the Dreadnought, the Van
guard, the Revenge, the Triumph, the Swiftsure. These
were the backbone of the fleet ; but they were supported
by a large number of merchant-ships, and craft of the type
that had done pirate work in the Channel and in the West
Indies. The whole fleet numbered 197 vessels. But
the majority of them were tiny craft, many of them of
little or no fighting value. Even the queen's ships averaged
under 400 tons, and the rest averaged something hke
125 tons. Their crews numbered 15,000 men against the )
27,000 Spaniards, but the proportion of trained saUors
was very much higher. Moreover the English ships
were in proportion far more heavily gunned, and knew far
better how to use their guns ; also they carried greater
stores of ammunition, though not nearly enough.
In the eyes of the world the superiority lay whoUy upon
the Spanish side ; but the real superiority for naval fight
ing was on the English side, especiaUy after the hard train
ing of the last generation. The defeat of the Armada was
no miracle ; it was the natural result of what had gone
before. ' The Enghshmen,' shrewdly noted the Venetian
ambassador at Madrid, ' are of a different quality from the
Spaniards, bearing a name above all the West for being
expert and enterprising in aU maritime matters, and the
finest fighters upon the sea.' The supreme command of

ch. vm.] THE SPANISH ARMADA 317
the Enghsh fleet had been given to Lord Howard of Effing
ham, a cousin of the queen. But though- a man of family,
chosen for that reason, Howard, unlike Medina Sidonia,
knew something of the sea, and was not afraid to take
responsibihties. And he had the help of the most daring
and practised seamen of the age. Drake was second in
command ; and with him at the admiral's council sat
Hawkins and Frobisher.
The bulk of the English fleet had gathered at Plymouth
by May, some forty ships being left in the Straits of Dover
to watch the Flanders coast. Drake was eager to sail
for Spain and attack the Spaniards in their own waters,
and Howard supported him. There can be no doubt that
this was the right course. But the misgivings of the govern
ment, and still more the shortness of supplies (which were
provided only for a month at a time), rendered this diffi
cult. They did indeed make a dash for Corunna on July 8 ;
if they had been a few days earher they would have caught
the Spanish fleet refitting in the harbours of the north
Spanish coast. But the wind changed, and they had to
run back to Plymouth. Here they lay, penned into harbour
by the southerly wind which had brought the Spaniards
across the Bay of Biscay, when the Armada suddenly appeared
off Plymouth on July 19. It had the English at a dis
advantage, but its commander did not know how to use the
chance as Drake would have used it. The English fleet was
left undisturbed, while it warped out of harbour during the
night, tacked against the wind, and came up on the weather
side of the enemy. Now began (July 20) a long running
fight up the Channel, which lasted through a whole week,
until on the 26th the Armada anchored off Calais. The
Enghsh dared not close with the enemy, since that would
give the Spaniards the chance they wanted. They could
only harass them, ' pluck their feathers,' rattle their nerves.
A good deal of damage was done ; but no vital injury had
been inflicted, and the enemy had reached his destination,
the straits of Dover, and would soon be in communication
with Parma.
Now came the critical fighting in the actual straits. The
English fleet was now at fuU strength, having been joined
by the Dover contingent. On the night of the 28th the
Enghsh sent eight fireships drifting with wind and tide into
the midst of the Spanish fleet. The Spaniards had to slip
their cables, and move off in disorder. Then came, off
Gravelines, the one great general action of the campaign.

318 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
The Spaniards (by their own bad seamanship) fought at
a disadvantage ; their fleet was in disarray ; the wind
threatened to blow them upon the sandbanks. For eight
hours there was hard, pell-mell fighting ; and the expendi
ture of shot and sheU on the English side so far passed all
experience that ammunition was running short before the
end of the fight. The Armada was far from being destroyed
in this hard fight. But four ships were sunk, and others
taken or driven ashore useless. And in the end the pres
sure of the English from the windward side compeUed
Medina Sidonia, as the only way of escaping the shoals,
to break away to the north. The English feared his return,
and pursued him far up the North Sea. But return was
out of the question. The great ships were badly cut about,
many of them leaking. Their supplies of ammunition
were nearly exhausted, for they had never anticipated
fighting of this sort. And to crown all, violent gales sprung
up, before which they could do nothing but run, in dis
order : the only possibility was to flee back to Spain
north about round Scotland and Ireland.
Legend has attributed the defeat of the Armada to the
intervention of Heaven : ' Flavit Deus et dissipati sunt.' But
the great Armada was already defeated before the gales
arose. It was defeated by the superior seamanship and
gunnery which the English had learnt in a generation of
adventure, and which prevented the Spaniards from ever
getting to close quarters, or making use of the 19,000
soldiers and the multitude of smaU guns which they
had prepared for that sort of battle. The stormy
waters of the North Sea and the Atlantic completed the
ruin. Nineteen ships were wrecked off the coasts of Scot
land and Ireland ; thirty-five more disappeared imaccounted
for, some of them wrecked in a storm in the Bay, almost
within sight of home. It was only a battered fragment
of the great fleet that returned to Spain. On the English
side not a ship was lost ; and such loss of life as there was
was mainly due to sickness.
The tragic ruin of the Armada, and above all the shameful
futility of its achievements, meant the downfaU of Spanish
prestige on the sea. The colossus that bestrode the world
had fallen in fragments. No longer could Spain maintain
a monopoly which she was manifestly unable to defend1.
AU the roads of the sea lay open to the adventurous : not
only to the English, but to the peoples of all nations ;
the unpeopled regions of the New World were free for them

ch. viii.] THE SPANISH ARMADA 319
to settle, the rich trade of the tropics and the golden East
awaited their exploitation.
But neither England nor the world yet saw how great
were the results of the victory. England still feared in
vasion from the Netherlands, stUl kept her trained bands
drilling. Phihp n. himself had not given up hope, but
laboured to recreate his broken naval power ; and the war
dragged on during the whole remainder of Elizabeth's
reign, and, indeed, in form until 1604. Drake was for
pushing home the victory by a bold attempt to conquer
Spanish America, for which he proposed to raise a huge
force in conjunction with the Dutch. But these counsels
were too bold for the government, which limited its efforts
to a variety of raiding enterprises after the old pattern,
and to a rather ineffective expedition in 1589, whose aim
was to stimulate revolt in Portugal. Even the Spanish
ports were long left at peace, so that Philip was able to
buUd a new fighting navy ; and when Howard in 1591 led
an expedition against the Azores, he had to retreat before
a superior force. This was the occasion on which the
'magnificent barbarian,' Sir Richard Grenville, flatly de
clined to retreat, and in the Revenge fought fifteen Spanish
men-of-war for fifteen hours, refusing to surrender.1 The
Revenge was the only English warship taken by the enemy
in Elizabeth's reign, but the glorious spirit of its resistance
was worth a thousand ships.
Many glorious deeds of war were done during the years
which foUowed the Armada fight, but they did not seriously
affect the issue. In 1595 Drake got his way, and he and
Hawkins led a considerable expedition against the West
Indies. But it led to no important results save the sacking
of a few towns ; and only deserves to be remembered
because the two old sea-dogs both died of sickness during
its course, and were buried in the waters which had rung
with their names for so many years. That may be regarded
as the close of the wonderful period of patriotic piracy. The
kind of foray which had been so valuable in the days when
Spain overshadowed the world was now out of date. The
time had come for new and more prosaic methods — methods
of construction, not of destruction. The work of the sea-
dogs was done.
Though the war lingered on in name, its last great opera
tion was the attack upon Cadiz, led by the Earl of Essex
in 1596. It was not weU managed. But in spite of that
1 This is the episode described in Tennyson's ballad of The Revenge.

320 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk; hi.
the city was seized and burnt, together with most of the
shipping in its harbour ; and this ignominious handling
of the greatest Spanish port, to which the argosies of the
Indies had annually brought their treasures, showed that
the Spanish dominion of the world was a vanished night
mare. Before his death in 1598 Philip 11. admitted, , in
instructions to his son, that sooner or later the English
must be admitted to the traffic of the New World, for
which they had fought so hard. The Freedom of the Seas
was won ; it remained for the next generation to use it.
[Corbett's Drake and the Tudor Navy ; Froude's English Seamen
of the Sixteenth Century ; Hale's Story of the Great A rmada ; Stebbing's
Life of Raleigh ; Payne's or Beazley's selections from Elizabethan
voyages.]

CHAPTER IX
THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND
§ i. The Problem of Ireland.
The sixteenth century was for England a period of glorious
achievement, and for Scotland a period of national rebirth ;
but for Ireland it was a period of tragic miseries. The
islands were in this age brought nearer to the unity which
was to enable them to face a new era with confidence ; but
whUe the union of England and Wales was brought about
peacefully and by constitutional means, and while between
England and Scotland ancient enmity was replaced by
friendship, leading towards union, the union of Ireland with
England was achieved by a cruel process of conquest. This
was due, as we shaU see, to the influence of the embitter-
ment produced by the Reformation and the struggle with
Spain. But it left behind it a rancour and a sense of in
justice which have contributed to poison the relations of
the two countries ever since, and to make Ireland, in all
succeeding times, the worst bewilderment and the most
shameful failure with which British statesmanship has
had to deal.
We have seen 1 that, unhappily for Ireland, the Norman
conquest of the island was never completed, and that
during the later Middle Ages the authority of the Enghsh
king almost wholly broke down, so that only an enclave
round Dublin, known as the Pale, observed English law ;
and this region alone was represented in the Irish Parlia
ment. We have also seen that Henry vn. and (during the
early part of his reign) Henry vin. had contented themselves
with trying to maintain their authority within the Pale,
and to prevent it from falling under the control of the
powerful Earls of KUdare, whose lands lay just outside.2
Even within the Pale there was much misery, because
law and order were ill maintained ; hke the districts of
Scotland which lay on the borders of the wild Highlands,
the Pale was subject to frequent raids from the clans out-
1 See above, pp. 56, 122, 188.
2 For all that follows, see the map, Atlas, Plate 42 (a).
VOL. I. X

322 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iti.
side, and many landowners found it necessary to pay
' black rents ' to various chieftains, as an insurance agamst
being raided. Outside the Pale there was no law or order
at aU, except what individual chieftains were able to en
force within the limits of their clans. For the greater part
of Ireland was in much the same condition as the High
lands of Scotland in the same period — it was divided into
clans which in practice recognised no authority save that
of their own chiefs, acknowledged no law save their tribal
customs, and were unceasingly engaged in war with one
another, often of the most bloody and treacherous kind.
But there was this difference between Ireland and the
Scottish Highlands, that wlrile the Highland chieftains
were in a real degree subject to the King of Scotland, and
took part in Scotland's national hfe, the Irish clans in the
early sixteenth century, though they nominally recognised
the suzerainty of the Enghsh king as Lord of Ireland, were
in reality quite unaffected by it. Some even among the great
Norman barons, such as the Burkes (de Burghs) in Galway,
had in practice assimUated themselves to their surroundings
during the long centuries of anarchy, and, though originally
conquering rulers, were now to all intents and purposes
tribal chiefs. This wUd tribal Ireland carried on some
trade with the Continent as weU as with England. But
its contact with the outer world was very slight. It was,
in fact, in an earher stage of civilisation than the rest of
Western Europe. Moreover the Church, whose noble
work had been the glory of early Ireland, had faUen into
terrible disorganisation. From aU quarters this tale is
told — not only Enghshmen, whose testimony might be
suspected, but Spaniards wrecked from the Armada or
sent to take part in invasions, and Jesuit missionaries
despatched to rouse the Irish against heresy, unite in
saying that churches had faUen into rain, that cathedrals
were turned into fortresses, that bishops and abbots were
as turbulent as the tribal chiefs.
Among these warring tribes there was httle or no sense of
national feeling ; no loyalty wider than that of the clan.
In old days, before the Norman invasions, there had been
kings of all Ireland ; and though they were UI obeyed, they
might in time have brought order. But the Norman invasions
had swept them away, and replaced them by the nominal
authority of the Enghsh Crown. If Ireland was to enjoy
peace and the chance of growth in civilisation, it could
only be by the repression of tribal anarchy ; only so could

ch. ix.] THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 323
Ireland in any real sense become a nation. And the only
power which could possibly undertake this task, as things
were, was the Enghsh Crown. But if it was to be successful,
it would have to undertake the task sympatheticaUy ; it
would have to respect Irish laws and usages in so far as
they were not harmful ; it would have to rule Ireland in
Ireland's interests, not in its own. The Tudor sovereigns
undertook the task of taming the anarchy and reorganising
the country. UnhappUy the circumstances under which
they undertook the task, and the motives by which they
were almost necessarily influenced, were such as to forbid
the observance of these conditions.
In the eyes of the Enghsh, who enjoyed settled order and
a fair degree of prosperity, the native Irish seemed to be
in a state of mere barbarism, not very different from that
of the Red Indians. The Enghsh saw in Ireland a country
given over to miserable and unceasing feuds, murders and
treacheries ; a country of forests and wastes and marshes,
broken only by patches of the rudest cultivation ; a country
whose lower classes went about like savages, half naked,
and were scarcely able to provide themselves with roofs
to cover their heads ; and indeed the constant anarchy
had reduced large parts of Ireland to a condition that
seemed to justify this picture. Enghshmen did not realise
that, in spite of the misery of large parts of it, Ireland was
a land which had produced saints and poets and scholars,
and was stUl producing them; and that, once they had
escaped from the anarchy which caused their wretched
ness, the Irish people were as capable as any other people
in Europe of enjoying and enriching a fully civilised life.
To most Enghshmen who had dealings with this unhappy
country, it appeared that there was nothing in the life
and customs of the native Irish that was worth preserving ;
the only hope seemed to be that the Irish should be civi
lised by force, after the Enghsh pattern ; and when they
found that this process was resented and resisted, and that
Irish customs stiU persisted, many Englishmen gradually
drifted into the abominable view that the Irish were irre
claimable savages, who must be wiped out hke the savages
of the New World, and replaced by Enghshmen. They
came the more readily to this horrible opinion because in
actual fact Ireland constituted a terrible danger to England
during the crisis of the struggle with Spain.
Of aU the Irish customs those which the Enghsh least
understood were the clan system, and the system of land-

324 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
tenure upon which it rested ; for these systems were wholly
unlike anything that England had known since long before
the Norman Conquest. According to Irish usage the lands of
the clan were the property of the clan ; the chief (who was in
a vague way elected, though always from the same family)
was only the chief guardian of the clan's rights, and had
only a life-interest in the clan's lands. He was thus quite
unlike a great feudal landowner with his vassals and
tenantry ; though the English insisted upon treating him
as such. So far as they understood the Irish system,
the English thought it a thoroughly bad one, which could
never lead to a settled and systematic development of the
resources of the land ; and they held that the first step
towards better things must be to do away with the clan
system, and to turn the chiefs into landowners after the
Enghsh pattern. They were right in seeing the dangerous
features of the clan system on its political side, and in
wishing to bring all the clans under the reign of law. But to
uproot a people's ideas as to its rights in the soil was another
matter. In a purely agricultural and pastoral country such
as Ireland, land-rights are all-important ; and it is on the
question of the land, in one form or another, that aU the
long bitterness has mainly turned, from Henry vni.'s time
to our own.
§ 2. The First Attempts to Solve the Irish Problem.
It was Henry vni.'s breach with Rome which first made
the king turn his attention seriously to the necessity of
bringing Ireland into an orderly state. For he found that
Charles v. was tempted to stir up trouble among the Irish
chiefs, and that the Pope, who claimed that Ireland belonged
to the papal see, and had been conferred on Henry n. by
papal buU, was inclined to use these claims against a heretic
king. But there was, at this date, little or no papal enthu
siasm in Ireland. Henry's repudiation of the papal authority
was quite calmly accepted by most of the chieftains. Some
Jesuits, whom the Pope despatched in 1541 to stir up re
hgious feeling in Ireland, had to return disconsolate, with
nothing achieved.
In answer to the papal claim, Henry in 1541 assumed the
title of King of Ireland, under an Act of the Irish Par
liament — the earlier title had been only Lord of Ireland.
Before that date the powerful Fitzgeralds of Kildare, who
had long dominated the Pale, had broken into rebeUion :

ch. ix.] THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 325
Henry crashed the rising with vigour, and executed the
Earl of Kildare and his five uncles. This branch of the
Fitzgeralds henceforward gave little trouble. Henry then
sent across a commission of inquiry under Sir Anthony St.
Leger, to work out a scheme for the better government of
Ireland. The scheme was not without elements of states
manship. The chieftains of the clans nearest to the Pale
were to be given grants of their (or their clans') lands on
Enghsh tenure, subject to the condition that they should
do their best to make their tenants (or clansmen) speak
Enghsh, that they should give up levying blackmail and
maintaining armed bands of retainers, and that they should
recognise and use the English courts. On this basis a large
part of Leinster was reorganised, and brought under the
same system of government as the Pale. As for the more
distant and powerful chiefs, like the heads of the great
O'NeiU and O'Donnell clans in Ulster, or of the O'Briens in
Clare, they could not be so directly dealt with. But they
were persuaded when possible to hold their lands from the
Crown, and to attend Parhament. Some of them were
willing to faU in with these proposals, notably Con O'Neill
of Tyrone ; and on him and some other great chiefs Henry
conferred earldoms. Moreover the plunder of the Irish
monasteries was largely distributed among the chiefs, who
made little difficulty about accepting it, or about recog
nising Henry as head of the Church. The clan system was
being weakened. So far as it went, the work of Henry vin.
was successful, and the authority of the Crown in Ireland
stood higher than it had ever done before.
But the habits of tribal independence and of turbulence
were not to be so easily exorcised ; nor could the land
rights of the. clansmen, and their claim to choose their chiefs,
be calmly disregarded without serious trouble. Early in
the reign of Edward vi. there was a sudden rising of the
O'Conors and the O'Mores, who occupied an area corre
sponding to the modern King's County and Queen's County.
The rebeUion was sternly suppressed ; the country of these
clans was laid waste ; and it was decided to carry out an
entirely new settlement of the confiscated lands, in free
holds and leases after the Enghsh fashion. This was the
first attempt at what came to be known as a ' plantation,'
though as yet no distinction was made between English
and Irish occupiers. It was carried out by PhUip and
Mary, whose memory is preserved in the names of King's
County and Queen's County, with their capitals of Philips-

326 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
town and Maryborough. The plantation took root, but not
without much trouble. The grantees found that they had
to defend themselves against the old occupants ; all through
the rest of the century there was wild business in this
region, and great loss of life.
More serious was the trouble in Ulster, which resulted
from Henry vni.'s attempt to turn the head of the clan
O'Neill into a territorial magnate of the Enghsh pattern.
The clan denied the right of their chief to dispose of the
clan lands as a family estate. They denied the right of
the king to decide, by a patent, what should be the order
of succession to the chief dom. Moreover the eldest son
of the first Earl of Tyrone, who had been designated as his
heir in the patent, was iUegitimate. His younger but legiti
mate brother, Shane O'NeUl, had been a boy when the
patent was issued ; when he grew to manhood he had a
claim which brought aU the clansmen round him : he was
standing not only for his personal rights, but for the ancient
customs of the clan, and their rights over the clan lands.
Soon after Henry vni.'s death civil war broke out among
the O'Neills, and Shane, a man of immense vigour, and
capable of the most brutal cruelty, not only made himself
leader of the clan, but proceeded to assert his authority
over surrounding clans, once subject to the O'NeUls. We
cannot foUow the wUd story of his raids and wars, and
especially of his alternate aUiance and enmity with the
other great Ulster clan, the O'DonneUs of Donegal, and
with the Highland M'Donnells who had recently made a
settlement in Antrim. His power had reached a dangerous
height, and Ulster was aU aflame, when Ehzabeth came to
the throne. If the authority of the Crown was to mean
anything, Shane must be brought to obedience ; especiaUy
as he was known to be intriguing with the Spaniards. An
ineffective war raged at intervals from 1560 to 1567, when
Shane, defeated by the O'DonneUs, took refuge with the
M'Donnells in Antrim, and was by them hacked to pieces
in a drunken brawl. The English forces engaged in this strife
were never strong enough to reach a clear decision ; largely
because Elizabeth never had money enough to equip an
adequate army. For the time Ulster was quiet ; the O'Neills
and the O'DonneUs were exhausted, and there was an un
easy peace. But Ulster, the wildest and fiercest region
of Ireland, was by no means subdued.
Meanwhile yet graver trouble had broken out in the
south. It was a sign of the beginning of national oppo-

ch. ix.] THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 327
sition in Ireland that, though there was no active co
operation between these two risings, there was communi
cation between the leaders. The Ulster trouble arose from
a tribal revolt of a kind that was to be expected. But in
the Munster troubles a new and more perturbing element
appeared : the element of religion.
§ 3. Religious Conflict and the Munster Risings.
We have seen that in Henry vni.'s time no serious diffi
culty had been caused by the denial of papal supremacy,
and that the Pope's first attempt to raise the banner of
resistance, in 1541, had been a failure. But Henry vni.'s
changes had been political, not doctrinal ; they had in
volved practicaUy no change in the order of service, which
¦ was still said in Latin. The changes made under Edward
I vi. and Ehzabeth were quite another matter. The new
faith might have had a chance of winning acceptance in
Ireland if it had been introduced by persuasion, and in a
form inteUigible to the Irish ; for the Irish people are not
by nature lovers of authority, despite their long fidelity to
the most authoritarian of religions, and they had in the
past shown no great zeal for Rome. But the English
government made the incredible blunder of insisting not
only that the new order of service should be everywhere
introduced, but that it should be read in English, which
' was uninteUigible to nine out of ten Irishmen. The new
doctrines thus appeared as an unmeaning set of formulae,
forcibly imposed by a power which was already attacking
the time-honoured customs of the clans and the traditional
modes of holding land. Resistance to Protestantism naturally
) came to be identified with patriotism ; exactly the opposite
to what had happened in England and Scotland.
In 1560 Pope Pius iv., seeing that Ehzabeth (whatever
she might pretend) was in fact an open heretic, deter
mined to use Ireland as a stepping-stone for the recovery
of England. Thus Irish opposition came to be regarded
by Englishmen as imperiUing the very existence of English
freedom, at a time when it was threatened on aU hands.
The introduction into Irish politics of these new motives
produced an embitterment which could only lead to the
most horrible consequences.
The Pope's agents in this work were mainly Jesuit
missionaries, of whom a steady stream was poured into
Ireland from training-schools at Louvain, Douai and

328 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. in.
Salamanca throughout the whole of Ehzabeth's reign. The
first of these was a Limerick man, David Wolfe, who landed
at Cork in 1561. His instructions were not only to work
for the revival of the Catholic faith, but to form a league
of Irish chiefs for its defence. The first task came first,
for hitherto the Irish chiefs had shown a remarkable in
difference to the Catholic faith. But recent events had
prepared the soil for the sowers. It might have been
expected that Wolfe would have gone straight for Shane
O'Neill, then in open revolt. But he regarded Shane as a
' cruel and impious heretic ' ; he did not go near Ulster,
but at first devoted himself to Munster, where his and his
colleagues' preaching produced the beginnings of a real
religious revival, combined with and strengthened by a
passionate anti-English feehng. The more Jesuits came
to Ireland, the more this feehng grew, spreading from
Munster to the rest of Ireland, and conquering even the
Pale. The English did their best to catch the Jesuits,
but their hold over great parts of the country was so slight
that they had small success.
In Munster the two most formidable powers were the
great Anglo-Norman families of the Butlers, Earls of
Ormond (corresponding to Tipperary), and the Fitzgeralds
or Geraldines, Earls of Desmond (the greater part of County
Cork) . Of these the Butlers were always the most steadily
loyal to the English connexion. From 1560 a private war
had been raging (as often before) between these houses.
Elizabeth insisted that the question at issue must be decided
by government. The award of the Lord Deputy went in
favour of Ormond, and as Desmond showed signs of resist
ing, and was suspected of comphcity with Shane O'NeUl,
he was arrested (1567) and sent to London, with a charge
of treason hanging over his head. In 1568 Desmond agreed
to surrender his lands to the queen, of course on the assump
tion that he would receive them again and be aUowed to
return. But he was still detained, and some of the Devon
adventurers, with the instincts of the pirate, began to
besiege the queen with suggestions that the lands should
be granted to them, and undertook to conquer them by
their own resources. At the same time the Lord Deputy,
Sir Henry Sidney — the ablest of Elizabeth's representatives
in Ireland — was urgent that a President should be appointed
to administer Munster, and to enforce Enghsh law through
out its limits. Undoubtedly there was need for the enforce
ment of law ; but the suggestion that it should be associated

CH. ix.] THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 329
with a forcible occupation of land gave it a different colour,
especiaUy when some of the Devon adventurers, having
purchased obsolete titles, appeared with bodies of retainers
to make their claims good by force.
Under these circumstances a formidable revolt broke out
in Munster in 1560^ spreading from Kerry to Kilkenny.
Its leader was James Fitzmaurice, a cousin of the Earl of
Desmond, in whose absence he was able to wield all the
influence of the Geraldines. He was one of the earliest and
most devoted adherents of Wolfe. He was in connexion
with Spain and hoped for Spanish aid. He was inspired
at once by rehgious zeal and by hatred of England. Half
the rest of Ireland was uneasy and ready for revolt ; even
in the Pale there was widespread discontent. The queen
could spare no sufficient supplies of money, and only a
force of some two thousand English troops was avaUable. It
seemed a fight of life and death for England ; and under
these circumstances the struggle, which lasted for four
dreary and hideous years, assumed a character of ferocity
on both sides uglier than was to be found in any of the
other wars of that fierce age. No quarter was given. It
was a war of extermination on both sides. The country was
laid waste. The English garrisons, often unpaid, had to
live by plunder. They hated the work they had to do,
they hated the miserable people they had to pursue, and
they were repaid by a hatred as intense. In the end (1573)
Fitzmaurice had to be pardoned, Desmond had to be
aUowed to return, and the attempt to enforce English law
had to be abandoned. Large parts of Munster had been
desolated, but nothing else had been achieved. Certainly
the Catholic and anti-English movement had not been
crushed : the English officers reported that a foreign in
vasion would inevitably be foUowed by a general insur
rection. In face of such a situation it was obvious that if the
English power was to be maintained, and' Ireland was
not to become a base for the overthrow of English freedom,
some stronger measures must be taken. Lord Deputy
Sidney got his way at last, and English presidents, supported
by smaU forces, were appointed to govern Munster and
Connaught. The value of the new officers was shown in
1577. when a revolt of the Burkes of Connaught was promptly
and mercUessly crushed : ' I marched into their country,'
the president reported, ' with determination to consume
them with fife and sword, sparing neither old nor young.'

330 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. ill.
But this was not a happy mode of recommending Enghsh
law and justice ; and it was an ominous thing that Con
naught, hitherto relatively undisturbed, should also be in
revolt. Moreover in Ulster the situation was far from re
assuring : the O'Neills and the O'DonneUs were making
friends, and were not to be trusted ; the Earl of Essex,
Governor of Ulster, had raised a hornets' nest by trying
to make an English colony in Antrim, and only main
tained a semblance of English authority with difficulty. ^
In 1579 the danger that might result from a foreign invasion
was put to the test. James Fitzmaurice had gone abroad
in 1575, to seek for aid in every quarter. He returned in
June 1579, at the head of a motley force of Spaniards,
Italiaris7~Portuguese, Irish and English, and landed with
them in Kerry : they had the Pope's blessing, and the
unofficial backing of Phihp 11., who promised to send rein
forcements later. Soon the Earl of Desmond rose in revolt.
The presidents of Connaught and Munster at first prevented
the revolt from spreading, and during the winter, with
Ormond's help, inflicted the most awful vengeance upon
the rebellious districts, ' consuming with fire all habitations,'
says the English commander, ' and executing the people
wherever we found them.' The small foreign force was
captured and put to the sword. Desmond was almost
overwhelmed, when (Aug. 1580) a revolt broke out among
the Irish of the Pale, under Lord Baltinglas, who succeeded
in inflicting a severe defeat upon the new Lord Deputy
himself. Almost at this moment a small Spanish force,
eluding the Enghsh ships in the Channel, reached Kerry
and entrenched themselves at Smerwick. They could do
nothing, because the countryiri^ffont of;them was a desert.
But for a moment it looked as if trie English power would
collapse. Vigorous action, and fighting yet more pitiless
than that which had gone before, removed the danger.
The Spaniards, beset by sea and land, were forced to sur
render at discretion, and all.pui. to the sword. The leaders
of the risings were one by one taken and executed. The
war lingered on for another two years, filled rather with
the hunting down of the unhappy rebels than with actual
fighting. By 1584 peace was restored : ' they made a
desert, and caUecTit peace.' In 1582 it was estimated that
thirty thousand souls had perished in six months, mainly
of starvation.
One advantage of this wholesale destruction, from the
English point of view, was that it left the field clear for an

ch. ix.] THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 331
Enghsh colony on some of the most fertile soil in Ireland.
Grants of land were made to various ' undertakers,' on
condition that they brought in English tenants of various
grades and settled them on the land, and that they did not
alienate their land to Irishmen. Some of the most dis-
itinguished men of the age took up grants, Sir Walter
I Raleigh and Edmund Spenser among them. But few of
the gentry took the business seriously. Those who did
found httle solace for their exile among a ' savage nation,'
as Spenser caUed the Irish in his State of Ireland. Ere
long the dispossessed Irish or their children were drifting
back, and in due time Munster was as Irish as it had ever
been, though the old land system and the old clan rule had
gone. Order, at any rate, was more or less established in
this region : there were few left to disturb it.
§ 4. The Irish National Rising under Tyrone.
For more than ten years after the second Munster rising
Ireland enjoyed an interval of broken peace. No doubt the
destruction of the Armada, which for the time removed all
hope of help from Spain, partly accounted for this ; though
the firm and stern rule of Sir John Perrot did much. But
after the wreck of his hopes at sea in 1588, PhUip 11. trusted
more to Ireland than to any other factor in his struggle against
England. His emissaries, aided by the Jesuit missionaries,
were constantly at work. In the 'nineties he began to
have hopes from Ulster. Here the old feud which had
divided the O'NeUls of Tyrone had been brought to an end.
Hugh O'NeUl, grandson and heir of the chief upon whom
Henry vin. had conferred the title of Earl of Tyrone, had
been brought over by the English and supported by them
in Armagh, as a check upon Shane O'Neill's successor in
the chiefship, Turlough. Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, played
the part of a loyal friend to England for many long years,
and actuaUy helped to put down the Munster rebeUion.
But he made friends with his rival Turlough, was accepted
as his ' Tanist,' or successor-designate, and in 1593 suc
ceeded to the chiefship of the whole O'Neill tribe. He also
struck up a close friendship with Hugh Roe O'DonneU, who
in 1591 had become chief of the O'DonneU clan, the ancient
rivaTof the O'NeUls ; and Hugh Roe was an eager Catholic
and anti-English man. Perhaps it was Hugh Roe's in
fluence which determined Tyrone to break with the Enghsh,
perhaps the fear that the Enghsh would repeat in Ulster

332 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. Hi.
the plantation scheme they had carried out in Munster—
a fear not without justification ; anyway the two great
chiefs of the north got into secret relations with Philip n. ;
and meanwhile were actively extending their influence over
the neighbouring clans. In 1595 they broke the peace,
Tyrone ravaging Louth while O'DonneU invaded Connaught.
A peace was made in 1596, but there was a new outbreak
in 1597, ended by a truce which expired in 1598.
InAugust 1598, renewing the war, Tyrone inflicted on
the English, at the Yellow Ford, the worst defeat they had
yet endured in Ireland. ~ At the same time a rising broke
out in Connaught ; the O'Mores and O'Conors rose to
redress their ancient grievances in Leinster ; and a force
led by Tyrone into Munster drove the settlers in the new
plantation to take refuge in the towns. For the first
time the English had to deal with an almost universal
national revolt. On all hands and in all the provinces,
chiefs who had accepted the English system were replaced
by rivals. If Philip 11. could at this moment have landed
a substantial force in Ireland, the country might have been
lost to England. But no Spanish army appeared.
To deal with this grave menace Ehzabeth sent her domi
neering young favourite, the Earl of Essex, with the highest
powers yet entrusted to a viceroy, anoTat the head of the
biggest English army yet seen in Ireland — 16,000 foot
and 1300 horse. Essex, who may have been playing
sorne deep game of his own, did nothing effectual, and
offered to Tyrone, who was glad to accept them, terms
so favourable that they were repudiated by the govern
ment. The favourite lost for ever the friendship of the
queen (1599) : two years later he was executed for an
attempt to raise a rebeUion in England.
The war was renewed in 1600, and again flamed out in aU
parts of the country. But by hard fighting Essex's successor,
Lord Mountjoy, had by 1601 broken the back of the rebeUion,
when the news came that a large force of Spaniards, 5000
troops with siege-guns, had been landed at Kinsale by
a fleet of thirty-three ships. The long expected Spanish
aid had come ; but it had come too late. Though the
revolt flickered up again, and Tyrone and 0 DonneU
marched to Munster to join forces with the invaders, it was
no longer possible to restore the situation. The Spaniards
were blockaded from the sea by an Enghsh squadron,
which successfuUy beat off a Spanish fleet sent to their .
rehef ; on land they were beset by Mountjoy, whom Tyrone '

ch. ix.] THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 333
attacked with results disastrous to himself, losing 2000 men,
whUe the English lost only one man. In January 1603,
the Spaniards capitulated ; and although the war hngered
on for another year, from that moment the complete
faUure of the last and most serious attempt to prevent
the Enghsh conquest of Ireland was assured. Tyrone sub
mitted just after Ehzabeth died. The great queen's reign
had begun with the coming of the Jesuit missionaries to
an indifferent, turbulent, tribal Ireland. It ended with
Ireland Cathohc but conquered ; its tribal system over
thrown, and large areas of its land in the hands) of English
settlers. To Elizabeth's successor was left the problem
of settlement.
The story which has been outlined in this chapter is
one of the most forbidding and depressing episodes in the
whole of our long history. It left manifold seeds of iU,
from which the whole British Commonwealth stiU suffers.
It taught, or ought to have taught, the lesson that mere
brute force is never by itself a remedy, and that the attempt
to destroy the character and institutions of a people brings
its own punishment, even after many days.
Yet in justice to the men of this great age, who worked
such blended good and UI, let it be remembered that the
enforcement of order in Ireland by the curbing of tribal
anarchy was in itself not only a legitimate aim, but a duty
imposed upon the Enghsh by the force of events. It was
done in the wrong way, without sympathy or understand
ing, and without that firmness and strength which are
necessary when such work has to be done. For the lack of
strength the poverty rather than the parsimony of Elizabeth
was mainly to blame : in view of the state of England during
the early years of her reign she dared not impose heavy taxa
tion, and the subjugation of Ireland was a costly business
— in the last four years of her reign Ireland cost 30 per cent.
more than the total revenues of these years. For the lack
of sympathy and understanding the blame is deeper. But
it is part of the explanation, if it is no excuse, for the
barbarity with which the conquest was effected, that all
the acrimony of religious difference was enlisted on both
sides ; J:iiat the age was one of ferocity in war ; and that
the Enghshmen who fought in Munster and in Ulster,
mere handfuls of men, ill-supported and often ill-led,
felt that they were fighting not merely for dominion, but
also and mainly for the very existence of their own country,
which was threatened by the looming terror of an attack

334 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
from the mighty power of Spain, and which could be most
dangerously struck at through Ireland. The fighting in
Ireland may perhaps have meant the freedom of England,
and of aU that English freedom has meant for the world :
but it left a legacy of evU memories and of smouldering
hates.
[Richey, Short History of the Irish People ; Bagwell, Ireland under
the Tudors (3 vols.) ; R. Dunlop's chapter in the Cambridge Modern
History, vol. iii.]

CHAPTER X
THE AGE OF ELIZABETH
(a.d. 1558-1603)
§ 1. Literary Activity.
The supreme glory of the Elizabethan age is its poetic
literature ; and great as were the services of the statesmen
and the saUors of this age to the buUding of the future
Commonwealth, the services of the poets were not less.
For they built the first great chamber in that treasure-house
of imagination and thought which is the noblest heritage
of the peoples of the islands, and of their descendants, and
of aU who share with them the traditions of the Common
wealth. It is not the least of the ties which link together
the English-speaking peoples, that they speak ' the tongue
which Shakespeare spoke ' : a tongue now made by the
achievement of the poets immeasurably richer and more
expressive than it had ever been before.
There had been no great Enghsh poet since Chaucer,
two centuries before ; and, though there were stray har
bingers of the coming splendour from the time of Henry
viii. onwards, it was not until the middle of Ehzabeth's
reign that the full glory was displayed. From about 1579
onwards it went on, growing rich in variety, reaching
perhaps its highest point at about the close of the reign,
but continuing with a scarcely diminished lustre through
out the next reign : suddenly England had become a ' nest
of singing birds.' And if we ask why so astonishing an
efflorescence should have come so suddenly, it is only
possible to say that the great ages of literature are apt to
come when men's minds are challenged by high issues,
when their imaginations are stimulated by the unfolding
of new vistas of experience, and when their hearts are set
singing by the pride of life, and by a great confidence in
the worth of what they and their feUows are set to do.
There never was a time or a country, unless it be the Athens
of Pericles, when these motives of creative inteUigence
were more powerful than in Elizabeth's England, the
335

336 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
England of the Reformation, of a suddenly revealed new
world, of gaUant adventures, and of proud challenge to an
overwhelming and overbearing foe. It is not wonderful
that the generation which foUowed the Armada fight should
have produced some of the greatest poetic literature in
the world's history.
This is not the place for an enumeration of the poets
or an analysis of their works. The age of Shakespeare,
Spenser, Marlowe, Chapman, Daniel, Drayton, Sidney,
Raleigh and Jonson would have been a wonderful age if its
greatest name had never been known ; aU of these were
born in the first years of Elizabeth, or a few years earlier.
But we may well note some of the outstanding features
of this literature as a whole, because of the light which it
sheds upon the spirit of a great age.
It was in the first place imbued with a splendid and con
fident national spirit — a profound love for England and
behef in her destiny : — ' this precious stone, set in a silver sea,'
which ' never did, nor never shall, lie at the proud foot of
a conqueror but when it first did help to wound itself.'
This pride of patriotism was often as intolerant in expression
as the sea rovers and the men of the Irish plantations were
intolerant in action : it had the brutahty of youth.
But in spite of the ardour of their patriotism, which
burst forth wherever it could find a vent, the poets were
curiously little concerned about politics and problems of
government : Shakespeare could write a play about King
John without mentioning Magna Carta. It may be said
that this was because pohtics are not the stuff out of which
poetry can be made ; but the poetry of the revolutionary
age, of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Byron, shows
that there is nothing in this. The Elizabethan poets
were not interested in institutions. They were content
to leave government to the queen and her councillors,
and they felt for the Crown a fervid loyalty, as the focus
and guardian of English patriotism. They were aU aristo
cratic in sentiment ; in the plays of Shakespeare, who was
himself of humble station, and wrote for the crowd in the
pit, there is nothing but contempt for the ' mob ' and the
' people,' regarded as a pohtical factor. And no doubt in
this respect the poets echoed, as poets nearly always do,
the general sentiment of their age ; though there were
growing elements in the English nation which, as we shall
see, were beginning to be deeply concerned about the
problems of government.

ch. X.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 337
Nor did the poets show much interest in the great reli
gious problems of the age, though sometimes they poked
fun at precisians and Puritans, as Shakespeare did at
Malvoho. That was doubtless a natural attitude for a
free-living set of Bohemians and haunters of taverns and
playhouses : it is to the prose-writers and the pamphleteers
that we must turn for an expression of the more earnest
and even bitter temper that was growing in some circles,
especiaUy in the second half of the reign. To the poets
the religious question was only one form of England's
assertion of her national personality. But that, no doubt,
was the common attitude of ordinary men.
But, indeed, the value and beauty of this literature
resides not in its discussion or reflection of national pro
blems, but in its concern with the aspirations and passions
of the individual hfe, with love and hate, passion and
revenge, tragedy and humour. If Shakespeare puts kings
and great personages in the forefront of his stage, he is
concerned, not with their statecraft, but with their per
sonalities and their struggle with destiny. That is true
even of his historical plays, which are not histories at all
in the strict sense, because they do not deal with the fortunes
of peoples, but only with the personal drama of great actors
on the human stage. And it is just because of this concern
with the universal emotions and aspirations of individual
men that the greatest of these poets are able to make a
universal appeal.
Just as they cared most of all to deal with the manifold
expressions of human individuahty, so in their own work
the Elizabethans admitted no restraint upon the expres
sion of their own individuality. While elsewhere, notably
in France, men were striving to observe the strict rules of
classical composition, the Elizabethans experimented freely
in aU directions, refusing to be bound by any rules. The
school which wanted to make rules for English poetry was
quickly laughed out of court ; and from that day onward
English literature has been, of all literatures, the most
individual, the most varied, the most free from the com
pulsion of rules, the most open to every influence that blew
in from other lands. And here, among the poets, we may
observe the same feature that we have already noted among
the seamen, and might equaUy note elsewhere. It was in
dividual enterprise, freedom of individual initiative, that
was buUding the greatness of England.
In the realm of prose the achievement of the age was
vol. 1. y

338 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
less than in poetry ; yet the prose writers, such as Hooker
and Bacon, and even the writers of State papers, having
found the language hodden grey, were turning it into cloth
of gold — a little too stiff and gorgeous for ordinary wear,
but the capacity of the loom was wonderfuUy expanded,
and later generations could change the texture to suit
their needs. One of the most striking features of the
period was the large amount of historical writing which
it produced. The motive of this work was patriotic pride,
as it was of Shakespeare's historical plays. But Holinshed,
Stow and Camden displayed great industry and consider
able learning. Englishmen were beginning to study their
own past. Soon they found in it a remarkable repertory
of hints and precedents for the expansion of their pohtical
hberties. In the seventeenth century the parhamentary
leaders were to make great use of historical learning for
pohtical purposes. This tendency had already begun to
appear in the Elizabethan period, when the parhamentary
conflict reaUy took its rise. ' We have a pedigree, and
ensigns armorial,' said Burke two centuries later, speaking
of Enghsh liberty ; and it was in the Ehzabethan period that
men, for very pride of country, began to work out the pedi
gree, and to burnish the shield, of their ' ancient inherited
liberties.' § 2. Social Conditions.
What was the social system of the land which could
arouse such an ardour of patriotism in its sons, which was
achieving so many gaUant deeds, pouring forth so much
splendid poetry, and preparing itself confidently to play a
yet greater part upon a yet greater stage ?
In the first place, it was a profoundly aristocratic society : •<
no one can read Shakespeare without feeling that. At the
head of it was a smaU group of great magnates, owners of
wide lands ; many of them had been enriched by the plunder
of the monasteries. They had their country mansions, which
they were rebuilding in a very attractive new style of
architecture ; they had also their big London houses, for
they spent much time at the court, and were indeed the
only class which had a common centre and yet came from
and could speak for all parts of the country. But they
were very different from the older baronage. Almost the
whole of Elizabeth's peers had been created by Henry vm.
or his successors ; they owed their existence to the Crown,
and were neither tempted to aim at local independence,

ch. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 339
like the Norman baronage, nor to rival and browbeat the
Crown, hke the baronage of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. They played a very important part in the
government of the country, filling the House of Lords,
always having some of the chief places at the queen's
councU-board, and acting as lords-lieutenant for the queen
in their counties. Aristocratic sentiment demanded that
from among them should always be drawn the formal
leaders of any great national enterprise : thus the Earl of
Leicester was sent to lead the army in the Netherlands ;
Lord Howard of Effingham must captain the navy, over
the heads of Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher ; and the Earl
of Essex must take command of the army of Ireland.
They hved in much splendour, and in an age devoted to
pageantry spent much of their wealth on display : witness,
for example, Leicester's gorgeous fete which Scott has
described in Kenilworth. It was they who maintained the
companies of actors who produced the innumerable dramas
of the period : but for their patronage the players would
have stood in danger of the pillory as stroUing vagabonds.
Next to them in dignity came the country squires : a
very large class, dwelling in thousands of manor houses
scattered over every part of England : landowners, living
among their tenantry, and spending great part- of their
time in sports, in some of which their humbler neighbours
and tenants could join. The country gentry had an im
mensely important part to play in the economy of Tudor
England. From among them were drawn the Justices
of the Peace, the unpaid men-of-aU-work of the Tudor
monarchy. It was their duty not only to maintain pubhc
order, try minor offences, and arrest and keep for trial by
the king's travelling judges persons charged with major
offences, but also to carry out a multitude of administra
tive duties, and generaUy to act as the local agents of the
Privy CouncU. They looked to the main roads ; they
licensed inns ; they fined rehgious recusants ; they saw to
the proper apprenticing of young people ; to a large extent
they fixed prices and wages ; they had to deal with rogues
and vagabonds, and to supervise the measures for the
administration of poor rehef, a function which became very
important in the later years of the reign. Without their
work the whole system of government must have broken
down; and theirs is largely the credit (under the direc
tion of the Privy Council) for the good order which on
the whole marked this period throughout England. To

340 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
train themselves for these varied functions the sons of the
landed gentry often went up to London, to undergo at the
Temple a period of training in the laws of the land. Here
was a class widely experienced in administrative work,
and yet not ignorant of the science and practice of the laws
of England. Such men fiUed the benches of the House of
Commons. Their younger sons became clergymen, barristers,
soldiers, saUors, and often even took to trade — especially
to the higher branches of the wool trade. Later they led
parties of emigrants from among their fathers' tenantry to
the New World, or to the Irish plantations. It was this
class which provided most of the leaders of seafaring expedi
tions and other adventures. This class, too, was the most
politically active in the community, and for that reason it
naturaUy took the lead in pubhc affairs during the next
century. Below them came the yeomanry, working farmers tilling
their own land — stiU a very numerous class in England;
and with them may be linked the men who worked farms
rented from the magnates or the squires. This class has
often been described as the backbone of England. It was
solid, conservative, and fairly prosperous. It had its due
function in the life of the community : the management of
village affairs, the care of the local roads, the detailed admini
stration of poor reUef were commonly in the hands of men
of this class. The substantial yeoman,, indeed, was often
little below the smaller squire ; the humbler members of
this class shaded graduaUy into the peasantry, very many
of whom had their own plots of land, though many were
landless, living by hiring out their labour.
The classes whom we have enumerated under the name
of the peasantry formed, of course, the great majority of
the population. They were practicaUy all illiterate ; so,
indeed, were a large proportion of the yeomanry, every
where save in the more advanced districts of the south-east.
It follows that the great bulk of these classes could have no
effective knowledge of, or interest in, national affairs. Com
munications were slow and bad. There were no newspapers,
and no public meetings. Except the gentry, few ever left
their native viUages ; and it was only when news percolated
downwards from the gentry (and httle enough reached even
them), or when ideas were promulgated by the pulpit, that
even the vaguest notions about political questions could
reach the mass of the people. When writers about this
and the next age speak of ' the nation ' as thinking this or

ch. x|] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 341
resolving on that, the extremely limited knowledge of pubhc
affairs possessed by the great bulk of ' the nation ' must
not be forgotten. ' The nation,' in fact, as an active
pohtical body, meant the gentry, some of the yeomanry,
and the more hvely but as yet very small population of
the towns : only the biggest events made any impression
upon the rest.
Although the classes of rural English society (which
formed at least five-sixths of the nation) were thus clearly
marked, and distinctions between them were universally
accepted and respected, they were classes, and not castes ;
that is to say, they were not rigid ; men could, and con
stantly did, rise or fall out of the class into which they were
bom, and each class shaded off insensibly into its neigh
bours. That was one of the marked distinctions between
England and other European nations. Even the nobility
was not a caste ; not only were new famihes frequently
ennobled — the greater part of the nobility, indeed, was of
quite recent creation — but the sons of a noble did not
inherit his nobility, but became commoners. And, at the
other end of the scale, England was the one country of the
West in which serfdom had practicaUy disappeared: no
man Was tied for hfe to labour on the soil of a lord. The
Enghsh were a nation of free men ; and, as we have seen,
a very large number of them had a share in the business of
managing common affairs — the affairs of the viUage or the
county, if not those of the country as a whole. In a real
sense, therefore, England was a free and self-governing
country ; the only one, except Switzerland, in the world.
More or less apart from the hierarchy of rural society
stood the society of the towns, engaged in trade or in in
dustry. There were some two hundred httle boroughs in
England, most of them little more than villages ; but they
had their own system of government, usually under a town
countil of the leading burghers, who commonly sat for
life and fiUed up vacancies as they occurred in their
own number. This was not a democratic system ; but
it meant that a large number of people were engaged in
managing common affairs, and in many boroughs the whole
body of freemen had substantial powers, electing the Mayor
and sometimes other officers. Most of the smaU boroughs,
being merely market-towns serving the needs of the sur
rounding countryside, were very closely connected with
rural hfe, and naturaUy much under the influence of the
neighbouring gentry. But there were a few seaports which

342 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
were beginning to prosper through the growth of foreign
trade, and a few inland centres of manufacturing activity,
wherein there were substantial merchants more indepen
dent of the gentry. Such were Bristol and Norwich, South
ampton and Hull. But London was the only big centre
which had any vigorous independent hfe of its own. It was
the centre of aU the most important trade, and its rich
merchants, its corporation, its powerful and wealthy city com
panies, constituted a factor of very great importance in the
life of the nation. In London, at any rate, pohtical know
ledge was considerable ; even the apprentices had their pohti
cal opinions. § 3. Economic Changes.
A very considerable change had been coming over the
social condition of England during the sixteenth century,
under the pressure of big economic movements, and the
effects of these movements were already clearly apparent
in Ehzabeth's reign.
In the first place the mediaeval system of land-cultiva
tion in vUlage communities was beginning to- break down
— only beginning, for the process was not completed for
more than two centuries. The chief cause of this was the
enclosure movement, and the devotion of large areas of
land to sheep-pasture instead of corn-growing. We have
already seen 1 something of the trouble which this had given
in the middle of the century, and how it had been accen
tuated by the suppression of the monasteries, and the some
times high-handed and unsympathetic policy of the new
owners of monastic lands. This change threw many
labourers out of work, and led to a great deal of unrest,
disorder and vagabondage. It puzzled government, from
Henry vni.'s time onwards, to know how to deal with this.
At first mere severity was tried : and under Edward vi.
very cruel measures were taken — the wandering man
without work was made practically hable to slavery. En
closures were stiU going on in Ehzabeth's reign, but the ,
problem was becoming much less difficult. This was partly
because the growth of industry found employment for a good
deal of surplus labour, partly because many of the idle found
an Outlet in overseas adventures. It was to provide for
such men that Sir Humphrey GUbert and others advocated
the foundation of colonies ; and indeed it is probably true
that the unsettlement of the old order, and the existence in
1 See above, pp. 217, 258, 264.

ch. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 343
England of a large number of men uprooted from their old ,,
modes of hfe, formed one of the reasons why England
became a great colonising country. If every man in
England had had- land of his own, and a secure livelihood,
few would have wanted to seek homes in new lands.
But one of the reasons why the problem of uprooted
labour and of vagabondage was becoming less, was that
the government of Elizabeth graduaUy found its way to a
wiser mode of deaUng with these difficulties. It slowly
realised, first, that it was unjust to punish men merely for
being poor and out of work, and secondly, that it was the
duty of the community to provide for its poor. In a long
series of Acts, which culminated in the great Poor Law of
1601, provision was made for the levying of rates to" relieve
poverty, and to provide work for the able-bodied. The
responsibility for this new system (which, though it was
rather unsympathetic, does represent the acceptance of a
new responsibility on the part of the community for the
welfare of its more unfortunate members) was thrown upon
the parishes ; and the poor rates were collected, and in
detail distributed, by unpaid overseers elected by the
parish vestry, which every ratepayer was entitled to attend. v
But the always active justices of the peace were charged
with the duty of defining the rales under which this relief
should be given in each county, as weU as of regulating
wages and seeing that able-bodied men were put to work.
If agriculture, and the rural society which depended on
it, were undergoing change, so also were industry and com
merce. Beyond aU comparison the most important of
Enghsh industries was the wooUen manufacture. It had
begun, as an important industry, in the fourteenth century,
but it was now more prosperous than ever before, and its
chief centres — the West country (Wiltshire and the sur
rounding counties), Norfolk, and Yorkshire — now spun
and wove into cloth nearly the whole product of the Enghsh
sheep. Their success was certainly helped by the wars in v
the Netherlands, which ruined the prosperity of the Flemish
towns, so long the principal consumers of English wool,
and sent thousands of the best artisans in Europe to take
refuge in England. The wool trade affords a striking illus
tration of the interlacing of aU the nation's economic in
terests. For it was because the demand for wool was
so great that the landowners were cultivating sheep where
com had once been grown ; and it was because England
had, in her woollen cloths (now among the best in the

344 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
world), commodities which found a ready sale abroad that
her foreign trade was advancing.
It was not only in the wooUen industry, however, but in
many different spheres, that a new vigour and enterprise
were now showing themselves in manufacture. And under
these conditions the mediaeval organisation of industry was
inevitably breaking down, just as the mediaeval organisa
tion of agriculture was breaking down. In the Middle
Ages manufacture had in the main been carried on by the
actual craftsman, who worked in his own home with his
journeymen and apprentices, and sold the products of his
industry in the market ; and the conditions under which
journeymen and apprentices might be employed, the num
ber that a master-workman might engage, the varieties,
qualities, measurements and prices of the goods which he
might make, and in general all the rules governing produc
tion, were fixed by gilds or associations of the master-work
men themselves in every town. But this system, though
it had many advantages, had also marked defects. It
formed a great restraint upon individual enterprise or
initiative : the man with new methods and ideas found it
hard to persuade his feUow-craftsmen to let him adopt them,
because they feared to be done out of their trade. It also
prevented the organisation of industry on a large scale,
because it forbade the man with substantial resources to
employ a large number of workpeople.
For a long time past, in aU the more progressive countries,
the management of industry had been tending to faU into
the hands of a class of employers who did not work, as a
rule, with their own hands, but organised and paid for the
work of other people. The ' capitalist ' employer was be
coming the dominant factor in industry. And it is easy to
see how and why this happened, and how it stimulated the
development of industry. In the wooUen industry, for
example, an enterprising and far-seeing man, if he com
manded a sufficient amount of money, could buy wool of
the best quality, instead of being dependent (hke the master
craftsman) upon what happened to come into the local
market ; he could get it spun by women over a wide area,
paying them for their work ; he could get to know what
styles and patterns would command the readiest sale in
the most profitable markets at home or abroad, and pay
weavers to weave the cloth according to these requirements.
And by these means he could generally produce the cloth
that was required both better and cheaper than it could be

ch. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 345
produced under the old system. But he could only do this
if he had command of substantial amounts of money or
' capital ' to finance the work at each stage, that is to say,
if he was a ' capitalist.' Without a doubt the ' capitahst '
system, under which the employer devoted himself to study
ing the markets and organising the work of groups of work
people instead of working with his own hands, very largely
contributed to the development and improvement of the
English manufacturing industry. But it involved the
breakdown of the old gUd system, with its elaborate regu
lations and restrictions. And it tended to diminish the
independence of the workman, whom it turned into a wage-
earner more or less at the mercy of his employer, and with
out the protection which the gilds had formerly given.
The process of change from the gild system to a rudi
mentary capitahst system had been going on gradually and
quietly for a very long time. But it became more rapid
in the second half of the sixteenth century, partly because
the growth of foreign trade encouraged it, and partly, l
perhaps, because the changes in agriculture created a
workless class who were glad to be employed by the capital
ist. If the change had taken place without any regulation
or control, it might have inflicted grave hardships. But
the government of Ehzabeth was too intelligent to let this
happen. It did its best to maintain a sound standard of
life among the workpeople under the new conditions, and
to give them some of the protection which the gilds had
earlier afforded, by means of legislation about apprentice
ship, wages and prices. These provisions were on the whole
salutary and weU-designed. They feU far short, however, of
the elaborate regulations of the old gilds ; and individual en
terprise in industry was permitted to enjoy far more freedom
than the Middle Ages had ever been willing to allow to it.
Of the growth of oversea trade we have already said
something. But it was in the last part of the reign that
it grew most rapidly. Enghsh traders were busy in the
Netherlands, in France, in the Baltic, in the Mediterranean.
Once the ocean monopoly of Spain had been broken, they
were eager to stretch forth their hands for a share of the
trade of the tropics and the New World, but the main develop
ments in these fields naturally belonged to the next period.
For the encouragement and assistance of trade in more
distant waters, the men of this age, with the assistance of
the government, developed new methods. They organised
trading companies, which were not (like the companies of

346 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
to-day) joint-stock ventures, trading with a large subscribed
capital : the Muscovy Company or the Levant Company 1
in the Elizabethan period was simply a body of licensed i
traders, who subscribed to maintain permanent agencies j
abroad, but each carried on their individual ventures, or
subscribed what they thought fit to the cost of fitting out
particular ' voyages.' At the very end of the reign, in
1600, the greatest of aU these trading companies, the East
India Company, was estabhshed under royal charter, to
develop the opportunities of trade in the East. Thus
English trade, though it had government encouragement,
was not subject to any such detailed and stifling govern
ment control as the trade of both Spain and Portugal had
suffered from. Its development was due to individual
enterprise, under government supervision, but not govern
ment control. And it throve largely because it could draw
upon the vigour of individual enterprise.
No one who studies the history of this period can fail
to be struck by the alertness of Elizabeth's government,
its high sense of responsibihty for the national welfare, and
its readiness to try experiments to meet new conditions. It
felt that it was its business to guide the nation through a
period of rapid change and grqwth, and not to leave its
development to accident. On the whole its interventions
were fairly successful in the spheres of industry and com
merce. Its regulations gave a great deal of free play to
individual effort ; at the same time they saved the country
from the confusion which might have foUowed the sudden
and unchecked dissolution of old methods of organisation.
§ 4. The Religious Changes.
Of all the aspects of national hfe there was none in which
the guidance and control of government seemed to Elizabeth
and her councillors to be more necessary than religion, for
in other lands religious differences were producing national
ruin. Elizabeth had no desire, as she once put it, ' to open
windows into men's souls.' Her subjects might think what
they pleased, so long as they did nothing that ran counter
to the unity of the nation : not for her was the duty of
burning men's bodies because their thoughts were wrong.
But she desired uniformity and decency in external things,
and she could not understand those who quarreUed about
these externals, regarding them as symbols. She desired
also that authority should be duly maintained : her own

ch. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 347
authority in the first instance, as the supreme governor
of the national Church — that is, of the nation in its ecclesi
astical aspect ; the authority of her bishops, as her agents,
in the second. Her control over the Church was exercised
not only through the bishops (and mainly the Archbishop
of Canterbury), but through the Hig^i_Commission, largely
consisting of bishops, which was set up at the beginning
of the reign, and had its powers amplified and defined by a
succession of instruments, culminating in the Commission
of 1583. This body exercised judicial and to some extent
legislative powers (for those two functions of government
were not clearly distinguished) not merely over clergymen,
but over the whole nation in aU rehgious and ecclesiastical
matters. It was not bound by the common law of the
land, nor did it foUow the ordinary procedure of the common
law courts : for example, it administered what was known
as the ex officio oath, which compeUed men to give evidence
against themselves, contrary to the practice of English
law, and it had a very wide latitude in the punishments
which it inflicted.
Because the great majority of her people were, at the
beginning of her reign, definitely Catholic in sentiment,
Ehzabeth desired that the doctrines and orders of service
of the national Church should be so defined as to offend
their susceptibilities as httle as possible, and in external
things she was anxious to keep nearly to the old ways.
She hoped that the Catholics in England would graduaUy
become accustomed to, and accept, the new order ; and
in this she was not disappointed : the great majority of
Enghshmen had become reconciled to the national Church
before the end of her reign, aU the more readily because
loyalty to Rome had become unpatriotic during the struggle
with Spain. There was little or no persecution of Catholics
as such : only small fines for non-attendance at church.
The comparatively few Catholics who were put to death
were executed as traitors, as agents of the foreign power of
the Pope, or as conspirators against the realm, not on the
ground of their religious opinions.
But this policy brought the queen into sharp conflict
with the more enthusiastic Protestants. There were a
good many of these even at the beginning of the reign,
especiaUy in London and other towns, and in the pro
sperous south-east ; and as the reign went on, and the
struggle against Rome, not only in England but in aU
the continental countries, became more fierce and bitter,

348 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
they grew in numbers and enthusiasm, and their
desire to purify the Church of England from what they
regarded as relics of papistry became stronger. They did
not desire mere toleration for themselves ; they desired
to reshape the national Church after their own minds, and
they drew their inspiration from the fierce creed of Calvin,
which was in Europe the fighting doctrine of Protestantism,
and which had under Knox's guidance shaped both the
creed and the system of government of the Scottish Church.
From Elizabeth's point of view there could be no compro-.
mise with these men, loyal as they were to her in the
struggle with Spain ; because they stood for a chaUenge
to the whole organisation and government of the national
Church, and would, if they had their way (so she believed)
shatter the unity of England, her greatest achievement.
The idea that there could be more than one Church in the
same State scarcely anybody entertained, either in England
or elsewhere : it would have seemed as impossible to most
of the Puritans as to Elizabeth herself.
As the reign wore on the conflict between Ehzabeth
and the bishops on the one hand, and the Puritans on the
other, deepened and broadened. It began with a contro
versy about vestments. Elizabeth wished that, as far as
possible, the traditional priestly vestments should be used,
and that there should be uniformity of practice. The
Puritans objected to priestly vestments, even to the surplice,
because these were in their eyes symbols of Rome and of
the claims of the priesthood. When Archbishop Parker,
in 1566, issued a series of ' Advertisements ' to define and
enforce the proper usage, thirty-seven London clergymen
refused compliance, and some of them were deprived of
their livings. A violent pamphlet warfare sprang up : the
chief pamphleteers on the Puritan side were thereupon for
bidden to preach, and some of them were imprisoned. They
took to holding secret conventicles. From vestments the
controversy spread to rites and to doctrines ; and, since
the obnoxious rules were imposed by bishops, the Puritans
began to chaUenge the whole episcopal system, and in
directly the supremacy of the Crown which lay behind it.
The huge incomes of the bishops (they were richer than
most of the peers) and the powers exercised by the ecclesi
astical courts provided further grounds for attack. An
Admonishment to Parliament, pubhshed in 1572 by two
Puritan clergymen (who were promptly clapped into New
gate), showed how far the movement was going. They

ch. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 349
•
demanded in effect the abolition of the episcopal system.
' At the beginning,' commented one orthodox clergyman,
' it was but a cap or surphce and a tippet ; now it is grown
to bishops, archbishops, and cathedral churches, to the
overthrow of estabhshed order, and to the queen's authority
in causes ecclesiastical. These reformers would take the
supreme authority in ecclesiastical matters from the prince,
and give it unto themselves with the grave seignory in
every parish.' The archbishop, with a shrewd prophecy,
foretold that the Puritans would ' in conclusion undo the
queen and all others that depended on her.' But the
queen's power was strong enough to queU these contro
versies, at all events for a time.
The leader of the Puritan movement was Cartwright,
Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He was an uncom
promising advocate of the Presbyterian system of Church
government, which ultimately rests upon a democratic basis.
Others went stiU further, notably Robert Browne, another
Cambridge man, who claimed that each congregation ought
to be self-sufficing and independent, and that neither
bishop nor presbyteries should be necessary for the ordina
tion of ministers of rehgion ; and he tried to set up a work
ing model of his system at Norwich in 1581. There were a
good many Brownists, ancestors of the future Independents.
But Presbyterians (who, as they had shown in Scotland,
believed in uniformity and made high claims for the powers of
a national Church) condemned the Brownists as vigorously
as did Ehzabeth. Several Brownists suffered on the scaffold
as traitors, because they denied the royal supremacy.
There were other sects too, Anabaptists among them ; all
following their doctrines in secret.
During the middle part of the reign, however, contro
versy was comparatively stiUed, partly because of the
Spanish danger, partly because the Archbishopric of Canter
bury was held by the mUd Grindal, who sympathised with
the Puritans, and let them carry on their ' prophesy ings.'
But after 1588, when the Spanish danger was over, and
Grindal had been succeeded by the unbending Whitgif t (1 583) ,
conflict broke out again with greater vigour than ever.
Now, too, the Ehzabethan Church had taken firm root in
the affections of the nation : it was no longer a mere pohtical
compromise, but had won the whole-hearted aUegiance of
many; a High Church party was springing up. On the
other hand the Puritans were also eager for bolder action :
in 1590 Cartwright started associations in various parts of

350 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
England, for the organisation of ' classes ' and ' synods '—
church councUs on the Presbyterian model. This was a
defiance of the royal supremacy which could not pass un
regarded : the leaders of the Puritan party were brought
before the High Commission and the Star Chamber. But
they were released after an apology : they had too big a
foUowing to make it wise to punish them. MeanwhUe a
violent press controversy, perhaps the first in English
history to arouse a widespread pubhc interest, had broken out
(1588-9). From a secret press, which was moved from place
to place, a series of frequent, hard-hitting tracts appeared,
under the name of Martin Mar prelate. The authors of thev
Marprelate tracts, whoever they were, were fighting not
only for Puritanism, but for the freedom of the press ; for
Whitgift, in his determination to crush the movement, had
obtained a Star Chamber decree forbidding any manu
script to be printed unless it had been previously hcensed
by himself or the Bishop of London.
Thus the religious controversy was spreading into a
pohtical controversy. The Puritans were beginning to
chaUenge some of the powers exercised by the Crown,
besides advocating a democratic organisation of the Church.
And indeed it was inevitable that their doctrines should lead
them to be friendly to popular influence in government.
Whitgift's charge against them was that, under a show of
godliness, they nourished ' contempt of magistrates and
popularity ' ; and by ' popularity,' he meant popular power.
It is significant that throughout Ehzabeth's reign there
was always a considerable Puritan element in Parhament :
her difficulties with Parliament most often turned upon
Church questions. It is impossible to say what was the
number of the Puritans : the fact that there were many
Puritan members of Parliament teUs us nothing about their I
strength, because Parhament was not in any true sense a
popularly elected body. But it is certain that by the end of
the reign they were numerous in London, in most towns, and
aU over the south-east ; and that they included a large num
ber of the ablest and most intelligent men in the country,
and had a strong hold over the University of Cambridge.
§ 5. The Queen and her Parliament.
It is plain from what we have already seen that the
real government of England rested with the queen and her-/
council. They fixed the country's foreign pohcy, and

ch. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 351
provided for its defence. They regulated and controUed
the Church. They supervised and directed the economic
pohcy of the comitry. They were responsible for the
maintenance of order, through the justices of the peace,
and supervised the administration of the law by judges
and juries : juries who gave unsound verdicts were with
out hesitation haled before Star Chamber. In aU these
functions Parhament had scarcely a word to say. All
the powers of the royal prerogative against which opposi
tion was bitterest under the Stewarts were freely exercised
by Ehzabeth, commonly without complaint. She levied
contributions hke ship-money ; she imposed new customs
duties ; she exercised the power of dispensing individuals
from the operation of particular laws ; she imprisoned men
with no more definite ground than the special command of
the queen ; she issued many proclamations having the force
of law. She was able to do aU these things because hers
was a national monarchy, the trusted spokesman and
representative of the nation, defending the nation's exist
ence against grave perils.
But for aU that it is a mistake to think of Elizabeth's
government as a despotism. Her power could not have
lasted if it had not been based upon national approval,
and this for two reasons : she had no paid army to enforce
her wiU ; and she had no class of salaried officials spread
over the country to carry out her policy, whether it was
approved or not. She had to depend upon the unpaid
country gentlemen for aU this work ; and the country
gentlemen were, of aU classes in England, the most politically
active, and the most ready to resist any serious oppression,
as they showed in Parhament.
Moreover she had to count with Parhament ; and Parha
ment, as we have seen, had never been in any true sense a
' subservient ' body, except in the latter part of Henry vni.'s
reign. Elizabeth did not like having to deal with Parlia
ment ; she found it a fractious and meddlesome body, and
summoned it as seldom as she could. But she had to
summon it thirteen times during her reign. And she had
to summon it just because its co-operation was necessary
for the passing of important laws, and stiU more for the
levying of the most productive taxes. Ehzabeth had a large
revenue independent of parhamentary grants, from Crown
lands, from feudal dues of various sorts, and from the customs
duties, which by immemorial prescription belonged to the
Crown, though they were by custom granted afresh at the

354 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
to introduce a bill to abolish all monopohes, which would
have been a direct chaUenge to the queen. Elizabeth was
too wise to risk an open conflict. By proclamation she
abolished aU monopolies at a blow ; and in a speech to
her faithful Commons not only won back aU their affection,
but made a claim for herself that they could echo in their
hearts, and that might fairly be inscribed as her epitaph : —
' Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the
glory of my crown : that I have reigned with your loves.
To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious
to them that see it than it is pleasing to them that bear
it. For myself, I was never so much enticed with the
glorious name of a king, or royal authority of a queen, as
delighted that God had made me His instrument to main
tain His truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom from
peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression.'
She died eighteen months later, without seeing the in
evitable issue raised between the royal authority which
she had wielded so royaUy, and the aspirations of the
nation which she had taught to be proud of its nationhood.
With her died an era. The ages of purely island history
were over ; so also, for England, was the age of willing
submission to royal tutelage : and after their long prepara
tion the peoples of the islands were about to enter upon a
career of world-influence, and upon a bold advance, ahead
of aU other peoples, towards the ideal of national self-
government. What is more, they were entering upon the
new era as a group of States united under the same crown :
as a Commonwealth of Nations differing from one another yet
indissolubly linked together. For the successor of Elizabeth
was James vi. of Scotland, great-grandson of Henry vn. ;
and with his accession the long centuries of strife between
the peoples of the islands came formaUy to an end.
[For the literary movements of the time, Saintsbury's Elizabethan
Literature, Lee's Shakespeare, Raleigh's Shakespeare, Church's
Spenser, and other volumes of the Enghsh Men of Letters Series ;
for social and economic conditions, The England of Shakespeare
(Clarendon Press), Meredith's Economic History of England,
Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Tawney's
Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century ; for religious history,
Frere's English Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James L,
Neal's History of the Puritans ; for politics and Parliament, Pro-
thero's Constitutional Documents, Hailam's Constitutional History,
Pollard's England from the Death of Henry VIII. to the Death of
Elizabeth.]

BOO|K IV
THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL SELF-GOVERN
MENT; AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH
EXPANSION OVERSEA, a.d. 1603-1660

352 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. hi.
beginning of each reign. She was as frugal as possible
and did her best to make this revenue cover the cost of
government, partly because taxes were unpopular, and
partly to avoid meeting Parliament ; she even strained
the royal prerogative, like the Stewarts after her, to find
modes of raising revenue ; and, as we have seen, she adopted
every means of enhsting private effort even in the conduct
of war.
In fact, England was the most rightly taxed country ¦
in Europe. Parhament was undeniably stingy in its
grants ; and as the assessments upon which the grants
were made had not been changed since the fourteenth
century, they yielded extremely disappointing returns.
Frugal as she was, Ehzabeth had to run into debt, and to
sell Crown lands on a large scale. But this is in itself a
proof that the control of Parhament over the revenues of
the country was stiU real, and could not be overridden even
by Elizabeth.
In every one of Ehzabeth's parliaments there was abun
dant evidence that though the members, hke the country
as a whole, respected the queen and supported her general
pohcy, they were not ready to sacrifice any of their own
rights, and did not lack courage in standing up for their
privileges. The queen frequently rated them for presum
ing beyond their rights, especiaUy when they ventured to
discuss her marriage, or to criticise her Church pohcy, as
they often did very sharply ; ' Beware how you prove your
prince's patience,' she told them in 1567. Rarely a session
passed without one or more members being committed to
prison ; and in 1593 five members were sent to the Tower
for venturing to discuss the succession to the crown, one
of them, Peter Wentworth, the staunchest upholder of '
parhamentary privilege, remaining in duress till he died
three years later. She used in a wholesale way the power
of vetoing biUs : in the Parliament of 1598 she vetoed no
less than forty-eight out of ninety-one.
But if these facts show that Elizabeth was far indeed
from submitting to parhamentary control, they show also
Ahat Parliament was tenacious of its powers and courageous
in enforcing them, even against a much-loved sovereign.
If many biUs were vetoed, it is clear that Parliament was
active ri legislation, and did not leave the initiative in
that respect to the Crown, as it did under Henry vm. If
members had to be scolded and imprisoned for insisting
upon discussing questions of pubhc pohcy which were,

dtt. x.] THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 353
by usage, decided by the queen and her council, mani
festly they were striving to take a larger part in the deter
mination of the national destinies.
Three features of the relation between the queen and
her parhaments ought to be noted. In the first place it
was the House of Commons, not the House of Lords, which
played the active part : the House of Lords was already
falling into the background. That is to say, it was the
country gentlemen and the lawyers (for the House of
Commons was fiUed with country gentlemen and lawyers)
who were striving to attain a real partnership with the
Crown in the government of the country — a far different
state of tnings from that which had marked the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, when the House of Commons was
largely controUed by parties of great barons. In the second
place, every Parhament of the reign showed a large number,
and some apparently a majority, of members who were
Puritan in their sympathies. Most of their differences with
the queen arose on rehgious questions. That is to say, a
large proportion of the men who sat in the House of Commons
was affected by ideas which almost inevitably led in the
direction of increased popular control. In the third place,
the independence of the House of Commons and its readi
ness to come into conflict with the queen became much
more marked towards the end of the reign, in spite of the
loyalty and affection which all felt for the great princess
who had guided the country through a perUous pass. That
is to say, once the period of danger was over, men began to
feel that the time had come when the discretionary power
of the Crown was no longer needed to the same extent ; and
when Parhament could begin to claim a greater share in
the control of national affairs.
During her last years and in her last three parliaments,
Elizabeth seemed almost to have lost touch with her people,
or with those highly important elements in it whose ideas
were expressed by the House of Commons. The discontent
reached its height in the Parhament of 1601, when a vigorous
attack— ri(>t. the first by any means, but the most strongly
pressed — was£. made against the wholesale licences which
the queen had granted to various individuals, giving them
the monopoly of the right to manufacture varies com
modities. Some of these licences were of the nature of
patents, and had the effect of encouraging new industries ;
but others were undoubtedly mischievous. The temper
of the House of Commons became ugly : they proposed
vol. 1. z

354 BEGINNING OF THE MODERN AGE [bk. iii.
to introduce a bill to abolish all monopohes, which would
have been a direct challenge to the queen. Ehzabeth was
too wise to risk an open conflict. By proclamation she
abolished aU monopolies at a blow ; and in a speech to
her faithful Commons not only won back all their affection,
but made a claim for herself that they could echo in their
hearts, and that might fairly be inscribed as her epitaph :—
' Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the
glory of my crown : that I have reigned with your loves.
To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious
to them that see it than it is pleasing to them that bear
it. For myself, I was riever so much enticed with the
glorious name of a king, or royal authority of a queen, as
delighted that God had made me His instrument to main
tain His truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom from
peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression.'
She died eighteen months later, without seeing the in
evitable issue raised between the royal authority which
she had wielded so royaUy, and the aspirations of the
nation which she had taught to be proud of its nationhood.
With her died an era. The ages of purely island history
were over ; so also, for England, was the age of wiUing
submission to royal tutelage : and after their long prepara
tion the peoples of the islands were about to enter upon a
career of world-influence, and upon a bold advance, ahead
of aU other peoples, towards the ideal of national self-
government. What is more, they were entering upon the
new era as a group of States united under the same crown :
as a Commonwealth of Nations differing from one another yet
indissolubly linked together. For the successor of Elizabeth
was James vi. of Scotland, great-grandson of Henry vn. ;
and with his accession the long centuries of strife between
the peoples of the islands came formally to an end.
[For the literary movements of the time, Saintsbury's Elizabethan
Literature, Lee's Shakespeare, Raleigh's Shakespeare, Church's
Spenser, and other volumes of the Enghsh Men of Letters Series ;
for social and economic conditions, Ths England of Shakespeare
(Clarendon Press), Meredith's Economic History of England,
Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Tawney's
Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century ; for religious history,
Frere's English Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I.,
Neat's History of the Puritans; for politics and Parliament, Pro-
thero's Constitutional Documents, Hallam's Constitutional History,
Pollard's England from the Death of Henry VIII. to the Death of
Elizabeth.]

BOO|K IV
THE STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL SELF-GOVERN
MENT; AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH
EXPANSION OVERSEA, a.d. 1603-1660

INTRODUCTION
In the first half of the seventeenth century the peoples
of the islands began to buUd on the foundations already
laid. In the first place, they appeared for the first time as a
single unit in the hfe of the civilised world. They were
united under the rule of a single crown by the succession
of James vi. of Scotland to the thrones of England and
Ireland. Not that they were as yet in any real sense united
into a single State. Scotland retained its distinct exist
ence, with its own body of law, its own Parliament, and,
above aU, its own Church, and there was as yet little
friendship between the two nations ; but the mutual in
fluence of England and Scotland became more intimate
and constant than it had ever been before. Ireland was
a recently conquered country ; unfortunately it was her
fate to suffer in this period troubles even greater than she
had suffered in the last ; the opportunity of fostering
friendship, which was stiU open in 1603, was lost ; and
still bitterer memories than those of Ehzabeth's reign were
created. Nevertheless the union of the islands under a
single crown meant much.
£1 the second place, now that the barriers to ocean traffic
raised by Spain were broken down, the Enghsh began the
task of creating new Englands beyond the seas, and of
developing a great trade in the tropics and the East.
Colonies were founded on the Atlantic shore of North
America and in the West Indies ; and although their
begiruiings were timid, and httle supported by the power
of the State, they were weU estabhshed by the middle of
the century. Almost from their foundation these first
English settlements oversea were distinguished from the
colonies of other nations by the establishment of the prac
tice of local self-government, which had become second
nature to the English. At the same time the trade con
nexion with India, which was to lead to astonishing results,
was begun in these years, and weU rooted. These were,
as yet, almost purely Enghsh enterprises : the day of the
357

358 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
fuU participation of aU the islanders in them had not yet
come. But England was not the only pioneer in this field.
AU the seaboard countries of Europe took a share, and an
acute rivalry for colonies and overseas trade began, which was
to last tUl our own day, and to affect deeply the relations
of the European States. In this period the most successful
rivals of the Enghsh were their recent allies, the Dutch :
their mutual jealousy was such as to lead to war.
In the third place the development which had already
been foreshadowed in the previous age took place ; and
both the English and the Scottish peoples — and even, in a
certain measure, the Irish — began to work out a system
not merely of local or of ecclesiastical, but of national self-
government: The great controversies, resulting in civil
war, to which these aspirations gave rise, form the main
stuff of the history of the islands during the half century.
They were of equal moment for the whole of the future
Commonwealth, since they reacted upon the development
of the institutions of all its members, and decided that all
were to enjoy pohtical freedom ; though the form of it
was scarcely yet determined. This development was all
the more remarkable, because during the same period
nearly all the European States were having the chains of
despotic government fixed upon them, and the predominant
pohtical thought of the age held that it was only by means
of absolute monarchy that order could be maintained and
progress secured. Perhaps the greatest achievement of
the island peoples was to show that this was not so.
WhUe the islands were thus engaged, in Europe, and
especiaUy in Central Europe, fierce wars were being waged,
which were to have the effect of changing the aspect of
the civilised world. But in these struggles the islands took
very little part ; and when at length they did begin, in
the next period, to play once more a great part in European
pohtics, they were at first a little bewUdered by the changed
aspect of affairs.

CHAPTER I
EUROPE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY
§ i. Problems of Peace and War.
No less than the islands, Europe was entering upon a new
age at the beginning of the seventeenth century.1 When
the century opened she was weary of rehgious wars, and the
fierce conflicts of the last half century seemed to have
decided the fate of the rival religions over the greater part
of the Continent. Spain and Italy were definitely Roman
Cathohc ; indeed, the ascendency of the Roman faith had
not been chaUenged in either country. On the other hand,
Denmark (with which went Norway) and Sweden were as
definitely Protestant. In France the desperate wars of
religion, after forty years of fighting, had failed to destroy
the Huguenots. Though Henry of Navarre had become a
Cathohc (1593) to gain the crown and pacify the land, and
though France was officiaUy a Catholic country, the Pro
testants were given, by the Edict of Nantes (1598), the right
to foUow their own faith under certain limitations, and
they received the control over certain fortified towns as a
safeguard. This was a real, though incomplete, experiment
in religious toleration. In the Netherlands the United Pro
vinces of the North (corresponding to the modern kingdom
of HoUand) had securely estabhshed their independence as
a Protestant State, though Spain refused to recognise the
fact till 1648 ; and they were at the opening of the most
glorious period in their history, a period of immense com
mercial activity and prosperity, and of almost equally
valuable literary and artistic achievement. But the
southern provinces of the Netherlands (corresponding to
modem Belgium) — once the centres of great industries and
of vigorous trade — had remained loyal to Catholicism, and
were stUl under the blighting rule of Spain, which made it
impossible for them to revive their ancient glories.
Only in Central Europe was the religious conflict stUl
1 For the state of Europe at this period see the map, Atlas, Plate 8.
369

360 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
undetermined. Germany and the neighbouring Austrian
lands were stUl in the condition in which they had been
left by Charles v., divided, under the nominal headship of
the Emperor, into more than three hundred httle States,
whose petty sovereigns, in accordance with the principle
cujus regio ejus religio, had the right to determine the faith
of their subjects. At the beginning of the century the
Protestants had a considerable numerical ascendency in
the greater part of Germany ; even in the lands of the Habs
burgs — Austria, Bohemia, and what the Turks had left of
Hungary — the Protestants were very numerous, especiaUy
in Bohemia. But the Protestant party in Germany was
weakened by its division into two sections, Lutherans and
Calvinists, who were very jealous of one another ; and also
by the fact that none of the numerous Protestant princes
possessed any considerable military power. The head of
the Lutheran party was the Elector of Saxony ; the head
of the Calvinist party, who organised themselves into a
separate Union in 1608, was the Elector Palatine of the
Rhine. On the other hand, the Cathohcs were showing a
new vigour and a tendency to aggressiveness. One of the
Cathohc princes, the Duke of Bavaria, was building up an
efficient army, and he had brought the minor Catholic powers
under his leadership in the Cathohc League (1607).
If it came to war between the two religions in Germany,
as seemed every year more likely, the Cathohcs could count
upon the strong support of the House of Habsburg, the two
branches of which (in Spain and Austria) both counted among
the greatest powers of Europe. The Spanish branch had
indeed lost greatly in prestige since its crushing defeats
by England and the United Provinces. But Spain had lost
no territory in the long fight except the Northern Nether
lands ; territoriaUy she was stiU by far the greatest State
in Europe, and she stiU possessed the wealth of the Indies.
Public opinion in Europe, and also in England, had not
reahsed the internal weakness which was soon to reduce
Spain to the level of a third-rate power, and regarded her
with fear. The Austrian branch of the Habsburgs was
weaker, owing to the divisions which existed in its dominions.
But if these could be overcome, Austria with its wide lands
and warhke subjects would be a very formidable power.
In any case the might of the Habsburgs would surely
be. sufficient to ensure victory for the Cathohc princes of
Germany against the divided forces of the Protestants,
unless the Protestant States of Europe came to their aid.

ch. i.] EUROPE IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 361
And if that were to happen, the result would be a general
European war such as had never yet been seen. Extremists
on both sides were eager "that the final conflict should be
brought about, and hoped for a crushing victory for their
own side. Among the Puritans in England there were
many who would! have rejoiced to see their country take
what they considered to be its proper place, as the leader
of the Protestant cause. But they did not want to take
part in a war on the Continent if it could be avoided ; a
vigorous attack on Spain by sea was what most of them
longed for. They were, in truth, rather ignorant of the
European situation, and had very httle sense of the horror
of a universal war such as might easily come about, and
nearly did come about.
There were some wise men in Europe who foresaw this
danger and wished to avoid it ; and who believed that
peace might be maintained if only the policy of nations
ceased to be guided by rehgious rivalries. One of these
was King Henry iv. of France,1 the great king who had
ended the French wars of religion, and who knew from
bitter experience the horrors of rehgious wars, and the
harm they did to religion. In his view the great danger
to Europe was to be found in the threatening power of the
Habsburgs. He exaggerated the danger, like other people ;
but it was natural for a Frenchman to exaggerate it, since
France was almost surrounded by Habsburg lands, which
included some really French territory.2 Henry's aim was,
disregarding rehgious differences, to combine under his
own leadership the forces of resistance to the Habsburgs ;
if war should foUow, he hoped to strengthen the position of
France by acquiring the Habsburg territories on his own
borders. This became the traditional policy of France
for a century and a half to come. Henry's great minister
SuUy has told us in his memoirs, written after his retire
ment, that his master had entertained a yet more ambi
tious project : no less than the creation of, a sort of European
federation or League of Nations for the maintenance of peace,
once the Habsburg danger had been removed. It is more
than doubtful whether Henry ever entertained such an idea ;
but it is a sign of growing dissatisfaction with the endless wars
from which Europe suffered that a responsible statesman,
even in retirement, should recommend such an idea.
Another advocate of peace was James 1. and vi., the new
1 There is a hfe of Henry iv., by P. F. Willert (Heroes of the Nations).
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 9.

364 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
the Pope, were answerable to God alone. NaturaUy kings
welcomed a theory so pleasing to themselves, and so much
in accord with the pohtical tendencies of the age. It is not
too much to say that the theory of Divine Right was every
where widely accepted, save in the Netherlands and in
England ; and even in England there were many, besides
the king himself, who quite honestly believed in it. For
nearly two centuries to come the prevailing view, even among
philosophers, was that absolute monarchy was the best
safeguard for the existence of social order ; and the civU
war which foUowed the Enghsh repudiation of this view
seemed to confirm it.
§ 2. The Thirty Years' War.
If Henry iv. of France had lived, he might have staved
off the threatened religious war in Germany, or turned it
into a purely political struggle between the house of Habs
burg and a confederation headed by France. But he was
assassinated by a Catholic fanatic in 1610 ; and therefore
the war became inevitable, for aU James I.'s attempts to
maintain peace by making friendship with Spain were
whoUy futile. In 1618 it at last broke out ; a terrible and
desolating war, which raged for thirty years. It did not
become a universal war ; but it came very near to it, since
nearly every European State was at one time or another
drawn into it ; and at its close there had to be made the first
of a series of general European settlements, the latest of
which belongs to our own days.
The war began with a revolt of the Bohemians or Czechs
against the rule of the Habsburgs. Bohemia x had had a
great history as a distinct nation during the Middle Ages,
especiaUy in the fifteenth century, when, under the reformer
Hus, she had successfully defied Catholic Europe. The
Czechs had never admitted without question the claim of
the Habsburgs to rule Bohemia, a claim which came from
one of the lucky marriages for which that family was famous ;
and when they were invited to recognise as the inheritor
of the throne a fanatical Catholic, Ferdinand of Styria,
they rebeUed, and, in the hope of getting help from the
German Protestants, invited Frederick the Elector Palatine
to accept the throne. The elector was James i.'s son-in-
law, and hoped for Enghsh aid. He asked James' advice,
1 There is a short history of Bohemia, by Count Lutzow, in Everyman's
Library.

ch. i.] EUROPE IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 365
but accepted the throne before the advice could be given
bim. James had no sympathy with what seemed to him a
usurpation, and a deliberate precipitation of the dreaded
war; and in any case England, having no army, could
give no help in Bohemia. The Lutheran princes of Germany
also stood aloof. The Habsburgs, aided by the German
Cathohc princes, quickly broke the back of the Bohemian
resistance at the battle of the White Mountain (1620) ;
and after driving out ' the winter king ' (as Frederick
was caUed, from the brevity of his reign) proceeded, by
fierce persecution, to destroy Protestantism, and so far as
possible the national spirit, in Bohemia : the unhappy
country did not begin to revive tUl the nineteenth century,
or recover its freedom tUl the Great War. So ended the
first, or Bohemian, stage of the war.
The Austrians and the German Cathohcs next proceeded
to overrun the original dominions of Frederick 1 and the
other Calvinist princes of South Germany ; and in this
easy task they had the aid of a Spanish army, which marched
down the Rhine from the Netherlands. This showed how
vain were James' hopes from Spain. He redoubled his
futile endeavours to get Spain to play the part of a mediator.
His son Charles, the destined bridegroom, and his favourite
Buckingham, even went off on a wUd goose chase to Madrid
to try to settle the marriage aUiance. But the only result
was that friendly relations with Spain were broken, and a
new war between England and Spain broke out in 1624.
Its only important event was an ill-managed attempt to
seize Cadiz (1625), which led to humiliating failure, James
made no attempt to save his son-in-law, the elector, though
a few English volunteers went to share in his ruin ; and
Frederick and his Enghsh wife, Ehzabeth, driven from
their capital at Heidelberg, became wanderers for the rest
of their hves. Their sons, Princes Rupert and Maurice,
eventuaUy came to England, where Rupert played a very
important part in the CivU War and in the reign of Charles 11.
The victory over Frederick and the South German Pro
testants was a great triumph for the Cathohc party. They
saw before them the chance of a complete overthrow of
German Protestantism. The only chance of saving the situa
tion seemed to be that England, and if possible France also,
should intervene, either directly, or by persuading one or
more of the northern powers to invade Germany, and pro
viding them with the means of doing so.
1 See the map of Germany, Atlas, Plate 23 (b).

366 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
Fortunately a great statesman, Cardinal Richelieu,1 had
come into power in France. He was to be the chief buUder
of the strength of the French monarchy, and the continuator
of the pohcy of Henry iv. : Cardinal though he was, he
cared more to increase French power by checking the House
of Habsburg than to win a possible victory for Catholicism.
On the Enghsh side James had practicaUy abandoned the
control of foreign affairs to Buckingham and Prince Charles,
who soon succeeded to the throne (1625). Charles and
Buckingham, anxious to regain the T?alatinate, to save
German Protestantism, and to win popularity in England,
made an aUiance with France, which was cemented by the
marriage of Charles to the French Princess Henrietta \
Maria. But this was only part of a big combination,
which was to include the Dutch, Venice and Denmark.
Denmark undertook to send an army into Germany to
the aid of the Protestants, the cost of which was to be
partly paid by Enghsh subsidies ; and an Enghsh army
was also to be sent, either through the Netherlands or
through France.
It was a great combination, and, if it had been fuUy
carried into effect, would have saved the situation. But
one great difficulty was that Charles had no money where
with to fulfil his promises, because his Parhament, despite
their zeal for the Protestant cause, would not vote him
any. A scratch army — the levying and biUeting of which
caused endless difficulties in England — was indeed sent
across, but it melted away through sickness and bad organi
sation without achieving anything. The King of Denmark
never received a penny of his promised subsidies. His army
was crushingly defeated at Lutter (1626) ; and North
Germany as weU as South now lay at the feet of the Habs
burgs. France had done little, mainly because an outbreak
among the nobles of the Huguenot party distracted Riche
lieu's efforts. Charles had the foUy to promise the loarT
of ships to help the French in reducing the Protestant
fortress of La RocheUe, which inevitably aroused furious
indignation among the Puritans at home, and a mutiny in
the fleet. Before long Charles had quarreUed with Richelieu, \
and a foolish war with France was added to the war with
Spain (1627). Its only important event was a futile and
disastrous expedition, led by the Duke of Buckingham, \
against the island of Re in the Bay of Biscay. The object
1 There is a hfe of Richelieu, by Sir R. Lodge (Foreign Statesmen).

CH.i.] EUROPE IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 367
of this foUy was to regain popularity in England ; its
result was to render impossible any effective intervention
in Germany by either England or France. After this dis
graceful series of blunders and betrayals, Charles made
no further attempt to take part in the war. He was deep
in debt ; he had quarreUed fataUy with Parliament, and
could not get any money from that source ; he had
resolved to govern without Parhament, and this involved
rigid economy and the avoidance of foreign adventures.
Thus the parliamentary strife in England, which will
be the theme of later chapters, had its effect upon the
European war ; the Protestant cause in Germany was left
in the lurch ; England was humiliated by the reckless
levity of its king's promises, and his total faUure to per
form them ; and another ground of quarrel was given to
the parhamentary opposition.
The remainder of the Thirty Years' War did not directly
affect the history of the islands ; but its influence in the
history of Europe was so great that a summary of it, how
ever bald, must be attempted.
The result of the utter defeat of the Danish intervention
was to place the whole of Germany at the disposal of the
Cathohc party. The Lutheran princes were helpless.
The Cathohcs demanded the restoration of all the Church
lands which had been taken over by the Protestants during
the previous seventy years (1629) . The Habsburg Emperor
Ferdinand saw within his grasp a dictatorship of Germany,
such as even Charles v. had never enjoyed. The great
adventurer, WaUenstein, who had raised an army of mer
cenaries, living by plunder, to fight on the Catholic side,
held even the Baltic shores. But this brought in the
Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus,1 the greatest soldier
of his age. He did not want to see the Swedish power on
the Baltic, which he was bunding up, threatened by so
dangerous a rival ; and he was also a devoted Protestant.
Backed by French subsidies," and helped by the fear of
the Habsburgs which French diplomatists sowed even among
the Catholic princes, he invaded Germany (1630), and in a
brilliant campaign broke for a time the power of the Catholics
at the battles of Breitenfeld (1631) and Liitzen (1632).
Unfortunately he lost his life in the second of these battles.
But he had saved Northern Germany for Protestantism,
and destroyed the chance of German unity under the
1 There is a life of Gustavus Adolphus by C. R. L. Fletcher (Heroes of
the Nations).

368 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION t»*- IV.
Habsburg crown. The relative extension of Protestantism
and Romanism in Germany remains much as he left it ; and,
so far as the original cause of quarrel was concerned, the
war might now have ended.
It lasted, however, for another sixteen years. In this
last and longest phase of the miserable war, unhappy
Germany became the battle-ground of ambitious powers,
especiaUy Sweden and France (which entered the struggle
in 1633), and of soldiers of fortune, who led armies which
maintained themselves whoUy by plunder. The serious
feature of this period of the war was that France, at last
freed (for a time) from troubles at home by the defeat of
the Huguenot rebels, seized the opportunity to increase
her power at the expense both of Germany and of the
Spanish dominions. Even when the war in Germany ,
ended, in 1648, x the war between France and Spain still
went on for another eleven years (1659), encouraged by a
desolating civU strife which had broken out in France.
The result of this appalling war, the ughest and the
most brutal that Europe had yet seen, was to bring about
the almost total ruin of Germany. She had been a populous
and industrious country ; her traders had been among the
most prosperous in Europe. Now she had lost half her
population, and the ravages of war had destroyed most of
her wealth. Disunited before, her disunion was made
final and apparently hopeless, because under the treaty of
Westphaha (1648) it was placed under the guardianship u
of Europe. Her nominal emperors, of the Habsburg House,
henceforward made no effort to turn their authority into a
reality, but confined themselves to the extension of their
own dominions in the south-east ; and though there were
stiU imperial courts and councUs, and (on paper) an imperial 1
army, they counted for nothing. Happier foreign countries,
united whUe she was divided, held blocks of her territory :
France had acquired most of Alsace, and had a strong
footing in Lorraine, both parts of the old German kingdom ;
Sweden held Pomerania and controUed the mouth of the
Elbe. Among her three hundred petty States there were
only two or three which counted for anything in European
affairs. One of these, the electorate of Brandenburg, later
to become the kingdom of Prussia, was rising into pro
minence, and made some gains as a result of the war;2
but no one could foretell as yet the great part it was in
1 See the map of Europe at the peace of Westphalia, Atlas, Plate 9.
1 See the map of the growth of Prussia, Atlas, Plate 24 (a).

ch. i.J EUROPE IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 369
future to play. As a factor in the hfe of Europe and of
Western civilisation, Germany was almost blotted out of
the map. Spain, too, had manifestly sunk to the second
rank of powers, though she stiU retained nearly all her
territories. But two powers had emerged as of the first
rank. One of these was Sweden, which entered upon a
brief period of mUitary splendour, too exacting for her
resources. The other was France, which, though her
greatness was momentarily obscured by civil strife in 1648,
had manifestly become the greatest power in Europe, and
was about to enter upon one of the most magnificent periods
in her wonderful history.
WhUe these ugly but highly important events were
taking place in Europe, the islands were too much con
cerned with their own affairs to pay any serious regard to
them, because they were engrossed first in religious and
pohtical controversy, and then in civil wars.
Yet in several ways the Thirty Years' War directly
affected the fortunes of the islands. In the first place, while
the war raged none of the European powers was in a posi
tion to intervene in the domestic strife of England. In the
second place, many Enghshmen and many Scots, hke Dugald
Dalgetty in Scott's Legend of Montrose, enlisted as mercen
aries or volunteers in the armies of Gustavus, WaUenstein,
and other leaders in the long war. They came back, having
learnt the art of war in the most extensive practical school
of it that Europe had yet seen, to place their trained skill
at the service of one side or the other in the Civil Wars.
In the third place, with the exception of the Dutch, the
European States, and more especiaUy France, were too
much engrossed by the struggle to pay much attention to
the non-European world. The quiet growth of the English
colonies in this period owes a good deal to that. Certainly
it was due to the Thirty Years' War that there was no
German competition, either at this time or for many genera
tions afterwards, in colonisation and oversea trade.
[A lively general sketch of European history in this period is to
be found in Wakeman's Ascendency of France; see also Abbott's
Expansion of Europe. Gardiner's Thirty Years' War (Epochs of
Modern History) is an admirable short sketch ; the standard book
on the subject is Gindely's Thirty Years' War (Eng. trans.). Lord
Acton has a lecture on the Thirty Years' War in his Lectures on
Modern History. For international law and movements towards
peace, Muir's Nationalism and Internationalism ; for the ideas of
absolute monarchy, J. N. Figgis' Divine Right of Kings.]
VOL, I. 2 A

CHAPTER II
THE FIRST COLONIES, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF
TRADE WITH INDIA
§ i. International Rivalry in Oversea Trade.
During the first half of the seventeenth century a move
ment began which was in the long run to prove far more
important to Europe and to the world than the Thirty
Years' War : the sea-board peoples of Northern Europe,
taking advantage of the downfall of the Spanish-Portuguese
monopoly and of the opening of the seas, began to press
forth into the non-Emropean world, to throw round the
globe the tentacles of their trade and influence, and to
plant in empty lands new centres of their civilisation.1 The
primary motives of these enterprises were economic. The
northern nations desired to tap the sources of the wealth
of Spain and Portugal. They desired to get direct access
to the luxuries of the tropics, many of which, hke the spices
with which winter stores of food were made palatable,
had practicaUy become necessaries, whUe others, hke sugar
and tobacco, were rapidly coming to take the same rank.
They also desired a more abundant supply of some non
tropical products which they themselves scarcely supplied
in sufficient abundance — fish, for example, or timber, or
tar. But there were other motives besides these : the
desire to find new homes for their surplus population was
one, though not yet a very powerful one ; the more vulgar
desire merely to acquire territory also counted ; and there
had to be an outlet for the adventurous spirit which had
been cultivated by the long strife of the previous age.
Add to this that rehgious controversy drove refugees
abroad, and the wide range and varied character of the
movement which now began becomes inteUigible.
Though the enterprises of the Enghsh oversea were in
the long run to prove the most important, they by no means
stood alone, nor were they the most remarkable, in this
1 There is a general map of European settlement during this period,
Atlas, Plate 48. » r <
370

ch.ii.] FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 371
period. The peoples who played the leading parts in this
movement were, in the order of their importance, first the
Dutch, next the Enghsh, next, after a considerable interval,
the French ; the parts played by the Danes and Swedes
were relatively insignificant. Our primary concern is with
the Enghsh achievement ; but it is important to see it in
its relation with the rest, partly because this brings out its
distinctive character, which was to be of extreme import
ance for the future, and partly because many even of the
lands explored or settled by other nations were ultimately
to become members^ of the British Commonwealth.
It is at first sight difficult to understand why the Dutch,
a smaU and far from rich nation which had been passing
through an exhausting ordeal, should have attained the
remarkable pre-eminence which feU to it during this period
in oversea trade and colonisation. One important reason
was that they were stiU at war with Spain tiU 1648, while
England made peace in 1604. The Enghsh government,
bent upon cultivating Spanish friendship, could not allow
direct attacks upon Spanish or Portuguese possessions,
much as its subjects wanted to make them. The Dutch
government, on the other hand, aimed at striking every
possible blow at their enemy. The two great trading
companies which controUed Dutch enterprise during this
period, the Company of the East Indies and the Company
of the West Indies, were largely designed for this end, and
practicaUy divided the whole field of operations between
them. They were national organisations, constantly assisted
and supported by the State, and they aimed at organising
aU private effort in these fields towards a common end.
The corresponding Enghsh companies were much more
numerous, much weaker and more divided in their aims,
and they never had such a national character : they were
regulated and restrained, rather than stimulated and helped,
by government. Moreover to the Dutch the development
of national wealth and strength by foreign trade was almost'
the supreme national interest ; whereas the English were
throughout this period, as we shaU see, mainly concerned
with rehgious and pohtical problems, and the French were
distracted by internal discords, and by their growing am
bitions of ascendency in Europe.
AU the nations which took part in this great movement
proceeded in much the same manner. They did not place
the whole of their enterprises under government control,
as Spain and Portugal had done with unhappy results.

372 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
They organised chartered companies, in which groups of
private merchants were linked together under State super
vision and encouraged by the concession of a monopoly
of the trade between their own country and the lands
covered by their charters. These companies were at first
not joint-stock companies in the modern sense : they had
only a comparatively smaU common fund, with which
trading stations and forts were maintained, while their
members invested separately in a single voyage, or series_
of voyages. But the Dutch companies were almost fronT
the first organised on so big a scale, and so closely in rela
tion with their government, that they can scarcely be
caUed private enterprises ; while the French companies
were so unsuccessful in their first stage that government
soon had to take them under its control, and they never
did much until in the second half of the century they were
almost turned into government departments. The Enghsh
companies, on the other hand — not only the greatest, the
East India Company, which was founded by Ehzabeth in
1600, but the two Virginia Companies of 1606, and a whole
series of others — were from the first genuine private organisa
tions, really run by the merchants who composed them,
in spite of the supervision exercised over them by govern
ment. They seemed to suffer at first by the lack of govern
ment help. In the long run it was the secret of their successj
Organised and co-operative private effort built up Enghsh
foreign trade, and founded the English colonies, almost
without government assistance ; and for that reason the
Enghsh experiments were far more varied, and far less tied
up by regulations, than those of the other countries.
§ 2. European Enterprises in the East : the East India
Company.
The field towards which trading enterprise first and most
eagerly turned was the Far East, where the Portuguese had
hitherto had everything to themselves. There were two
main branches of the Eastern trade : the trade with the
continent of India, and the trade with the Malay Archi
pelago and especiaUy the rich little Spice Islands at its
heart ; x other branches of Eastern trade — with Persia, and
with Japan and China — were of quite minor importance.
Of the two, the Spice Island trade was much the more
lucrative. It yielded profits sometimes amounting to
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 49.

eg. ii.] FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 373
V V 1200 per cent, on a single voyage ; and as there were many
island chiefs in a backward state of civilisation whom the
Portuguese had partiaUy conquered, it was possible here,
as it was not in India, to enforce commercial monopoly by
pohtical control.
Into this field the Dutch and the Enghsh at first entered
' ! as comrades in arms, but this did not last long. The Dutch
had great advantages. In the first place, they were free,
as after 1604 the English were not, to attack the Portu
guese directly ; in the second place they had much larger
funds, and could raise armies, buUd factories, and establish
and garrison forts. Naturally they did not see why the
Enghsh should take advantage of their expenditure, and
the early partnership quickly passed into almost open
hostUity. James I. tried to patch up an agreement in
1619, but it was useless. Nicholas Courthope long held out
gaUantly in the island of Pularoon, which the English
claimed. But the Dutch were too powerful. In 1623 they
arrested a small group of English traders in the island
of Amboyna (which was absolutely in Dutch control) on a
baseless charge of conspiracy, tortured them to exact con
fessions, and put twelve out of eighteen of them to death.
This episode, which was known as the Massacre of Amboyna,
practicaUy ended British trade in the Spice Islands, where
(and in most of the Malay Archipelago) the Dutch remained
pohticaUy as weU as commerciaUy supreme, as they stiU
do to this day. But coming as the climax of a long rivalry
in which the English had had much the worst, and kept
fresh by a continuance of this rivalry, it ended the com
radeship of the two enemies of Spain, and prepared the
way for the Anglo-Dutch wars of the middle of the century.
The Dutch, left supreme in the Far East, developed their
opportunities with astonishing energy and success. They
practicaUy controUed the trade with Japan. They ex
plored the waters south of the Malay Peninsula, and between
1605 and 1650 their great explorers (Tasman, 1642-4, above
aU) x discovered the continent of Australia and the islands
which stUl bear the Dutch name of New Zealand. They
did not settle in these lands, weU fitted as they were for
European settlers, because it was not colonisation but
trade which was their object. Later in the century (1651)
they made a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, which
was to have a great future. But they did not intend it to
be a colony, only a post at which ships could refit and be
1 See the map of his explorations, Atlas, Plate 48.

374 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
supphed with fresh vegetables on the way to India. For
that reason it remained under the control of the Dutch East
India Company, which denied aU rights of self-government
to the settlers.
Driven from the Spice Islands, the Enghsh East India
Company had to devote itself to the continent of India,
to which, indeed, several of its earlier voyages had been
sent, and where it already had several factories at the time
of the Massacre of Amboyna. The Dutch were serious
rivals here also ; and in the island of Ceylon the Dutch
graduaUy established an almost complete monopoly. But
on the mainland they never drove out the English : indeed
all the European trading nations had their factories in
India, and none of them had yet begun to dream of pohtical
power in that land.
When the Portuguese first came to India a century earher
they had found it in a condition of disorganisation, and
this had enabled them to conquer and possess areas on
its coast. But since then a great power, highly organised
and civilised, had established its direct authority over the
whole of Northern India, though Southern India was still
divided between several smaUer States.1 This power was
the Mogul Empire. Set up by Baber, an invader from
the north-west in the time of Henry vm., it had been con
solidated and had reached its highest power under the great
and wise Akbar, who was ruling the whole plain of the
Ganges and the Indus from Agra in the time of Queen
Elizabeth. The reigns of his successors, Jehangir and Shah
Je_han, cover the period with which we are now concerned ;
and under these princes the splendour of the Mogul power,
especiaUy in art and architecture, reached its acme. Shah
Jehan, contemporary with Charles I., was buUding, in the
Taj Mahal and the Pearl Mosque at Agra, and in the lovely
marble palaces of Delhi, some of the noblest and most
beautiful buildings in the world. In the presence of a
power of this kind the European adventurers had to behave
themselves. James I. sent an ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe,
to the court of Jehangir in 1615, to ask with aU due courtesy
that trading privileges should be granted to the English.
The Great Mogul repUed at first that the Portuguese con
trolled the European trade ; as India had no sea-power, he
evidently did not want to meddle. But when the Portu
guese failed to drive away the persistent Enghsh inter
lopers, the Mogul readily aUowed the new-comers to
1 See the map of India in this period, Atlas, Plate 59 (a).

CH.n.J FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 375
estabhsh factories — which, of course, in carrying on their
trade had to show due respect to the laws and authorities
of the country.
Thus the English had to overcome Portuguese opposi
tion before they could trade freely with India. Though
they were not aUowed to attack the Portuguese (since peace
had been made in 1604), they did not recognise the right
of the Portuguese to exclude them, and were ready to
defend themselves when attacked. The struggle with the
Portuguese was at its height during the ten years before
1622, when the struggle with the Dutch farther east was
also raging ; after that the Portuguese left the English
alone, and the two nations even co-operated against the
Dutch. In 1612 Captain Thomas Best, with only two
trading ships of the East India Company, and in 1614
Captain Nicholas Downton, with only four ships, had to
resist fierce attacks by overwhelming Portuguese naval
forces, off the town of Surat — the main port on the West
Coast for the trade of Northern India, from which the
Portuguese were determined to exclude them. In both
cases they won resounding and amazing victories, which
so raised the prestige of the Enghsh, and so usefuUy backed
up the sohcitations of Sir Thomas Roe, that in the year
1616 the East India Company was aUowed to open a
'"factory ' at Surat. English prestige was still further
raised when, at the request of the local sultan, the English
traders in 1622 drove the Portuguese out of Ormuz, a
strong place at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which they
had held since the time of Albuquerque.
The factory at Surat, the first secure Enghsh foothold on
the coast of India, was only a hired house : a quadrangle with
a central courtyard and a surrounding compound or garden.
In its upper story the President and his assistants lived,
whUe the lower was used as a warehouse, where goods for
export to England were slowly accumulated tiU the ships
arrived, and the cargoes they brought were sold by auction
to Indian merchants. Surat long remained the principal
centre of English trade in India. But others were estab
lished during this period. In 1632, after some years of
sharp rivalry with the Dutch, a factory was started at
Masulipatam, on the east coast. In the next year a modest
beginning was made at the mouth of the Hooghly river.
This was the beginning of the English connexion with
Bengal ; and in 1650 a more permanent factory was planted
higher up the river, at the town of Hooghly. Meanwhile

376 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
in 1639 the Company had been permitted by a local raja
to buy an area of land on the south-east coast, and to
erect upon it not only a factory but a fort. It was caUed
Fort St. George ; and it was to grow into the city of Madras.
Thus the English were fairly planted, though only as modest
traders, at the three points from which their influence was
to extend over India — the west coast, Madras and Bengal.
The agents whom the Company sent out to manage these
factories, and the dependent coUecting stations up country,
were paid almost nominal salaries — far too low to support
any Enghshman so far from home. This was partly because
the Company's resources were smaU. But there was a
better reason. The agents were appointed on the under
standing that they would supplement their salaries byv
carrying on local trade on their own account ; they had
plenty of time to do so during the long intervals between
the visits of the ships. When these traders obtained
political power, this practice was to have disastrous results.
But so long as they were under the control of strong Indian
governments, it did no harm to anybody. Indeed, it was
(in appearance at any rate) advantageous to everybody
concerned. It encouraged private enterprise, and en
listed it in the service of a common aim. Here again,
individual enterprise is the distinctive Enghsh note ; with
its virtues, and also its defects. Such were the modest
beginnings of the momentous connexion between the
islands of the west and the ancient realm of India. The
Company suffered some set-backs, and was sometimes in
low water, during the first fifty years of its existence. But
during all the period of parliamentary conflict in England
the Indian trade was steadily going on, and steadUy en
riching the country. It was enriching India also ; for the
interchange of goods is beneficial to both sides.
§ 3. Colonising Activities in the West: Canada, Virginia
and New England.
In the West, as weU as in the East, the supremacy of
the Dutch seemed during this period to be overwhelming.
Their powerful and strongly supported Company of the
West Indies (founded 1621) controUed all the Dutch
activities in the North and South Atlantic.1 They founded
trading settlements in Guiana ; they occupied, among
other islands, Cura9oa, from which a lucrative smuggling
1 See the maps, Atlas, Plates 53 and 58 (a).

CH.n.] FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 377
trade could be carried on with the Spanish Main ; they
brought slaves from West Africa ; their ships dominated
aU these waters, carrying the greater part of the trade even
of the English and French settlements. Above aU they
made a vigorous attack upon the rich Portuguese territory
in Brazil, a large part of which they held for thirty years
(1624-54). But their aim was always trade, not settle
ment. Though they estabhshed in 1624-6, under the name
of the New Netherlands,1 a plantation at the mouth of
the Hudson — the best centre for trade on the east coast
of North America, as the subsequent growth of New York
has shown — its main purpose was to carry on a fur trade
with the Red Indians : the settlers were for long few in
number, and (hke those of Cape Colony), they were never
aUowed the rights of self-government.
Meanwhile the French and the English were engaged
upon enterprises in North America which, though they
were at the moment far less dazzling and lucrative than
those of the Dutch, were to lead to far greater results.
The first object of the ambition of both peoples was the
lucrative traffic of the West Indies and the Spanish Main.2
Here the wUd and lawless traditions of the previous age
naturaUy had a great influence, and much of the activity
of the French and Enghsh, as also of many Dutchmen,
was devoted to mere piracy. For two centuries to come
West Indian waters were haunted by pirates. They made
their' headquarters upon the numerous islands which the
Spaniards had left unoccupied, notably the island of
Tortuga, which commanded one of the passages followed
by ships coming from Central America to Europe. The
pirates were known as 'buccaneers,' from the French,
boucanes, the wood-fires at which they dried their stores ,'
of meat, or as 'freebooters,' from the Dutch vliebooten,,
the flying boats which were the terror of peaceful navi
gators. But alongside of piracy went settlement, especiaUy among
the Enghsh, in the httle islands which the Spaniards had
neglected. The French harmoniously divided the little
island of St. Christopher with their English comrades in
1628, and occupied the fine islands of Martinique and
Guadeloupe (1635) ; but the great period of French activity
in the West Indies did not come till the next age. The
English threw themselves with far greater zeal into the
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 54 (c).
* See the map, Atlas, Plate 53 (a) and (b).

378 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk.iv.
planting of West Indian Islands, especiaUy when they found
that these lands could produce tobacco, sugar and cotton,
which fetched very high prices at home. Government,
which, though it desired peace with Spain, never recognised^
the right of the Spaniards to exclude Englishmen from un-N
occupied lands, supported this movement by granting
charters to a number of smaU companies founded for the
purpose of island plantations. The most important of
the Enghsh islands in this period was Barbados (settled in
1624), which almost from the outset enjoyed great pro
sperity. But there were also settlements in the little
Leeward Islands — at St. Christopher (1623), Nevis (1628),
Barbuda (1628), Antigua (1632) and Montserrat (1632);
there was a plantation in Honduras (1638) ; and there
were unsuccessful attempts to plant settlements on the coast
of South America. It was one of these attempts, organised
by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1617, and aimed mainly at the
acquisition of the legendary gold mines of Eldorado, which led
to the execution of that survivor of the Elizabethan age.
In the English West Indian settlements there was one re
markable feature which distinguished them from the settle
ments of all other nations. The settlers brought out with
them the habits of local self-government, ingrained in them
by centuries of practice at home ; and they seem almost
everywhere to have set up elected bodies to share in the
management of local affairs. We do not know when a
representative body was first set up in Barbados, but in
1652 the Barbadians stated that government by a governor,
a council and an assembly was ' the ancient and usual
custom here ' ; and there are many other instances of the
same thing. The note of local self-government was a
feature of the English settlements from the outset, even in
the slave-worked West India Islands, which lived in con
stant danger of Spanish attacks.
But it was on the mainland of North America that the
men of this age did the greatest work— the work that was
to lead to greatest results.1 Here the main part was played
by the Enghsh and the French, who entered at almost
exactly the same moment upon the task of planting colonies
in these almost empty lands. The work of both is of equal
concern to us ; for while the English settlements were
to fix the main characteristics of English colonisation,
and were ultimately to develop into the mighty American
republic, the French settlements were, after long conflicts,
1 See the map of the colonisation of North America, Atlas, Plate 54.

CH. Il.j FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 379
to pass under British rule, and to become part of the British
' Commonwealth. Ever since the daring explorations of Cartier (1534-6),
who had discovered the wide estuary of the St. Lawrence,
and, pursuing it in the hope that he had found the north
west passage, had pushed his way as far as Montreal and
given the name of Canada x to the country which he had
discovered, the French had regarded this land as peculiarly
theirs. They had made several unsuccessful attempts to
plant settlements in it. But in 1603 an expedition, which
included the great explorer Samuel Champlain, renewed
Carrier's discoveries, and in the next year a settlement
was made at Port Royal, in Acadia (Nova Scotia). In
1608 Champlain returned with yet another expedition, and
planted a trading-post on the high rocky bluff overlooking
the St. Lawrence at Quebec.
Champlain's work was mainly that of mapping out the
country.2 In 1609 he explored, to the south, the beautiful
lake which stiU bears his name : but this voyage brought
him into conflict with the fierce Indian tribes of the Iroquois,
who inhabited the northern part of what is now the State
of New York. They were henceforth to be the relentless
enemies of the French. In 1613-15 Champlain made his
way up the Ottawa, through trackless forests inhabited only
by scattered Indian tribes, then by Lake Nipissing to Lake
Huron, and across to the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Here
he again came into conflict with the Iroquois, whose home
lands he had now reached. This was one of the most
gaUant feats of exploration in the early history of North
America, far surpassing any simUar achievement of the
Enghsh ; and it struck at the outset the note of romantic
daring which was to mark the whole history of French
Canada. Though a valuable trade in furs sprang up from the first,
there were for a long time few French settlers in this un
inviting land of forests and fierce savages. A new company,
founded in 1627 under royal patronage, tried to stimulate
emigration. But there was only a thin fringe of settle
ments along the shore of the river near Quebec : little
seigneuries, where emigrant gentlemen maintained fortified
stockades for the protection of their handful of cultivating
1 Canada comes from Kannata, the Indian word for a collection of
huts, which was given to Cartier as the name of a place where he landed ;
he supposed it to be the name of the country.
' See the map, Atlas, Plate 54.

380 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iV.
tenants. The few settlers devoted themselves rather to
the adventurous and profitable enterprises of trapping fur-
bearing animals in the forests and trading with the Indians,
than to cultivation. The noblest exploits of the period
were those of the Jesuit missionaries, who went far afield
among the wild savages, and settled themselves down to
convert them to Christianity : they had a great success
among the comparatively peaceful Huron tribe, on the
eastern shores of the lake of that name.
But the infant colony had to face extreme difficulties.
In the first place it was threatened by the relentless enmity
of the Iroquois, the best organised and the. most warhke
of the Indian tribes, who had made themselves more terrible
by learning the use of fire-arms, which they purchased from
the Dutch traders on the Hudson. The Iroquois exter
minated the friendly Hurons, and murdered several of
the missionaries with hideous tortures which were heroically
endured. They mastered all the tribes in the neighbour
hood of the infant colony. They raided the settlement
year after year, and every settler in French Canada hved
in constant terror of the Iroquois war-whoop. When in
1642 the French planted a new settlement at Montreal,
it had many hairbreadth escapes from destruction ; in
1660 it was only saved by the deathless valour of seventeen
French heroes, who at the cost of their hves defended a
palisaded enclosure at the Long Sault on the Ottawa river,
against incredible odds. That was the end of twenty years
of the Iroquois terror. The settlers had also to deal with
English enmity : during the foolish war of Charles fl
with France, an English fleet seized Quebec ; it was held
from 1629 to 1632, when it was handed back. This was-J
the beginning of a long conflict. In face of all these diffi
culties, it is not surprising that French Canada made very
httle progress, and was, at the end of the period, not to
be compared for numbers and wealth with the Enghsh
settlements farther south. But it had estabhshed a won
derful tradition of courage and daring ; an atmosphere of
romance hangs over it ; and better days were soon to dawn.
Meanwhile in the south the English had, in a haphazard
and unregulated way, been planting settlements quite
unlike any that had yet been made by any of the Euro
pean peoples.
In 1606, in the hope of renewing with more success the
old projects of Sir Walter Raleigh, two Virginia companies
were founded with royal charters, to plant settlements re-

ch. n.] FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 381
spectively to the south and to the north of the 41st degree
of north latitude. The northern company, which came
to be known as the Plymouth Company, never did any
thing of importance. But the southern company, backed
by a number of London merchants and public men, sent
out a party of emigrants who, on 16th April 1607, reached
land at the southern point of Chesapeake Bay, and on
13th May gave the name of Jamestown, in honour of
the king, to the first permanent English settlement on the
American continent.
During its first years the new settlement had a troublous
time. The emigrants were of an unsatisfactory type,
restless and disappointed when they found no gold. The
mortality among them, was very heavy. The Indians, un
wisely handled, became hostile ; and the colony was perhaps
only saved from extinction by the energy of the romantic
adventurer, Captain John Smith.1 But from about 1612
the colony began to look up. The settlers had hghted upon
a rich and fertile country where communication was made
easy by a network of navigable waterways. They soon found
that the soil was well suited for growing tobacco, which at
an early date became their staple product and was even
used instead of money. Though current opinion (which
King James himself expounded in a treatise) regarded
tobacco-smoking as a dirty and immoral habit, the pleasant
vice rapidly grew in Europe ; and Virginia, like the West
Indies, profited. The new colony was largely settled by
means of grants of land to Enghshmen of the country
gentleman class, who brought out sons of their fathers'
tenantry to cultivate their lands. There were compara
tively few independent emigrants of the poorer classes,
because the passage cost about £20 — equivalent to at least
£100 of our money ; such men came mainly as ' indentured
servants,' seUing their services for a number of years to
cover the cost of the passage. Criminals and other un
desirables were also sent out ; after serving for a period
under forced labour, they drifted into the class which
came to be known as the ' mean whites.' As tobacco
could most cheaply be cultivated by slave-labour, negroes
soon (1620) began to be imported, though their numbers
remained smaU during this period. Already Virginia was
assuming the character of an aristocratic settlement,
1 John Smith's autobiography is full of stories of wild adventure, which
may or may not be true ; it is well worth reading. There is a reprint of
Smith's History of Virginia in Rouse's English Classics.

382 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
where the chief citizens were large planters in great houses,
surrounded by dependents and retainers.
The problem of managing the affairs of the first English
colony led to some interesting experiments. At first the
control was vested in the company, checked by a royal
councU. In 1619, however, the company's governor sum
moned a representative assembly of two members from
each plantation and two from each county. Nobody took
any objection to what seemed a natural and Enghsh mode
of procedure ; and thus the first English colony saw the
estabhshment of the first representative assembly ever
created outside of Europe. All the other colonies were
to foUow this example, as if by instinct. Self-government
was in the bones of the English settlers ; and its influence,
by ensuring that local knowledge was considered, largely
accounted for the colony's success. Very little attention
was aroused by the meeting of this assembly, which was
taken as a matter of course ; but it was an event of funda
mental importance in the history of the British Common
wealth because it indicated what was to be its future
development. When, in 1624, the direct authority of the
company was brought to an end, and the Crown became
responsible for the appointment of the colonial governor,
and, through him, for the executive government of the
colony, Virginia attained the form of government which
was to be characteristic of the Enghsh colonial system : an
executive controUed by the Crown, and a legislature elected
by the people.
The very quietness with which this system came into
existence was significant. It implied that it was taken for
granted that emigrant Enghshmen carried with them to
their new homes their ' inherited liberties,' including the
right to be consulted, through their representatives, in the
framing of the laws under which they hved, so far as these)
were variations from the accepted principles of the Enghsh 1
Common Law. Throughout the great colonising period
which was now opening, this doctrine was always regarded
as almost an axiom. Thus in 1620, the very year after the
first meeting of the Virginia Assembly, a similar body was
summoned in the Bermudas ; though these islands — made
known by the shipwreck of Sir George Somers in 1608 — had
been first settled only in 1612, and had a mere handful of
inhabitants in 1620.
But the fact that the emigrant Englishman carried with
him the rights of self-government did not mean that he

ch. ii.] FIRST COLONIES— TRADE WITH INDIA 383
ceased to be a member of the commonwealth from which
he had sprung. On the contrary, his Enghsh citizenship
was held to be the safeguard of his civil liberties. He still
hved under Enghsh law, and was subject to the executive
authority of the Enghsh Crown ; and none of the emigrants
of this period, not even those who left England because
they disapproved of the royal pohcy, ever wished to cut
themselves off from the commonwealth, or to shake off
their aUegiance to the Crown. Hence every colonising
enterprise, however independent, strove to regularise its
position in the commonwealth by obtaining a charter from
the Crown, or from its agents.
In 1620 a new field of colonial enterprise was opened by
the estabhshment of the Council for New England, to take
the place of the ineffective Plymouth Company of 1606.
It was empowered both to initiate enterprises on its own
account, and to make grants of land to others. Under the
direction of its most enterprising member, Sir Ferdinando
Gorges, several httle settlements were made in the regions
later known as Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
But the main work of settlement in these northern lands
was to be due, not to the activity of the Council for New
England, but to a new and potent factor, the factor of
rehgious enthusiasm. In the very year in which the Council
was founded, but without its assistance, the Pilgrim Fathers
saUed for New England.
When it became plain that neither Ehzabeth nor James 1.
was going to allow the English Church to be reconstituted
on a thoroughly Puritan model, some groups of enthusiasts
had begun to emigrate to HoUand. One such group went
as early as 1593. In 1606 another group, a whole congre
gation with their minister at their head, went to HoUand
from Scrooby in Lincolnshire. But they were not happy in
HoUand : too much laxity surrounded them, and they feared
lest their children should cease to be Enghshmen. They
therefore negotiated with the London Virginia Company
for permission to settle in its territory, which was given
them ; and, after various mishaps and delays, the httle pious
company set sail from Plymouth (August 1620) in the historic
Mayflower. The winds carried them not to warm Virginia,
but to the inhospitable shores of Cape Cod, where they
landed, and ga^e the name of Plymouth to their first settle
ment.1 Fortunately the first winter was mild, and the
Indians were friendly. But even so, the little company
1 See the map of the early New Er.gland settlements, Atlas, Plate 54 (b) .

384 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
of poor and humble folk suffered great hardships ; and
it was only by reason of their own staunchness and the
wisdom of their elected governor, Wilham Bradford, that
the tiny settlement took root. The London partners who ,
had financed it were bought out ; and the smaU congre
gation of the faithful were left undisturbed to manage their
own affairs. The basis of their organisation was naturaUy
that of their church ; the free citizens were the church
members ; and the church, standing in the centre of
their stockaded enclosure, was their fort as well as their
sanctuary. The modest settlement at Plymouth continued to main
tain its distinct existence until, at the end of the century, it
was merged in its later and greater neighbour, Massa
chusetts. It enjoyed no marked prosperity, and showed no
vigour in expansion. Its inoffensive people were left un
disturbed in the enjoyment of their complete autonomy.
Yet, though they had left England to make a Bible Com
monwealth of their own, they regarded themselves still
as Enghshmen and subjects of the English Crown ; they
accepted Enghsh law ; and, hke every other group of
colonists, prided themselves upon their enjoyment of the
rights and privileges of Englishmen.
But, obscure and humble as they were, the Pilgrim
Fathers had started a new era in colonisation. They had
marked out the path which, before many years had passed,
was to be foUowed by a remarkable stream of emigrants.
This emigration was the direct outcome of the conflict over
political and religious questions which had already begun
in England while the first colonies were being planted;
and to this conflict, which was to exercise the most pro
found influence upon the character and development of
the whole commonwealth, we must next turn.
[Payne's European Colonies gives a good general sketch, though
now somewhat out of date ; a better and more recent account is
given in Abbott's Expansion of Europe. Doyle's English in America
(3 vols.) is the best English book on the period ; G. L. Beer's Origins
of the British Colonial System and Egerton's British Colonial Policy
are books of the highest value on their subjects ; W. L. Grant's
History of Canada is a well-written short book ; Parkman's Pioneers
of France in the New World, and The Jesuits in North America axe
brilliant and vivid books on the early history of Canada ; Channing's
History of the United States gives the results of modern scholarship ;
Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols.) is a con
densed repository and bibliography for all the American settlements
of all nations; Hunter's British India gives a spirited account of
early conflicts in India.]

CHAPTER III
THE CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT
(a.d. 1603-1629I
James 1. and vi., 1603 : Charles 1., 1625.
§ 1. The General Grounds of Conflict.
James vi. of Scotland, buUied by his nobles and the ministers
of the Kirk, and always short of money, had long watched
with envy, across the border, the wealth and undisputed
power of Ehzabeth, whose legitimate heir he was. He was a
man of intelligence and learning, widely read in theology,
and he possessed a sound theoretical grasp of European
pohtics. Vain, timid, self-important, good-natured, un
businesslike and pedantic, he would have done better as a
professor than as a king. He was much influenced by the
fashionable doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. When
he succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland in
1603, he hoped at last to enjoy the unrestricted authority
which in his view a king ought to possess. But from the
outset he found himself faced by difficulties.
In the first place, rehgious parties were troublesome.
James, hke Ehzabeth, was wiUing enough to leave men
a great deal of freedom, provided that the control of the
Crown through the bishops over the Church was not weak
ened or chaUenged ; but he had no intention of giving way
either to the Cathohcs or to the Puritans, both of whom
appeared to chaUenge royal authority, Cathohcs by assert
ing the papal supremacy, Puritans by desiring a popular
element in Church government. Yet both parties hoped,
at the beginning of the reign, that the change from Eliza
beth's regime might be favourable to them.
In the first months of the reign some Catholics were
mixed up in an obscure and foohsh plot to seize the king. It
came to nothing ; and after its failure a handful of the
more desperate Cathohcs formed a conspiracy to blow up
the Houses of Parhament on 5th November 1605. The
discovery of this Gunpowder Plot, and of a whiskered
vol. 1. 2 b

386 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
desperado romanticaUy surrounded by barrels of gunpowder
in a cellar, aroused an excitement altogether out of pro
portion to its importance : ridiculously enough, its anni
versary was regularly celebrated by smaU boys until quite
recently. It increased the eagerness of Parliament to deal
more severely with Catholics. James deserves credit for
having resisted, but his resistance aggravated his difficulties
with Parhament.
On the other hand, the Puritans in a very largely signed
petition demanded a revision of the practices of the Church
of England. James went further than Ehzabeth had ever
done, by calling and presiding over a conference between the
bishops and the Puritan leaders at Hampton Court (1604). v
But no material concession was made to them ; the king made
it plain that in his view the authority of the Crown would
be endangered by any weakening of the power of the bishops
— ' No Bishop, No King,' was his motto. The only im
portant result of the Hampton Court Conference — but it
was a great one — was that a new translation of the Bible
by a committee of learned clergy was set on foot. Its out
come was the noble Authorised Version, pubhshed in 1611,
which has been one of the greatest factors in moulding the
character of the British peoples. Soon after the conference
the Convocation of the Church drew up a series of canons /
or rules, designed for the purpose of giving a flat negative
to the more extreme Puritan demands ; and the enforce
ment of these led a number of Puritan clergy to resign their
livings. The refusal of the king and the bishops to make
any concession to the Puritans made yet another subject
of complaint in Parhament.
In the second place, the king's foreign pohcy, which as
we have already seen aimed at making friends with Spain
and at maintaining peace in Europe, was always attended
with difficulties. He made, as we have seen, a peace with
Spain in 1604, but it was an unsatisfactory peace, and things
did not go as he wanted them. On the one hand Spain
never understood or sympathised with the real aim of his
policy. On the other hand there was always a strong war
party even at court, and the Puritans in Parhament were
generaUy eager for a Protestant war, and resented what
they regarded as James' subservience to Spain. Foreign
pohcy was always a ground of difference between king and
Parliament. Parhament had a whoUy misleading idea
that Ehzabeth had played the part of a Protestant heroine,
whereas her policy had always been guided by national

CH. in.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 387
and not by religious motives. The king, on his side, re
sented acutely any criticism of or interference in foreign
affairs, which, hke Elizabeth, he regarded as pecuharly his
province. In the third place, there was a difference of long standing,
now beginning to be acute, between two groups of lawyers
and two sets of law courts. The courts which were more
directly under the influence of the king and the Privy
Council, such as the Star Chamber, the High Commission
Court for Church matters, and even the older Court of
Chancery, wielded a jurisdiction which was undefined in
its extent, and used methods of procedure widely different
from those of the ordinary common-law courts. The
lawyers who practised in the special courts were inclined
to emphasise the royal prerogative, to argue (what was
historicaUy true) that aU courts emanated from the king
as the source of justice, and to maintain that his authority
was ultimately unlimited. On the other hand, the lawyers
of the common-law were inclined to assert that they were
the guardians of the ultimate and fundamental law of the
land, the lex terrce of Magna Carta x ; that this law was above
the king, and could not be altered by him or by anyone ;
and that any procedure of other courts which came in
conflict with it was invalid. The great exponent of this
view was Sir Edward Coke, a deeply learned man. Carried
to its logical extreme, "the common-law view would have
sentenced England to an unchanging and unprogressive
system. But it implied the vital principle of the supremacy
of law even over the Crown. The disputes about juris
diction between rival sets of law courts may seem petty
matters. But they had great influence upon the develop
ment of the controversy between Crown and Parhament,
which turned mainly upon legal precedents ; and though
they did not, until a later date, arouse much attention,
much lay behind them.
In the fourth place, the king was a Scotsman, and this
meant that he lacked the instinctive sympathy with Enghsh
points of view which was possessed by such peculiarly
Enghsh sovereigns as Henry vin. and Ehzabeth. The
antipathies created by three centuries of war between the
two nations were kept alive by Enghsh irritation at the
number of Scotsmen who naturaUy foUowed their king to
England, and at the favour shown to them. James was
' This was, of course, a misinterpretation of the term ; see above,
Book 1. chap. v. p. 65.

388 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
eager to bring about a real union between England and
Scotland, and his eagerness is much to his credit. But
Parhament did not share it ; and, despite aU his efforts,
James could get nothing more than a decision — given by
the law courts, not by Parliament — that aU Scots bom
after the date of his accession to the Enghsh throne had the
rights of English subjects in England (Case of the Post--*
nati, 1607).
Lastly — and this was perhaps as important as anything
— in spite of the growing prosperity of England, the Enghsh
government was in financial straits. Elizabeth, for all
her frugahty, accumulated a heavy debt during her later
years, and by large sales of Crown lands she had reduced
the permanent revenue of the Crown. This meant that
recourse had to be had to Parliament for rehef ; and Eliza
beth's difficulties showed that even she, with aU her popu^
larity, found it hard to get adequate grants from Parha
ment. James' reckless extravagance added greatly to the
difficulty. Ministers had to use every device known to
the Tudors to raise money within the law, and some of
these devices, though not without precedent, were open to
chaUenge by Parhament. The result of this situation was
that James was necessarily dependent upon Parhament,
a position which he dishked. Later in the reign the re
markable growth of Enghsh trade relieved the situation,
by bringing about a great increase in customs duties ; and
until war threatened at the end of the reign, Parliament]
could be dispensed with. But until then the king by
Divine Right found himself in an irritating position of
dependence. It was these difficulties which at once gave to Parhament
the opportunity for claiming an increase of power, and
provided it with the grounds of attack upon the Crown.
Parliament indeed had no intention of claiming new powers,
and no idea that it was doing so. Its members honestly
beheved that they were defending ' the ancient inherited
liberties of England.' They did not consciously desire
any change : at the most they wished to revive liberties
which had been temporarUy disused, and they resented the
charge of being ' innovators.' Yet innovators they were,
for they were groping towards a new system of national
government by co-operation, and a new view of the posi
tion of the Crown, which would make the king essentiaUy
only the first official of the nation. Though they based
all their arguments upon precedents, they chose their pre-

ch. in.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 389
cedents from the periods which suited them best, and read
modern meanings into mediaeval phrases. Sometimes their
imperfect historical learning misled them ; thus the autho
rities upon which they based their claims in the preamble
to the Petition of Right included a quite incorrect version
of Edward i.'s Confirmation of the Charters, and a statute
which had never been passed. They constantly referred
to Magna Carta with veneration as a sort of fundamental
unalterable law, which it never was, and put into its clauses
meanings which modern scholarship has shown that they
never possessed.
In the battle of precedents the weight of authority was
on the whole more favourable to the contentions of the
Crown than to those of Parhament on most of the questions
at issue. For the Crown also rested upon precedent ;
and, largely as James 1. and Charles 1. talked about Divine
Right, they never actuaUy did anything that was not
capable of a strong, or at least a plausible, legal justification.
Kings by Divine Right were, in their view, responsible only to
God for the way in which they exercised their powers ; they
were not mere officials responsible to the nation ; but that
did not mean that they intended to override and defy
definitions of their powers which had been accepted by
their predecessors. Nevertheless, though it too rested upon
precedents, the Crown, equaUy with Parliament, was un
consciously aiming at a great change in the system of
government. Divine Right monarchy was quite as in
consistent as the ideas of the Parliamentarians with the
old feudal order from which both drew their precedents.
The insistence upon precedents in aU the coming dis
cussions is very characteristic of England. It implied a
real respect for Law as such, and ensured that advance
should be cautious and in touch with tradition. But it
tended to conceal the fact that the struggle was a real
conflict of principles, a conflict between two ideas of national
government, both new and both undefined, of which one
expressed a doctrine widely current at the time, whUe the
other was peculiar to England. The Crown was the spokes
man of one of these principles, Parhament the spokesman
of the other. The whole future of the Commonwealth
depended upon the outcome of this debate.
It is a blunder to think of this great but hazy contro
versy as a conflict between the people and the king. There
were advocates of both views in the nation, and if it had
been conceivable that the issue should be clearly defined

390 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
and put to a popular vote, the vote would probably have
gone in favour of the king's view. It is equaUy a blunder
to think of Parhament as a democratic body, coming to
Westminster with ' mandates ' from large constituencies.
One half of Parliament was the House of Lords, consisting
of hereditary peers and of bishops nominated by the king ;
and, though it contained men who favoured the Commons
in the conflict, the House of Lords was on the whole in
clined to take the king's side. Even the House of Commons,
which was the active party in the conflict, must be thought
of primarily as an assembly of country gentlemen, and
of lawyers drawn from the same social class, with a
mere sprinkling of merchants from London and a few
other trading towns. The ninety- two knights of the shire,
who formed the most dignified element in the House of
Commons, were required by law to be ' gentlemen bom,'
a term which had at that date a perfectly definite meaning ;
they were all wealthy squires. The representatives of the
boroughs, who numbered nearly four hundred, might have
been expected to speak rather for the trading classes. If
they had done so, the trading interest would have been grossly
over-represented. But in fact it was not so. Very many
of the boroughs were tiny places, httle more than villages,
often clustered round the park-gates of some rural magnate.
The right of voting in them varied greatly, according to
local custom, but was only in a few places widely distri
buted. There were no newspapers to disseminate rival
' programmes,' and no elaborate electioneering. In most
cases the boroughs were glad to nominate two of the gentle
men of their neighbourhood, or to accept their recornmenda-
tions. The House of Commons was thus in effect drawn
from among the most active and public-spirited members
of a single class, that of the country gentlemen, blended
with members of a single profession, that of law, which was
mainly recruited from the same class. But the country
gentlemen were the most politically active class in England,
the best educated, and the most experienced in the work
of administration. They were the natural and accepted
leaders of the most important section of the community.
Better than any other class, they could, at this date, speak
for the nation, though their opinions, as expressed in
Parhament, were probably in advance of those of the
greater part of the nation, which had indeed no very definite
opinions at ah,

ch. in.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 391
§ 2. James I. and his Parliaments.
Such an assembly was difficult to deal with ; it could
neither be browbeaten nor corrupted ; and King James,
and his son after him, not only quarrelled with every
Parhament which they summoned, but found each more
troublesome and exacting than the last. James' first
Parhament, which had four sessions between 1604 and
1611, was relatively amenable. But in its first session it
made trouble because disputed elections had been referred
to the Court of Chancery, and successfuUy insisted that it
must settle all such questions itself ; it complained of the
treatment of Puritans and of undue leniency to Catholics ;
it dealt most unwillingly with the king's favourite project
of a union with Scotland, and in the end hung it up in
definitely ; it attacked the privileges granted to trading
companies ; it refused to come to an agreement on a pro
posal to commute the king's feudal dues for a fixed annual
payment — in itself a not unreasonable reform ; and, though
it voted some money to the king, gave a quite inade
quate sum, and insisted upon having its grievances redressed
before it would give any more.
Above aU, in its last session it raised a great storm over
the question of ' impositions,' or additional import duties,
about which there was to be immense controversy in the
future. Import duties had always formed a large part of
the royal revenues. The old traditional customs duties,
under the name of tonnage and poundage, were habitually
granted to each king for life by the first Parhament of his
reign, but many lawyers held that they belonged to the
king in any case, apart from parliamentary grants. Natu
raUy the rates charged needed to be revised from time to
time, especiaUy when new commodities became important ;
and the Crown had frequently exercised the right either of
imposing new duties or revising the old ones. In 1606 a
London merchant, Bate, had refused to pay a duty on
currants on the ground that it was not part of the ancient
customs, but the judgment of the courts had gone against
him. In 1608 the Lord Treasurer, Cecil, issued a revised
Book of Rates, in which many changes were made. This
was what raised the storm about impositions, the Commons
claiming that no duties over and above the ancient ones
covered by tonnage and poundage could be levied without
their consent. Precedent was in favour of the king. But
there could be no doubt about the danger of such a power,

392 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
especiaUy now that foreign trade was attaining to an im
portance it had never reached earher. The king n^ght get
from this source enough to make him independent of Parha
ment. There was a stormy debate (1610), but no settle
ment was reached, and the question remained undecided
for thirty years. It afforded an illustration of the insuffi
ciency of precedents as a foundation for political liberty.
The first Parliament had been unsatisfactory; the
second was worse. It was summoned in 1614 because the
financial outlook was black. The king tried to influence
the elections beforehand, but that only brought a storm
upon his head. The Commons declined to discuss grants
until they had discussed grievances ; and, after much noise
and fury, the ' Addled ' Parliament was dissolved with
nothing done.
Seven years passed before a third Parliament was sum
moned in 1621 : the interval was possible because of the
steadily improved yield of customs duties, and this naturaUy
did not make Parliament, when it did meet, more yielding on
the subject of impositions. In the meanwhile many things
which displeased Parliament had happened. Gondomar, the
Spanish ambassador, had become ominously influential at
court ; a royal favourite, Carr, Earl of Somerset, had dazzled
and disgusted England with his lavishness, and had been
ruined by the foul atmosphere of divorce and poison-
mysteries with which he surrounded himself ; a second and
more briUiant favourite, ViUiers, Earl of Buckingham, was in
the ascendent ; Sir Walter Raleigh, last of the Elizabethans,
had been executed, so men said, on the demand of Spain ;
and above aU, the Thirty Years' War had broken out, and
Protestantism was in danger. Parliament was in no forth
coming humour when it met in 1621. What is more, it
now had a group of tried and tested leaders. One of these,
just emerging, was John Pym. Another was the great
lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, who had been Chief Justice, but
had been dismissed by the king for his persistent opposi
tion to the prerogative courts, and the great lawyer was
eager to renew the strife in a new arena.
Parliament made a totally inadequate grant for an ex
pedition to reheve the Palatinate. But it gave its main
attention to the redress of grievances. It took up the old
question of monopohes, which James had been granting on a
large scale ; and, not content with a bill against monopoUes,
resolved to punish Sir Giles Mompesson, a connexion of
Buckingham's, who had flagrantly abused patents granted

nun.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 393
to him. For that purpose the Commons revived the old
practice of*' impeaching ' the offender before the House of
Lords, which had been invented in Edward ni.'s time,1 but
long since disused. The revival of impeachment provided
the Commons with a very formidable weapon, a legal
process by which they could, on behalf of the nation, bring
to trial before the House of Lords agents of government
who misused their power. Mompesson forestalled con
demnation by flight to the Continent.
But the weapon was soon to be used against higher game
—no less a man than Sir Francis Bacon, now Lord ChanceUor,
who was charged with corruption in the exercise of his
judicial functions. Bacon had undoubtedly been guilty of
irregularities in taking gifts from parties to cases. But it
is probable that his real offence lay deeper. He had been
the defender of the prerogative courts against Sir Edward
Coke and the common-lawyers. He was found guUty and
crashingly punished : his pubhc life was at an end (1621).
And the House of Commons realised that it possessed, in
impeachment, a very powerful and effective means of caUing
to account the agents of government.
Later, when asked to vote more money to help the
Elector Palatine, the Commons drafted a petition demand
ing greater severity against the Cathohcs, and protesting
against the king's Spanish pohcy. This was to touch the
king in his tenderest spots : rehgious policy and foreign
policy being in his view (as in Ehzabeth's) his very peculiar
prerogatives. But when he rebuked the Commons for
trenching on his prerogatives (as Ehzabeth had also done),
they rephed by entering upon their journals a solemn
protest to the effect that aU affairs concerning king and
realm and church were proper subjects of counsel and debate
in Parhament. Here, in truth, a great issue was raised.
There was to be no question of national pohcy reserved for
the king's sole discretion : no subject not liable to review
and criticism by Parhament. James sent for the journals
and tore out the offending passages with his own hands.
But you cannot mend the weather by smashing the baro
meter. Parhament was first prorogued and then dissolved,
without having made provision for the Palatinate ; and
three of its members, including old Sir Edward Coke, were
sent to the Tower.
If he could, James would have had no further parliaments.
But the breach with Spain, which came in 1624, made grants
1 See above, Book 11. chap. vii. p. 151.

394 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
of money necessary ; moreover it might be hoped that the
war with Spain, so often demanded by the Commons, would
be popular. A new Parhament, therefore, was caUed for
1624. It included, besides the old leaders, two great men :
the eloquent, generous, enthusiastic Cornish knight, Sir
John Eliot, an impassioned lover of what he believed to be
the tradition of English hberty ; and the deeply learned
historical and legal scholar, John Selden. In this Parha
ment Buckingham tried to make an aUiance with the
popular party, on the strength of the part he had played
in breaking with Spain. He succeeded in getting a sub
stantial grant, though only half of what was needed. But
it was given on the significant condition that treasurers
appointed by Parliament should control the money, and
only issue it for the purpose for which it had been voted.
Moreover this Parhament imitated its predecessor by
impeaching a great official — the Lord Treasurer Middlesex,
who had done much to bring the finances into good order,
but had also been guUty of irregularities. In this act the
Commons were, it is true, hounded on by Buckingham,
whom Middlesex had opposed in the matter of the Spanish
War. But the great weapon of attack had been sharpened.
When a Lord ChanceUor and a Lord Treasurer had faUen
before it, who was safe ? The death of James, however,
brought his fourth Parliament to a premature end, and
the final grapple was postponed to the reign of his successor.
§ 3. Charles I. and the Petition of Right.
Charles 1., a young and handsome prince, with many
graces and every domestic virtue, ought to have been able
to deal successfully with his parhaments at the opening
of the reign, especiaUy as he and his friend Buckingham
had been at pains to cultivate the last Parliament, and
were plunging into a popular war, and making ready to
take part in a great coahtion for the rehef of the German
Protestants. But Charles was at once proud and reticent,
always under the influence of some more active mind, even
more impatient of criticism than his father, and apt to be
uncandid in dealing with opposition which he thought
improper. Moreover Buckingham, to whom he entrusted
the practical control of affairs, was a reckless and slapdash
person, incapable of making sound plans or of sticking to
any plans. The flagrantly incompetent conduct of the
war gave to Parliament the best of excuses for interfering

ch. iii.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 395
in matters which it would not have ventured to touch
under the Tudors. At the same time the refusal of the
Commons to provide the funds wherewith the king could
honour his obhgations drove him to devices which laid him
open to attack. After four years of unceasing and em
bittered conflict, and unbroken and humihating failure
abroad, Parliament had almost got to the point of claiming
to control the conduct of government, a claim which it
would never have dreamt of putting forward even ten
years earher ; and Charles, to maintain the royal authority,
was reduced to the necessity of suddenly liquidating his
continental obhgations, and trying to get on without a
Parhament or the funds that it alone could give.
Not the least of the reasons for the suspicion with which
he was regarded by the Commons was that he had identified
himself with a new party in the Church, which was now
becoming aggressive. James 1., though bent upon main
taining trie authority of the bishops, and through them of
the Crown, was himself a Calvinist in doctrine, as were
most of his prelates. But during the later years of his
reign — those years in which the influence of Charles and
his friend Buckingham was dominant — a new school of
thought had been rising into vogue. In doctrine it was
1 Arminian, repudiating the characteristic Calvinist doctrine
of predestination. It laid less stress than the Puritans on
preaching, and more on ceremonial. It refused to accept
the exclusive emphasis which the Puritans laid upon the
Bible, and held that the traditional usages and festivals of
the Church ought to be binding when not inconsistent with
Scripture. This school of thought, which had never been
absent throughout the English reformation, but was now
stronger and more earnest than ever, may be called the
Anglo-Cathohc party. Its ablest living representative was
William Laud, Bishop of St. David's, whom Charles 1.
made Bishop of London, and to whose advice he listened
on aU Church matters. Laud was a reformer, like the
Puritans, and desired to remodel the English Church after
his own mind. And he and his school, as was natural, were
friends of the monarchy which supported them, and advo
cates of the doctrine of Divine Right.
When Charles' first Parhament met, in June 1625, they
voted only £140,000 for the expenses of a war upon which
the king had pledged himself to spend at least £700,000 a
year. At the same time they introduced an alarming
innovation. The duties known as tonnage and poundage

396 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
(which formed an essential part of the revenue) by custom
had to be granted to the Crown by the first Parliament of
the reign. They had been granted to every successive
king for life ; but this Parhament proposed to grant themi
for one year only, as a security against being dismissed.)
Then they proceeded to deal with rehgious matters, demand
ing greater strictness towards Catholics, and condemning
in set terms a treatise by a leading Anglo-Catholic, whom
they committed to the sergeant-at-arms. The king promptly
appointed him a royal chaplain. Later, in response to an
earnest appeal for money to carry out the national obliga
tions, the Commons returned an evasive reply, and pro
ceeded to make a violent attack upon Buckingham and the
king's other advisers. Charles lost patience and dissolved
the Parhament, when it had sat for less than two months,
and before it had even had time to pass the Tonnage and
Poundage Act.
Six months later (1626), his financial straits compeUed -
him to summon another Parhament. In the meantime a
disastrous expedition to Cadiz had discredited England
abroad; English ships had been promised to France to
crush, the Protestants of La RocheUe, whose revolt was
preventing France from giving help in Germany ; and the
unhappy King of Denmark was pressing for his promised
subsidies. Desperate for money, Charles had tried to raise
a compulsory loan. When Parhament met, the first act
of the Commons was to appoint a committee of grievances
and to demand an inquiry into the mismanagement of the
war. A direct attack was opened against Buckingham ;
and no grants of the direly needed money were even to be
discussed until grievances were redressed. Even in the
Lords Buckingham was bitterly attacked ; whUe , ths
Commons proceeded to draw up crushing articles of im
peachment against him. This was in effect an assertion
of the responsibihty of ministers to Parliament. When Sir
John Eliot opened the impeachment before the Lords, he
compared Buckingham to Sejanus, the tool of the tyrant
Tiberius. For this insult Ehot was sent to the Tower. The
Commons declined to transact business until he was re
leased, and the king had to release him. Then the business
which the Commons did condescend to transact was a
protest that all payments of tonnage and poundage (which
the Crown had been collecting in spite of the failure to pass
the Act) were Ulegal; without their consent ; and refused to
grant any money till Buckingham was dismissed. Threatened

ch. in.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 397
with the loss of a large proportion of his already whoUy
insufficient revenue, and with the ruin of his dearest friend,
Charles dissolved this Parhament also, after only four
months. He had not received a penny ; and he and the
country were dishonoured in the eyes of the world. Badly
as the war had been mismanaged, it is not surprising that
Charles felt he was unfairly used.
Money he must have. He continued to levy tonnage
and poundage : indeed, suddenly to drop all the customs
duties would have caused confusion in trade. He tried,
through the justices of the peace, to get the country to
pay as a free gift what it would have paid if a subsidy had
been granted, but the result was smaU. He levied money
on the maritime counties for the provision of ships : this
had often been done before, and the money came in. He
mortgaged Crown lands. Finally, he resolved to exact
as a forced loan what he could not get as a parhamentary
grant or as a free gift. This was his nearest approach to
formal Ulegahty : the judges dechned to declare it legal, and
many people refused to pay. To compel them, gentlemen
who refused payment were thrown into prison, humbler men
were pressed for soldiers. Five knights, thus imprisoned,
demanded a writ of habeas corpus in the King's Bench
(1627). In answer to that writ, the cause of imprisonment
ought to be shown by the gaoler. The only cause given by
the king's representative was that the knights were im
prisoned per speciale mandatum regis — by the king's special
command ; and they argued that for the safety of the realm
there must reside in government a discretionary power of
this kind, to be used in emergency. The argument had
some plausibility ; every existing government possessed
and us§d such a power, and Ehzabeth had often used it.
But the known circumstances under which the five knights
had been imprisoned — for refusing to subscribe to a forced
loan which the judges would not declare legal — did not add
to its cogency.
MeanwhUe everything was going wrong with the war.
Denmark, lacking the promised help, was crushed, and the
German Protestants were at the mercy of the Cathohcs ;
a mad war with France had been added to the war with
Spain, and the Duke of Buckingham had led' a fleet and an
army to disaster on the isle of Re (1626). It was in these
circumstances that the king, more desperate for money
than ever, had to meet his third Parhament (March 1628). _
The Commons felt that the crisis was grave. Their

398 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
leaders decided that the impeachment of Buckingham had
best be dropped, since far deeper issues had been raised
than any mere personal controversy. Unparhamentary
taxation — arbitrary imprisonment : if these were aUowed
to establish themselves, English liberty was as good as
dead. The sovereignty of law must be enforced : the
rights of the representative house must be maintained.
These were the supreme duties of this Parliament, which
must take precedence of aU money grants. They drew
up a grave and weighty statement of the breaches of law
which had recently taken place, and of the prescriptive and
inviolable rights of Englishmen which, in their view, these
acts had infringed. This document, known as the Petition of
Right (1628), has always ranked next to Magna Carta among
the bulwarks of Enghsh liberty. It deserves to rank higher,
for it marks a far clearer definition and a far greater advance
than Magna Carta. It declared the unlawfulness of any
' gift, loan, benevolence, tax or suchlike charge,' without
parhamentary grant. These words, it is true, did not
expressly mention customs duties, and the indefiniteness
left room for further dispute. But they ruled out, at any
rate, every form of direct taxation. It declared the im
prisonment of any man without cause shown to be iUegal :
the cause must be shown in answer to a writ of habeas
corpus. There were other clauses. But these were the
essential points. They left the personal liberty of the
subject, and the control of taxation by Parhament, more
clearly defined than they had ever been before.
The Lords agreed to the demands embodied in this great
document. The king struggled to avoid formaUy accepting
it. He offered a carefuUy drafted statement, asserting
his obligation to maintain the laws and customs of the
realm as well as his own prerogative. That would not
satisfy. He had to bow his proud head : soit droit fait
comme est desire.
But the Commons were not content with this great
victory. They proceeded to attack divines who had
exalted the royal prerogative. They impeached Roger
Manwaring, who had preached that parliamentary assent
was not necessary for taxation, and whose sermons had been
licensed by the king. They drew up a remonstrance
demanding the removal of the Duke of Buckingham. In
a second session (1629) they raised once more the question
of tonnage and poundage, and were proceeding to attack
Laud and others of his school, when the king ordered an

ch. in.] CONFLICT OF CROWN AND PARLIAMENT 399
adjournment. Thereupon the doors of the House were
locked ; and the Speaker was forcibly held down in his
chair while articles were read and passed, protesting against
the innovations in rehgion and the coUection of tonnage
and poundage.
The king rephed by dissolving the House, and issued a
pubhc declaration, wherein he complained (not wholly
without reason) that Parhament had first induced him to
go to war and then traded on his necessities. FinaUy he
imprisoned nine members of the House of Commons, in
cluding their great leader, Sir John Ehot. It was not easy
to reconcUe this with, the Petition of Right, so recently
accepted. Ehot died in prison two years later ; and two
of his companions were not released tiU 1640.
So ended the first great phase of the conflict. It had led
to one important achievement, the Petition of Right. But
it had also shown the House of Commons aspiring to some
thing hke control of the executive government, and had
caused many men to ask whether efficient government
would be possible if an assembly so large and variable had
it in its power to make government at any moment impos
sible. One man who was inclined to share this view was
Sir Thomas Wentworth,1 a great squire of Yorkshire, who
had played one of the leading parts in the opposition to
Buckingham, and even in the drafting of the Petition of
Right. To overthrow an incompetent minister was one
thing ; to make government impossible was another. He
had helped in both. But he was a lover of efficiency, of
what he caUed ' Thorough.' The murder of Buckingham
(1628) had removed the chief cause of inefficiency arid made
a better system possible. Parhament had no clear ideas
as to the kind of system it would desire to estabhsh. Con
scious of his own ability, Wentworth was persuaded to
enter the service of the king, and prepared to help him to
make government efficient, and to do without Parhament.
To this day men quarrel as to whether Wentworth deserved
to be called an apostate ; or whether his action was due to a
change of view such as may suddenly come to a man or a
nation when they begin to reahse what is the inevitable goal
of the path on which they have set their feet.
Helped by Wentworth and by Laud, Charles 1. entered
upon an experiment in government, the aim of which was
to show that, without overriding or disregarding the laws
' There is a short life of Wentworth .(Strafford) by H. D. Traill in the
Enghsh Men of Action Series.

400 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv,
of the land, monarchy, when freed from vexatious and
unreasonable parhamentary criticism, could give to the
people orderly peace, prosperity and happiness. In
England, to aU outward seeming, the experiment long
appeared to be wholly successful, though, as we shaU see,
the movement of emigration to the New World afforded
an evidence of dissatisfaction which ought not to have
been hghtly regarded. In Ireland also the system of
' Thorough ' seemed to be triumphantly successful, though in
reahty it prepared great troubles for the future. But in
Scotland the government of Charles i. and Laud aroused
such passionate resistance, such an outburst of national
feeling, that the whole experiment broke down ; and
England also, after an interval of calm, found herself
suddenly drawn into the throes of revolution. To Ireland
and to Scotland, therefore, we must next turn ; for their
history had now become vital in the development of the
Commonwealth. [A very readable account of the period will be found in G. M.
Trevelyan's England under the Stuarts, a more detailed treatment in
F. C. Montague's England from the Accession of James I. to the
Restoration. The period is covered by S. R. Gardiner's monumental
History of England from 1603 to 1642 (10 vols.), which is the stan
dard authority ; also by Ranke's History of England, principally
in the seventeenth century, and by Hallam's Constitutional History.
Gardiner's Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution is
valuable, and has a good introduction ; the reign of James 1. is
covered by Prothero's Constitutional Documents. There is a shorter
and very good account in Gardiner's Puritan Revolution (Epochs
of Modern History). Lord Acton has a lecture on the Puritan
Revolution in his Lectures on Modern History.]

CHAPTER IV
IRELAND AND SCOTLAND UNDER THE EARLY
STEWARTS
(a.d. 1603-1640)
§ 1. Ireland: the Plantation of Ulster.
At the very moment of James i.'s accession the surrender
of the Earl of Tyrone, who had raised so great a rebeUion
at the >end of Elizabeth's reign, had ended the long and
painful process of the conquest of Ireland. The authority
of the Crown was recognised throughout the country, and
it was now possible to organise an orderly and peaceful
system. If Enghsh law had been justly and firmly adminis
tered, if Irish proprietors of land had been made to feel
that they were secure in their possessions, and encouraged
to develop them under the protection of the law, and if a
reasonable toleration had been allowed to the Catholic
majority, Ireland might stiU have been reconciled to the
destruction of the old tribal system, which indeed had meant
unceasing anarchy ; and even the bitter memories of the
Elizabethan conquest might have been gradually obliterated.
It was not too late to make a new start, and in Ireland at
any rate the coming of the new dynasty might have proved
itself a blessing.
A good beginning was made. A general pardon was
issued. The head of the O'DonneUs was created Earl of
TyrconneU (Donegal). Tyrone was left in possession of
his lands. Sir Arthur Chichester, whom James sent to
Ireland as Deputy in 1604, was a just man and something
of a statesman, who saw that reconciliation was needed,
and tried to attain it. English law was successfully
established, and the judges on circuit seem even to have
been welcomed as protectors of the weak. Moreover the
Catholics had a surcease of persecution.
But the bad traditions of the last age were still too strong.
On the one hand, too many Enghshmen had learnt to
believe that the dispossession of Irish landowners and their
replacement by English colonists was the only way to settle
vol. 1. 2 c

402 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
the country ; and their greed for easily gotten lands added
strength to this idea. On the other hand, the Irish chieftains
found it hard to reconcile themselves to the loss of their
old authority, or to recognise those who had been their
vassals as independent landowners. These fears might
have died down if the fear of fresh confiscations and ' planta
tions ' like that of Munster had not always haunted them.
A quarrel between the reconciled Tyrone and one of his
former vassals brought on a new crisis. The question was
to have been referred to the king. But instead of going to
England, Tyrone — suspecting, with or without reason, that
he would be arrested if he went — fled the country (1607),
never to return, in company with the chiefs of the O'DonneUs
and of the Maguires of Fermanagh. There was obscure
talk of a plot for a new rising to be backed by Spain, with
which Tyrone may or may not have been associated.
Anyway, his lands and those of the other fugitives were
declared confiscated. Claimants to the succession, disap
pointed in their demands, broke out in a brief insurrec
tion ; arid this provided the occasion for a wholesale con
fiscation of aU the lands in six counties and for a scheme
of plantation on a bigger scale than anything that had gone
before — the plantation of Ulster, 1608. Every owner in
the six counties was dispossessed ; and huge aUotments
were made in the old method — the city of London being
granted the whole of the county of Coleraine and^the town
of Derry, to which the name of Londonderry was hence
forward assigned. As before, many of the grantees failed
to fulfil the conditions of their grants, and there was whole
sale corruption and land-jobbirig.
But into the plantation of Ulster came an element which
had never taken part in any earher plantation. Because
the King of England and Ireland was now also King of
Scotland, many Scots came over and took lands from the
original grantees. They brought with them the dour in
dustry they had learnt in a barren land where hard work
was necessary for livelihood, and very soon they began
to prosper. They brought with them also the Scottish
form of Protestantism ; and in that part of Ireland where
the cruel policy of plantation was most successfully carried
out, it was not the English but the Scottish mode of life
and religious belief that was estabhshed. The fortunes
of the three nations were thus intertwined on the unhappy
soil of Ireland.
The plantation of Ulster was foUowed later in the reign

ch. iv.] IRELAND UNDER THE STEWARTS 403
of James 1. by other plantations, carried out with equal
disregard of justice, in Wexford, Longford, and other
districts. The pohcy of reconcUiation had been abandoned
before it had been fairly started. These plantations up
rooted any hope there might have been that the Irish com
munity would settle down with a sense of security. And
the experience of Ulster, and the knowledge that other
plantations were designed, led to what may almost be
described as the beginning of parhamentary opposition in
Ireland. It is characteristic of the curious fondness of the British
mind for seeking legahty even as a cover for injustice that
James 1., much as he disliked parliaments, decided in 1611
to summon the Irish Parliament for the purpose of con
firming what had been done in Ulster. At the same time
it was intended to introduce new laws against the Cathohcs.
The Irish Parliament, since the Elizabethan conquest, in
cluded representatives from ah parts of the country. But
in order to ensure a Protestant majority, James decided
to create no less than thirty-nine new parliamentary
boroughs, whose electoral rights were to be exercised by
purely Protestant corporations. This plain attempt to
pack the house led to a protest from the nobles of the Pale
against the creation of corporations which ' could tend to
naught else but that penal laws should be imposed upon
your subjects.' When the Parliament met in 1613, the
Cathohcs in both houses seceded and refused to do any
business unless they were aUowed to send a deputation to
lay their grievances before the king. James, shrewdly ob
serving that petitions were better than rebelhons, appointed
a commission of inquiry ; and although it made no very
satisfactory report, the intended persecuting Act was
dropped, and parhamentary action had been proved to
have some utihty. In the next session Parliament granted
a subsidy, and was rewarded by being aUowed to pass
Acts removing all legal distinctions between the races in
Ireland, and withdrawing the prohibition of intermarriage
between Irish and Scots. This might have been the begin
ning of a better era, but that was not to be. It was at
any rate the beginning of a constitutional opposition, in
Ireland as in the other parts of the islands, against the high
handed and unenlightened pohcy of government.
Early in Charles i.'s reign there seemed to have arrived
a yet better opportunity for reconcUiation. With wars
against France and Spain on his hands, and no funds forth-

404 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
coming from his Enghsh Parliament, Charles was anxious
both to keep Ireland quiet, and if possible to get money
from it — without a Parliament, if that could be managed.
In 1626, therefore, he instructed the Lord Deputy, Lord
Falkland, to sound the nobility and gentry as to whether
they would pay for the upkeep of an army if he granted
them certain concessions, which came to be known as the
' graces.' Fines for non-attendance at church were to be
dropped. The oath of supremacy on taking office was to
be modified to suit Catholics. Above aU, possession ' of
land for sixty years was to constitute an indefeasible title,
thus barring future confiscations and plantations. After
some discussion, a grant of £40,000 per annum was agreed
upon, the bargain to be subsequently ratified by Parlia
ment. On these lines settlement and good feeling were
possible. But the Parhament which was to have ratified the agree
ment was postponed from year to year, and meanwhile
the Lord Deputy began so flagrant a prosecution of the
Byrnes in Wicklow, with a view to dispossessing them for
a new plantation, that the old distrust was aroused. A
golden opportunity for conciliation had been lost.

§ 2. The Irish Policy of Wentworth.
In 1632 Charles sent to Ireland the ablest man who had
yet taken a hand in its government — the former parlia
mentary leader Wentworth ; and his rule forms a critical
era in the vexed history of the country. . Wentworth's
primary aim, as is made plain by his correspondence with
his friend Laud, was to turn Ireland into a stronghold of
royal power, no longer a weakness as it had been in the
past, but a source from which the king might draw troops
and even money for his needs elsewhere. He was inteUigent
enough to see that one essential means of doing this was
to make the country prosperous and contented. He did
much in that direction during his brief tenure of office,
iUustrating that efficiency in government to which he gave
the name of ' Thorough.' He gave the closest attention
to the development of the linen industry, which rapidly
became a source of wealth to Ireland. He made a com
mercial treaty with Spain for the encouragement of Irishv
fisheries. He improved the breed of cattle, and insisted
on a free export of hides and tallow, which had long been
staples of Irish trade. He was at pains to preserve forests.

CH. iv.] IRELAND UNDER THE STEWARTS 405
He brought in experts to look for minerals. On all the
economic side of his policy, he did great good to Ireland,
which under his rule began to enjoy a prosperity she had
never known before. At the same time the maintenance
of order and the administration of justice to ordinary men
were firmly enforced, though Wentworth was guilty of
gross injustice to individuals. Great use was made of the
y Court of Castle Chamber in Dublin, a court formed on the
analogy of Star Chamber in England. Yet in the Ireland
of Charles 1. a prerogative court of this kind was less objec
tionable than in England : it might have served a purpose
as good as Star Chamber had served under Henry vn.
But the broad features of Wentworth's policy were dis
figured by all the old unhappy characteristics. In the first
place he did much to confirm the belief that the pledges
of the Enghsh government were not to be trusted. At a
Parhament summoned in 1634 — the first at which the tacit
bargain on the ' graces ' of 1626 could be carried into effect
— he insisted that the king's needs must first be met before
the subjects' grievances could be redressed ; but having
got a handsome grant of subsidies on the expectation that
the ' graces ' would be confirmed, he proceeded to grant
only those of them which in his view were not inconsistent
with the royal prerogative. Among those omitted was the
all-important promise that possession for sixty years should
constitute a title to lands. He prided himself upon the
skiU of this trickery : he had got a handsome price without
delivering the goods. But dishonour never pays ; the
Irish gentry, ready to be reconciled, not only felt that they
had been defrauded, but were convinced that the English
government could not be trusted.
Moreover Wentworth now went on to prepare for the
most iniquitous of aU the plantations, which could only
be carried out by a disregard of what every Irishman re
garded as the pledged word of the king, for which a price
had been paid. He intended to carry out a plantation of
Connaught, the only province as yet untouched ; to pre
pare for it he set on foot a series of inquiries into the titles
of existing landholders in which the longest possession
counted for nothing. Every one knew what the result
would be. The plantation was never carried out, because
the outbreak of war in Scotland and the summons of Parlia
ment in England brought the proceedings to a close. But
when the crisis came, Ireland, which was to have been the
king's bulwark, was alienated and angry.

406 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
FinaUy, Wentworth encouraged a vicious attack upon
the Puritans of the North, the most numerous and .con
vinced section of the Irish Protestants, who were obnoxious
because they shared the views of their obstinate Scottish
compatriots. Suffering from this persecution, they, equaUy
with the Catholics, were ready to repudiate the king's
government. When the great crisis in the fortunes of all
the islands was suddenly brought to a head by the successful
resistance of the Scots, Ireland, like England and Scotland,
was ripe for revolution.
§ 3. Scotland : the Absolutism of James I.
We have seen in an earher chapter 1 that no country in
Europe had been more profoundly changed by the Reforma
tion than Scotland. Not only had it aroused among the
Scottish people a deep interest in theological questions,
and (except in parts of the Highlands), a passionate hatred
of Rome ; it had also intensified national feeling, and
created, in the governing bodies of the Church, a national
organisation. The series of representative bodies which
the Presbyterian system estabhshed — kirk sessions for
each parish, presbyteries for smaU areas, synods for pro
vinces, and a General Assembly for the whole country-
included laymen as well as clergymen, and formed a far
more effective expression of the national mind than the
feeble and unrepresentative Scottish Parhament. This
democratic Church organisation had been tempted to take
a hand in politics, and the leading ministers who spoke for
it, like Andrew MelviUe, had buUied and for a time largely
controUed the king. Thus the Scottish Crown found its
power restricted, not only by its old enemies the nobles,
but by a new and aggressive force.
But the nobles themselves, though they had unwillingly
accepted it, did not like the democratic system of Presby-
terianism, and were not unready to help in breaking its
power, By playing off the Kirk and the nobles one against v
the other, the king seemed to have a chance of coming to
his own again. Even before his accession to the Enghsh
crown James vi. had used this chance with such clever
ness that he might well be proud of his ' statecraft.' The
strength which his new position gave to him enabled him
to carry the process so far that he was able to boast to bis
English Parliament (as if giving them an example of what
1 Book 111. chap. vi.

ch. iv.] SCOTLAND UNDER THE STEWARTS 407
he would do in England, if he could) : ' This I must say for
Scotland, and may truly vaunt it : here I sit and govern
it with my pen ; I write, and it is done ; and by a clerk of
the Council I govern Scotland now — which others could not
do by the sword.' Here was a plain warning. As a warn
ing and an example the proceedings in Scotland had great
influence in England, especiaUy among the Puritans who
sympathised with the Scottish system ; and the revolt
which the pohcy of James and Charles produced in Scotland
directly contributed to the final outburst of opposition in
England. By making use of the jealousy which the nobles felt for
the Kirk James had in fact succeeded in establishing a
complete royal control over the ordinary machinery of
government. The Parliament, never effective or inde
pendent, except as an organ of baronial opposition, was
reduced to a mere instrument of royal power. Borough
members, appointed by the local magistrates, who were
in their turn removable by the Crown, became in fact royal
nominees. Representatives of the lesser barons (who alone
voted in the counties) were similarly managed by the sheriffs.
But an even more direct control than this was achieved.
By ancient custom the business to be laid before a Scottish
Parhament was drawn up by the Lords of the Articles,
a committee of twenty-four, consisting of representatives
from each of the Estates ; aU biUs were drafted by this
committee, and were submitted and voted on en bloc— a.
procedure which reduced Parliament to a form. James had
contrived to get the nomination of the Lords of the Articles
practicaUy into his own hand.
The actual conduct of administration feU to the Privy
CouncU, a body whose powers in Scotland were even greater
than those of the council in England ; it exercised legisla
tive, executive and judicial powers at once. Earlier the
Privy Council had been partly nominated by the Estates.
James succeeded in acquiring the sole privilege of nominat
ing every member of it ; and it was through the Privy
CouncU that he governed Scotland, though of course some
of the leading nobles had to be put on the council. VirtuaUy
the king was an absolute monarch in his northern realm,
especiaUy after his accession to England, when discontented
parties could not get at him. He wielded his power from
London ; after 1603 he paid only one visit to Scotland, and ,
it lasted only eleven weeks. And it must be noted that in
one respect at least he used his power well. He brought to

408 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
an end the turbulence and disorder of the Border country ; ^
he even reduced within limits the anarchy of the Highlands.
One of his measures for this end was the proscription of the
robber clan MacGregor.
The only check on the power of the Crown was in fact
to be found in the representative bodies of the Kirk, and
especiaUy in the General Assembly, which was supposed to
meet once a year, and which could not be easUy disregarded.
To complete his mastery of Scotland, therefore, James had
to get rid of the General Assembly. His aim was to replace /
its authority by bishops nominated by himself, as in the
English system, which seemed to him the ideal form of Church
government. But he had to set about this change warily,
because the Scottish people were devoted to their system.
Even before his accession to the Enghsh crown he had
obtained from the Scottish Parliament (1600) the right to
nominate bishops, who should sit in Parliament as repre
sentatives of the estate of the Church, and thus entitle
Parliament to speak on Church matters, which it had
scarcely been able to do since the disappearance of the old
bishops. But the new bishops were only parish clergymen,
and had as yet no ecclesiastical authority over their neigh
bours. At the same time James did his best to avoid
meetings of the General Assembly. He aUowed no meeting
from 1603 to 1610, and, when in 1604 some ministers in
sisted on meeting, he had them prosecuted and convicted
of high treason, though he did not venture to execute them.
In 1606 he got an Act empowering him to endow his bishops
with Cnurch lands in possession of the Crown ; and in 1610
he allowed a carefully packed Assembly to meet at Glasgow
for the purpose of empowering the bishops to act as mode
rators (chairmen) of the provincial synods, and to ordain
ministers. The General Assembly and the Synods were
not abolished, though they were only to meet by permis
sion of the Crown. The powers of the bishops were limited,
and they had very small incomes, because most of the lands
of their Roman predecessors were in the hands of the nobles.
But the king had undoubtedly won a superficial victory : it
was only superficial, because Scotland was still Presbyterian
at heart, and deeply resented this tampering with its popular
system of Church government.
But James was not yet satisfied. In 1616 he held an
Assembly at Aberdeen, the most remote and least Presby
terian of Scottish towns, and got orders passed for a new
confession of faith and a new form of public service. But

ch. iv.] SCOTLAND UNDER THE STEWARTS 409
when he propounded five articles which he proposed to
have enacted, providing Tor such matters as kneeling at
communion, and confirmation, even the bishops urged that
it would not be safe. The articles were adopted at a later
Assembly at Perth (1618), but only by the votes of the
bishops and the nobles. James had won another victory ;
but it was a victory more dangerous than a defeat.
§ 4. The Revolt of the Scots against the Policy of Charles I.
But even yet the Scottish Church was not assimilated
to the Enghsh. That was left to Charles 1., who took up
the task of Anglicising the Scottish Church as a duty im
posed upon him by God. But, having spent almost the
whole of his youth in England, he had not that shrewd
understanding of his Scottish subjects, or of the lengths
to which it was safe to go with them, which his father had
never lost.
During the first years of his reign he was too much occu
pied with foreign wars and parhamentary disputes to visit
Scotland. But even so, the trend of his policy made itself
felt. He put no less than six of the Scottish bishops upon
the Privy CouncU, to the exclusion of as many nobles. This
naturaUy angered the nobles ; they had been willing to
aid James in setting up bishops to keep the Kirk in order,
but if the bishops were to replace themselves it was another
matter. Again, in order to find adequate endowments for
the bishops, he announced the intention of revoking aU
grants of Church and Crown lands made since the beginning
of Mary's reign, and of regaining for the Church the tithes
which had largely passed into private hands : a compen
sation which feU far short of the value being paid to the
actual possessors. The ultimate result of this was that
the Church in Scotland, which had been more shamefully
plundered by the nobles than any other Church, was placed
in a sounder position than it had hitherto occupied, and
this was true whether it was organised on an episcopal or a
Presbyterian basis. But almost every landed family in
Scotland was injuriously affected by the change. These
two measures broke the aUiance between the Crown and
the nobles which had enabled James to estabhsh his power ;
and made the nobles ready to throw themselves into opposi
tion. And if the nobles and the Kirk united, they would
be irresistible, unless the strength of England could be
brought to bear upon them.

410 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
In 1633 Charles at last went to Edinburgh to be crowned.
The fuITrites of the Church of England were foUowed in the
coronation. To the horror of good Presbyterians, the
bishops were dressed in fuU costume ; there were candles,
and an altar, and a crucifix — all sheer ' papistry,' in the
eyes of rigid Scots. Two acts bearing on rehgion were at
the same time forced through a packed Parliament — not
without opposition : even the nobles drew up a protest,
which Charles refused to accept. One of the Acts enforced
the obnoxious Articles of Perth. The other required that
all ministers should wear the surphce. Small matters, it
might seem ; but to nine Scots out of ten these were mere
symbols of Rome. When Charles returned to England, he
left a country convinced that he was the enemy of its faith.
If Parhament had been sitting in England, there might —
indeed, there would — have been some demonstration of
sympathy with Scottish Puritanism in its troubles. But
Parliament was in suspense, now and for seven years to
come ; the experiment of personal government was being
tried, with apparent success, and England was prosperous
and quiet. The Scots had to look to themselves. But their
resistance was so effective that in a few years it not only
baffled the king within Scotland itself, but brought the
toilsomely built fabric of his power in England tumbling
to the ground.
Guided by Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury and his
chief adviser, Charles set himself systematically to perfect
the work of transforming the Scottish Church which he
had begun in 1633. In 1634 he set up, by his own authority,
and without consulting the Scottish Parhament or the
General Assembly, a new High Commission Court, with
far-reaching and inquisitorial powers, to enforce his will.
In 1635, equaUy without consultation, he issued a large
book of canons, by which the government and ritual of the
Scottish Church were henceforth to be determined. Even
James 1. had always maintained at least the semblance of
consulting the General Assembly, or the Parhament, or
both. These disguises were now thrown aside. Moreover
the contents of the canons amounted to a sweeping abro
gation of the forms of worship instituted by John Knox,
which had held their place through all the changes of
recent years. Among other things the canons required
the universal adoption of a liturgy which was not yet
published, but which was promised for the foUowing year.
Royal autocracy could go no further.

CH. iv.] SCOTLAND UNDER THE STEWARTS 41 1
The new hturgy, drawn up on the basis of the Enghsh
prayer-book by a group of Scottish bishops, was universaUy
attributed to Laud. It was fixed to be read for the first
time on July 23, 1637, in the Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh,
where Knox and Melville had often preached. Though all
the dignitaries of Church and State were present, the
attempt to read it produced a riot. The liturgy could not
get a hearing in a single church in Edinburgh, and there was
the same opposition in aU parts of the country. Petitions
poured in from aU quarters, from parishes and presby
teries, from nobles and burgesses : Charles paid no regard
to them. So high rose the tumult that in desperation the
Scottish Privy Council agreed to the setting up of four
' Tables ' or committees, representing the four classes of
nobles, lairds, burgesses and ministers who had taken part
in the petitions, in the hope that they would help to main
tain order. When the four ' tables ' agreed to establish a
central ' table ' consisting of representatives of each of
them, the national resistance— for it was now no less —
was equipped with a directing body. What is more, since
the Privy Council found itself in practice impotent, the
' tables ' rapidly became the only effective authority in
the country. The Scots had shown themselves remark
ably skilful in organising united resistance.
When the Tables sent to the king a supphcation (Dec.
1637), asking for the recaU of the canons and the liturgy
and the removal of the bishops from the Privy CouncU,
Charles' reply in a public proclamation was that the liturgy
would not be withdrawn, that petitions against it were)
illegal, and that petitioners would be punished for treason.
Such a pronouncement was of no avail against a united
nation. The Tables proceeded to draw up a National
Covenant, based upon a confession which had been drawn
up in 1581 with the approval of the king's father, and fuU
of denunciations of Rome. But to the confession was
added an indictment of recent innovations and a solemn
oath to defend true religion and the Crown. True religion,
as the Scots conceived it, was in danger only from the
Crown ; the double aUegiance could not be maintained.
The National Covenant was opened to pubhc signa
ture in Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh. So great were the
crowds who came to sign it that it had to be taken out
to a flat tombstone in the churchyard. Men signed it
weeping ; some signed it with their own blood ; the most
moving scenes accompanied the ceremony not only in

412 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
Edinburgh but in every parish of Scotland. Against such
a resolution of a united nation no resistance could avaU,
unless it were backed by overwhelming force. And over
whelming force Charles could not wield, without appealing
to the English Parhament for money. He could only
temporise. He sent the Marquis of Hamilton to repre
sent him : ' I give you leave to flatter them with what
hopes you wiU . . . your chief end being how to save time
. . . untU I be ready to suppress them.'
The demand of the Tables now was for the summons of
a free Assembly and a free Parhament to regularise their
hitherto unconstitutional proceedings. The more important
of these was the General Assembly, since it was the more
completely representative of the nation, and supreme in
Church matters by law. After much wrigghng Charles
had to yield with a bad grace, and to permit a General
Assembly to meet at Glasgow on November 21, 1638 ;
only safeguarding himself by declaring the illegality of aU
its proceedings unless the bishops were present — they had
aU fled in dismay to England, save four who had recanted.
The General Assembly of Glasgow deserves to rank
among the great assemblies of the world ; for it began a
revolution which only ended with the establishment of
the doctrine of popular sovereignty in the islands, and
consequently in the whole British Commonwealth, and
ultimately throughout the world. It was the most demo
cratic and the most representative national body which
had ever yet met. In every Scottish parish the minister
and one lay elder were elected to the Presbytery ; and from
every Presbytery three ministers and a lay elder were sent
to sit in the Assembly. The ministers were the inteUectual
and spiritual leaders of the nation ; the lay elders included
the ablest and best men of aU the educated classes. To
defy the decisions of such a body was dangerous indeed.
They were bold and unflinching decisions. First of aU,
the bishops were indicted. By the king's orders they
refused to appear or to recognise the jurisdiction of an
Assembly in which they did not sit as members ; and on
this ground, when the Assembly asserted that as a legaUy
constituted body it had a right to judge the bishops, the
king's commissioner, Hamilton, declared it dissolved. But
no attention was paid to the dissolution : the Assembly
went on with its task. It abolished episcopacy. It
abohshed the Court of High Commission. It abolished
the canons and the liturgy ; and then, in one compre-

ch. iv.] SCOTLAND UNDER THE STEWARTS 413
hensive act, it re-established the whole Presbyterian system,
its kirk sessions in each parish, its presbyteries, its synods,
its General Assembly ; and ordained that schools should
be set up in every parish at the public expense. ' We have
cast down the walls of Jericho,' said the Moderator in his
closing words ; ' Let him that rebuildeth beware of the
curse of Hiel the Bethelite.'
Against such a defiance there could be only one reply.
The issue must be decided by arms, and both sides pre
pared for this event.- But Charles had before him the
task of subjugating a united and enthusiastic nation ; a
nation, moreover, which had a very competent govern
ment of its own, well obeyed everywhere. Charles had to
scrape together an army as best he might, from trained
bands of mUitia and pressed men, and he had no skilled
captains to rely upon. The Scots carried out a general
levy, which was responded to with enthusiasm. They were
able to put its organisation in the hands of experienced
soldiers who had been serving abroad, chief among them
Alexander Leslie, a general of Gustavus Adolphus, who
held the rank of field-marshal in Sweden. It was a well-
disciplined and weU-supplied army which took the field
to meet Charles' disorderly and untrained troops. Had they
fought a pitched battle, there could be no doubt of the
result. The Covenanters took the principal castles with
httle difficulty. But the clash of arms never came. The
Scottish leaders were eager for reconciliation ; the king
wanted time for a stronger blow ; and a truce made at
Berwick (June 1639) ended the First Bishops' War.
This was no solution of the problem : a second Bishops'
War was bound to foUow. But in the meantime, in order
to equip himself with the means of fighting, Charles had
been compeUed, after eleven years, to meet the English
Parliament once more ; and from that moment the fortunes
of the two kingdoms, and of Ireland as well, were so irre
vocably intertwined, that the separate narrative of Scottish
events must be here suspended. The Scots had compeUed
the raising in definite terms of the greatest issue of govern
ment that had yet been fought out in any of the nations
of the world.
[There is no good history of Ireland in the seventeenth century ;
see R. Dunlop's articles in the Cambridge Modern History, Richey's
Short History of the Irish People, and C. L. Falkiner, Illustrations of
Irish History in the Seventeenth Century. For Scotland, Hume
Brown's and Andrew Lang's Histories of Scotland.]

CHAPTER V
PERSONAL GOVERNMENT AND ITS DOWNFALL
(a.d. 1629-1642)
§ 1. The Years of Personal Government.
In the eyes of the king, and of many others, the conduct of
the Petition of Right Parliament, especiaUy in its second
session, foUowing on the conduct of its predecessors, seemed
to show that efficient government and the maintenance of
national honour could not be upheld in face of unceasing
and often unreasonable parliamentary criticism. Charles
therefore determined to carry on the government as long
as possible without Parliament ; and as this involved
abstention from costly adventures, he patched up hasty
treaties of peace with France in 1629 and with Spain in
1630, and gave up the attempt to afford direct assistance
to the German Protestants. The Duke of Buckingham,
who had for some years past been the evil genius of Charles
and his father, had been assassinated at Portsmouth (Aug.
1628) by a half-mad lieutenant in the army, and the field
was clear for a fresh start. Henceforth the king was his
own chief minister, though he was deeply influenced by
the ideas both of Laud and of Wentworth. During eleven
years he had the opportunity of showing England what the
character and effects of monarchical rule would be. He
had no fixed intention of disregarding or overriding estab
hshed laws, and he always strove to get legal authority for
his acts. But circumstances forced him into measures
which, at the very least, strained the meaning of the law
in its accepted interpretation : his own arbitrary temper
and impatience of contradiction led him on ; and his chief
counciUors, the masterful Wentworth and the doctrinaire
Laud, were not the best advisers. His principles of govern
ment were in truth fundamentaUy inconsistent with the
idea of a ' limited ' monarchy, submitting to the sover
eignty of laws which it could not alter ; and as this was
the conception of the ill-defined English tradition which
414

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 415
most Englishmen accepted, the result was that he gradually
ahenated all the most powerful and reasonable elements in
Enghsh life, and had to witness a bewilderingly sudden and
complete coUapse of the painfuUy reared fabric of his power
as soon as the Scottish revolution forced him to throw
himself upon Enghsh national feeling.
Yet during aU these years (1629-1640) things seemed to
be going favourably for the king. The country was peaceful
and very prosperous. The steady development of trade
with the West Indies, with India, and with the young
American colonies was reflected in a great increase in the
yield of the customs duties, which helped to relieve govern
ment from financial embarrassment ; industry was stimu
lated by the demand for goods for export, and by the growing
wealth and purchasing power of the country ; agriculture
too was thriving, and great reclamations of marshland in
the Fen country, carried out with the king's help, added to
the food supply. Wages, it is true, were low ; but apart
from this England had never known a more steady or
a more widely diffused prosperity ; and the burden of
taxation was less than in any other country. The coming
revolution was certainly not due to economic distress, or
tc any economic causes.
StUl less was it due to ' oppression ' or injustice felt by
the people at large. The ordinary course of justice went on
in the ordinary way. There were no rebellions or public
disorders. The events of the period which fiU the pages
of the history books were mainly constitutional and eccle
siastical questions, fought out in the law courts. They
seemed to arouse no widespread popular interest or opposi
tion ; and if some of the punishments inflicted upon extreme
fanatics were crueUy severe, they were very few in number,
and not so severe as the punishments which had been
frequently inflicted in Ehzabeth's time, and still more in
Henry vni.'s. No man lost his hfe for his opinions, as
many had done in Elizabeth's reign. Apart from the
irritation which may have been aroused in some quarters
by Laud's zeal for external uniformity in Church matters,
the ordinary hfe of the people was almost unaffected by
the proceedings of government, and no excitement seems
to have been caused by them, except among the more
extreme Puritans, a small minority of the nation. What
was caused by them was serious-minded discussion of the
tendency of royal pohcy in Church and State, in a multi
tude of country houses and merchants' parlours. Charles

416 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
might reasonably feel that he was succeeding. What he
failed to appreciate was a deep change which had long been
taking place in the mind and temper of the most important
sections of the nation.
It was a change which had been graduaUy coming about
since the later years of Elizabeth. The mere existence of
the nation, which had then seemed to be imperiUed, was
safe ; and therefore the passion and thriU of national
feeling which that danger had aroused, the eager and
adventurous spirit to which it had given rise, and the
intoxicating sense of triumph which foUowed victory were
being replaced by a more sober and reflective mood. You
can see one aspect of this change in the contrast between
the exultant daring of the Elizabethan sea-dogs, and the
more businesslike enterprises of the traders and colonists
which we have already described. Another aspect is dis
played in the literature of the time. The great dramatic
literature, full of passion and the pride of life, which was
the glory of Elizabeth's time, lasted on through the reign
of James I. with not much diminished brilliance. Then,
almost suddenly, it came to an end. It did not merely
change its style or form : it came to an end, and there is
scarcely a parallel in literature to the existence of an out
burst so brilliant creating no continuous tradition. In its
place came a period of reflective poetry, and of philosophic
prose, deeply concerned about the problems of life and
conduct. As always happens, the one movement began
before the other ended, and the change of note was already
visible (for example) in the restrained and grave beauty
of Shakespeare's last plays, the Winter's Tale, the Tempest
and Cymbeline. The characteristic poets of the next period
were men like Donne, George Herbert, Crashaw, Cowley,
Milton and Andrew Marvell. They had not lost the love
of beauty — they would not be poets if they had. But
theirs was a graver and more austere delight ; there is in
such a poem as L' Allegro nothing of that fierce passion for
colour and form, that drunkenness with fine words, which
you find in Shakespeare's early poems. Even the writers
of delicate love poems share the note : the man who wrote
' I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour
more,' was a Cavalier lyrist. And the same change in
temper might equally be illustrated from manners and
costume. Dignity and a sober richness are the character
istics that strike one, whether in the painted portraits of
Vandyke (who got much patronage in England) or in the

ch.v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 417
written character studies hke Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson's
beautiful and endearing description of her husband.1
This reflective, sober, self-restrained temper was deeply
exercised by great problems of government and religion.
It was a law-abiding temper, not ready for hot-headed
revolt. In the sphere of pohtics it expressed itself in a
remarkable development of historical learning, devoted
especiaUy to the study of the antiquities of English insti
tutions, and in the extraordinary reverence for precedents
displayed by the parliaments of the age. But it was especi
aUy in rehgious questions that the new spirit was exhibited.
This was the age not merely of Puritanism at its best, but of
much noble and beautiful thinking and writing upon the
other, or Anglo-Catholic, side of the great controversy.
Most of the poets named above were of the Anglo-Catholic
school. They found in the Anghcan way a real via media
between extremes on either hand, a mode of retaining
beauty and dignity, and of reconciling freedom with order.
WiUiam Laud, though in some of his methods he went beyond
what the best minds of his party would have desired, did
nevertheless speak for a real and powerful body of honest
thought and feeling.
But undeniably the dominant thought of the time was
Puritan. AU England had been reading the Bible in the'
noble Authorised Version, and very many Englishmen were
ready to find in it an aU-sufficient rule of life, apt to be
obscured by insistence upon traditions and ceremonies.
This does not mean that the majority of Englishmen were
enamoured of the more extreme Puritan theories, that they
wished to abolish bishops, sweep away the prayer-book,
and carry out the rehgious change with the logical thorough
ness of their Scottish neighbours. That school of thought
had indeed a considerable foUowing, especially in London
and the towns, from which it always drew its main strength ;
but it was a smaU minority in the nation. What is meant
by the assertion that the dominant thought of the time was
Puritan is that there was a widespread and growing im
patience ' with many of the proceedings of the bishops
and with the emphasis which prelates of the Laudian school
seemed to lay upon forms and ceremonies ; that there was
a desire to encourage the preaching of good doctrine, and
anger at the closing of the mouths of preachers ; and that there
was a growing gravity of life, a tendency to disapprove the
1 Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson .a book wnich gives a picture of the
Puritan spirit at its best.
VOL. I. 2D

418 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
gaieties and recklessness in which the Elizabethans rejoiced.
This, as much as anything, accounts for the decay of the
drama ; though few of the more respectable Puritans would
have endorsed the reckless and foul-mouthed imprecations
against all plays and players in which fanatics hke Prynne
indulged. The essence of Puritanism consists in the sense of direct
and personal responsibihty to an austere God : in the belief
that a man's duty is to live ' as ever in his great Task
master's eye.' And when such a view of hfe becomes wide
spread in a nation, as it was widespread in seventeenth-
century England, very great results are apt to foUow.
There may be long restraint, long hesitation about helping
to produce a disturbance of settled order; but when the
time comes there will be unbending severity. For this, it
should be remembered, was not an age in which toleration
was accounted anything but a weakness, though in some
quarters the spirit of tolerance was beginning to raise its
head. Most of the Puritans were anything but tolerant : to
be indulgent to wrong in any form, wrong thinking equaUy
with wrong action, was in their eyes a crime. And there
was one form of ' error ' for which toleration was speciaUy
unthinkable. The fierce hatred of Rome, which descended
from the days of national peril, was even stronger than
ever. Nothing so much discredited Charles and the bishops
as the suspicion that they were inclined to be lenient to
Rome. Unconscious, as it was natural that he should be, of these
deeper currents of national life, Charles had every ground
to be pleased with the external evidences of order, prosperity
and content which lasted throughout his period of personal
government. During these years the country was almost ,(
in the happy condition of having no history ; and it is only
in the light of after events that the working of the causes
which prepared the coming catastrophe is perceptible.
From this point of view three groups of events deserve
attention. One was the ecclesiastical policy of Laud, and
the mode in which it was carried out. The second was
the remarkable movement of emigration to the New World,
which was the answer of Puritanism to Laud, and in which,
during these years, Puritanism found its chief expression.
The third was the financial expedients to which the king
was reduced, and the constitutional issues raised by them.
These three distinct series of events were all closely con
nected. They combined to prepare placid and law-abiding

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 419
England to play its part in the revolution which was mean
while brewing in Ireland and in Scotland.
§ 2. The Aims and Methods of Laud.
William Laud,1 fifty-two years old and Bishop of London
at the beginning of the period, became Archbishop of
Canterbury in 1633, and was not only the king's chief
adviser in Church matters, but one of the principal members
of the Privy CouncU, an advocate of the highest view of
the royal prerogative, and the king's most trusted friend.
He was not in the strict sense a persecutor ; he held no
inquisitions into men's consciences as the Puritans did in
Scotland and America, and the Catholics in many countries.
But he was the head of one party in the Church, and that
probably not the most widely supported in the country,
though it counted now the larger part of the clergy among
its adherents. He did not punish men for holding Purita
nical opinions, otherwise than by denying them preferment.
But on three points he held strong views, and took strong
action to maintain them. He was determined to maintain
the authority of the bishops and the royal supremacy over
the Church ; he was eager to introduce external uniformity
in Church services ; and, hke all other statesmen of that
age, he beheved in restraining pubhc discussion of vexed
questions, especiaUy by those with whom he did not agree,
or who challenged, and by chaUenging endangered, the
existing order in Church and State. He had immense in
dustry and perseverance, an instinct for order, and a
genuine zeal for his work. Nobody ever suggested, even
in the bitter controversy of that age, that he was not abso
lutely above corruption. But he had a high temper and
an overbearing manner, and did not easily brook contra
diction. He carried out a very thorough visitation of the churches,
and insisted upon the observance of his rules of order.
There was some opposition, but very little, and he got his
way. Perhaps the point upon which there was most com
plaint was his demand that the communion-table should
be placed at the east end of the church, and not in the centre,
where the congregation often used it as a convenient place
for their hats. The enforcement of this rule cannot be called
severe persecution. More serious, he refused to permit the
appointment as preachers of parsons not holding benefices,
1 There is a good short biography of Laud, by W. H. Hutton.

420 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
according to a practice very common in London and other
Puritan towns, where Puritan preachers, denied prefer
ment, were often appointed to Sunday afternoon lecture
ships. He took very seriously the censorship of the press,
which had been a function of the Church since Ehzabeth's
time, and promised whipping and the piUory to any one
but the few licensed printers who should venture to issue
books in London. This was, of course, a grave interfer
ence with freedom of discussion. But it was quite in accord
ance with precedent and with the accepted view of govern
ment's duties. A similar course would have been foUowed
by a Puritan ecclesiastic.
It was, however, the method in which his regulations
were enforced which aroused most indignation. They
were enforced through the High Commission Court and the
Star Chamber, 'prerogative' courts which had descended from
the Tudors. These courts, originaUy created for the purpose
of making the royal authority effective, did not administer
the ordinary law of the land : they enforced the executive
edicts of the Crown ; they largely used their own discretion
both in their methods of procedure and in the penalties
which they imposed. They had been useful under the
Tudors as a means of dealing with offenders and offences
before which the common law was ineffective ; but the
nation had now outgrown the need for them. It was in
reality for that reason, and not because they were employed
more unscrupulously than the Tudors had used them, that
the new generation found them objectionable. Some of
the penalties which these courts imposed were ferocious.
WiUiam Prynne, an acrid Puritan lawyer, for a learned,
virulent, foul-mouthed book against the stage, in which
he reflected on the king and queen, was sentenced to pay
a fine of £5000, to be set in the pUlory, to have his ears cut
off, and to be imprisoned for hfe ; the same Prynne, together
with a clergyman, Burton, and a doctor, Bastwick, later
received a similar sentence ; Alexander Leighton, for
writing a furious book against bishops and against the
king's policy, was fined £10,000, was set in the piUory,
was whipped and had an ear cut off, and was then im
prisoned for life. These were horrible sentences. But
Tudor paraUels could be found, and there were few cases
so bad as these. It was right that such barbarities should
be condemned and prevented for the future ; but neither
Laud nor the courts in which his influence was so great
originated this kind of ferocity. The real objection at

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 421
the time to Laud's proceedings was that he was using his
authority to forward a cause from which his critics differed ;
though it should be added that a growing sense of modera
tion and decency was leading men to condemn many things
which had left them unmoved a generation or two earlier.
§ 3. The Puritan Emigration.
The ascendency of Laud and of the Anglo-Catholic party
convinced the more fervid Puritans that they had now little
chance of imposing their own austere conceptions of life
upon the whole Enghsh community, or of turning England
into a Bible Commonwealth such as they had dreamed of.
The moment at which this conviction was forced upon them
is pretty clearly marked. It was the moment when the
Petition of Right Parhament was dissolved, after making a
violent protest against the favours shown to the Laudian
school. Those who wished to live in a Bible Commonwealth
must now, it would seem, seek outside England the opportu
nity of realising their dreams. The successful establishment
of the httle colony at Plymouth pointed the way ; and in
1629 a grouP °t Puritan leaders resolved to imitate the
PUgrim Fathers, and to found a plantation on a larger scale
wherein Puritan modes of life should be strictly observed. It
cannot be said that these men were driven out by any severe >
persecution. They wished neither to be tolerated nor to
tolerate. They were a loyal arid law-abiding folk who
wanted to hve in a Bible Commonwealth where all would
foUow the same austere rules of life ; and since they could
not fashion England after their wiU, they went out to make
a new society in the wilderness, still remaining loyal English
men and enjoying the rights and hberties of Enghshmen.
In 1628 the Council for New England, on behalf of the
king, had made a large grant of land to a company known
as the Company of Massachusetts Bay. Like the Virginia
Company before it, it was given by its charter large powers
of government over settlers within its limits. Many of the
subscribers to this company were Puritans ; and this made
it easy for the group of leading Puritans who were planning
the creation of a Bible Commonwealth to get control over
the company, and to use its chartered powers for their own
purposes. As the leading members of the company them
selves intended to settle in its territory, it was easy to
transfer its administrative headquarters to the settlement
itself ; thus the forms of a trading company could be used

422 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
as the means of securing for the intended colony a remark
able degree of independence and of freedom from external
control as weU as a formal legal standing, to which the law-
abiding Puritan attached great weight. The leading spirit
in this remarkable enterprise was John Winthrop, a Suffolk
squire, a lawyer and a Cambridge graduate, who became
the first governor of the company and of the colony, and
remained throughout his life its dominating figure. A man
of great practical wisdom, he was also very much of an
autocrat ; and his aristocratic prejudices were almost as
strong as his Puritan convictions.
In 1630 a fleet of eleven ships, carefuUy organised, took
out some 2000 settlers, who estabhshed themselves in
and around Boston — not without friction with some earher
settlers who had planted themselves in the same region.
Though there were some hardships in the first year, the
colony was successful from the first. No plantation had
ever been so carefully organised ; and supphes were abun
dant because the leaders of the expedition were men of sub
stance and education, grave and solid men, not mere adven
turers. During the following years there was a continuous
stream of Puritan emigrants : in 1634, we are told, ten or
twelve ships full of emigrants came - into Boston every
month. By 1642 (when the outbreak of the Civil War
checked the stream) there were no less than 18,000 in- •<
habitants in Massachusetts, a population greater than that;
of all the other American colonies combined ; and this
leaves out of account the settlers in the other Puritan
colonies which, as we shall see, were being simultaneously
founded. What is more, a very large proportion of the
emigrants were men of substance, who were not driven
from England by poverty, or by any other motive than
religious zeal. At one moment Oliver CromweU almost
joined them ; and Sir Harry Vane, Cromwell's later rival,
actually dwelt for a time in the Bible Commonwealth.
This was a very striking exodus, which might have been
regarded with alarm in England. At that period every
government held that it had a right to control the move
ments of its subjects. But Charles 1. placed no obstacles
in the way of the Puritan emigration. One fleet bound
for Boston was, indeed, held up for a time ; but apart from
this there was no interference. Charles was no doubt glad
to be rid of troublesome folk. But at least his attitude
was not that of a persecutor ; it stands in marked contrast
with the policy of Louis xiv., who would aUow none but

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 423
orthodox Cathohcs to go to Canada. If Enghshmen,
whether Puritans or Laudians, had not yet learnt to regard
rehgious freedom as desirable, at least the idea was coming
to birth that within the same commonwealth, and under
the same flag, there was room for communities of widely
different types. To that extent Charles 1. and Laud were
ready for toleration. Winthrop himself was told by
members of the Privy Council, ' that his Majesty did not
intend to impose the ceremonies of the Church of England
upon us ; for that it was the freedom from such things that
made people come over to us.'
From the first the new colony was not only prosperous,
but was left extraordinarily free to manage its own affairs.
It recognised the supremacy of the Enghsh Crown. It
claimed to enjoy the inherited liberties of Englishmen, and
enforced in its courts the Common Law of England. Its
title to its lands was derived from a royal grant, and it
recognised the territorial limits defined in its charter. Its
government depended upon the powers granted by the
charter, which continued in force down to the Revolution.
Massachusetts was ruled by the ' Governor, Assistants and
Freemen of the Massachusetts Bay Company.' At first
these formed a close oligarchy ; there were, to begin with,
/only twelve freemen, who exercised, in theory, absolute
control over the rest. Other freemen were admitted only
with the consent of the original group, which was sparingly
given. In 1631 it was laid down that only members of
approved churches were ehgible as freemen ; but this by
no means meant that all church members were entitled to
the freedom. The object of the provision was to ensure
that the character of the Bible Commonwealth should not
be disturbed. Nobody could describe early Massachusetts
as a democracy. It was a strictly hmited aristocracy.
It represented that ' rule of the saints ' which was later
attempted in England ; but the saints had to be of respect
able station in life.
In local affairs there was a nearer approach to demo
cracy. Each township, having its church as its centre, was
governed by the free voices of all the church members.
And gradually this system liberalised the central govern
ment of the colony : the practice came to be that aU church
members were entitled to be present, in person or by proxy,
at the ' General Court,' wherein the freemen of the company
elected its officers and laid down its rules. Out of this a
representative system was to grow. But it had not yet

424 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
come into being during the period with which we are con
cerned ; the colony was still governed by a smaU ohgarchy.
It was not as the model of a free state, but as the model
of a Bible Commonwealth, that Massachusetts was to influ- ^
ence the course of the discussion in England.
In several respects the new Puritan colony was one of
the best-ordered societies in the world. Its people were
prosperous and enterprising ; besides cultivating the soil,
they soon began to take to fishing and trading. The colony
enjoyed peace, being little troubled by the Indians, who
were on the whole fairly treated. It was from the first
an educated community : there was a school in every town
ship, and in a very few years the beginnings of a University
were made at Cambridge — so called in honour of the alma
mater of most of the colonial leaders. The keen interest
of the people in theological subjects made them (like the
Scots) intellectually acute. But Massachusetts was a hard
and intolerant community, very far indeed from being a
centre of spiritual freedom. It had no love of freedom or
variety : its view was that men ought to be compeUed to
live austerely according to a strait rule ; and as it forbade
freedom of thought, so it banned the levity of art and of
joy. None but Puritans would dream of going to Massa
chusetts. Yet several groups of Puritans who went there
were forced to flee into the wilderness, because they differed
from the dominant creed ; and when, at a later date, a
handful of Quakers arrived in Boston, three of them, two
men and a woman, were hanged.
Thus there was being erected in New England a model
of the Puritan conception of a well-ordered state. Beyond
question this community had strength, courage and ideals ;
it fostered and loved political, if not religious, freedom ; and
its establishment was an enrichment of the variety of the
nascent commonwealth of free peoples.
Massachusetts and its modest older neighbour, Ply
mouth, did not long stand alone. In 1631 a group of lead
ing English Puritans, including Lord Saye and Sele, Lord
Brooke, John Hampden and John Pym, obtained from the
Council for New England a vague but extensive grant of
land south of Massachusetts, to which the first settlers went
out in 1633. This was the beginning of the colony of
Connecticut.1 A group of voluntary exiles from Massa
chusetts later (1635) settled in the vaUey of the Connecticut
1 See the map of New England, Atlas, Plate 54 (b).

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 425
river ; and these two groups, without any formal authorisa
tion from the Crown, set up a system of government for
themselves. In 1638 another group of Puritan exiles from
England estabhshed themselves at New Haven, on the
Connecticut coast. They were perhaps the most rigid
of the emigrants ; and for a long time— indeed, until 1662
— they held themselves aloof from the Connecticut settle
ments which surrounded them.
Meanwhile the intolerance of Massachusetts had driven
some of its inhabitants to take refuge in the wilderness.
Three distinct groups of these refugees found their way to
Rhode Island and the adjoining shores of Narragansett
Bay between 1636 and 1638 ; they combined to form the
colony of Rhode Island, which, like Connecticut, was a
' squatter ' colony, not authorised by any formal charter.
From thefirstthe most distinctive featureof Rhode Islandwas
that, in accordance with the principles of Roger WiUiams,
one of its founders, it refused to interfere with the rehgious
opinions or practices of individual settlers ; and for that
reason it was regarded with distrust and dislike by the
more orthodox Puritan colonies. .
There had thus been created, before the acute conflict
began in England, a remarkable group of thriving settle
ments in the block of land which lies between the Hudson
and the Atlantic. The tiny original settlement of the
Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth stiU maintained its dis
tinct existence. Massachusetts was solidly organised, was
growing rich and strong, and dominated its neighbours.
Connecticut was fighting strenuously with the Indians
and wiping out the Pequot tribe. New Haven was living
apart in rigid orthodoxy. The outcasts of Rhode Island
were raising the standard of rehgious freedom. Meanwhile,
further north, small settlements had been established by
Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Council for New England,
in New Hampshire and on the coast of Maine. In 1643
Massachusetts took the lead in organising a federation" of
this group of settlements, for common defence against the
Dutch and the Indians. The federation lasted for some
years ; but it was never very effective, because the lesser
colonies distrusted Massachusetts and feared her domina
tion. But what was most significant about the federation
was its omissions. Neither Maine nor Rhode Island was
admitted. Rhode Island (' that sink ') was unorthodox :
' we have no conversing with them, nor desire to have.'
As for Maine, not only had that settlement admitted an

426 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
excommunicated minister; it had conferred office on a
tailor, which outraged the pride of aristocratic Massa
chusetts. As in England, so in the New World, the various
groups of Puritans did not find it easy to co-operate. Puritan
ism, just because of its vitality, was apt to be a disruptive
creed. The remarkable group of New England colonies was not
the only achievement of the period of personal govern
ment. Roman Cathohcs were persecuted in England far
more seriously than Puritans. In 1632 it occurred to a
Roman Cathohc peer, Lord Baltimore, to imitate the
Puritans by finding in the New World a place of refuge
for his co-religionists, where they could follow their own
convictions without interference, while still remaining under
the English flag. He obtained from Charles 1. a grant of
land on Chesapeake Bay, immediately to the north of
Virginia, and gave to it the name of Maryland,1 in honour
of the queen (1632) .
Maryland was the first ' proprietary ' colony ; its governor
being appointed by the proprietor, subject to the king's
approval, while the proprietor also had the right to dispose
of lands. But the charter granted to Lord Baltimore by
Charles 1. provided that no laws should be passed without
the assent of the freemen of the colony, a provision which
made Maryland a far more democratic community than
Massachusetts. Another feature of this colony distin
guished it from its predecessors. Though it was started
largely to provide a place of refuge for Roman Catholics,
who were freely permitted to go to it, the majority of the
settlers were always Anghcan Protestants, and the Anglican
Church was the established church of the colony. But
toleration was granted not only to Roman Catholics but
to other sects : Maryland was for a long time one of the
few places in the world where, in the intolerant seventeenth
century, rehgious freedom existed.
We have dwelt in some detail upon the remarkable group
of colonies founded in these years, for two reasons. In the
first place the work of these years went far to fix the char
acter of the British Commonwealth. It determined that
a remarkable variety of type was to be not merely permitted
but encouraged within the limits of the Commonwealth.
It determined also that pohtical liberty and the practice of
self-government were to be characteristic of the British
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 54 (c).

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 427
lands. Finally, in two instances, Maryland and Rhode
Island, a real system of rehgious toleration had been attained,
and this also was to be, in the future, one of the charac
teristics of all the British plantations. Charles 1. and his
government certainly deserve a share of the credit for these
things, though it cannot be contended that they dehberately
planned them. They encouraged variety of type in the
new lands, instead of trying to force them all into a single
mould ; they permitted in New England, and ordained in
Maryland, the creation of self-governing institutions ; and,
at the least, they placed no obstacle in the way of the
growth of rehgious toleration. In colonial matters, at any
rate, the government of Charles 1. was no tyranny ; it
made real contributions to the growth of a commonwealth
of free and different societies.
Yet more important was the bearing of these events upon
the vital conflict of ideals and principles which was soon
to be renewed in the islands.
It is clear that the activity of the Puritan leaders in
colonisation partly accounts for the deceptive quietude of
England during the eleven years of personal government :
the Puritan enthusiasts had found a field in which their
ideals could be put into practice. On the other hand, the
success of these experiments encouraged them, when the
time came, to bold action in England. Perhaps it also
stimulated those who thought differently to resistance ;
for what appeared as a model to one temper might well
seem hke a warning to another. The ideal of a Bible
Commonwealth had been proved to be not impracticable.
Just as the spectacle of triumphant democracy in America
stimulated the French, in the eighteenth century, to put
into operation the theories of Rousseau, and thus helped
to bring about the French Revolution, so the spectacle of
the Bible Commonwealths of the New World stimulated
the Puritans of England, and thus helped to bring about
the Puritan Revolution. During the years which preceded
the meeting of the Long Parhament, Puritans in England
were co-operating in the organisation of colonial schemes, and
discussing problems of Church and State, which these schemes
suggested. There was increasing intercourse between the
old and the new England. And when the conflict came,
many colonists, fiUed with the fervour of the pioneer,
hurried back to play their part in it.

428 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv

§ 4. Ship Money and its Significance.
In the long debate which led to the Civil War and the
Revolution of 1649, there were always two elements, a
rehgious element and a constitutional element. The
rehgious element was predominant in the migrations which
we have just examined, as it was also in the Scottish troubles
which were going on during the same years. Between 1629
and the meeting of the Long Parhament the discussion of
the constitutional problem was largely in abeyance. But
towards the end of this period it was raised in a very vital
way by the fiscal devices to which the king was driven.
The necessity of finding a revenue forced the king to
employ every possible means of raising funds to which a
legal colour could be given. He stiU, of course, coUected
tonnage and poundage : the Petition of Right had not
definitely prohibited this, and, though Parliament had not
passed the customary Act, the view of the Crown lawyers
was that, as these duties were the ancient right of the
Crown and had not been prohibited, no act was necessary.
An ingenious mode of raising money by ' distraint of knight
hood ' was invented in 1630. Edward 1. had forced land
owners to take up knighthood or pay a fine because he
wanted fighting men ; the use of this device solely for the
purpose of getting the fines was formaUy legal, but none
the less was an irritating abuse. Equally irritating was
the revival of ancient claims to forest jurisdiction for pur
poses of exaction.
But beyond comparison the most famous of these devices
was ship-money. Kings in time of war had long exercised
the right of calling upon maritime counties either to con
tribute ships or to pay an equivalent in cash. Being
anxious to strengthen the fleet, Charles in 1634 required
the maritime counties to provide ships bigger Than any of
them (save London) possessed, or to pay an equivalent.
The demand was made in time of peace ; moreover, it might
be fairly held to fall under the heading of the taxation pro
hibited by the Petition of Right ; but the lawyers, or some
of them, decided that it was legal, and the money was
successfully raised. Next year, though there was no war
or danger of war, the tax was repeated, and imposed on
inland as weU as maritime counties. Ten out of twelve
judges declared that the tax might be rightfuUy levied from
the whole kingdom if the kingdom was in danger, of which

ch.v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 429
the king must be sole judge. Again the money was raised,
though there were more protests. It is fair to note that
it was all spent upon the fleet, which became more efficient
than it had hitherto been, and did some good work, releas
ing three hundred captives from the pirates of Morocco.
In 1636 a third levy was announced. Evidently the
new tax~was intended to be, not an exceptional thing to
meet a national danger, but a regular source of revenue :
even if it were all used on the fleet, it would propor
tionately relieve the exchequer. John Hampden, a wealthy
Buckinghamshire squire, resolved to resist, not by violence
— Hampden's case has been sometimes most improperly
used as a justification for resistance to the law of the land —
but in the only legal way open to him : by refusing to pay
on the ground that the tax was Ulegal, and thus chaUenging
the issue in the law courts. The sum demanded from him
was only 20s., which shows both that the actual burden of
the tax was by no means oppressive, and that the resist
ance was purely one of principle. In a great State trial
(1637), the subject was argued with immense learning on
both sides. The verdict given by the whole bench of
judges went against Hampden by seven votes to five. Some
of the judges in their judgments spoke the language of pure
absolutism, asserting that Acts of Parhament to take away
the king's power to defend his kingdom were void. But
it is to the credit of the bench that five judges risked the
loss of their hvehhood by pronouncing for Hampden. It
is characteristic of seventeenth-century England that a
profound constitutional issue should thus be fought out in
the law courts, and that the decision of the judges should be
loyaUy accepted until such time as the law could be altered.
But behind the ship-money case lay issues of the highest
constitutional import. Where were the powers of Parha
ment, and what became of the hberties of England, if the
king could levy such a tax even after the Petition of Right ?
What security was there for the continued maintenance of
the laws (which Charles had hitherto observed, even if he
had strained them) if even the judges of the realm were
to declare that no Act of Parhament could make any differ
ence to the king's prerogative, and were to act on that
doctrine ? These doubts and misgivings found echoes
in a thousand manor-houses where the precedents of liberty
were known and valued. There was no open resistance and
very httle protest ; but the mind of the nation, or of the
educated part of it, was being made up.

430 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
And meanwhUe the king, encouraged by success, was
inevitably hardening in his view of his royal rights and the
wicked unreason of parliamentary restriction ; and Laud
was preaching the Divine Right of the Lord's Anointed ;
and in Ireland, Wentworth,1 fully master of the realm, was
building up an army. Also he was writing to his friend
Laud, to urge that the ship-money precedent ought to be
used as a proof that the king must have a similar power ' to
raise payments for land forces ' ; he was urging that a
foreign campaign thus financed would keep England quiet
— the unfailing argument of arbitrary governments. ' This
piece,' — ship-money — he argued, ' weU-fortified, for ever
vindicates the royalty at home from under the conditions
and restraints of subjects.' English political liberty was
indeed in danger, despite the careful legality which Charles
and his advisers had hitherto observed.
§ 5. The Collapse of Personal Government and the Definition
of Limited Monarchy.
Within a few months of the decision in the ship-money
case the Scots were in arms, and Charles was helpless before
them. He had made a truce ; but he must have forces
to make face against the Scots, unless he was to lose aU
power over his northern kingdom. Two alternatives lay
before him : to defy the law openly ; or to summon Parlia
ment and ask for funds. Wentworth, now created Lord
Strafford, advised the summons of Parliament. He beheved
in the value of Parliament as a means of feeling the pulse
of the nation, provided it was not permitted to hamper
the executive government, and he had always hoped that
the time would come when it would be safe to summon it
again. This seemed a good moment. National feeling,
he hoped, would be stirred by the Scottish danger : here
was the war with which he had hoped to distract opinion.
And he knew that he could (as he actually did) get a hand
some grant from the Irish Parliament, which was to meet
first, and would give a good example. He did not reahse
how deep was the distrust of the king's aims in England ;
nor see that to many Englishmen the Scots appeared to be
fighting for a cause that was their own. So Parhament was
summoned ; and Eliot's companions in prison, who had pined
there since 1629, were released to make a good impression.
1 There is a good short biography of Wentworth (Strafiord), by H. D,
Traill.

ch.v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 431
But the new Parhament (April 1640) contained the
old leaders ; foremost among them John Pym, the prac
tised political strategist ; with him John Hampden, the
hero of the ship-money case ; quiet on the back benches
a Puritan squire from Huntingdon, Oliver CromweU.1
They were asked for supplies for the Scottish war : they
answered that they knew not whether they had any money
to give until their liberties were secure. Within three
weeks the breach was final ; and the ' Short ' Parliament
was dissolved, while excited mobs in London threatened
to sack Laud's palace and released rioters from prison.
But the Scottish war had to be carried on. Somehow
or other, by desperate devices — among them the issue of
debased coinage — money was raised : even Spain was
asked in vain for help. But the troops who could be got
together were untrained, undisciplined, and fuU of dis
content, whUe the Scots were fuUy prepared. The Scottish
army crossed the border : a feeble attempt was made to
resist them at Newburn on the Tyne : Newcastle had to
be abandoned, and the Scots occupied aU Northumber
land and Durham. Halting there, they presented a petition
to the king for the redress of their grievances and the
summons of an Enghsh Parhament ; twelve English peers
also sent up a similar petition. In desperation Charles
summoned at York a meeting of English peers to see if
they would help him. But the best they could do was to
negotiate with the Scots. The Scots would grant an armis
tice if the expenses of their army were paid, at the rate of
£25,000 a month. But where was the money to be got,
in addition to the money for the English troops which still
had to be kept on foot ? There was no way out of it. A
new ParUament was summoned, and held its first meeting
on 3rd November 1640. It was the famous Long Parlia
ment. The meeting of the Long Parhament is one of the great
dates in the history of free institutions. For its members —
practised men of affairs, most of them, and some with long
parhamentary experience of dealing with the king — came
together with a clear recognition that what they had to
do was not merely to record and defend ancient precedents
and privileges, but in effect to define in an unmistakable
way the powers of Parhament and its relations with the
Crown, and to do away once for all with the ambiguities
1 The best of the many biographies of Cromwell is by C. H. Firth, in
the Heroes of the Nations Series.

432 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
of precedent, which had enabled the king to carry on
government in his own way during the last eleven years.
On this main issue there was in effect no division among
them. So far as this was concerned, there was practically
no king's party at aU. The early proceedings of the Long
Parhament were the work of the united representatives
of a united nation.
The first and most sensational task which they under
took was the removal and punishment of the chief agents
of the recent system of government. On a message from
the House of Commons that a charge of high treason was
to be laid against Strafford by the process of impeachment,
the Lords ordered his imprisonment pending his trial ;
Laud was similarly dealt with ; the Secretary of State only
escaped by fleeing to France, and the Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal, who as Chief Justice had presided in Hampden's
case, by fleeing to Holland.
It was the prolonged trial and subsequent attainder of
Strafford which held the public eye ; to it we must return.
Meanwhile the problem of the Scots had to be dealt with : ,
they were paid maintenance aUowance until the questions
at issue between them and the king should be settled. But '
only the king himself could settle them. He did so during
a visit to Scotland which Parhament, very unwillingly,
allowed him to make in August 1641. He had, of course,
no alternative but to give way on every point, and to accept
the results of the Scottish revolution. But he used the
opportunity to get into touch with a party of Scottish
peers, headed by the Earl of Montrose,1 who were dis
contented with the leadership of the Earl of Argyll and the
ministers. There was, indeed, a large body of opinion in
Scotland which was eager to make friends with the king,
once the Kirk was established, and this was to have im
portant future consequences. In the meanwhUe, the
suspicion that Charles was making a Scottish party for
himself did not increase the friendliness of the parliamen
tarian leaders.
But the main business of the Long Parhament was neither
the settlement of Scotland (which was not directly their
business) nor even the impeachment of Strafford ; it was
the definition of the English constitution ; and this was
effected in a very important series of measures during the
1 There is a good little life of the gallant and chivalrous Montrose, by
Mowbray Morris, in the English Men of Action Series, and a longer one by
C. S. Terry.

CH. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 433
autumn of 1640 and in the course of 1641. To aU these
measures Charles 1. had no alternative but to yield, though
he did so in many cases with the worst possible grace.
Taking them in a logical rather than a chronological order, in
the first place, a Triennial Act (Feb. 1641) provided that
Parhament should be summoned at least once in every three
years : if three years elapsed without a meeting the Lord
ChanceUor must summon one without waiting for the king's
orders ; if he faUed the sheriffs must hold the elections.
Government without Parhament was henceforth to be
impossible. In the second place, aU the special prerogative
courts of the Tudor period — Star Chamber, High Com
mission Court, Council of the North, Council of Wales —
were abohshed outright (1641). Henceforth the ordinary
law of the land must suffice : England, unlike other European
countries even to this day, must do without special admini
strative courts for the maintenance of the authority of
government. In the third place, the Tonnage and Poundage
Act (1641) declared it iUegal to levy any customs duties with
out parhamentary grant, whUe another Act formaUy declared
the Ulegahty of ship-money, distraint of knighthood, and
forest exactions. These Acts, taken in conjunction with
the Petition of Right, ensured that henceforth all taxa
tion whatsoever, direct or indirect, should be controUed
by Parliament. AU these enactments passed through both
houses without demur, and Charles had no choice but to
accept them.
This was the most permanent and the most valuable part
of the work of the Long Parliarhent, and it was done during
the Parliament's first year. It outlasted aU the revolu
tionary changes of the next eighteen years, and was accepted
without question as the framework of the Enghsh consti
tution at the Restoration. But it was far more than a
mere restatement of precedents. It was a whole consti
tution, the first clear definition of a limited parliamentary
monarchy in history. It left the Crown stiU responsible
for the conduct of executive government and for the appoint
ment of ministers, holding very much the position of the
President in the constitution of the United States. But
the Crown must always now work in co-operation with
Parhament, especiaUy because without Parliament it could
not obtain the necessary means for carrying on govern
ment even in times of peace. And the Crown must accept,
and act within the terms of, the common law of the land,
modified only by such changes as Parhament might intro-
VOL. I. 2 E

434 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
duce : there were no longer to be any special jurisdictions
or prerogative courts outside the ordinary course of law.
Here, indeed, was a clear definition of the fundamentals
of a free constitution.
§ 6. The Cleavage of Parties, and the Drift towards Civil War.
On the main constitutional question practicaUy the whole
Parhament was united. But already divergences of view
were beginning to appear, and two parties were shaping
themselves. Events move rapidly in a time of revolu
tion. Within fifteen months of the opening of the Long
Parhament the parties were so clearly marked that civil war
had become inevitable ; within two years it had broken out.
The impeachment of Strafford began the rise of a feehng
favourable to the king. The Commons had been agreed
as to the necessity of removing the one man of great power
and vigour upon whom the king could rely ; and they had
been agreed as to procedure by impeachment on a charge
of high treason, on the ground that the accused had endea
voured to subvert ' the ancient fundamental laws ' of
England, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical
form of government. But difficulties soon arose. The
English law of treason limited this crime to ' levying war
against the king ' : it knew nothing of treason to the nation
to which the king might be a party. The House of Lords,
as the judicial body before whom the charge was laid, was
bound to administer the law, and nothing but the law. The
Commons tried to buttress their case by producing Sir Henry
Vane's notes of the proceedings at a meeting of the Privy
Council, when Strafford had said ' You have an army in Ireland
that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience.'
But this was weak evidence. Vane's notes might be inaccu
rate. ' This kingdom ' might be Scotland. Even if it was
England, was this ' levying war against the king ' ? More
over, Strafford's defence, conducted under great difficulties,
had been extraordinarily eloquent and effective, and had
aroused much sympathy. The impeachment seemed likely
to break down. The leaders of the Commons decided to
proceed by the swifter method of an Act of Attainder,
which amounted to a condemnation without trial. But
there was substantial opposition even in the Commons to
the use of this weapon — a weapon of tyranny, hunted out
from among the bad precedents of the Wars of the Roses,
and much used by Henry vm. Rancour was driving the

ch.v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 435
advocates of the Reign of Law into dangerous courses.
But they persisted. Charles in vain tried to save his friend
by promising never to employ him again in any public
office : the Act of Attainder, sentencing Strafford to death,
was passed, and awaited the king's signature (May 1641).
With a noble self-sacrifice Strafford advised him to sign ;
and after an agonising day he did so. For the degradation
of his surrender he never forgave himself ; on the scaffold
he referred to it as justifying God's dealings with him ; and
he never forgave the parliamentary leaders. Strafford went
to his doom (12th May) with a pious courage which men could
not but admire ; and as he passed the house where Laud
was imprisoned, the archbishop, who knew his turn must
come, stood at a window with his hands raised in bene
diction. The vindictiveness of Strafford's punishment, in
the eyes of many men, put the parhamentary leaders in the
wrong. Their excuse was that so long as Strafford hved
they were not safe ; but this act made a real reconcUiation
impossible. For the exercise of vengeance against Laud
there was not yet time. He waited in prison for nearly
four years ; then (Jan. 1645) he was executed as mercilessly
as his friend.
MeanwhUe questions of rehgion were being discussed, and
on these there was no such agreement as there was on con
stitutional questions. The extreme Puritans, more numer
ous in this Parhament than in any of its predecessors, were
eager to change the whole constitution of the national
Church. They had introduced, early in the Parhament,
a bUl for the exclusion of the bishops from the House of
Lords. They foUowed this up with a more vehement
measure • for the utter abolition of archbishops, bishops,
deacons, archdeacons, prebendaries and canons,' which was
known as the Root-and-Branch BUI. But there was a
large section even in the Commons, and a stiU larger in the
country, which felt a real devotion for the Enghsh Church,
and would resist to the death any such change. A middle
party, including many of the parhamentary leaders, had no
objection to episcopacy in itself, but regarded the bishops
as the most dangerous supporters of the royal prerogative ;
and on that ground, and also because they did not wish
to alienate their staunchest adherents, they gave a half-
unwiUing support to these measures. The majority was thus
against the bishops. The friends of episcopacy naturaUy
tended to become a more solid party, and to take the king's
side on aU but fundamental constitutional questions.

436 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
Another profound cause of difference was also emerging.
Now that the constitution had been defined, should the
king be trusted to exercise the great powers which it stUl
left to him, or must he be regarded with unaltered distrust,
and must Parhament in effect assume charge of the execu
tive government ? Those who took the Anglican side in
the Church controversy were for trusting the king. The
leaders of the majority could not bring themselves to
trust him, and their attitude made any real reconcUia
tion impossible. Their distrust was not without grounds.
Charles i. evidently held the view that he was not bound
to keep faith with the foes of the Divine ordinance of
monarchy. But besides this general ground of distrust
there were several suspicious episodes during the first months
of the Long Parliament. In May 1641 news leaked out-
of a foolish plot in the army, which still lay in the north :
most of the officers were royalist, and there was talk of
their marching on London. Though the plot came to
nothing, the most was made of it ; it was the occasion for
an Act forbidding the dissolution of this Parhament without
its own consent — an Act which deprived the king of what
he regarded as a fundamental prerogative. There were
suspicions also about the king's intrigues in Scotland, which
were heightened by rumours of a mysterious plot for killing
or kidnapping the Earl of ArgyU, leader of the extreme
Presbyterian party in Scotland. The king denied aU know
ledge of it, but the parliamentary leaders beheved them
selves to be surrounded by a network of conspiracy.
But it was from Ireland that the bombsheU came which
in the event made a peaceable settlement impossible. It
is noteworthy that as Scotland had precipitated the con
stitutional struggle, so Ireland drove it into its most
crucial stage. Strafford had made himself complete master
in Ireland, but he had aroused many resentments, and his
plan of a plantation in Connaught had awakened all the rank
ling memories of earher plantations ; his sudden faU inevit
ably produced restlessness, and the disbandment of the Irish
army, which was naturaUy demanded by the English Parha
ment, made the situation dangerous. During the parliamen
tary crisis the king, who still hoped for help from Ireland,
had negotiated with some of the Catholic leaders, especially
the Anglo-Irish lords of the Pale, and had held out the hope
of toleration for the Cathohcs in return for assistance.
But whUe many of the Lords of the Pale were strong royalists
and loyail to the Enghsh connexion, the mass of Irish

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 437
Cathohcs were not content to trust to vague promises ;
and they knew that if the Puritans won the upper hand
they would have still crueUer masters than before. They
organised an insurrection which broke out in October 1641.
The leaders claimed to be acting for the king, and displayed
a forged commission with the royal seal of Scotland, which
may have been torn from an old charter. A rising in a
country so fuU of bitter memories and old resentments as
Ireland could not possibly be peaceful and orderly ; and
in many parts of the country, notably in Ulster, there were
scenes of carnage in which women and chUdren were
massacred as weU as men. Probably some four or five
thousand lost their hves by slaughter at the outbreak of
the rebeUion, and perhaps twice as many by starvation and
other hardships. In England the atrocities were inevitably
multiplied by rumour : men talked of as many as two
hundred thousand having been slain by Irish savagery, egged
on by the machinations of Rome.
When the news of the Irish rebeUion reached London
there was no difference of opinion as to the need for
prompt and severe vengeance. An army must be raised,
and Ireland must be reconquered. But who should com
mand the army ? That, under the laws of England, was
for the king to decide. But the king was already suspected
of being in relations with some of the Irish leaders : Ireland
was the country from which Strafford had meant to draw
the forces which were to crush resistance in England. Could
the king safely be given the disposal of an English army,
and a free hand to deal with the Irish problem ? The
question raised in an acute form the issue of confidence
or no confidence in the king. It raised also the issue
of control over the army, which became acute a httle
later. On 8th November 1641, John Pym introduced in the
House of Commons a formidable document, known as the
Grand Remonstrance, which definitely and in clean-cut
terms raised the question of confidence in the king. In
strong language of the most partisan character every un
constitutional act of the reign was set forth, and every action
of Parhament was vindicated as necessary. A stormy debate
foUowed, in which the party now definitely to be" called
Royahst showed its strength. The Grand Remonstrance
was only carried amid tumult by 159 votes to 148. The
House, united at its first meeting, was rrow'tivided, like
the nation, into two almost equal parties ; and the stronger

438 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
party was prepared to disregard aU opposition and to make
no cdmpromise. ' If the Remonstrance had been rejected,'
said CromweU, ' I would have sold aU I had the next morn
ing, and never have seen England any more.' From this^
moment civU war was inevitable. The next step was the~
introduction of a Mihtia BiU, providing for the nomination
by Parhament of a Lord-general and a Lord-admiral having
the fuUest authority over aU the forces by land and sea :
thus depriving the king of a power which aU his predecessors j
had invariably exercised.
Too late, in January 1642, Charles decided to take parlia- .,
mentary leaders as his ministers. He chose the chiefs of
the royalist party, as was natural. They had voted for
and they still loyally accepted all the constitutional enact
ments of the first session. But they were now simply party
leaders, and the party feud was aU but irreconcUable.
It was made quite irreconcUable when the king, hearing
that it was proposed to impeach the queen, resolved to
turn the tables on his enemies by impeaching the chief of
them on a charge of overturning the constitution, and of
treasonable relations with the Scots. Certainly Pym and
his feUows had come nearer to ' levying war against the
king ' than ever Strafford had done. But when the king
himself came down to the House with a band of excited
young royahsts to arrest Pym, Hampden, Hazlerigg, HoUes
and Strode, his action was tantamount to a declaration of
war. He did not succeed in his aim. The five members
were never arrested : perhaps that is why this episode is
caUed the Arrest of the Five Members. They escaped to '
the protection of the City of London, whence they returned
two days later, escorted by the trained bands of the city
and by four thousand freeholders who had come up from
Buckinghamshire to defend Hampden. Six weeks later the
queen left England with the crown jewels ; and the king
set out for York. The final breach had come (March 1642).-
The king was followed (June) by a document, drawn up by
Parhament, which made the issues in dispute plain beyond
a doubt. The Nineteen Propositions which formed this
parting manifesto of the majority in the House of Commons
had nothing to say about government without Parliament,
or unparliamentary taxation, or prerogative courts. AU
these points were already safely won. The Propositions
may be summarised in one : that Parhament and no longer
the king was to be responsible for the executive govern
ment of England. Parliament was to approve the appoint-

ch. v.] PERSONAL RULE AND ITS DOWNFALL 439
ments of all ministers of state, chief justices, and members
of the Privy Council. Parhament was to regulate the educa
tion and the marriages of the king's children. Parhament
was to decide which peers should be allowed to sit and vote
in the House of Lords. Parliament was to determine the
liturgy and government of the Church. Parliament was~
to control aU military forces and fortresses.
These proposals were not a defence of ancient liberties
based on precedent. They were the proclamation of a
revolutionary change, and many might reasonably doubt
whether a large and shifting body like Parliament could
directly exercise such powers with efficiency. Such a re
volution a large part of the Enghsh people was unprepared
to accept, though it had wUlingly accepted the clear defini
tion of a ' limited ' and constitutional monarchy which had
been embodied in the early Acts of the Long Parliament.
The issue could only be decided by arms ; and the appeal
to arms lets loose aU sorts of unpredictable forces.
[Trevelyan's or Montague's books, as for last chapter ; also
Gardiner, Ranke, Hallam, and Gardiner's Constitutional Documents.
Masson's Life of Milton (7 vols.) is not merely a biography, but a
history of the period of great value. Hutton's English Church
from Charles I. to Anne.]

CHAPTER VI
CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS
(a.d. 1642-1649)
§ 1. The Situation at the Outbreak of War.
During the next seven years and more, civU war raged
intermittently in all parts of the islands ; and hand in hand
with civil war went revolution, in a succession of those
sweeping changes which a general upheaval always brings.
It is the only period of violent revolution in the modern
history of the islands. Like most sweeping changes brought
about by force, the changes of these years were short-hved ;
but they left behind them ideas and grievances which
worked like yeast for a long time to come, and helped to
shape the destiny of the islands and of the commonwealth.
Civil war had already led, in Scotland, to the complete
victory of the popular party and of the Presbyterian Church,
whose doctrine and discipline were established and enforced
with a rigidity that knew no tolerance. But the dominant
party, headed by the Earl of Argyll and the ministers of
the Kirk, were convinced that the security of their triumph
depended upon the issue of the conflict in England. On the
other hand, there was a party which, while it accepted the
Covenant and the Presbyterian system, was stiU royalist
in politics, sympathised with the king in the English struggle,
and would have been glad to help him. The chief member
of this party was the brilhant and chivalrous Earl (later
Marquis) of Montrose : he was to make in the later stages
of the war a daring venture on the king's behalf, which very
nearly won success.
In Ireland civil war was already raging when the struggle
in England broke out, and it continued to rage throughout
the whole course of the English war. It was a very con
fused struggle. The Irish Catholics held about three-fifths^ ~\
of the country, and in the summer of 1642 they provided
themselves with a national organisation by creating a
representative assembly, with a managing council, at
Kilkenny. They professed loyalty to the king, but demanded
440

ch. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 441
a free Parliament and complete freedom for the Roman
Cathohc religion, which the king dared not grant, and did
not wish to grant. But their military affairs were very
ill-managed : they never came near the complete victory
that ought to have been within their grasp. The royalist
army under the Earl of Ormond, with the aid of some
troops from England, held them at bay in Leinster ; other
royalist forces held out in Munster ; . and in Ulster the
Scottish settlers, having recovered from the first shock
of the rebeUion, and being helped by a smaU army from
Scotland, more or less held their own. Thus there were
three parties in Ireland : the Nationalists,:' the Royalists
under Ormond, and the Scots, who were inclined to sympa
thise with the parliamentarian side in the English conflict.
The detaUs of the dreary struggle in Ireland cannot here be
recorded ; but it must be remembered that it was going on,
and that its fluctuations had at various points an important
bearing upon the Enghsh struggle; that was the main
straggle, since the fortunes of both Scotland and Ireland
must depend upon whether king or Parliament won.
It was a very real civil war which began in England when,
in August 1642, the king raised his standard at Nottingham ;
for every class and every district in the country was divided.
Even fathers and sons took opposite sides, and sometimes
met in battle ; and there were separate little wars in almost
every district,1 which make it very difficult to get a clear
view of the whole. It was not a conflict between class and
class. Three-quarters of the peers, indeed, stood by the
king ; and, although only about one-third of the members
of the House of Commons foUowed him, he had a substantial
majority among the country gentlemen. Yet aU the leaders,
on the parliamentary side equaUy with the king's side, were
either peers or country gentlemen. In some regions, notably
the east and south-east, the bulk of the yeomanry were
stalwart on the parhamentary side ; but this was not so in
the greater part of the country. Everywhere, even in regions
generaUy loyal to the king, most of the trading classes were
strong parliamentarians. This class formed, indeed, the
backbone of that party. Wherever there was a substantial
town, there was a parliamentary stronghold ; and the
staunchness of the London trained bands, and the bold
resistance of towns like Hull, Leeds, Manchester, Glou-
1 There are some good accounts of the war as it affected special counties
or towns. Enghsh students will find it interesting to study the war in
their own counties,

442 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
cester and Plymouth, alone prevented a royalist victory
during the first two years of the war. Yet in every town
there was a royahst party : even in London it was esti
mated that one-third of the population favoured the king.
And there were large elements of the population — some
even of the peers, many country gentry, and a very large
proportion of the humbler classes — who stood aloof as
far as possible, either because they were indifferent to this
conflict of principles, or because they were torn asunder
by divided sympathies. Both sides had to resort to im
pressment to fiU their ranks, though there was never more5
than 2\ per cent, of the population under arms — a figure
which may be compared with the 15 per cent. enroUed during
the great war against Germany. In the later stages oL
the war large numbers of men formed themselves into
bands to keep both parties away from their part of the,
country, and these ' clubmen,' as they were called, caused
difficulty to the generals on both sides. Only a hmited
portion of the Enghsh population was, in truth, as yet
sufficiently awakened from the routine of custom to know
or care much about even such fundamental questions as
the war was fought to decide. This vast mass of indiffer
ence, resentful of interference with its habits, was a factor
of which statesmen had to take account. It was whoUy
unready for any sweeping changes, and especiaUy for any
high-handed interference with its customary modes of hfe ;
a fact which passionate reformers were apt to neglect when
they spoke of ' the people ' as demanding the acceptance
of principles which they themselves loved with the devo
tion of parents.
GeographicaUy the lines of division were clearer : x Parha
ment controlled the south and east, from the Wash to the
Solent ; the king was strongest in the north and the west ;
the Midlands were divided. But each party had many
adherents in the regions dominated by the other. Even in
the south-east, upon which the king never succeeded in
making any impression, the ' second civil war ' of 1648
showed that there were thousands of royahst adherents.
Parliament possessed great advantages at the opening of
the struggle ; it controlled the richest and most populous
part of the country, and, holding practically all the ports,
it had all the shipping of the Gountry in its hands, enjoyed
the whole profit of import duties, and shut off the king from
easy communication with the Continent. This advantage
* See the map, Atlas, Plate^ (a).

ch. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 443
was mcreased by the fact that the Navy early declared for
the parhamentary side : this enabled troops to be easUy
moved, and communication to be maintained with important
ports hke HuU. The raising of funds was thus relatively
easy for the Parhament. Though it was loth to levy new
taxes because of the discontent they caused, and found
ithat the trading classes were not eager to pay.it was graduaUy
driven to make great innovations in the system of taxation.
In this respect its work was lasting, and England broke
away from the outworn fiscal system of the Middle Ages.
The king, on "the other hand, always found great difficulty
in raising money. He had to rely mainly upon gifts from
his foUowers, many of whom gave ungrudgingly, and per
manently impoverished their family fortunes. His one
great advantage was that the gentry, the majority of whom
adhered to him, formed, with their grooms and keepers,
exceUent fighting material, especiaUy as cavalry : — far
better than Parliament could command, until it ceased to
rely upon volunteers and half-trained mihtia, and created
a professional army. The superior dash and confidence
of the king's men very nearly gave him the victory in the
first two years of the war. On both sides, but especiaUy on
the parhamentary side, the infantry had a way of melting,
even after a victory. § 2. The First Three Campaigns.
In the short campaign of 1642, the royahsts won con
siderable advantages. The main royal army in the Mid
lands, after an indecisive battle at Edgehill (October), took
Oxford, which remained the king's headquarters throughout
the war, and for a time seriously threatened London ; the
cavaliers of the north, under Newcastle, threatened to
overwhelm the parliamentarians under Fairfax, whose
strength rested on the ' wooUen ' towns of the West Riding,
and on HuU ; and in the far south-west Hopton won the
upper hand for the king in Devon and Cornwall. During
the next year, 1643, these advantages were pressed home.
In the north, Fairfax was badly beaten at Adwalton Moor,
and penned into HuU ; in the south-west the main parlia
mentary army was shattered. Bristol was captured by
Prince Rupert, and it was only the resistance of the towns
of Plymouth and Gloucester which prevented the triumphant
royahsts of this region from linking up with the main
armies in the Midlands. Gloucester was hard beset ; its

444 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
relief by a parhamentary army in September probably
saved the parliamentarians from disaster.
Only in one region was there a gleam of success for the
parhamentary cause. In the east the counties grouped
together in the Eastern_Associatiqn were better organised
than other districts ; and as part of the army of the
Eastern Association Oliver CromweU 1 had begun the
creation of a new kind of fighting force. He had
realised the futility of trusting to the ill-disciplined levies
upon which Parliament relied against the dash and fury
of the Cavalier gentlemen ; and during the first winter
he had raised a regiment of horse, taking only men who
were in earnest about the cause. He trained them thor
oughly ; he armed them weU ; he saw that they were regu
larly paid ; and he insisted on the strictest discipline. This
regiment may be caUed the first body of professional soldiers
engaged in the war. But it was more than that. It was
a body of enthusiasts, and it was soon to prove that under
good leadership such a force was all but irresistible, and
deserved the name of ' Ironsides,' which Prince Rupert
later gave to its leader. Already in 1643 CromweU and his
men had played a chief part in the conquest of Lincolnshire
by the parhamentary forces of the Eastern counties ; he
was now second in command and predominant in influence
and authority in that army, through which the method and
example of his own regiment was steadily spreading.
At the end of 1643 both sides began to look about for
aUies. The king sought aid from Ireland. He empowered .
Ormond to arrange a cessation of arms for a year with the
Cathohc rebels, and to open negotiations for a settlement
which might bring aU Ireland over to his side. No settle
ment could be reached, because the Catholics demanded j
higher terms than the king could give. But at least the
' cessation ' enabled part of Ormond's army to be drafted
over to England ; it was landed in Cheshire, but achieved
nothing and was destroyed in January 1644. Charles gained
nothing from Ireland, but public discredit for having treated v
with the rebels.
Parliament, on the other hand, sought for aid from the
Scots, and the dominant party in Scotland, alarmed at
the prospect of a complete royalist victory, were ready to
give it, on one condition : that the Presbyterian system;
of Church government, on the Scottish model, should be]
established in England and eventuaUy in Ireland also.'
1 For all this see Firth's Life of Cromwell and his Cromwell's Army.

CH. vi.1 CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 445
The taking of the Covenant was made an indispensable
condition of the aUiance. The majority in Parliament,
now purged of aU its Anglican members, was inclined to
the Presbyterian view, and had already abolished episcopacy
and invited an assembly of Puritan divines to meet at
Westminster, to advise it upon the reorganisation of the
national Church in administration, creed and order of
service. But Parliament was far from wishing to set up
a Church so independent of the State, and wielding so wide
an authority over the lives of private men, as the Scots had
estabhshed ; and many of its members feared and disliked
the rigidity and intolerance of the Scottish system. In
face of the danger of a royalist victory, however, ^-these
misgivings had to be disregarded ; and in September 1643
the Solemn League and Covenant was accepted and sworn
to by both sides. This committed Parhament to impose
upon England a Presbyterian system with all its rigid dis
cipline.
v The Westminster Assembly of Divines was strengthened
by the addition of some Scottish representatives ; and
during the next four years it continued to sit and draft
schemes of Church government, a directory of public worship,
and a creed and catechism. But Parliament did not allow
to the Assembly of Divines any such freedom of action as
the General Assembly enjoyed in Scotland. It asked from
them only ' humble advice,' it made substantial modifica
tions in their proposals, and it insisted upon maintaining
the control of the State over the Church. In the eyes of
t the Scots this was the deadly heresy of Erastianism, and it
strained the friendship of the allies from the first. Never
theless a Presbyterian organisation of the Church was
devised and approved, and in the following years was par-
tiaUy apphed in England. Above all, the Assembly of
Divines drew up a Confession of Faith, rigidly Calvinistic in
character, as weU as two catechisms : these, though they
were never widely used in England, were adopted in Scot
land, and became — especially the Shorter Catechism —
supremely important factors in the education of the Scottish
people. Whatever may be said in criticism of the Shorter
Catechism, it challenged those who had to study it to think
about great questions. Its first question, ' What is man's
chief end ? ' stands in sharp contrast with the trite and
obvious ' What is your name ? ' of the English Church
Catechism : its second question, ' What is God ? ' is even
more tremendous. The Scottish people is a people whose

446 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
children have for more than two centuries been daily chal
lenged by these profound inquiries.
The intervention of the Scots, which resulted from the
Solemn League and Covenant, was the decisive factor in the
campaign of 1644. 1 Their invasion of the north broke
Newcastle's power there, and drove him to take refuge in
York. Prince Rupert. had to hurry northward from the
Midlands to relieve him. On the other hand, the parha
mentary army of the Eastern Counties, with CromweU in
command of its cavalry, came north to join the Scots and
the Yorkshire levies under Fairfax ; and a big pitched battle,
the most important of the war in regard to the number of
men engaged, was fought at Marston Moor in July 1644. It
ended in a complete royahst defeat, though at the begin
ning it seemed to be going in favour of the cavahers. The
decisive factor in the fighting was the steadiness and fighting
power of CromweU's horse, and the skill with which he
handled them. Marston Moor was in truth the turning
point of the war. It lost to the king the whole of Northern
England, which during the next two years was completely
subjugated by the Scottish army and the local parhamentary
forces : he now had to fight on two fronts.2
Nevertheless the king's cause did not yet seem hope
less. For everywhere else the aristocratic generals on the
parhamentary side acted with a nerveless indecision which
prevented them from doing any damage to the king. The
only excuse for them was that their troops were untrust
worthy ; but some of them were also half-hearted. ' If we
beat the king ninety-nine times,' said the Earl of Manchester,
CromweU's superior officer in the army of the Eastern
Association, ' yet he is king still, and so wiU his posterity
be after him ; but if the king beat us once we shaU aU be
hanged, and our posterity made slaves.' That was scarcely
the temper which makes for victory.
Meanwhile, in the late summer of 1644, the gaUant Marquis
of Montrose 3 had raised the king's standard in the High
lands of Scotland. He appealed speciaUy to the hatred of
the clan CampbeU and their chief, the Earl of ArgyU, which
was widely felt among the clans of the Western Highlands :
now that ArgyU, as the head of the Kirk party, dominated
the government of Scotland, the Macdonalds and other
clans dreaded the use he might make of his power in their
1 Compare the two maps in Atlas, Plate 38.
» Ibid.
* See Morris's or Terry's Montrose.

ch. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 447
own wUd country. Helped by a smaU contingent from
Ireland, but relying mainly upon the valour of the clans
men, Montrose marched through the Highlands,1 growing
stronger at every stage, and avoiding two of the armies
that were closing down upon him, crushed the third at
Tippermuir near Perth (September 1644), and occupied the
town. Later he captured Aberdeen, , and in the depths of
winter he burst into the CampbeU country, burning and
slaying. The avalanche was ready to descend into the
Lowlands in the next campaign. The king's cause was
looking up in Scotland. In Ireland also negotiations were
being carried on for a peace with the Catholic rebels which
would bring them into the field on the king's side. These
negotiations did not come to anything definite tiU the next
year, when they were too late ; but the knowledge that
they were going on made the situation serious.
§ 3. The Professional Army, and the Downfall of the
Royalist Cause.
In spite of the victory of Marston Moor, therefore, things
looked by no means bright for the Parhament in the autumn
of 1644. Negotiations with the king were attempted, but
they came to nothing. It was by other means that the
deadlock was to be solved. During the winter very plain
words were spoken in Parhament about the half-heartedness
and incompetence of the army chiefs, and the inefficiency of
the forces under their command. The plainest of all were
spoken by Ohver CromweU, who had a good right to speak,
since his troops were the most efficient on either side, and
his leadership had always led to success when he had a free
hand. He complained that there were too many politicians
in the army. ' If the army be not put into another method,'
he bluntly said, ' and the war more vigorously prosecuted,
the people can bear the war no longer, and wiU enforce you
to a dishonourable peace.'
CromweU was regarded with deep distrust in many
quarters. His regiment was notoriously fuU of Independents
and aU kinds of sectaries, enemies (in the eyes of the orthodox)
of aU fixed and decent order, and especiaUy of the Presby
terian system. Their influence was spreading through the
army of the Eastern Association, and good Presbyterian
chaplains had been shocked by the freedom and boldness
of their ideas. Cromwell did nothing to check them, but
1 See the map of Scotland, Atlas, Plate 40 (a).

448 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
rather encouraged them, on the plea that so long as his
men were good fighters and zealous for the cause aU was
weU. He was suspected of being himself iU-disposed to the
Presbyterian system, though he had taken the Covenant,
and of being inclined to the noxious system of toleration,
which would be an end of aU decency and good order.
The Scots in particular distrusted him.
But on the military question the soundness of CromweU's
position could not be refuted. Parliament agreed to a
self-denying ordinance, which in its final form required every
member of both houses to resign all military offices, but
left it open for any of them to be subsequently appointed.
Parliament also decided to reorganise the bulk of tne army
on a professional basis, and no longer to trust to levies of
trained bands or militia. Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had
taken no part in pohtics but had shown himself an able
captain, was appointed Commander-in-Chief ; Skippon,
who had a good deal of professional experience on the Con
tinent, was made Major-General to deal with questions of
organisation ; and CromweU was later appointed second-
in-command. But it was to him that the new army, from
the beginning of its reconstruction, looked up as its real
leader. He now held a position of commanding influence ;
for he was not only one of the principal army chiefs, he was '
also the only officer who sat in Parhament, and was a member
of the Committee of Both Kingdoms for the conduct of the war.
The new model army x was only beginning its organisa
tion, and was fuU of raw recruits, when it was caUed upon,
in June 1645, to deal with an unexpected concentration of
royalist forces in the Midlands, which threatened an attack
upon the hitherto inviolate area of the Eastern Association.
Fairfax hurried up to meet the king ; and battle was joined
at Naseby, CromweU commanding the parhamentary
cavalry. The battle was a confused one, and at first went
badly against the parliament men. But, as at Marston
Moor, the valour and steadfastness of CromweU's horse
turned the day. The royalists were completely broken,
and nearly five thousand prisoners, all the king's baggage
and artiUery, and aU his private papers, feU into the hands
of the victors. Fresh from this crushing victory, the new
model army turned upon the royahsts of the south-west,
hitherto almost unbrokenly successful ; and in July, at the
battle of Langport, near Bridgewater, shattered that army
also. 1 For the military methods of the Civil War see Firth's Cromwell's Army.

ch. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 449
Naseby and Langport between them ruined the royalist
cause. The next year was occupied in the gradual sub
jugation of those parts of the country in which the royalists
stiU held out 1 — a slow and difficult task in which the New
Model repeatedly displayed its efficiency. When Oxford,
the king's headquarters, capitulated in June 1646, the civil
war in England was for the time being at an end ; the king,
after a good deal of hesitation, put himself into the hands
of the Scots at Newark ; and the problem of settlement
after all this upheaval had to be faced.
Meanwhile the hopes which had been raised by Montrose's
early successes in Scotland had been raised higher still,
only to be dashed to the ground. In the spring of 1645 he
was stUl marching about the Highlands and winning victories
over every force sent against him. In August (two months
after Naseby) he broke down into the Lowlands, and in a
brilliant attack at Kilsyth broke the main Covenanting force,
giving no quarter. Kilsyth seemed to put all Scotland at
his feet : he summoned in the king's name a meeting of the
Scottish Parliament at Glasgow, and hoped to invade Eng
land with a great host. But his Highland followers melted
away as soon as they had won their victory, to take their
plunder home. They left him with only twelve hundred
men to meet the forces which were hurried back from the
Scottish army in England. Within a month of his triumph
at Kilsyth his httle army was annihilated at Philiphaugh,
1 and Montrose fled abroad, to gather strength for a new
desperate onslaught. The king's hopes from Scotland, as
from England, had come to naught.
In despair, the king had already made a last attempt to
enlist the help of the Irish Catholics. In August 1645 —
after Naseby and Langport — he sent the English Cathohc,
Lord Glamorgan, with full powers to make an agreement —
almost any agreement — which would range Irish armies
on his side. But concessions which would have been wel
comed, and would have ensured Irish loyalty, a few years
earher, were now insufficient. A papal legate, Rinuccini,
had arrived in Ireland, and made himself the dominant
factor in the counsels of the Kilkenny assembly ; and
being bent primarily upon securing a" complete triumph for
Roman Catholicism, he insisted upon stiffening the terms.
Glamorgan got a promise of ten thousand men, but only ,
on condition that all penal laws against the Catholics should
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 38 (b).
VOL. I. 2 F

450 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
be rescinded, that aU churches and abbeys then in Cathohc
possession should remain Catholic, and that a free Parha
ment should be summoned, no longer bound by Poynings'
Act, which made it subject to the Enghsh and Irish Privy
Councils. This would have made Ireland an independent
State, linked to England only by the Crown, and Roman
Cathohc. When the agreement became public, as it was
bound to do, the indignation in England was great, not
only among parliamentarians, but among the king's foUowers.
Ormond himself, the head of the king's party in Ireland, re
fused to sanction it. And meanwhile the force whose aid
it was to purchase had been made useless by the parlia
mentary victories in England : it could not even be trans
ported, since every English port was in parliamentarian
hands. Too late the Irish Cathohc leaders resolved to
ratify the peace without the religious clauses, trusting to
the king's gratitude for concessions. They had to override
Rinuccini and the clerical party to reach this decision, which
in any case was of no avail.
For the victory of this moderate party was short-hved.
In June 1646 Owen Roe O'Neill, head of the Catholic forces
in Ulster, almost annihilated the Scots of the north in the
battle of Benburb, the one considerable victory won by
the Cathohcs during the war. This victory restored the
ascendency of Rinuccini and the Cathohc stalwarts. They
renounced the peace and the cessation of arms, and began a
big attack on Dublin (November 1646). Ormond, whose
forces had been depleted, had no alternative, if Enghsh
supremacy in Ireland was to be maintained, but to hand
over the city to Parhament. A very able parhamentary
general, Michael Jones, was sent over to take command ;
and, not content with defence, he sallied forth, joined forces
with the garrison of Drogheda, fell upon the main Cathohc
army at Dangan HUT, near Trim, and almost exterminated
it (August 1647). A little later the Munster Protestants
inflicted an almost equally severe blow upon the Cathohcs
in that province, and George Monk,1 sent across to organise
the resistance in Ulster, brought to a stop the Catholic
successes in that province also. The Cathohc insurrection
was not yet by any means queUed. But its chance of com
plete victory had been broken, and it remained for a parlia
mentary army to subjugate the country thoroughly.
1 There is a life of Monk by Julian Corbett, in the English Men of Action
Series,

CH. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 451

§ 4. Attempts to find a Settlement.
During these later stages of the Irish troubles, there was
going on in England and Scotland a prolonged and complex
series of negotiations and intrigues, in preparation for the
settlement of the great issues, rehgious and political, about
which the war had been fought. The king had gone to the
Scots, because he knew there were jealousies between them
and the parhamentary leaders. But though the Scots were
not pleased with the hesitations of Parhament about Presby-
terianism, and were ready to give large pohtical powers to
the king if he would consent to leave their Church free and
triumphant, they were not ready for a breach with Parlia
ment, and the king was not ready to accept their terms. It
was obvious that his aim was to create dissensions, not to come
to a frank and definite conclusion. He beheved that he was
indispensable, and that by playing off against one another
the various parties among the wicked men who had defied
the ordinances of Heaven, the cause of righteousness, as
he understood it, might yet come to its own. Haunted by
this behef, he carried on during the next two years a series
of intrigues, often skilful, whose chief effect was to con
vince each party in turn that he was not to be trusted. No
other conclusion seemed possible. For the truth seems to
be that Charles, utterly sincere in his belief in the divine
ordination of his power, and regarding those who opposed
him as enemies of the truth, did genuinely believe that he
was justified in deceiving such men, and had no serious
intention of arriving at a lasting settlement of the questions
in dispute, on any basis that conflicted with his doctrines.
The first result of this attitude of mind was that the Scots,
after eight months, gave up negotiating in despair. They
wanted to get home ; Parliament wanted them to go ; and
in February 1647, having received the arrears of their pay,
they went, leaving the king in the hands of Parhament.
The king did not yet give up hopes of the Scots. But
during the next twelve months he found a new field for his
gifts of intrigue in the rising hostility between Parliament
and the army. Parliament was bent upon a purely Presby
terian settlement of the Church, though (to the vexation
of the Scots) they insisted upon keeping it in subordination
to the State ; on the pohtical side they wanted to restore
the king, but to leave him in all essentials entirely dependent
upon themselves. But in the army — which felt that it, and

452 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
not Parliament, had won the war — a very different set of
views prevaUed.
The new army, because of its professional character, was
linked together by a strong esprit de corps. Moreover,
as it had been joined especially by the men of most in
dependent minds and greatest force of character, it had
become a centre of unceasing discussions upon the profound
religious and political problems which the long controversy
had raised ; and as the fullest freedom had been given,
especially through CromweU's influence, to all this dis
cussion, there was an immense variety of rehgious opinions
represented in this strange host. The various sects got
along together very weU in the army; why, the soldiers
were tempted to ask, should variety of opinion not be equally )
permitted in the community ? They stood for the rights '
of private judgment, and were resolved not to submit to
the rigid regulations of a Presbyterian system. ' New
presbyter was but old priest writ large ' ; the war of reh
gious liberty would have been fought in vain if rigid Presby-
terianism were to be its outcome. It is true, few of them
were prepared to grant fuU toleration to Roman Cathohcs
or to Anglicans, but that was because these creeds were ^
held to be politicaUy dangerous. In spite of that, the
arguing soldiers of this strange army were almost the first
strong advocates of rehgious toleration, and of fuU freedom
of thought and speech, in the modern world. Their heresy
shocked orthodox opinion. ' We detest and abhor the much
endeavoured toleration,' declared a meeting of London
ministers ; and, again, ' if the devil had his choice whether
the hierarchy, ceremonies and liturgy should be established
in the kingdom, or a toleration granted, he would choose a
toleration.' Yet more remarkable were the political opinions which
had grown up in the soldiers' discussions. They made little
of the ' inherited liberties ' and the precedents to which
parliamentarians attached so much weight, but took their
stand on abstract principles. Many of them, who bore
the name of ' Levellers,' had worked out a complete doc
trine of democracy ; a handful had even the theory of
Socialism. The apostle of the Levellers was John Lilburn,
who was in some ways an anticipator of Rousseau. The
sovereignty of the people as the one foundation of govern
ment was their principle. ' Every man born in England,
the poor man, the meanest man,' ought to have a voice in
choosing those who made the laws ; and in a document

CH. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 453
which they called the Agreement of the People (who had
not been consulted, and certainly did not agree) they de
manded biennial parliaments, equal constituencies and man
hood suffrage. Had their demands been granted, the first
elections would have returned a huge majority in favour
of restoring his authority to the king.
It is not surprising that Parliament should have been
anxious to get rid of a body so formidable, which held views
of this character. Since the war was over, the army must
disband — or be shipped to Ireland, to deal with the rebels
there. But the army refused to disband : Parhament had
given it a legitimate grievance by letting its pay fall into
arrears ; and besides that, the army was growing to the
conviction that since God had called it to decide the war,
it was its duty also to see that the settlement was a right
one. It took to electing ' agitators,' two for each regiment,
to represent its grievances ; it demanded and enforced the
expulsion of eleven members of Parliament, leaders of the
rigid Presbyterian party (June 1647).
Between these two conflicting views of the Parliament
and the army, daily getting further apart, stood CromweU. ,
He was the army's trusted leader, the only man who could
control it. But he was also a member of Parliament and
of what may be called the War Cabinet, the Committee of
Both Kingdoms. In one essential thing his feelings were all
with the army. He had, in strenuous wresthngs, won his
own way to his own belief ; and for him religious freedom
was the greatest of aU things, and the threatened tyranny
of Presbytery even worse than that of Laud. But he was
no sour fanatic : a jovial man, very familiar with his soldiers
and fond of a jest, they tell how a grave discussion between
him and one of his generals in these anxious months sud
denly developed into a piUow-fight. His greatness showed
in nothing more than this, that he was never the captive
of formulae and theories, however plausible, and that he
had always a sense of reahties, and a firm loyalty to facts.
He did not very much care even about forms of Church
government, but would have accepted a moderate Episcopacy
or a moderate Presbytery, if either could be combined with
a real toleration of differences. Nor did he greatly care
about forms of government : ' he was not wedded or glued
to forms of government,' he said. On the whole he thought
that monarchy was the best form in England, under due
safeguards ; both because, as a soldier, he saw the need of
a strong and accepted authority at the centre of things,

454 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
and stUl more because the most important thing to consider
in any proposals was ' whether the spirit and temper of the
people of this nation are prepared to go along with it,' and
' the people of this nation,' he knew, were used to the name
and authority of the king. Above aU he hated the idea of
imposing any settlement, however well-seeming in itself,
by mere force. ' What we gain in a free way is better than
twice as much in a forced way, and wiU be more truly ours
and our posterity's. . . . That you have by force I look
upon as nothing. I do not know that force is to be used,
except we cannot get what is for the good of the kingdom without
it.' The exception was fatal. It drove him to use force in
the end ; and the good that he aimed at was lost for that
reason. In the meantime, his hesitations almost lost him
the confidence of his soldiers.
These were the factors which the unhappy king thought
to play off one against the other, parleying with them aU, and
meaning to come to a real agreement with none. The army
took possession of his person (June 1647), and offered himv
terms : terms far more generous than either the Scots or the
Parliament would offer. They were embodied in the Heads]
of Proposals, drawn up by CromweU's right-hand man, Ireton.'
There was to be a moderate Episcopacy, combined with
aU-round toleration ; a new Parhament, elected by equal
electoral districts on a wide franchise, and lasting for two
years ; and a Council of State, appointed in the first in
stance by agreement. It was a statesmanhke proposal,
and workable. But Charles discussed it only as a means
of dividing his enemies. AU the time he was in touch with
Parhament, and also with the Scots, who were becoming
restive at the lack of respect with which their Scottish king
was being handled, and were almost ready to interfere on
his behalf ; there was also secret work going on among the
Enghsh royalists, and hopes of aid from abroad.
§ 5. Solution by the Sword.
Suddenly Charles slipped away from his lenient and re
spectful army gaolers, and took refuge in the Isle of Wight ^
(November 1647). Within a few months a royalist revolt
had broken out in South Wales, which CromweU had to
deal with, and another in Kent and Essex, which gave some
trouble to Fairfax ; part of the fleet revolted and went-
over to the royalists, and before long the more royahst
party among the Scottish Presbyterians had got the upper

ch. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 455
hand, and a Scottish army was pouring over the border to
help the king (July), just four years after they had come to
help the Parliament. The parliamentary forces in the
north had to fall back ; but Cromwell came up with rein
forcements, and, breaking through the hiUs from Yorkshire,
bore down upon the straggling Scottish army as it advanced
through Lancashire, routed it at Preston (August 1648) and
cut it off from its base ; and finished it off at Wigan and
Warrington. These incidents are caUed the ' second civil war.' The
first civil war had been honourably distinguished by the
humanity with which it was conducted on both sides. In
the second there was a much more merciless temper. The
army was losing its patience. It lost it still more fully
when, the danger over, Parliament and the king began again
upon the old Penelope's web of negotiations, and the arrange
ment caUed the Newport_Treaty was under discussion. Not
the rank and file only, but the heads of the army, with the
exception of Fairfax, had come to the conclusion that the
time for patience and argument had gone ; even before
setting out for the campaign, ' we came to a very clear
resolution that it was our duty, if ever the Lord brought us
back again in peace, to call Charles Stewart, that man of
blood, to an account for the blood he had shed.' On
November 20, 1648, the army sent Parliament a remon
strance, demanding the rupture of negotiations with the
king, and his punishment ' as the author of all our troubles.'
CromweU too had now been brought to this conclusion : his
hesitations and willingness for compromise were over ; he
had ceased to be afraid of ' force ' ; and he was a man who,
once his mind was made up, never wavered in carrying out
his resolve.
But first Parhament must be dealt with. When it re
solved to continue negotiations with the king, Colonel Pride
and a party of musketeers came down and excluded all but
fifty or sixty members (December 1648) . Cromwell would
have preferred a forcible dissolution and a new election ; but
he accepted the accomplished fact, and devoted himself to
driving through the arraignment and trial of the king.
In WiUiam Rufus' great hall at Westminster, which had
witnessed so many events in English history, on the 10th
of January 1649, a scene took place the like of which had
never taken place in England, or in any other country. An
anointed king was arraigned before a body of judges em
powered to try him for his life on a charge of treason against

456 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
the nation. No law known to Englishmen justified such
an act. Those who conducted it were not judges of the
realm, but an ex parte body appointed for the purpose,
whose decision was determined beforehand. Those who
appointed them were not representatives of the nation,
but the remnant of an assembly which, even before it was
purged, had long ceased to be representative. The king,
who bore himself with a quiet dignity which became him
better than any other act of his life, refused throughout to
recognise the authority of the court, and declined to plead.
But he made it plain that, standing before a court which
was no court, it was he, now, who was the defender of the
rudiments of justice and of law against mere brute force and
arbitrary power. ' It is not my case alone, it is the freedom
and liberty of the people of England. . . . For if power
without law may make laws ... I do not know what
subject he is in England that can be sure of his life or
anything that he calls his own. . . .'
He was sentenced, as was indeed determined : he was
refused the right to speak, when he asked for it, after
sentence given. But some even of his stern judges had to
be kept to their duty by the iron will of CromweU and his
friends, and outside a sort of horror held the nation. On
January 30, on a cold frosty morning, the heir of a hundred "
kings stepped forth from the Banqueting Hall in White
hall on to a black-draped platform, where, near a low block,
stood two masked men in close-fitting frocks. Ranks of
soldiers stood around, horse and foot, and behind them, and
in aU the windows and on all the roofs, a t- ranging mass of
silent men and women. The king spoke to those near
about him, stating his view of the causes of the war. ' For
the people,' he went on, ' I desire their liberty and freedom
as much as anybody whatsoever : but I must tell you that
their liberty and freedom consists in having government, in
those laws by which their life and goods may be most their
own. It is not their having a share in government ; that
is nothing pertaining to them. ... If I could have given
way to have all changed according to the power of the
sword, I needed not to have come here ; and therefore I teU
you (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) that I am
the martyr of the people.'
He lay down quietly, and lay for a moment praying ; then
stretched forth his hands, and the head was severed with
one blow. It was raised for the people to see ; whereupon
one groan burst from the thousands round the scaffold :

CH. vi.] CIVIL WAR IN THE ISLANDS 457
' such a groan,' writes one who was present, ' as I never
heard before, and desire I may never hear again.'
A few days later was published a moving little book,
caUed the Eikon Basilike or Royal Image. It purported to
represent the thoughts and reflections of the doomed king
in the last days of his life. Read by hundreds of thousands,
it drove into the mind of the greater part of the nation the
pity and horror which the scene at Whitehall had caused!
The king's death had sanctified the cause of royalty, and,
identified it with justice against mere force.
Liberty. rests upon law, as the king had said; and, for all
his faults, he spoke truly when he made that clear. Mere
force cannot make right ; it rnay poison even a good cause.
To this had come the revolution which started with the
resolute insistence upon the sovereignty of law. With this
augury the Puritan Republic started upon its short and
troubled history.
[The standard history of the Civil War is S. R. Gardiner's, in four
volumes. Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion is one of the
greatest pieces of Enghsh historical writing ; it is also the work of a
participator, on the royahst side. On the other side see Lucy
Hutchinson's Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson and Ludlow's Memoirs,
also Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. For the
more advanced movements Pease's Leveller Movement, Simpkinson's
Harrison, and Brown's Fifth Monarchists]

CHAPTER VII
THE PURITAN REPUBLIC AND THE PROTECTORATE
(a.d. 1649-1658)
§ 1. The Situation in 1649.
The execution of the king was a sudden and violent breach
with the traditions of English government ; the breach
was made yet more complete when the surviving fragment
of the House of Commons proceeded to declare, by its own
sole authority, the abolition of the monarchy and of the
House of Lords (February 1649) . Of the traditional organs
of government which the nation was accustomed to obey,
and whose existence was implied in the rules and prac
tices of every law court and every administrative body in
the land, nothing now remained save the House of Commons,
which ten years earlier had seemed to be the least indis
pensable part of the system ; and the name and authority
of the House of Commons were arrogated by a usurping
minority, who excluded the majority from their places,
and depended for their own existence solely upon the support
of the army : that is to say, upon brute force.
Yet this body, which had assumed to itself aU the func
tions of government and exercised a power more irrespon
sible and tyrannical than any English king had ever enjoyed,
based its claims upon the assertion of the principle of popular
sovereignty and upon its own representative character.
' England shall henceforth be governed as a Commonwealth
or free State,' ran an Act passed in May 1649, ' by the
supreme authority of this nation, the representatives of
the people in Parliament ' ; and the new Great Seal bore
the legend — ' In the first year of freedom by God's blessing
restored.' What they meant by ' a free State,' the Parlia
ment did not explain : since the king himself, on the scaffold,
had claimed to be a martyr for the freedom of the State, it
is evident that ' freedom ' may have many different mean
ings. In the declaration of their reasons for proclaiming a
republic, Parliament asserted that kings were only officials,
established by the agreement of the people, who had the
458

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 459
right to dethrone them ; and it tacitly assumed that it alone
could speak for the people. John MUton, who became one of
the secretaries of the CouncU of State, declared ' that aU men
were naturaUy born free,' and asserted that the ' contract '
on which aU governments rested was invalidated by misrule.
These were lofty assertions of principle. But between them
and the actual facts there was a very awkward contra
diction ; for the actual facts were that the new rulers of
England were an irresponsible oligarchy, supported against
a hostUe nation only by military power, and that if they
were to submit themselves to popular election and accept
its results their power could not survive for a moment.
This contrast between the assertion of high democratic
principles, and the impossibihty of putting them into prac
tice in a nation which was not ready to accept them and
hated their advocates, stultified aU the most enlightened
acts of the Commonwealth, as the same contradiction has
stultified one violent revolution after another. It brought
it about that, in the search for a stable foundation for
government, the revolutionaries, struggle as they might,
found themselves forced, step by step, to return towards the
old system ; and in the end, of all the work of the Long
Parliament, the only part that survived was that which was
achieved in its first session, before brute force was adopted
as an argument. The lessons of this experience long had
very great weight in British politics.
This faUure was not due to any lack of force or ability
on the part of the repubhcan government, for their actions
were both vigorous and successful. In January 1649,
they seemed to be in an almost hopeless and impossible
position. The royahsts, more than half of the active part
of the nation, were their irreconcilable foes. They had
definitely ahenated the great mass of neutral and indifferent
opinion, which became more and more hostile as men found
themselves subject to an unprecedented burden of taxa
tion, and interfered with in their ordinary habits of life.
The Presbyterians, who formed much the greater part of
the Puritan minority, especiaUy in London and the towns,
were almost as irreconcilable as the royalists, and were
indeed becoming royalists themselves. Even among the
very smaU minority of extreme Puritans there were deep
divisions. Some condemned Pride's Purge and the king's
execution as outrages against justice and liberty. On the
other hand, some desired to estabhsh ' the rule of the saints '
and would have liked to limit the privileges of citizenship,

460 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. IV.
as in New England, to pious and orthodox Puritans of their
own shade of belief. There were also genuinely democratic
elements, especially in the army ; these were indignant
because new elections on a democratic basis were not at
once held, and they sent demands in this sense to the Parlia
ment. Some of them, like Lilburn, denounced CromweU
as a tyrant, an apostate and a hypocrite. They had to be
firmly dealt with : ' break them or they will break you,'
said CromweU ; and four of them were imprisoned in the
Tower by the Council of State, quite as high-handedly as
Charles i. and Laud had imprisoned their opponents, and
with less show of legal right. In May 1649 there was anv
alarming mutiny in three regiments, but Fairfax and Crom
well dealt with it promptly, and shot three of the ring
leaders. While the position of the new government was precarious
in England, it was seriously threatened both from Scotland
and from Ireland. The Scots, indignant at the iUegal execu-i
tion of a Scottish king, and at the overthrow of the Presby
terian cause in England, were already in treaty with Charles
11., now in exile, who after much wriggling accepted the
hard terms they imposed on him and landed in Scotland in
the summer of 1650. In Ireland the king's execution changed
the whole situation. The royalists, who had submitted to^
Parliament in 1647, raised their heads again, and Ormond/
made a league with the Catholics ; even the Scots in the
north would have nothing to do with the regicides. For a
moment Ireland was a united nation, as she had never been
before ; the parliamentary garrisons feU one by one, until
only Dublin was left, and Dublin was only preserved by
the irrepressible vigour of Michael Jones, who saved it byN
stri'dng at Rathmines (August 3, 1649) a lively blow against
Orrriond's attacking forces. A royalist fleet under Prince
Rupert — the same which had revolted in 1648 — was making -v
its base at Kinsale ; and Charles n. was expected to arrive
in Ireland — was on his way, indeed, when CromweU's
victories made him turn towards Scotland instead.
On the Continent every State was hostile to the murderers
of the king : and this was the more serious because the
Thirty Years' War was now over, though war between
France and Spain still continued. EngUsh envoys were
murdered in HoUand and Spain, almost with public appro
bation. There was a real possibility that some of the con
tinents powers would help Charles 11. to regain his throne.
That was the condition of things in 1649. By 1652 all the

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 461
world had become respectful, and eager for English friend
ship. The contrast is the measure of the vigour and success
of the new government and its army. But no vigour and
no success could cure the fundamental falsity of their
position. § 2. The Security of the Republic Established.
The first danger to be dealt with was that of Ireland.
On March 30, 1649, Cromwell was appointed Lieutenant-
Governor and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland. On August
13 (having previously sent reinforcements to Michael Jones)
he landed at Dublin with twelve thousand men.1 He came
with the fixed resolve not merely to remove a danger to the
Commonwealth, but to wreak a -terrible vengeance for ' the
innocent blood that had been shed ' in 1641, of which, like
aU his contemporaries, he had a whoUy exaggerated view.
He was to be ' the minister of God's justice.' He first
turned northwards against Drogheda, one of the recent
captures of the royahsts, into which Ormond had thrown
the flower of his army. The town was stormed on September
10, and the whole garrison put to the sword, together with
every priest. Next he turned south against Wexford,
where his action was almost as unflinching : fifteen hundred
of the garrison and every priest were put to death. These
merciless measures had their effect in creating terror. People,
wrote Ormond, we're ' so stupefied, that it is with great
difficulty I can persuade them to act anything like men
towards their own preservation.' Town after town sur
rendered/ and Ormond's men deserted in droves. The
speU was partly broken when the stubborn resistance of
Waterford compeUed the siege to be raised (Novemb -r).
But meanwhUe the various elements in the Irish confedera
tion had begun to quarrel. The royalists of Munster made
terms ; the Scots in the north also submitted. By the close
of 1649 the whole coast from Londonderry to Cape Clear
was in CromweU's hands. The interior and the west had
stiU to be reconquered, and reconquest of the fortresses in
Munster and part of Leinster occupied him during the'
spring of 1650, while in the north another army won a series
of successes. In May 1650, Cromwell was recaUed to"'
England. The final subjugation of Ireland could be left
to his lieutenants, who carried it out systematically during
the next two years : Galway, the last place to res'. r , sur-
1 For the Irish campaign see Atlas, Plate 42 (b).

462 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
rendered in May 1652. A war which had lasted twelve
years and desolated the country was at an end ; and thou
sands of Irishmen began to pour forth to take service in
continental armies. Ireland was subjugated more com
pletely than it had ever been under Ehzabeth.
The cause of CromweU's recall was that Charles 11. had
submitted to the terms dictated to him by the Scottish
leaders, who were preparing to enforce his rights upon
England, and at the same time to insist upon the carrying
out of the Solemn League and Covenant. The gaUant
Montrose had indeed made, in March 1650, a desperate
attempt to save his king from the abject position to which
Argyll and the leaders of the Kirk insisted upon reducing
him. He had landed in the Orkneys with a httle body of
Danish and German mercenaries. But his force had been
destroyed at Carbisdale in Sutherland, and he himself had
later been captured and handed over to the government,
who hanged him at the market-cross in Edinburgh on a
gallows thirty-eight feet high, and sent parts of his dismem
bered body to be displayed in various towns (May 1650).
This was just about the time when CromweU landed in
England from Ireland. The Scots were preparing to invade
England under CromweU's old comrade in arms, David
Leslie. Should they be aUowed to do so, or be anticipated
by^an invasion of Scotland ? Fairfax, stiU Commander-in-
Chief, resigned his post rather than invade Scotland ; and
in June Cromwell became Captain-General and Commander-
in-Chief of aU the forces of the Commonwealth.
FoUowing the east coast route, where the fleet could
accompany and supply him, CromweU led an army of sixteen
thousand veterans to the attack against twenty-six thousand
Scots.1 At Dunbar, on September 3, 1650, he won perhaps
the most brilliant of aU his victories ; though he was helped
by the meddling of the Scottish ministers who insisted upon
overriding Leslie's plans : he was in a difficult position when
the battle began, and if the ministers had not insisted on 1
an immediate attack, CromweU might have been beaten.
Master now of aU the eastern Lowlands, Cromwell was
anxious for a peaceful agreement. But the Scots would not
yield, and their army was re-forming behind Stirling, the
gateway of the Highlands. The extreme Kirk party, who
were most likely to make terms, had been discredited by
their meddling at Dunbar, and had lost the upper hand, so
that Charles 11. had become more fuUy master in his own
1 For the Scottish campaign see Atlas, Plate 38 (a).

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 463
house. To turn the Scottish position CromweU threw his
army into Fife, across the estuary of the Forth, and cap
tured Perth. This cut off Leshe from the north, but it left
open the road to the south ; and, as CromweU had fore
seen, Charles 11. and the Scots resolved to seize the chance
for a raid into England, hoping to get aid from Enghsh
royahsts. They got practicaUy none, so firmly was
England held down. But they managed to advarice with
increasing difficulty as far as Worcester. Cromwell, who
had gathered fresh forces during the pursuit, was able to
bar the road to London ; and having now nearly two to
one against the weary and dispirited Scots, he attacked
them from two sides at Worcester (September 3, 165 1), and
almost annilulated them. Scarcely any of them got home.
Half the nobility of Scotland were among the prisoners.
Charles 11. had great difficulty in escaping : troopers scoured
aU roads, and notices were out at the ports for the arrest
of ' a taU man above two yards high ' with dark hair. But
for seven weeks the fugitive wandered about the country v
in every kind of humble disguise ; of the scores he trusted
not one proved false, and he escaped to France at the end
of October. The romance of Charles n.'s escape, added to
the tragedy of his father's death, contributed to increase
the hold of the faUen monarchy over the imaginations of
the Enghsh people.
Dunbar and Worcester completed the triumph of the
repubhc. Scotland, hke England and Ireland, now lay
helpless before the army. She had suffered fearfuUy during
the last years of the war, and she could not replace the
army destroyed at Worcester. A force of six thousandi
under George Monk was sufficient to conquer the remainder
of the country. In May 1652 (the same month in which
the surrender of Galway ended the Irish war) Dunnottari
Castle, the last Scottish fortress to hold out, also surren
dered. Scotland and Ireland, both conquered countries,
were at the disposal of the able and vigorous oligarchy who
ruled England against its will.
MeanwhUe Rupert had been swept from the seas ; and
a war with the Dutch, of which something wiU be said else- ">
where,1 showed that the republic was as vigorous on sea
as on land, and that in Blake it had a sea warrior not un
worthy to be the colleague in arms of CromweU. And
whUe these victories were being won, the administrative
work of the Commonwealth was carried on with almost
1 Chapter viii. below, p. 478.

464 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
equal efficiency, through a Council of State of forty-one
members, thirty-one of whom were members of Parliament.
Beyond question these men were honest and disinterested.
' They are economical in their private affairs,' wrote a
French agent, ' and prodigal in their devotion to public
affairs. They handle large sums of money, which they
administer honestly. They reward weU and punish severely.'
They raised a revenue of £2,000,000 a year, three times as
great as Charles 1. had enjoyed before the meeting of the
Long Parhament. Much of it was raised by heavy fines
on royalists and by the sale of confiscated estates ; but
the burden of direct and indirect taxation was heavier
than it had ever been, and more arbitrarily coUected. It
was the army and the navy which necessitated this large
expenditure, despite careful economy. They were able and
devoted men who carried on all this work. One of the
ablest of them was Sir Henry Vane ; another, more famous,
was John MUton, one of the secretaries of the Council of
State, and the chief defender of the republic in the pamphlet
war of the time.
In addition to their other labours, Parliament under
took great reforms. They took in hand the reorganisa
tion of the Church ; and, largely guided by the Puritan
divine, John Owen, wrought out (1652) a system where-^
under aU candidates for the ministry were examined by
local commissions, partly lay and partly clerical, and
admitted freely, whatever their shade of belief, Presby
terian, Independent, Baptist, or even moderate Anghcan ;
while a travelling commission moved about ejecting unfit
ministers and schoolmasters. Beyond question the work
was carefully done, and most of the parishes were served
during this period by able and honest men. At the same
time toleration was granted to all who could not accept the
regular ministrations, provided that they accepted certain
fundamentals of Christianity. In the same spirit a reform
of the legal system was begun. Twenty-one commissioners,
presided over by Matthew Hale, being empowered ' to con
sider the inconveniences of the law and the speediest way
to remedy the same,' drafted many good biUs, some of
which became law during the Protectorate and lasted till
the Restoration : others had to wait tiU the nineteenth
century. But not even the greatest efficiency and devotion could
overcome the fundamental vice of the government of the
Rump, as the remnant of the Long Parliament was called.

CH. vii.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 465
They claimed to represent the nation, but they represented
only a fraction of it ; and even that fraction, even the army
on which their whole power rested, was not content to
accept an unchanging ohgarchy with no legal basis for its
power. § 3. The Attempt to find a New System of Government.
AU through the three years foUowing the death of Charles
1. agitation went on about the problem of government. It
came to a head when the subjugation of Ireland and Scot
land removed the immediate dangers of the republic. Now
at last, it might seem, the discrepancy between theory and
practice might safely be removed. But the Rump was slow
to abandon a power which it enjoyed exercising ; also its
members knew, better than many of the enthusiastic demo
crats who criticised them, that any attempt to translate
theory into practice would lead to chaos. The most that
the Rump would do was to propose that the present house
should continue, the members not submitting to re-election,
but that vacancies should be fiUed up, the existing Parha
ment being the judge of the eligibility of aU persons elected.
And this system they proposed as a permanency.
The army lost patience ; and CromweU, acting as their agent,
came down to the'house (April 20, 1653), when the bill for'"
renewing the Rump was about to pass, and, after listening
to the debate, got up and roundly rated his feUow members :
' You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament. I will
put an end to your sitting.' Soldiers of his own regiment
were caUed in : the members were excluded ; the Speaker
and the rigid republican Algernon Sidney were removed with
a show of force. Catching sight of the mace, the emblem
of the legal authority of Parliament, ' What shaU we do
with this bauble ? ' he cried, and then, calling a soldier,
' Here, take it away.' So ended the last semblance of
legal authority in England. Bare, naked force alone main
tained the State in existence.
What should take the place of the disbanded house ?
Whatwas to be the new frame of the government of England ?
That was for Cromwell and his soldiers to decide ; there was
no other authority in England. A free appeal to the elec
torate was out of the question. But among the leading
soldiers there were two views, and Cromwell swayed between
the two. One was the view of Lambert, the most political
of the soldiers. He held that a Parliament should be
VOL. 1. 2 G

466 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. IV.
elected, that there should also be a smaU administrative
council, and that their respective powers, and also the per
manence of the whole system, should be defended by a
written constitution, from which there should be no appeal :
this seemed the only safeguard against the obstinate per
sistence of the traditions of the old constitution. The other
view was represented by Harrison, a brave man but an Ulite-
rate fanatic, leader of the Fifth Monarchy men, who held
that the four monarchies of Assyria, Persia, Macedonia and
Rome having aU fallen, the Fifth Monarchy, that of Christ,
was now to begin : their favourite text was, ' The saints
shall take the kingdom and possess it.' There was a prac
tical vein in CromweU which made him distrust paper con
stitutions. There was also a mystical vein in him, to which
the idea of the rule of the saints made some appeal : ever
since the execution of Charles I. he had talked more than
usual about God's judgments, which he saw in every victory.
The result was that an experiment was made in Harrison's
direction. One hundred and forty persons, aU Puritan
notables, including five from Scotland and six from Ireland,
were invited to become members of an assembly which was
to undertake the rule of the Commonwealth : it is the assembly
known from one of its members as Barebone's Parhament.
CromweU welcomed it (July 4, 1653) in an extraordinary
outburst of half -mystical enthusiasm. ' The rule of the
saints had been brought about by the manifest guidance of
God. ' I never looked to see such a thing as this. . . . This
may be the door to usher in the things that God hath pro
mised and prophesied of. . . . Indeed, I do think some*
what is at the door. We are at the threshold.'
But alas ! The saints were not very practical rulers,
though they did not go quite so far as the Fifth Monarchy
men, who would have had them abolish all the laws of
England and substitute the Mosaic code. They started to
do everything at once, and put everything in confusion.
And meanwhile the Levellers were denouncing Cromwell
for not having called a real elected Parhament. The prac
tical side of CromweU's nature reasserted itself. There was
a moderate party even in Barebone's Parhament. They held
an early meeting (Dec. 12) before the enthusiasts could come,
and hastily resolved that the further sitting of this Parlia
ment ' wiU not be for the good of the Commonwealth, and
that therefore it is requisite to deliver up to the Lord-General
CromweU the powers which they received from him.'
Cromwell accepted the resignation with relief. The experi-

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 467
ment had lasted only five months and four days. But once
more, no power in existence save the power of the sword !
The next attempt at a solution was Lambert's scheme of
a written and unalterable constitution, under which it might
be safe to elect a Parhament. Lambert drafted the con
stitution, which was known as the Instrument of Government ;
and CromweU accepted it. It was not a bad piece of con
stitution-making. But it is not hard to make a constitution :
the difficulty is to make it part of the life of a nation. The
striking feature of the Instrument was that it was obviously
modeUed upon the old constitution of England. It had
' something monarchical in it,' which CromweU had always
said was necessary ; for there was to be a Protector at the
head of the executive government, performing very much
the same duties as had faUen to the king, assisted by a
Council of State which would correspond to the Privy Council,
and the Protector was to have a fixed yearly revenue with
which Parhament was not to be able to interfere, sufficient
to enable him to meet aU the ordinary expenses of govern
ment — that had been Charles i.'s position in theory. Parlia
ment was to meet once in three years (as the Long Parlia
ment had defined), and might be dissolved after only five
months : there was therefore to be no such permanent
control of the executive by Parliament as the Long Parlia
ment had desired. Moreover the powers of Parliament were
limited : it was prohibited from passing laws that conflicted
with the ' constitution,' which is just what Charles 1. had
complained that his parhaments insisted upon doing.
Before the meeting of Parhament the Protector was to have
the power of issuing ordinances — just as the Stewarts had
issued proclamations. FinaUy, as a safeguard, the franchise
was altered : in the counties, only owners of property worth
£200 were to vote. This was far from the system desired
by the LeveUers.
CromweU was solemnly installed as Protector in December
1653 — dressed in a black coat, to show that mUitary rule
was over. Parliament did not meet till September 1654,
and in the meanwhile CromweU exercised freely his power
of. making ordinances. Some of the most distinctive parts
of his domestic policy were thus effected without parlia
mentary concurrence. But when Parhament did meet, the
Protector found it as troublesome as ever Charles 1. had done.
For the elected members felt that by the fact of election
they had an authority behind them far superior to that
upon which the Instrument of Government rested ; and they

468 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
insisted upon revising its terms. Why should a junto of
officers presume to tie for ever the hands of the represen
tatives of the people ? About ioo members were excluded
for refusing to promise not to alter the main features of the
system ; Charles I. had never gone so far. But those who
remained stUl went on with these discussions, and in par
ticular proposed to reduce the size of the army. At the
very earhest day permitted by the Instrument of Govern
ment — counting four weeks to the month — the Protector
got rid of his Parliament as eagerly as ever did Charles i.
He was faced indeed by a threatened series of risings,
which had been stimulated by the evidence that the con
querors were divided — risings of the Scots, of the Cavahers, "
of the LeveUers, of the Fifth Monarchy men : such a series,
of threats to government as Charles i. had never known
even at the height of his personal rule, though he had had
no army to overawe the country. They were aU crushed
in the bud, save a rising in Scotland and a little outbreak
of Cavahers in England, both of which were easUy dealt with.
But they gave excuse for an extension of military rule
which brought more odium upon the Protectorate than any
other of its acts. England was divided into ten districfs7
each of which was placed in charge of a major-general with
elaborate powers of police investigation, and instructions
to enforce the laws relating to pubhc morals. The major-
generals overrode in a large degree the whole system of local
self-government, with which there had, hitherto, been no
interference. They had military force at their command,
and their expenses were paid by a ten per cent, income tax)
on the hard-pressed royahsts. England got such a taste
of autocratic military rule from the major-generals as she
did not for a long time forget. She learnt to hate the vejVj
idea of a standing army.
To add to the troubles, the lawyers began to question the
validity of CromweU's ordinances, as Sir Edward Coke had
once questioned the validity of the proceedings of the pre
rogative courts ; and a merchant named Cony, imitating
that once popular hero Bate, of Impositions fame, refused to
pay customs duties not imposed by Parliament. More high
handed than James or Charles, but precisely in their manner,
CromweU replaced the obstinate judges by men who agreed
with him, and locked Cony's lawyers up in the Tower. To
this had come the movement which began by asserting the
supremacy of law over mere power, the control of taxation
by Parhament, the iniquity of arbitrary imprisonment, and

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 469
the independence of judges ! ' What is it you would have ? '
CromweU once asked of the unbending republican Ludlow.
' That which we fought for,' said Ludlow, ' that the nation
might be governed by its own consent.' ' I am as much for
government by consent as any man,' the Protector wearily
answered. ' But where shall we find that consent ? '
There was the difficulty. It is not enough, for freedom,
that you should desire things which you believe to be
good, and use power for their enforcement : there must
be consent, and consent is not easily given by the mass of
unthinking men once the rules and methods to which
they are accustomed have been overturned. Seeking
stiU for the ' consent,' without which his rule, for aU
its efficiency, was futile, Cromwell summoned another
Parhament for 1656, stiU under the Instrument of Govern
ment — trusting to the major-generals to pack it with well-
disposed members. What storms timid attempts in this
direction had produced under James 1. ! But the major-
generals were quite unsuccessful. Many opposition members
were elected : CromweU simply excluded a hundred of them.
Even so, when Parhament met the major-generals were
vigorously attacked, and the ten per cent, tax on the
royahsts was condemned as an unjust breach of faith.
Whither the feelings of Parliament were tending was
shown by the introduction of a resolution begging Cromwell
to accept the crown. Even in this carefully chosen Puritan
house, though there was no wish to bring back the Stewarts
such as there was outside, and no personal hostility to
Cromwell, such as was producing a whole series of plots
against his hfe, there was a longing to get back to the old
ways, to known laws, to easily understood traditional
authority. In spite of repubhcan opposition, a biU for the
revision of the constitution and the revival of monarchy,
under the name of the Humble Petition and Advice, was carried
by no less than two votes to one (March 1657) . Cromwell was
moved. Here was a prospect of some sort of ' consent..'
' It is time,' he said to his officers, ' to come to a settlement,
and to lay aside arbitrary proceedings so unacceptable to
the nation.' But the opposition of the army was too strongs
Not without reluctance — a reluctance due not to personal
ambition but to the longing for settlement and ' consent '
and the return to normal conditions — Cromwell refused to
take the title of King. But he agreed to the establishment;
of a House of Lords nominated by himself, and in other;
respects to as near an approximation to the old system as

470 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
might be. He was once more instaUed as Protector (June
f 1657), this time wearing a robe of purple velvet and ermine ;
and the old-time heralds in their tabards made proclamation
of his accession in the old-time way, to the sound of trumpets.
At last he had got a constitutional basis for his power : he
rested not upon the mandate of the army, but upon the
election of Parliament.
But alas ! the new constitution was as unworkable as the
old. It was no longer possible to exclude members : the
new constitution gave Parliament, like the parhaments of'
Charles 1., control over its own membership. The excluded
members returned, and CromweU's own supporters were
depleted by the appointment of many of them to the new
second chamber. The house insisted upon discussing the
new constitution all over again : why should it not ? It
quarrelled with the new second chamber : had not such a
body long ago been declared unnecessary ? And here it had \
the ominous support of the army. This unsettlement could '
not be permitted. Like Charles 1. when the Petition of
Right Parliament challenged his authority, CromweU came
down and upbraided the Commons, and declared the Parlia-^
ment dissolved (Feb. 1658). He never met a Parliament
again. He had failed to get ' consent,' and in the few
months of life that still remained to him, he must have
known that what he had striven for had faUed.
We have dwelt especially upon this consistent failure of a
highly efficient government to secure the public support with-,
out which it could not exist, even with all its military strength,
because this is indeed the most significant aspect of the
history of the Commonwealth. It taught a lesson of per
manent value : the lesson that in a community which has
once acquired the habit of self-government, no efficiency,
not even the highest degree of enlightenment, can achieve
permanent success if it runs counter to the will and senti
ment of the nation, if it does not win for itself ' consent.'
Napoleon, whose position was in many ways like that of
Cromwell, got the consent of France to a system even more
arbitrary than Cromwell's ; but only because the French
people had not acquired the habit of self-government, which
long practice had rooted in the English. Because it lacked
this essential foundation, all the best work of the republic
and the Protector was ephemeral, and had to be done over
again : the only part of it which was lasting was the bad
part, the part that created new or intensified old bitter
nesses,

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 471
§ 4. The Achievements of the Republic and the Protectorate.
Yet in some respects the work of this period was extra
ordinarily enhghtened, and far ahead of its age. In two
ways it made great contributions to the growth of freedom.
The restriction upon printing, which had been taken for
granted as an essential power of government, not only in
England but in almost aU countries, ever since the invention
of printing, had broken down when the prerogative courts
by which it was maintained were abolished in 1641, and it
was never fuUy re-established. All through this period
there was an unceasing stream of political writing, often
extremely able, which contributed immensely to stimulate
pohtical thinking throughout the nation, and largely ac
counted for the rapid development of ideas and theories
which distinguished the period. Milton's noble tracts x are
the only products of this activity which are still read, but
MUton was only one of many. John Lilburn alone wrote
about one hundred pamphlets, and these and other writings
of his school largely anticipated the revolutionary thought
of the eighteenth century. The pohtical newspaper owes
its origin to this period. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate
the importance of all this upon the mind of a nation already
the most active politically of any in the world. And though
there was a return to the old restrictions under the Restora
tion, the free press, for which Milton so nobly pled, had
become so essential a thing in the minds of Englishmen that
no restrictions were of any avail, or lasted more than a
generation. Again, both the Republic and the Protectorate made a
real advance towards religious toleration, a cause for which
CromweU cared more than any other, and on which Milton
wrote some of his noblest verse and prose. It is true that
Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism were both excepted
from the full benefits of religious freedom, on the ground
that they were politically dangerous. But many Anglicans
were allowed to retain their livings, and to use portions of
the Prayer-book : many little congregations met in private
houses, unmolested by government ; even in London the
use of Anglican services and ceremonies was winked at,
except when royalist plots were afoot. Even the Roman
Catholics were less troubled than they had been, and Crom
weU could justly claim, in a despatch to the French Govern
ment, that he had eased the situation for them. He would
1 Especially Areopagitica, a sublime argument for a free press.

472 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
have gone further, but public opinion was too hostUe. To
the Jews also, and to the Quakers (whom the Rump
had persecuted) he showed an unwonted indulgence ; the
return of the Jews to England, from which they had been
banished since Edward I., dates from the Protectorate.
The Instrument of Government and the Humble Petition
and Advice both made a modified toleration a fundamental
principle of their systems, and it was something that the idea
should have been publicly recognised ; and the Protector
was yet more lenient than the laws. But perhaps the
greatest contribution of the period to the growth of religious
freedom was the mere fact of the creation of organised sects.
Public opinion was slow to accept the idea of full toleration ;
no government could go far ahead of public opinion, and in
the next period there was a great set-back. Yet even in
the next period it was impossible to disregard the existence
of the sects. They might be, and were, exposed to very
serious restrictions, but they remained members of the
community, and could not be crushed out. Henceforward
the ideal of an enforced uniformity of practice and belief in
a single national church became impracticable, and that fact
in itself ensured the gradual growth of a real practice of
toleration. Not the least important of the achievements of this time,
more especially under the Protectorate, was the attempt to
reform the procedure of English law. The process had been *
begun by the Rump. CromweU carried out a valuable series
of reforms in the cumbrous procedure of the Court of
Chancery, and endeavoured to get rid of the monstrous
severities which disgraced the English criminal law. ' To
see men lose their lives for petty matters,' he told Parhament,
' is a thing God will reckon ; and I wish it may not be laid
on the nation a day longer than you have opportunity to
give a remedy.' But CromweU's reforms were handicapped
at the time by the resistance of the lawyers, who made J
difficulties about recognising his ordinances ; they aU dis
appeared at the Restoration, not having been made by a
legal authority, and it was not until the nineteenth century
that they were carried into effect.
The most remarkable political achievement of the repubhc
was the complete union of Ireland and Scotland in a single ^
State with England. Scottish and Irish members sat in each
of the parhaments of the Protectorate, including Barebone's
Parliament, and there was a close assimilation both of the
ecclesiastical system and of the legal system of both countries

ch. vn.] THE PURITAN REPUBLIC 473
to that of England. But the union was imposed by force,
not attained by consent ; and this fact, which stultified all
the achievements of the republic, destroyed the union also.
It simply came to an end at the Restoration.
In Scotland there is no denying that justice was weU and
firmly administered, and that such order was maintained as
Scotland had never known before : even the wild Highlands
were tamed by garrisons. There was complete freedom of
trade with England, from which the country undoubtedly
profited : ' we always reckon those eight years of usurpation
a time of great peace and prosperity,' wrote the Scottish
historian Burnet. But the burden of taxes, though not
unjustly apportioned, was heavy, and above aU, every Scot
felt that these boons were the gift of a foreign conqueror,
and yielded no gratitude for them. All the changes in
Scotland vanished at the Restoration. Here, again, good
work was fruitless, because it was based on force.
If Scotland had grounds of resentment, far deeper were
the resentments caused in Ireland by the policy of these
years : ' the curse of CromweU ' became one of the bitterest
of Irish imprecations. Yet, tragicaUy enough, Ireland was
the only field of aU CromweU's manifold activities where his
work has left a permanent and ineffaceable mark ; and this
because his pohcy reflected the unhappy antipathies of his
time, and carried them out with unflinching logic. Like
aU his contemporaries, Cromwell regarded Ireland not as a
sister nation, but as a possession of England ; and here
alone the advocate of religious toleration aUowed his policy
to be governed by religious venom. His aim was completely
to Anglicise Ireland, by fiUing the country with godly
Enghshmen. The reconquest of the country, which was so
thorough that it lay in his hands to be moulded, seemed to
give him the chance of effecting this aim, by justifying a
wholesale confiscation of all the landed property of the Irish
Cathohcs, and rendering possible a scheme of colonisation
more drastic than even Elizabeth or James 1. or Wentworth
had ever contemplated.
CromweU tried to remove the whole Irish Catholic popula
tion to Connaught, and did almost succeed in limiting to that
province Irish ownership of land. Two-thirds of the land
of Ireland changed hands, and the process whereby the Irish
were turned into hewers of wood and drawers of water on
the land which their ancestors had owned was unflinchingly
carried out, so far as irresistible power could achieve it. But
the Irish population could not be extruded : they still re-

474 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
mained as labourers and tenants on the estates of others in
all parts of the country. Within a generation the new
settlers, among them many of Cromwell's old soldiers, had
(despite all prohibitions) married Irish wives, and had chil
dren who became ' more Irish than the Irish,' and Cathohc
like their neighbours, everywhere save in Ulster. The
spasmodic and ineffective rehgious persecution of the pre
vious period was replaced by a systematic hunting down of
priests, though no attempt was made to punish laymen for
being Catholics or to force them to attend Protestant ser
vices. Cromwell hoped for much from missionary enterprise
and assiduous preaching : he brought in many preachers,
appearing to New England for recruits. His hope was
wholly vain : Ireland remained staunchly Catholic, all the
more because Catholicism had become the symbol of nation
ality. Ireland, like Scotland, enjoyed under CromweU's rule the
advantage of complete freedom of trade with England, and >
profited from it ; she enjoyed also the real benefit of a com
petent and cheap administration of justice. But these
boons were nothing in comparison with the indelible crime
of attempting to wipe out the traditions and customs of a
whole nation, and the blunder of supposing that any nation
of men with memories and imaginations could be treated
' as a clean paper ' (to use CromweU's phrase), on which the
hand of a master might write whatever he desired. The
Cromwellian policy in Ireland contributed enormously to
the creation of that heritage of bitterness which has made
the Irish problem almost insoluble. Here again, and here
more than anywhere, force was proved to be no remedy.
[Trevelyan's and Montague's books, already referred to ; Firth's
Life of Cromwell ; Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell ; Gar
diner's Cromwell' s Place in History, and his History of the Common
wealth and Protectorate, with continuation by Firth ; Masson's Life of
Milton ; Ranke's History of England principally in the 17th Century.
For the constitutional devices of the time see Jenks' Constitutional
Experiments of the Commonwealth. Gardiner's Constitutional Docu
ments of the Puritan Revolution gives the actual enactments. For
Ireland, Dunlop's chapter in the Cambridge Modern History and
his Ireland under the Commonwealth ; for Scotland, Hume Brown
and Lang.]

CHAPTER VIII
THE PURITAN REPUBLIC AND THE OUTER WORLD
§ i. Naval and Colonial Policy ; the Dutch War.
Though aU the constitutional projects of the Puritan
repubhc ended in failure, there was one of its achievements
which was of supreme and lasting significance to the develop
ment of the whole British Commonwealth. It practically
created the navy as a permanent, organised fighting force,
and won for England a command of the highways of the sea
which was never afterwards to be wholly lost, and which was
to form one of the chief factors in the world-wide distribution
of the British peoples and their institutions, and in the
maintenance of their unity.
The sea war under Elizabeth had been carried on in the
main by private adventurers. Even the fleet which de
feated the Spanish Armada, though its backbone was pro
vided by a few Queen's ships, consisted chiefly of private
vessels, and its most famous captains were not officers of
the navy, but private adventurers. The royal navy had
never been strong enough to fight a big battle without the
aid of merchant ships. Charles i. deserves the credit of
having begun to build a fleet of war powerful enough to hold '
the seas by itself, and it was from ship-money that he drew
the means for building it. Ship-money created the powerful
fleet which went over to the parhamentary side at the be
ginning of the civil war, and by holding the seas helped to
ensure the defeat of its creator. But the fleet under Charles i.
and during the civil war was still ill-organised and ill-
managed. The republic turned it into a magnificent
fighting force, provided it with an efficient organisation,
and doubled its numbers ; no less than 207 ships were added
to the navy during the eleven years from 1649. What is
even more important, the rulers of the republic (notably
Sir Henry Vane) did away with the old system which had j
left the management of the fleet to a Lord High Admiral I
of noble rank, and for the first time called into consultation I

476 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
1 a group of experts and fighting seamen, the nucleus of the
future Admiralty.
The managers of the navy found a sea-warrior of the
highest quahty in Robert Blake,1 who had been a soldier tiU
middle life, and yet ranks among the three or four greatest
English admirals. There were others also who did variant
work — Ayscue and Penn and the amphibious Monk.2 The
Council of State was wise enough to take some of these men
into counsel in regard to its building programme, its naval
strategy, and the great reforms in the manning, victualling
and pay of the fleet which it carried into effect.
What compelled the Rump to give its serious attention to
the navy after trie execution of Charles I. was that, in the
first place, part of the fleet (only nine ships) had gone over
to the royalist side in 1648, and was now, under Prince v
Rupert, doing great damage to trade and helping Ormond
in Ireland ; and, in the second place, that aU the European
powers were hostile, while some of them, notably France,
were expressing their hostility by privateering at trie expense ,
of English merchant ships. Now that the Thirty Years'
War was over, and the sons of the late king were welcomed
abroad, even a foreign invasion did not seem out of the
question ; and the function of the navy in guarding the
inviolate island became more obvious in face of a hostile
world. Blake's first task was to deal with the small royalist
squadron under Prince Rupert. He drove them from their
Irish base at Kinsale (1649). He blockaded them for seven
months in Lisbon harbour (1650), when they took refuge
there. In doing so, he had to defy Portugal, and he fought
and sank a Portuguese fleet in the middle of a gale. Then
he pursued Rupert into the Mediterranean and for the time
being scattered his fleet there (1650). The blockade of
Lisbon was the first systematic operation of the kind carried
out on a large scale by the English navy ; and the raid into
the Mediterranean Sea for the first time displayed the flag
of the English navy in these waters, where so many of its
great exploits were to be achieved. These deeds did as
much as Cromwell's victories to establish the prestige and
the security of the new government. They made it plain
that in the navy there was a force that must be reckoned
with. The English navy, now a formidable standing force,
had become a factor in European politics as never before.
1 There is a good short life of Blake by David Hannay.
» See Corbett's Monk in the English Men of Action Series.

CH. vin.] THE REPUBLIC & THE OUTER WORLD 477
In another sphere also the navy enabled the rulers of the
Puritan republic to assert the power of England. Despite
their troubles at home, they had no intention of relaxing
their hold over the colonies which had been founded during
the previous half century. Indeed, it was under this
government that a systematic colonial pohcy first began
to appear in British history, for James 1. and Charles 1. had
left the American and West Indian settlements very much
to themselves. And it was the navy which enabled the
new government to hold these scattered territories together,
and to make them feel the community of their interests
with those of the mother country.
At the moment of the king's execution there seemed a
real danger that aU the colonies would break away and
either become independent States, of fall under the control
of the Dutch. Trie New England colonies were already prac
ticaUy independent, appointing even their own governors.
Sympathy with their fellow Puritans brought them during the
period of the Repubhc into closer relations with the mother
country ; though one Bostonian feared that CromweU was
' wanting in a thorough testimony against the blasphemers
of our days ' — the pohcy of toleration being a mere iniquity
in the eyes of New England. On the whole the Rump and
the Protector were very tender in their dealings with New
England, the Puritan garrison in North America. Cromwell
drew preachers thence for Ireland, and even invited settlers
for that unhappy land. Yet we find him granting a charter
to Rhode Island, the colony which its New England neigh
bours disliked because it indulged in the vice of toleration,
and rebuking Massachusetts for ' the want of good feeling
between men who had so much in common.'
But in the southern colonies, Virginia 'and Maryland, and
in the West Indian colonies, a more direct exercise of autho
rity was necessary. Virginia had proclaimed Charles 11. as
soon as the news of the death of Charles 1. arrived, and
punished those who upheld the execution ; Barbados,
Antigua and St. Kitts refused to acknowledge the republic
and banished its supporters, and Barbados seemed about to
declare its independence. The navy ended this : Sir George
Ayscue being sent out to Barbados, Virginia and Maryland
to enforce recognition (1652) .
When they surveyed the colonial problem the statesmen
of the Commonwealth— some of them, like Sir Henry Vane,
being men who had colonial experience — were especially
impressed by the fact that relatively little colonial trade

478 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
actually passed through England. England had to be
responsible for the defence of the colonies, but seemed to
get nothing in return. In all the colonies, and especially in
the West Indies, Dutch shipping was getting nearly all the
trade. It was stated that at Barbados ten Dutch ships were
seen for one English. To mend this state of things, to
strengthen the ties between the colonies and the mother
country, a. i at the same time to develop the Enghsh
mercantile marine, the Rump passed in 1651 a very im-"
portant Act which was the beginning of a new era in
colonial policy. This was the Navigation Act. It provided
that no goods should be exported from England to the
colonies or imported thence to England except in English-
built or colonial-built ships, belonging to Enghsh subjects,
having English or colonial captains and a crew at least
three-fourths English or colonial ; it also provided that no
foreign goods should be imported into England or the
colonies except in English or colonial ships, or ships belong
ing to the country from which the, goods came. This Act
struck a direct blow at the preponderance of the Dutch in
the trade of the English colonies. It aroused for a time
keen opposition in the colonies, in spite of the fact that it
gave to colonial shipping the same privileges as to English ;
because the Dutch were able to charge cheaper freights
than the English trader, and there was not at first sufficient
English shipping to take the place of the Dutch. But the
Act very greatly stimulated the striking growth of Enghsh
and colonial shipping which marked this and the following
period. The Navigation Act brought to a height the ill-feeling
between the English and the Dutch which had been growing
since the beginning of the century ; and, though it was not
the sole cause, it undoubtedly contributed to the outbreak
of war between the two Protestant sea powers, once allies
against Spain, which took place in 1652. This was the first
purely naval war fought out in a series of fleet actions, and
it saw the beginning of modern naval tactics. It seems to
have been Blake, at the battle of the Gabbards, who first
introduced the line-ahead formation in battle which became
the regular practice of the English fleet. The rivals in this
naval war were fairly weU matched. Both had great fleets of
warships, though the English fleet was somewhat the larger,
thanks to the assiduous building of Charles 1. and the
Parliament ; and the English ships seem on the whole to
have been more solidly built than the Dutch, and could stand

ch. vm.] THE REPUBLIC & THE OUTER WORLD 479
more battering. Both peoples fought with real knowledge
and experience of the conditions of sea warfare. Both had
able commanders : Tromp the Dutchman was perhaps an
even greater admirafthan Blake, and the Dutch had an.
ampler sea experience than the English.
But the Dutch suffered from two great disadvantages.
They had an immensely larger mercantile marine to expose
to the ravages of war, and the islands lay rigtff across the
path which all these ships must follow on their way to and
from their home ports. Moreover, the Dutch were depen
dent almost for their existence upon their over-sea trade, to
an extent to which there was no comparison on the English
side. ' The English are about to attack a mountain of gold,'
said a Dutch ambassador on the eve of war : ' we. are about
to attack a mountain of iron.' The Dutch losses in prizes
captured by the English fleet during the course of the war
were extremely serious : the value of these prizes alone was
something hke double that of the whole ocean-going mer
cantile marine of England. These losses crippled Dutch
trade, and proportionately strengthened the growth of
Enghsh trade.
Eight great sea battles were fought during the two years
1652 and 1653 : x hard-fought pitched battles of whole
fleets. The most important fights of the first year were
the battle of Kentish Knock (Sept. 1652), off the mouth
of the Thames, in which the Dutch admiral de Witt was
beaten down by sheer weight of metal and good gunnery,
and retired with the loss of two ships ; and the battle of
Dungeness, in the foUowing. November, in which Blake,
weakened by the detachment of twenty ships to the Medi
terranean, and outnumbered by two to one, was very
severely defeated, so that the English for a time lost com
mand of the Channel.
But the government took this disaster to heart, carried
out a vigorous reorganisation, and sent to sea next year a
finer fleet than ever. From this fleet Tromp, convoying a
big merchant fleet, only escaped with difficulty, after a
fierce fight three days long off Portland, in which he lost
nine ships (Feb. 1653) ; and in triFTollbwing May, off the
Gakbard' Shoal, east of Harwich, the biggest battle of the
war, between 98 ships under Tromp and 100 under Blake,
ended in a complete Enghsh victory, in which twenty Dutch,
ships were captured. This triumph was foUowed up by a
severe blockade of the Dutch coast, which for a time simply
1 See the map of the Narrow Seas, Atlas, Plate 45 (a).

480 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
stopped Dutch trade. In an attempt to break the blockade,
the Dutch challenged a fresh fight off Scheveningen at the
end of July, which turned out to be the last great battle of
the war. The English fleet under Monk gained a complete
victory, and the great Dutch admiral, Tromp, was kiUed.
But for the moment the blockade was broken, because so
many English ships were damaged that the fleet had to
retire to refit.
The Dutch were by no means crushed by this fierce series
of engagements. But the losses they had suffered were so
heavy that they were glad to make peace (1654) : a peace
which may be said to end the period of Dutch naval supre
macy, though two more wars were to be fought in the next
period between the same foes. The treaty tacitly accepted
the English Act of Navigation. Its most striking feature
was that the Dutch undertook to pay compensation for the
massacre of Amboyna, thirty years before.
§ 2. Cromwell's Foreign Policy and the War with Spain.
The peace was actually signed not by the Government of
the Rump, which had begun the war, but by the Government
of the Protectorate. Cromwell had been anxious to end the
struggle, because it was his first aim in foreign pohcy to form
a league of Protestant powers, in which the Dutch would be
an essential element. He was still under the influence of
the ideas which had been prevalent at the beginning of the
Thirty Years' War. But the temper of Europe had changed,
and the attempt to make a Protestant League faUed com
pletely ; perhaps fortunately for Europe. Cromwell found
that in the sphere of European pohtics the main problem
which he had to decide was whether he would support France j
or Spain in the dreary war which was stiU raging between
them, or whether he would stand aloof and neutral. Both
powers were eager for his help : for the first time England
seemed to be in a position to play the part of arbiter in a
European conflict, and it was her mastery of the seas which
gave her this position. France had been the more unfriendly
of the two to the young republic ; she had allowed her
privateers to prey freely on Enghsh shipping, and at sea
there was almost a state of war between the two countries.
On the other hand Spain was, in CromweU's eyes, the ancient
enemy and the bulwark of Rome, and with her too there
was an almost open state of war in West Indian waters.
It would have been natural, and to the best advantage of

ch. vm.] THE REPUBLIC & THE OUTER WORLD 481
a country already strained by long warfare, that England
should have stood aloof from these conflicts. But Cromwell
was not only a militant Protestant ; he was an imperialist,
the first pronounced imperialist in English history — almost
we may caU him the first Jingo. He was resolved to increase
Enghsh power overseas, and he was by no means scrupulous
as to the means by which he did it. He seems even to have
imagined that he could commit the most flagrant acts of
aggression in distant waters, and stiU remain at peace in
Europe with the countries he attacked. In 1654 he had
sent a large fleet to America to co-operate with a land force
from New England in an attack upon the Dutch colony of
New Netherlands. Peace with the Dutch had come in time
to stop that project. But the forces which were to have
attacked the Dutch colony were deliberately turned against
the French settlements in Acadia (Nova Scotia) ; *• and the
French forts and the whole country, including Cape Breton
Island, were occupied, in spite of the fact that England was
nominaUy at peace with France. These lands were held
until they were restored by Charles 11. in 1668 : the French
government accepting the outrage because it dared not
resent it, and wished for an Enghsh aUiance. It is hard to
imagine a more high-handed or indefensible action : there
is none to compare with it in the history of British im
perialism. Meanwhile CromweU was negotiating with both France
and Spain. From the Spanish government he demanded
that English traders in Spain should be exempted from the
control of the Inquisition, and that trade should be thrown
open in the West Indies. That, said the Spanish ambassa
dor, was ' to ask for his master's two eyes.' Without waiting
for the conclusion of negotiations, and without a declaration
of war, CromweU resolved to make an attack on the Spanish
West Indies. He fitted out a fleet of 38 ships under Admiral
Penn (father of the great Quaker), and an army of 2500 men
under General Venables, which was subsequently raised to
7000 by recruitments at Barbados and elsewhere. This
formidable expedition, which set sail in August 1654, was
designed for a deliberate attempt to conquer, as a beginning,
the oldest part of the Spanish American empire, the island
of Hispaniola (Hayti).2 The attack on Hispaniola was a
faUure, even a disgraceful failure. But Penn and Venables
attacked instead the thinly peopled island of Jamaica, and
1 See the map of the Colonisation of North America, Atlas, Plate 54.
• See the map of the West Indies, Atlas, Plate 53.
VOL. I. 2 H

4&2 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
conquered it (1655). CromweU was disappointed. ' The
Lord hath greatly humbled us,' he said ; but he had no
misgivings as to the righteousness of his action. He kept a
firm hold on Jamaica against all Spanish attacks, hoping to
make it a basis for the overthrow of the Spanish American
empire. ' It is much designed amongst us,' he wrote to one
of his Jamaica commanders, ' to strive with the Spaniard
for the mastery of aU these seas ' : another he exhorted to
' set up your banners in the name of Christ, for undoubtedly
it is his cause.' The Chosen People may take hberties not
permitted to others !
Spain, reduced though she was from her old greatness, was
less ready than France to submit tamely to such treatment.
She declared war, and the last years of CromweU's reign were
chiefly concerned with the Spanish War.
This war gave another great opportunity to the navy under
Blake. Blake had been engaged during 1654 in a brUliant
attack upon the pirates of Tunis and Algiers, the ' Barbary
corsairs ' as they were caUed. He had sUenced the guns of
Tunis, destroyed the pirate fleet there, and compeUed the
Dey of Algiers to release aU his British captives and to con
cede freedom of trade to Enghsh merchants. The prestige
of the navy was immensely increased by these deeds, for the
Barbary corsairs had hitherto baffled every attack. In the";
naval war against Spain Blake's first action was to blockade
Cadiz and a great part of the Spanish coast throughout the
winter of 1656. The carrying out of a blockade at such a '
distance was a remarkable achievement, and the ascendency I
of the navy was stiU further heightened when three Enghsh
ships attacked and destroyed a Spanish squadron of eight
ships. In 1657, striking further afield, Blake carried out an
amazingly brilhant attack upon Santa Cruz, the chief town
of Teneriffe, where the annual treasure fleet of Spain was
lying under the shelter of many forts. He defied the forts,
destroyed the whole fleet, and drew off practicaUy without
loss. This achievement not only raised the fame of the
English navy to the highest point, but seriously crippled
the operations of Spain in the continental war, into which
England had now also been drawn.
The episode in CromweU's Spanish War on which emphasis
is usually laid was the battle of the Dunes (June 1658), in
which a contingent of Enghsh troops, co-operating with
a French army under the great Turenne, played a lead
ing part in the final and crushing defeat of Spain. For
England the results of this battle were that Charles H.'s

ch. vin.] THE REPUBLIC & THE OUTER WORLD 483
hopes of help from Spain were shattered, and that the port
of Dunkirk passed into Enghsh possession. This contin
ental possession was valued because ' it would be a bridle
to the Dutch, and a door into the Continent.' But the ideas
of British pohcy implied in this view were unsound and
dangerous. Cromwell was tending towards a reversal of
that pohcy of withdrawal from continental entanglements
which had grown stronger ever since the loss of Calais, and
the cession of Dunkirk to France (1662), for which Charles n.
was later bitterly blamed,, was in reality a wise step which
saved England from pursuing a whoUy false and destructive
ambition. In another aspect, the war policy of Cromwell
had unhappy results. By lending English strength for the
overthrow of Spain, he helped to establish the overweening
power of Louis xiv. of France, which in the next generation
was to threaten the liberties of Europe.
It cannot be said that the views of the dominant Puritans
upon the attitude which the islands should adopt in their
relations with their neighbours showed any real insight or
generosity of view. But they deserve credit for two great
contributions to the building of the British Commonwealth.
One was their recognition of the importance of the young
settlements over the seas, and of the need for putting upon
a sound basis their relations with the mother country, from
whom they derived their traditions of freedom, and upon
whom they must depend for security in their future develop
ment. The other was the organisation of the navy, the
force which was in the future to be used not merely as
CromweU had used it, for forcible aggression, but for the
defence of free institutions in new lands, and for the main
tenance of the freedom of the seas.
[For navgl development, Laird Clowes, History of the British
Navy, and Oppenbeim, Administration of the Royal Navy ; there is a
good chapter on this period in the Cambridge Modern History, by
J. R. Tanner. For contemporary European history, Wakeman,
Aspendancy of Francfi, and Abbott, Expansion of Europe. For the
cojpnial policy of the Protectorate, Egerton, Short History of British
Colonial Policy, Hertz's Old Colonial System, and Beer's Old Colonial
System ; also Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Com
merce]

CHAPTER IX
THE COLLAPSE OF THE PURITAN REPUBLIC
(a.d. 1658-1660)
The artificial ascendency of the Puritan minority could not
long survive the death of .the great man who had. embodied
many of its highest qualities, and held in check the ex
travagances to which it was prone ; whose resolution had
faced and conquered the worst emergencies ; whose faith
in his cause had triumphed over discouragements ; whose
inherent moderation and toleration of differences had saved
the sects from wrecking themselves and their country.
One of the greatest of Englishmen, CromweU was in nothing
so great, and in nothing so Enghsh, as in his firm grasp of
realities and his readiness to face facts. That gift must
have convinced him, before his death, that there could be
no permanence in the system which he had spent himself
to maintain, because it did not rest upon national consent,
but upon force. The danger was that the irresistible power
of the army and the navy might work great Uls before it
was overthrown. From this the islands were saved by the
very rapidity with which the system broke up, owing to the
internal discords which Cromwell alone had been able to
hold in check.
The rapidity with which the government of the country
swung back through aU the changes of the last years showed
how insecure were the foundations of CromweU's govern
ment. He died on 3rd September 1658. He was at first
quietly succeeded as Protector by his son Richard. But
Richard was a civilian, and had no hold over the army. The
army officers thought they could claim a practical independ
ence ; they demanded that Fleetwood, one of their number, )
should be made Commander-in-Chief and should control all '
appointments of officers, and, though this was not granted,
it showed how dangerous the army was. The Parliament,
which met in January 1659, recognised the new Protector^
but a republican minority strenuously resisted, and betook
itself to intrigues with the army chiefs. In April the
generals demanded and obtained the dissolution of the
484

ch.de.] COLLAPSE OF PURITAN REPUBLIC 485
Parhament : in May they restored the Rump as it had been
in 1652, without the Presbyterians excluded by Pride's
Purge in 1648. The Rump at once declared the Protectorate
abolished, and Richard CromweU retired very willingly into
private hfe, after a reign of eight months.
But the old quarrel between the Rump and the army once
more broke out, especially on the question of army appoint
ments, which the generals wished to keep in their own hands.
At the same time, there were plans for widespread royahst
risings. One of these, in Cheshire and Lancashire, was more
or less serious, and the Earl of Derby for a moment seized
Chester. But the army was strong enough to deal with these
troubles ; trie quarrel with Parhament was more serious.
In October the Rump was once more expeUed by the army.
No government could stand which did not submit to army
dictation. The generals nominated a Committee of Safety
to carry on administration, and a sub-committee set to work
to make yet another new constitution.
But these frequent revolutions not only disgusted and
alarmed the nation, they introduced discord into the army
itself. The Governor of Portsmouth pronounced for the
restoration of Parhament, and troops sent to deal with him
went over to his side. The army in Ireland also declared
for Parhament. The fleet in the Downs took the same side.
Above all, George Monk, the shrewd and able commander
of the army in Scotland, prepared for open war on behalf of
legal government against mere force. General Lambert,
the most active spirit among the generals, was sent north
to deal with him, but only wasted time in negotiations ;
and meanwhUe Lambert's friends in London, taking fright,
had once more recaUed the Rump, which promptly summoned
Monk to London to protect it. The iorces of the army were
hopelessly split.
Meanwhile, throughout the country, there were wide
demands for the next step to be taken in the undoing of the
work of the last ten years. All the legislation of the Pro
tectorate had been swept away : it remained to undo Pride's
Purge, and bring back the excluded Presbyterians. London
was almost in rebeUion when Monk arrived at the beginning
of February. A week after his arrival Monk declared for
the restoration of the excluded members. Thus the Long
Parhament of the civU war was restored. It assumed con
trol at the end of February 1660 ; declared that everything
done since Pride's Purge (including, of course, the execution
of Charles 1.) had been illegal ; re-established the Presby-

486 SELF-GOVERNMENT AND EXPANSION [bk. iv.
terian system, and the Solemn League and Covenant, thus
returning to 1643 ; decreed the election of a new Parha
ment ; and dissolved in March, after an existence of nearly
twenty years.
The new Parhament was elected on the old basis, and, of
course, represented England only. It was later known as
the Convention, because it had not been regularly summoned
by the king. The majority of its members were Presby*
terians, but it included also a large number of Anglicans.
But both ahke were definitely Royalist in pohtics. The
remnants of the House of Lords, though unsummoned, met
at the same time. MeanwhUe Monk had opened private -
negotiations with Charles 11., who issued from Breda a
declaration promising his consent to an Act giving liberty
to tender consciences, a general pardon, and the payment of l
arrears to the army. A royal messenger came with a letter
from Charles to Parhament embodying these terms. He
was received with deference, and on May 1st both houses
resolved that, ' according to the ancient and fundamental
laws of the kingdom,' the government is and ought to be by
King, Lords, and Commons. On May 8th Charles 11. was''
proclaimed king with aU the ancient ceremonial. Thus,
easily and suddenly, the Puritan repubhc collapsed. The
long nightmare of rule by force, the long breach with the
orderly and law-abiding methods of English government,
were over and done with.
Solemn deputations to invite the king to return went over
to HoUand. On the 24th of May Charles 11. landed at Dover.
On the 29th he rode into London from Rochester, through v
twenty-five miles of exultant cheering multitudes, rejoicing
as if for the coming of an angel of goodness. So crowded
were the streets of London with happy citizens in their best
clothes that it took seven hours for the procession to teach
WhitehaU, where, in the Banqueting Hall from which his
father had stepped out to the scaffold, the Lords and Com
mons were assembled to greet the new king with humble
and fervent welcomes. To the rule of this good-natured
voluptuary, simply because he stood for the old ways and
the old laws, there was an eager ' consent ' such as' Cromwell
had never been able to attain at the moment of his highest
success. The Puritan Revolution was over. But though aU the
formal changes of law for which so much blood had been
shed were undone, and though England had gone back, in
form, to 1640, nothing could undo the influence which the

ch. ix.] COLLAPSE OF PURITAN REPUBLIC 487
stem temper of the Puritans had wielded, and was still to
wield, upon the fortunes of the British Commonwealth.
The sects might henceforth be a persecuted remnant, but
they remained, solidly organised bodies of opinion, as strong
to endure as they had been unflinching in action. The idea
of a nation all believing the same doctrines and worshipping
in the same forms was henceforth patently unrealisable ;
always henceforward there were large bodies of men who
formed a visible contradiction of this idea. As sectaries,
standing invincibly for their own distinctive conceptions of
life and truth, the Puritans were able to render far greater
services to their country and to freedom than they could
ever have done had they succeeded in their aim of imposing
these conceptions upon the whole nation. Always they
were there to protest against dominant orthodoxies, in
pohtics as weU as in rehgion.
Moreover something of their spirit, something of the best
aspect of it, its ever-present sense of responsibUity to God
for the use of power, its readiness to test pohtical action by
higher standards than those of expediency, extended in the
coming generations far beyond the limits of the sects, and
became one of the preservative elements in the public life
of England. If the continuing tradition of Puritanism has
caused some narrowness in English life, and still more in
Scottish hfe, it has beyond all question been a source of
strength far more than of weakness.
And by way of reaction, also, the Puritan Revolution left
indelible marks upon Enghsh life and institutions. It
produced an unquenchable fear of the rule of force, which
took for a long time an exaggerated form in the distrust of-
standing armies. It intensified the ancient habit of respect
for law as such, and of unwiUingness to resort to any but
constitutional and legal means of changing even bad laws.
It rooted the behef that even the noblest and the most
enhghtened aims are vitiated and wiU eventuaUy be frus-
| trated if those who advocate them try to secure their victory
by force, and not by discussion and persuasion. These
were to be henceforth the characteristic notes of the growth
of free institutions in the British Commonwealth. Revolu-
1 tion by violence, even for the highest ends, had been con
demned by experience. It was not only the reign of the
Stewarts that was restored in 1660, it was the Reign of Law,

BOOK V
CONSTITUTIONAL SETTLEMENT AND IMPERIAL
DEVELOPMENT
(a.d. 1660-1714)

INTRODUCTION
The second half of the seventeenth century and the early
years of the eighteenth form a period of the utmost moment
in the development of the British Commonwealth and of its
distinctive institutions.
In the first place it was during this period that the system
of government by the control of Parhament over the ex
ecutive was definitely established, and that the means by
which the control of Parliament could be exercised — the
cabinet system and the party system — began to be wrought
out. The struggle for a system of national self-government
in the first half of the century had brought about civil war,
and had ended in a cui de sac : no solution was to be found
along the lines pursued by the Puritan republic, and the
result was that the islands returned, at the Restoration, to
the Old system of monarchical control of the executive
government. In Scotland, and to a less degree in Ireland,
the Restoration practicaUy brought about the estabhshment
of absolute monarchy. But in England the traditional
powers of Parhament made this impossible ; even in the
ardour of loyahsm which foUowed his return, Charles n.
found it impossible to exercise the powers which his father
had wielded, and stiU less to reign as an unchecked despot,
hke his cousin Louis xiv. During his reign two things of
great importance happened : the ministers of state began
to act together as a Cabinet, and Parliament began to be
divided into two more or less clearly defined parties, with
the consequence that to some extent the king found it
necessary to choose his ministers in such a way as to com
mand the support of Parliament. At the end of the reign he
obtained for a time the upper hand, and freed himself from
parliamentary restraints ; and during the short reign of
James n. there seemed to be a real danger of the establish
ment of absolutism in England. This danger was removed
by the Revolution of 1688, which finaUy and unmistakably
estabhshed the supremacy of Parhament; and during the
reigns of WiUiam in. and Anne the unceasing conflicts of
the two political parties compelled the gradual adoption of
m

492 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
a system whereby the ministers of State were increasingly
drawn from the party possessing a parliamentary majority.
The great achievement of the age was the development, for
the first time in history, of the machinery which made self-
government on a national scale practicable.
In the second place, this period saw a clearer definition
of the relations between the various nations of the islands.
Scotland, awakened by the Revolution to an active pohtical
life, and tending to pursue under her own Parhament a
dangerously independent pohcy, was united with England
on very generous terms, which opened for her, as a fuU
partner in the British Commonwealth, an era of growing
prosperity. On the other hand, Ireland, always the Cinder-
eUa of the island famUy, was brought by the events of the
Revolution into a worse instead of a better position. The
antipathy between the Catholic and the Protestant elements
in her population was intensified. The majority of the
population were deprived of aU political rights, and subjected
to a pitiless penal code. The country as a whole was treated
as a subject dominion, and deprived of the right of freely
developing its own resources by severe trade restrictions
imposed by the British Parhament. And the suggestion
of a political union, which might at this stage have helped
to remove old sores in Ireland as in Scotland, was not even
considered. The treatment of Ireland after the Revolution
is the darkest stain on the history of the whole Common
wealth. In the third place this period saw the first systematic /VV//
attempt to define an imperial pohcy, and it also saw great
activity in the creation and organisation of new colonies,
especially during the reign of Charles n. The new imperial
policy was marked by two outstanding features. The first
was that aU the colonies were endowed with the fuU machi
nery for local self-government, with institutions modeUed
on those of the homeland, and with complete rehgious
toleration. In these respects the British imperial system
was far ahead of any other in the world. To the mother
country was reserved the control of foreign pohcy and of
trade relations. The second feature of the system was that
an attempt was made to organise the empire as an economic
unit, in which the mother country was to be the central
market and distributing centre. The danger of this was
that it tended to subordinate the economic interests of the
colonies to those of the mother country, and thus to en
gender strife between them : this tendency was increased

BK. v.] INTRODUCTION 493
in an unfortunate degree after the Revolution, owing to
the greater influence which the British trading classes then
obtained in government.
In the fourth place the period was marked by two Dutch
wars, arising largely out of the old commercial rivalries of
the two maritime powers, and — far more important — by a
desperate struggle against France, which is almost as im
portant in the history of the Commonwealth as the struggle
with Spain a century earher. Long postponed by the fact
that Charles II. and James n. consented to be pensioners of
France, this conflict broke out with the Revolution, and
fiUed the remainder of the period. It was a many-sided
struggle, and had momentous results. It was a struggle to
prevent the domination of Europe by a single overweening
power, and in this aspect the islands found themselves at
first the partners and then the leaders of a united Europe.
It was a struggle also for commercial, naval, and colonial
supremacy, though this aspect of the conflict was not pre
dominant in the minds of contemporaries, and therefore
the struggle was renewed and fought to a finish in the next
era. Perhaps the main outcome of the conflict from the
point of view of the Commonwealth as a whole was that it
definitely estabhshed British naval supremacy — the founda
tion upon which the splendid achievements of the next age
were to rest.
But the core and centre of the story of these years is to
be found in the half-blind striving after national self-govern
ment which distinguishes it. Carried on as it was in a series
of often sordid conflicts of parties, its full significance is
apt to be lost unless the reader keeps always in mind the
fact that the parties and politicians of the period were the
unworthy instruments of a great historical development
of momentous importance not only to the British Common
wealth but to the whole world.

CHAPTER I
THE RESTORATION
§ i. The Ideas of the Restoration and the Cnaracier of
Charles II.
The theory of the Restoration was that there was to be a
return to the old system which had existed before the civil
war. This was impossible in practice, for what had been
done during the previous eighteen years in all the British
realms could not be simply wiped out. During all that time
men had been engaged in discussing the problems of
government in State and Church ; they had been making
the most varied experiments, and it was impossible to
restore the old habit of submitting to and taking for granted
traditional authorities. In any case the old system had to be
• re-defined ; and even among those who were most anxious
to restore it there was room for difference as to what it really
had been. Moreover social and pohtical changes had taken
place which were bound to have a great effect. The steady
growth of English trade had made the trading class wealthier
and more important than it had ever been. The relations
between the islands and the continent had become closer
than ever before, partly by reason of the growth of trade,
partly because of CromweU's active foreign pohcy, and
j partly because so many royahsts had lived for years in
'exUe on the continent. Foreign affairs were to have in the
future a far deeper influence on British politics than they
had had in the past, and since it was becoming plain that
everybody's interests were affected by them, it was impos
sible that they should any longer be regarded as the peculiar
concern of the king and his little group of advisers alone.
The colonies had become factors of importance in the hfe
of many Enghshmen, and it was inevitable that their ideas
and their ways of hfe should exercise some influence in
England, though not yet in the other parts of the islands.
Above aU, during the long discussions of the last years,
rival theories of pohtics and of Church government had been
developed with a sharpness never known before ; their

CH. I.] THE RESTORATION 495
adherents were tending to group themselves into more or less
organised parties, and the emergence of organised parties,
which is one of the main features of the next generation,
was bound to affect the whole system. A mere restoration
of the old ways was therefore impossible : ' a restoration is
always a revolution,' as a great historian has said.
The statesmen of the restored regime had in their hands,
if they had liked to use it, the possibihty of working out an
inteUigent system of relations for all the British lands. But
the theory 0! mere restoration and the antipathies which
had been aroused by the forced union under CromweU for
bade that ; the problems of settlement were quite separately
dealt with in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, and in the
colonies. The only common link was provided by the king
and by his character and aims.
Charles n., who had the chance of making a fresh start for
the monarchy of the British realms, was in every way un
fitted for so great a task. He was a witty, good-humoured,
easy-going young libertine of thirty, who had no principles,
no beliefs, and no sense of honour. He had known long exile
and penury, and he now intended to have a pleasant life and
to avoid all risk of ' going, on his travels again . ' The flagrant
and shameless immorality of his life and of those whom he
chose as his friends shocked even a generation which was
ready to throw off the restraints that the Puritans had
imposed. Puritan ideals of life still influenced very large
elements of the population both in England and in Scotland ;
and whUe Charles was personaUy popular and therefore able
to exercise a very vicious influence in English life, his be
haviour and the character of his court certainly helped to
undermine the monarchy in both countries. Charles' best
feature was a certain kindliness, which made him dislike
unnecessary persecution and encouraged him to favour a
pohcy which in any case seemed to suit his private aims.
In pohtics he had little of the lofty behef in royal authority
as a divinely imposed responsibihty which had possessed and
ruined his father. He had too keen a sense of humour to
take himself seriously as the Lord's anointed, nor was he
prepared to run risks for such a cause. But he envied the
unrestrained power and the command over all the resources
of the State which were enjoyed by his brilliant cousin,
Louis xiv. of France ; and, though he was not ready to fight
for it openly, he was willing to sacrifice his own honour and
his country's if, at so cheap a rate, and in an underhand way,
he could gain freedom from the parhamentary control which

496 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
he found so irksome. Religion meant little or nothing to
him, but he was inchned to think that Roman Catholicism
was the most convenient religion for a prince ; and, if he
could, he would have made all the islands Roman Cathohc.
He was too lazy and pleasure-loving to worry about the
details of government, and so left the actual work to minis
ters, who became relatively more important in this period
than they had been. But he was shrewd, clever, and un
hampered by scruples ; he rather enjoyed playing the game
of pohtical intrigue and outwitting opponents, at which he
could be very skilful. And in this way he was far more
formidable than his father, for he never lost his temper, he
understood the baser part of men, and he had an easy and
winning charm of manner which gave him a great advantage
in dealing with men. He profited by contrast with his
brother and destined successor, James Duke of York, whom
everybody disliked because he was a narrow-minded and
unforgiving egoist and a born tyrant, capable of both cruelty
and treachery. Yet James, unlike Charles, had behefs for
which he was prepared to take risks and to suffer, and was
not lacking in patriotism.
One of the reasons why Scotland and Ireland were sepa
rately dealt with was that in those countries it seemed more
possible to estabhsh a royal absolutism than in England.
For in spite of the enthusiasm with which he was welcomed
back and the prevalence of talk about the divine right of
kings and the duty of passive obedience, Charles was shrewd
enough to know that the English Parhament would not be
easy to deal with. The whole history of his reign justified
this view . It was a period of steady growth in parhamentary
power, and the attempt to overthrow this power, which was
made during Charles' last years and under his successor, and
which for a time seemed to be successful, only ended in the
Revolution which finaUy bitted and bridled the English
monarchy, and established the supremacy of Parliament not
only in England but throughout the islands.
§ 2. England : Limited Monarchy and Religious Intolerance,
The Declaration of Breda, issued before his return to
England, had pledged Cnarles n. to support a pohcy of
religious toleration and pohtical reconcUiation, but had left
the chief points at issue to be decided by a free Parhament.
The first earnest that the king intended to foUow this course
was his inclusion in the Privy Council not only of a large

ch. i.] THE RESTORATION 497
number of royalists, but of many who had taken the parlia
mentary side in the civil war or even served under CromweU,
like Monk (now made Duke of Albemarle) or Anthony
Ashley Cooper (later Lord Ashley and Earl of Shaftesbury) .
The result was that the Privy Council became too big and
too heterogeneous to be the active working centre of govern
ment, as it had been under the Tudors and early Stewarts.
The actual conduct of affairs largely passed to Committees
of the Council, nominated by the king, which generally
worked with great industry and intelhgence. But there
also came into being a smaU informal group of leading men,
who discussed with the king broad questions of policy, and
co-ordinated the work of the Committees. This group
included the principal ministers, the Lord ChanceUor, the
Lord Treasurer and the two Secretaries of State, with such
others as the king might choose. The rise of this
informal and rather indefinite body was something of
a new departure in government ; in a sense it may
be described as the beginning of the Cabinet system.
During the first yea^rs of the reign this rudimentary
Cabinet was dominated by the Lord ChanceUor, Lord
Clarendon, who had been a member of the Long Parha
ment and later Charles i.'s chief minister during the war,
and Charles n. 's during the exile. Clarendon was a high
churchman in rehgion ; in politics he adhered to the work
of the first session of the Long Parliament, in which he had
taken part. The Restoration settlement was in fact mainly
Clarendon's work ; but as he had to carry Parhament with
him, it is not fair to blame him for all the excesses of
Parliament. At first he had to deal with the Convention which had
brought about the king's return, and in which there was a
Presbyterian majority. An Act of indemnity and oblivion \
was passed, so generous in its terms that angry cavaliers
said it gave indemnity to the king's enemies and oblivion to
his friends. Only fourteen persons were put to death in I
England, largely from among the ' regicides ' who had con
demned Charles 1. Clarendon deserves the credit of having
resisted an attempt in the House of Lords to demand greater
severity. The difficult question of rights to land which had
been alienated by royalists during the troubles was settled
by confirming existing arrangements, except in the case of
Crown or Church lands, or lands which had been confiscated
by the usurping government. This also was a grievance to
discontented cavaliers, and made them less ready to be
vol. 1. 2 1

498 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
subservient to the king and the minister, who had in their
view ' betrayed ' them. The Convention also carried out an
old plan of James i. by abolishing feudal tenures and granting
to the Crown in their place a permanent revenue from the
excise duties, first imposed during the civil war. This meant
that the land-owning aristocracy escaped the last relics of
its old feudal obligations, at the expense of the nation.
But the main immediate problem was that of rehgious
concihation. The Convention could not settle this ; it had
to be left to a properly elected Parhament. But a confer
ence held at Clarendon's house between leading Anglicans
and Presbyterians held out hopes of a settlement on moderate
Episcopal lines which would have reconciled the great majo
rity of the Presbyterians. The discussions were resumed in
what is known as the Savoy Conference, presided over by
the Bishop of London. BuxBefore any definite conclusion
had been reached the new Parhament had been elected
(May 1661), and it took the matter into its own hands.
Elected in the first enthusiasm of the Restoration, this
Parhament, which was to last for eighteen years — nearly
as long as the Long Parhament — contained an overwhelming
majority of staunch royahsts or cavahers, determined to
exact vengeance for all their sufferings ; and they soon swept
away all hope of compromise. They at once repealed the v
Act of 1642 which had excluded the bishops from the House
of Lords. Then, because the Puritans were strongest in the
towns, they passed a Corporation Act (1661), imposing upon
aU members of municipal corporations a declaration against
resistance to the Crown and a formal repudiation of the
Solemn League and Covenant. Next they passed an Act of
Uniformity (1662) making the Prayer-book compulsory, and
requiring the acceptance of episcopal ordination and of all
the doctrines and ceremonies of the Prayer-book from aU
incumbents of livings and aU teachers in universities, schools,
or even private houses, before St. Bartholomew's Day. To
this was added a Licensing Act (1662), aimed at the printing
and sale of ' heretical, schismatical, and seditious ' books and
pamphlets, and re-establishing the censorship of the press :
the judges were to approve all legal writings, the secretaries
of state all historical and pohtical writings, the bishops aU
religious, philosophical and scientific writings. The Act
was only for two years, but it was regularly renewed until
\ 1679. Later, alarmed by signs of a desire for toleration on
the part of the king, Parliament not only threw out an
attempted Toleration Bill (1663), but went on to pass two

ch. i.] THE RESTORATION 499
ferocious Acts against the Puritans : a Conventicle Act (1664),
which prohibited under severe penalties attendance at any
meeting of more than four persons , assembled for worship
other than that of the Church of England; and what is
known as the Five Mile Act (1665), which prohibited under
severe penalties any of the displaced Puritan ministers from
coming within five mUes of a corporate town or a parish in
which they had previously taught or preached, unless they
swore to the Act of Uniformity, took an oath against resist
ance under any pretext, and swore not to endeavour any
change whatsoever in Church or State. The occasion of this
infamous measure was that the plague was raging in London,
and many Puritan ministers had returned to help their
flocks : Parhament, safe at Oxford, was alarmed at the
prospect that the ministers might regain their old as
cendency. In theory these measures ought to have crushed the
Puritan sects out of existence. More than 1200 clergy left
their homes and their churches on St. Bartholomew's Day
1662 rather than take the oaths of uniformity, and these
included some of the noblest of the Puritan divines, like
Richard Baxter, Edmund Calamy, Wilham Bates, and the
two grandfathers of John Wesley. They went into penury ;
their foUowers could not help them. But their example at
once ennobled and maintained the Puritan tradition. Some
of the noblest expressions of the Puritan spirit belong to
these years. MUton, blind, poor and obscure, wrote in these
years the great epic of Puritanism, Paradise Lost and
Paradise Regained ; John Bunyan, the tinker-preacher,
imprisoned under the Conventicle Act, reflected the loftiest
and the tenderest aspects of Puritanism in The Pilgrim's
Progress ; and these two not only helped to keep the spirit
of the Puritans ahve as a powerful factor in the life and
thought of England, they stood supreme among the writers
of their age. The bulk of the ordinary Puritans quietly
conformed, as their fathers had done under Laud, but re
mained stiU Puritan in sympathy ; and this defeated the
aims of the Corporation Act, for it meant that the towns still
remained Puritan. There was a substantial minority of
Puritan sympathisers even in the Cavalier Parhament . How
many Puritans refused to conform throughout the country ]
we have no means of knowing. Algernon Sidney, twenty
years later, estimated them at one million, whicri must be
a great exaggeration, seeing that the total population of
the country was only about five millions. But the Non-

500 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
conformists were certainly numerous, and were henceforward
a factor in the life of the nation that could not be dis
regarded. While the Cavalier Parhament was unbending in its
hostility to the Puritans and in its aversion from the idea
of religious freedom, it was by no means inclined to increase
the power of the Crown in the political sphere. It did not
dream of restoring the ' prerogatives ' which the Tudors and
the early Stewarts had exercised : the constitution of 1640-1
was what it accepted and re-defined. The abohtion of the
old prerogative courts, Star Chamber, High Commission
Court and the rest, was confirmed in 1661 : the ordinary
process of law must suffice for the maintenance of govern
mental authority. The Triennial Act of 1641 was repealed,
it is true, but only because its terms were offensive : its main
provision, that Parliament must meet at least every three
years, was re-enacted in the Triennial Act of 1664. By the1
Militia Acts (1661-1663) Parliament restored to the Crown
supreme control over the forces by land and sea, but this
had only been withdrawn by the Long Parhament on the
eve of war, and the Militia Acts implied that the old-
fashioned militia under the lords-heutenant of the counties
ought to be sufficient for defence. The idea of a standing
professional army was as abhorrent to the royahsts as to
anybody else ; it was abhorrent precisely because it was
regarded as a danger to political liberty.
There was, indeed, httle fear that Charles 11. would be able
to shake himself free from dependence on the Enghsh
Parliament. For, in spite of the large revenue granted to
him for life, he was in debt, and was never able to escape
from it. He had brought with him from exile £3,000,000
of debt ; he found the finances of the country dislocated by
the anarchy of the last two years, and his own gross extra
vagance added to his troubles. Though the abounding
prosperity of the country increased the revenue from cus
toms duties by leaps and bounds, he could never make both
ends meet without assistance. The control of Parhament
over taxation was now so complete that he could not venture
upon any of the irregular devices employed by his father.
If he did not accept his dependence upon Parliament, the
only alternative was to become a pensionary of some foreign /
power, and when he resorted to this device he raised fresh]
trouble with Parliament. Assuredly the restoration did
not mean anything like the establishment of absolute
monarchy in England.

ch. i.] THE RESTORATION 501
t
§ 3. Scotland : Absolutism and Religious Persecution.
In Scotland it was very different. Here Charles might
hope to estabhsh, and did very nearly estabhsh, absolute
power : only the dour resistance of the more extreme
Presbyterians checked him. His main agent in the sub
jugation of Scotland was the Earl (later Duke) of Lauderdale,
who as Secretary for Scotland spent most of his time at
the court in- London, and ruled Scotland through agents :
Lauderdale retained his position through aU the changes of
court factions for nearly twenty years. He had been a
Presbyterian, and had played a prominent part in the Scot
tish troubles : he had persuaded Charles 11. to accept the
Covenant in 1650 ; now he was ready to lend himself to be
the agent of the destruction of the system, to which the king
had then sworn. But on the whole his pohcy was one of
moderate toleration for the Presbyterians, at any rate during
the first part of his tenure of power, combined with a re-
establishment of the Episcopal system of Church government,
and the enforcement of an efficient control by the Crown in all
matters of State.
Even fewer victims marked the beginning of the new
regime in Scotland than in England. Four men only suffered
death. One of these was the Earl of Argyll ; another James
Guthrie, the most fanatical of the extreme school of Presby
terians. In 1661 a Scottish Parliament met : ' never,' said
one of its members, ' was Parhament so obsequious.' The
main reason was that the nobles were sick of the tyranny of
the ministers, which they had endured since 1638, and that
the old aUiance between them and the Crown, which Charles 1.
had broken, was restored. A large revenue was voted to the
king, which enabled him to maintain an army such as none
of his predecessors had possessed.
As in the days of James 1., the Lords of the Articles
(who drafted all the business of Parhariaerit) were practi
caUy nominated by Lauderdale on behalf of the Crown.
AU the Acts of all the parhaments since 1633, including
that of 1641 at which Charles 1. had been present, were
rescinded. This meant that at one blow the whole of the
results of the Scottish revolution since 1638 were undone,
and Charles n. became as absolute as James 1. had been.
AU political power was once more wielded by a smaU Privy
CouncU, whose members were aU nominated by Lauderdale.
In the sphere of religion the submissive Scottish Parlia-

502 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
ment passed an Act declaring that ' the disposal of the
external government of the Church doth properly belong
to His Majesty as an inherent right of the Crown ' :
a declaration hateful to sound Presbyterians, who claimed
for the Church complete freedom from State control. The
covenants were declared unlawful, and a repudiation of
them and of all resistance to the Crown was imposed upon
aU office-holders. But Lauderdale was too shrewd a man
to press these immense claims unduly far, though some of
the royalists were ready to go to any extreme. Though the
bishops were restored, they were not given great powers,
and if the General Assembly was never summoned lest it
should try to organise national resistance, the kirk sessions,
presbyteries and diocesan synods continued their work.
Nor was any attempt made to impose the Anghcan liturgy
upon the recalcitrant Scots.
On the whole this compromise was accepted in the
greater part of the country. But in the south-west — Lanark,
Ayrshire and GaUoway — there was a different temper. In
this district, which had always been the stronghold of the
extremists, 300 ministers declined to forswear the Covenants
or to recognise Episcopacy. They were extruded from their
parishes, but their parishioners foUowed them, despite aU
prohibitions of ' conventicles ' ; and the ministrations of the
' curates ' who replaced them were deserted. This was the
beginning of the Covenanters, the dour Westland Whigs,
whom none could tame. Soldiers were sent to deal with
them : absentees from church were fined, and had soldiers
biUeted upon them. This persecution went on steadUy
until in 1666 it led to a rising. But rebeUion was hopeless
in face of the forces which the Crown controUed. The
Pentland Rising (so caUed because it was defeated in the
Pentland HiUs, though it began in GaUoway) faUed to raise
the country, and was crushed at Rullion Green. Forty men
were killed in the fight ; as many more, taken prisoners,
were hanged for refusing to renounce the Covenants ;
ministers and other leaders were tortured with the boot and
the thumbscrew to make them betray accomplices ; more
troops than ever, under the cruel Dalziel of Binns, were sent
into GaUoway. But only a moderate degree of success
followed this ferocity.
The persecution which had gone on from 1663 to 1667 was
in the main due to the members of the Privy CouncU in
Scotland. Lauderdale determined to try the effects of
greater moderation. The troops were recaUed, and in 1669

CH. i.] THE RESTORATION 503
an ' indulgence ' was issued whereby extruded ministers
were allowed to return to their parishes, if they had behaved
themselves peacefully, without taking the oaths. Some
forty of them accepted these terms. But this only increased
the courage and bitterness of those who refused to sacrifice
their principles ' for a mess of pottage ' : the population of
the south-west, relieved of the presence of the soldiers,
resorted once more to the conventicles.
Thereupon Lauderdale feU back upon severity. In 1670
he passed through Parhament a ferocious Act against con
venticles, far more severe than the corresponding Enghsh
Act. Preachers and those who hstened to them were liable
to fines and imprisonment : preachers out of doors were to
be put to death. But even this Act — too severe to be liter
ally enforced — did not work a cure. The south-west was
irreconcUable, and before long seething discontent was to
break into open revolt.
The fuU enforcement of this ferocious measure against
conventicles was postponed until 1674. Troops were again
sent into the disaffected districts. All landholders were
required to give bonds for themselves and aU their tenants
and dependents that they would neither go to conventicles
nor help any preacher or frequenter of them. When they
protested that they could not assume such responsibility,
10,000 men, including 6000 Highlanders, were sent into the
West and empowered to quarter themselves without payment
on any house not specially exempted. After a few months,
the Highlanders went home laden with plunder.
Such measures could have only one end — revolt. In 1679
•some desperate men murdered Archbishop Sharp, once a
Presbyterian minister, now Lauderdale's right • hand, at
Magus Muir, near St. Andrews. The murderers fled for
refuge to the west country, which rose in arms to support
them. A large conventicle, worshipping with enthusiasm
among the moors at Drumclog, was attacked by troopers
under the notorious persecutor, John Graham of Claverhouse,
and drove them off with loss. This raised the West ; an
army of 1500 men, under the Duke of Monmouth, had to be
sent to deal with the rebels. At BothweU Bridge the regular
forces won an easy victory, kiUed 400 men, and took 1200
prisoners. Then began the ugly period known in the annals
of Scotland as ' the killing time,' when the unhappy Coven
anters were hunted down hke wild animals among the
southern moorlands, without mercy or pity ; shot hke dogs
at their own thresholds ; tortured with boot and thumb-

504 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
screw. The chief ruler of Scotland during these years was
James, Duke of York. When in 1685 he succeeded to the
throne, the ' killing time ' stiU went on. It only stopped
with the Revolution, and it left an indelible mark in'
Scottish history.
This is what the Restoration brought to Scotland:
political absolutism ; an army ready to be used if need be
elsewhere ; and, for the more rigid Presbyterians of the
south-west, a fierce persecution such as no part of Britain
had ever endured before in aU its history. Only one part
of the country suffered directly from this persecution ; but
the rest looked on with bitter sympathy.
Meanwhile, throughout this period, Scotland was having
brought home to her some of the disadvantages of being
treated as a separate country by her powerful neighbour.
England (as we shaU see later) was now entering upon a
pohcy of high protection for the development of her trade,
and Scotland found herself treated as a foreign country, *
excluded both from Enghsh and from colonial markets.
At the same time, she could have no independent foreign
pohcy : her policy was controlled by the English govern
ment of her king. Denied freedom for her Church, subject
to a practical absolutism in political affairs, she was in her
poverty suffering all the defects of separation from a thriving
and prosperous neighbour, while she enjoyed none of the
advantages of independence.

§ 4. Ireland : Absolutism and partial Reconciliation.
In Ireland the statesmen of the Restoration were faced by
a problem in itself more difficult than that presented by
Scotland ; for the evils and injustices which had been per
petrated during the Irish rebellion and the rule of the
Puritans were far more difficult to cure. Yet it may fairly
be said that the results in Ireland were more satisfactory
than anywhere else, and this for two reasons. In the first
place the dominant influence in the settlement was that of
the Duke of Ormond, himself an Irishman who had a good
deal of sympathy for the Irish Catholics, but who was at the
same time resolute to maintain the Enghsh ascendency. In
the second place Charles 11. and his royahst advisers felt
some tenderness for the Catholics ; but at the same time
they dared not wholly alienate the recent English settlers.
Hence the new regime in Ireland was less brutal and less

CH. i.j THE RESTORATION 305
one-sided than it showed itself in Scotland, and there was
even a beginning of prosperity and contentment. It was
a sign of real advance when the Lord-Lieutenant received
an address from a number of Catholic clergy and gentry
protesting their loyalty to the Crown, and disclaiming all
foreign power, ' papal or princely, spiritual or temporal.'
This Loyal Remonstrance did not indeed represent the
generalljplrrioiTof Irish Cathohcs, but it marked what might
have been the beginning of an era of reconciliation.
The main difficulty was the problem of dealing with the
lands which, under the Puritan Republic, had been forcibly
taken from Cathohc proprietors and transferred to Enghsh
settlers. The grants could not be wholly resumed, but an
attempt was made to do justice at least to those of the Irish
Catholics who could prove that they had not actively waged
war against the Crown, and the Protestant owners were
compeUed to disgorge part of their spoils. The discussion of
this difficult problem took five years. It was provisionally
determined by an Act of Settlement (1662), which was
amended in 1665. It did only rough justice. Its result was
that, of the total area of the ' plantations ' (excluding
Connaught), about one-third was restored to dispossessed
Irish proprietors, about one-third went to the earlier English
planters from the time of Ehzabeth onwards, and about
one-third was kept by settlers of the Cromwellian period.
This cannot be called a just apportionment, but it was better
than the gross spoliation of CromweU. Yet there were many
who were left impoverished and without redress, and large
numbers of these took to the wilds and became mere robbers
and J^hmaels. They were known as Tories.
IMancT, like Scotland, suffered by being treated as a
foreigrr~c"ountry under the new English protective pohcy.
She found aU her live stock — her chief produce — excluded
from importation to England by an Act of 1666. But for
aU that she enjoyed during this period a real and growing
prosperity. Instead of cattle, she sold to England beef and
butter, taUow and hides. She also bred sheep on a very
great scale, and for a time exported large quantities of wool
to the Enghsh market. When this export in its turn was
stopped, she began to develop a considerable wooUen manu
facture of her own, while her linen industry also throve.
She was excluded by the protective system from colonial
markets, but she opened up a prosperous trade with the
continent. And in general she enjoyed an unexampled
prosperity during the twenty years following the Restoration.

506 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
This prosperity helped to reduce the bitterness of racial and
rehgious feeling, though this bitterness had by no means yet
died out, and the fact that Ormond in general foUowed
a policy of tolerance, avoided harrying the Catholics, and
sensibly made no attempt to enforce the exclusion of Cath
ohcs from corporate towns which had been part of the
Puritan pohcy, contributed still more to the rise of better
feehng. One result was that the Irish Parhament, qn the
rare occasions of its meeting, gave little trouble, voted the
king a substantial revenue, and thus provided him with the
means for maintaining an army.

The influence of the Restoration upon the colonies was
even more important than its influence upon Scotland and
Ireland ; for here the new regime brought about the initia
tion of an imperial policy of a new type which is so important
in its bearings upon the future development of the British
Commonwealth that it must be speciaUy and separately
dealt with.
Yet to the colonies themselves, and to England also, the
aims and character of Restoration pohcy in Scotland and in
Ireland, where the king had a free hand, were of the utmost
importance. In Scotland absolutism, holding the country
firmly in hand, bitterly persecuting the more extreme Pres
byterians — and maintaining a considerable army : in Ireland
also a practical absolutism, showing an unwonted forbear
ance to the hard-used Catholics, drawing a substantial
revenue from the growing prosperity of the country — and
maintaining a considerable army : these were factors which
migrit have had, and very nearly did have, a momerrtous
bearing upon the final conflict between Crown and Parlia
ment which events were bringing gradually nearer in
England. We have carried the analysis of the Restoration settlement
in the two lesser countries considerably beyond the date to
which we have carried it in England, because it is necessary
to keep in mind what was happening in these countries
while the great struggle was fought out in England. And
it is equally necessary to keep in mind the course of events
in Europe, and the development of English trading and
colonial policy, because these also had a more intimate
bearing upon the development of the constitutional struggle
than ever they had had before. Not the islands alone, but
the British Commonwealth as a whole, and the whole world

ch. ij THE RESTORATION 507
of Western civihsation, were in fact involved in the coming
controversy ; and their fortunes were to be deeply affected
by its course and by its issue.
[R. Lodge, England from the Restoration to the Death of William III.
is the best modern summary of the period ; Ranke's History of
EnglancTprincipally in the Seventeenth Century ; Hallam's Consti
tutional History ; Robertson's Statutes and Documents ; Airy's
Charles II. Clarendon's Autobiography is a first-hand authority for
the period covered by this chapter ; so is Burnet's History of His
Own Time, which is valuable for Scotland ; for which see also Hume
Brown's or Lang's History of Scotland. Airy's The Restoration
(Epochs of Modern History) is a useful short book, both for England
and for Europe.]

CHAPTER II
EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV.
(a.d. i66i-i(:

§ i. The Age of Enlightenment.
The middle of the seventeenth century was the beginning of
a new era in the history of Western civihsation as a whole, as
well as in the history of the islands. The wars of rehgion,
which had lasted nearly a century, were over. Henceforth,
though religious conflicts within States were stiU bitter, the
relations between States were no longer to be governed by
religious differences. In the pohtical sphere the outstand
ing feature of the new age was the triumph of absolute
monarchy everywhere save in the British realms, the United
Provinces and Switzerland : absolute monarchy aloncseemed
to ensure the efficiency, and the vigour and consistency of
policy, which made for national strength and greatness.
It was in France under Louis xiv. that absolute monarchy
appeared to have won its most brilliant successes. The
pre-eminence which France enjoyed in this period, in
the arts and in manners as weU as in pohtics, was greater
than any State had hitherto enjoyed ; and it seemed to
be due, in no smaU degree, to the inteUigent autocracy
which controUed and developed all the resources of the
nation. Another marked feature of the age was that all the more
progressive States now paid greater attention than ever
before to the systematic development of industry and
commerce as the main sources of national wealth. Men
began to discuss the principles of the science of wealth-
making, and the causes of national prosperity: the
rudiments of pohtical economy began to be defined.
Because of the immense importance now attached to
foreign trade, the greater States became more eager than
ever to get control of oversea possessions, and to organise
these possessions in such a way as to produce the maximum
benefit for the mother country ; and out of this came the
beginnings of a keen competition for colonial empire, far
608

ch. ii] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 509
more systematic than in the previous age ; with this we
shall have to deal in the next chapter.
But to us, looking back from the vantage-ground of the
present, these features of the period, important as they were,.
must seem less significant than another characteristic of
the age to which contemporaries attached relatively little
weight. It is not an exaggeration to say that this age saw
the birth of organised science ; and when we consider how
scientific investigation was to give to man a command over
the forces of nature such as he had never possessed, how it
was to transform the material conditions of human hfe, and
how profoundly it was to affect all men's thinking about
themselves and the world, and all their rehgious and pohtical
ideas, the birth of organised science must appear to be the
supreme achievement of the age. In the epoch-making
series of discoveries which distinguished the period Enghsh
men took their share, and more than their share ; it may
fairly be claimed that England — the land where freedom of
thought was more fuUy estabhshed than anywhere else —
took the lead in the scientific movement which was the
greatest glory of this age.
Great progress had, indeed, already been made in many
fields of science during the first half of the century. The
great Englishman Bacon and the great Frenchman Descartes
had wrought out the principles of a new philosophy and of a
new scientific method of observation and experiment. The
great Italian Garileo had laid the foundations of modem
physical science, and had revolutionised men's views as to the
place of the Earth among the heavenly bodies. The great
Englishman Harvey, by demonstrating the circulation of
the blood, had begun modern physiology. And many lesser
workers in all spheres, more especially in mathematics and
astronomy, but also in physics, in botany and in zoology,
had helped to make a break with the unscientific methods
and traditions of the Middle Ages. But it was in the second
half of the century, when the intensity of rehgious passions
had abated, and when theological problems no longer
dominated the ablest minds, that the new spirit and methods
of inquiry began to reap their harvest, and that the co-^
operation of a multitude of patient workers in all countries
began to build up the temple of science. For scientific
investigation depends upon the co-operation of all who are
engaged in it, and upon the free and constant discussion of
their results. It knows no frontiers and no nationalities.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of the new age was that

510 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
it made this co-operation possible by giving to the men of
science centres for discussion and the comparison of results,
and by affording them pubhc recognition and support. In
•England the Royal Society was founded in 1662 ; in France
the Academy of Sciences dates from 1666 ; and paraUel
bodies in other countries were soon to follow. The supreme
name of this period in scientific investigation is that of the
Englishman, Isaac Newton, whose work was as great a glory
to the British people, and as great a contribution on their
behalf to the common stock of the world's civilisation, as,
in another field, the work of Shakespeare had earher been.
Newton's Principia, published in 1687, laid the sure founda
tions of modern science over an extraordinarily wide range.
With Newton may be named the great German Leibniz ;
and there was a whole army of lesser investigators, rhost
numerous in England and in France, but spread over all the
countries of the West.
It would be beyond our province to analyse the significance
of the new knowledge made available for man by the eager
workers of this period. But one main outcome of their work
ought to be noted. They displayed the universe as governed
by fixed and unchanging laws, capable of being discovered
and applied by patient and reverent observation and ex
periment ; all their work was based upon this assumption,
and was meaningless apart from it. And when this idea was
once implanted in men's minds, the effect upon every field
of thought could not but be very great. Already this spirit
of patient search for the laws which govern the life of the
world was showing itself in the beginnings of inquiry into
the principles of pohtical economy, and in the attempt to
find a scientific basis for political theories. Even in pre
cedent-loving England the mere fact that such and such a
course had been followed by our ancestors was no longer felt
to be a sufficient argument, and, in place of the more purely
historical and legal arguments which had satisfied the last
generation, closely reasoned pohtical theories hke those of
Hobbes and Locke, to which we shall have to refer elsewhere,
began to influence opinion. Political speculation was more
active in England than in other countries, because political
problems were more urgent there than elsewhere. But in a
greater or less degree the same characteristics are to be
found among the intellectual leaders in all countries. The
Age of Reason was dawning, in succession to the Age of
Dogma. But these new forces as yet affected only a few. The

ch. il] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 511
fortunes of the world were in the future to be deeply in
fluenced by the patient work of the men of science ; but in
the meanwhile the determining factors were still the ambi
tions of powerful princes and the pride of rival nations.

§ 2. The Ascendency of France.
In the pohtical history of Europe during this period three
distinct threads of interest can be traced. One was the
rivalry of the northern powers, Denmark, Sweden, Poland,
and the httle German State of Brandenburg ; its most
striking results were to be the decline of Sweden after her
brief period of greatness, and the rapid rise of Brandenburg,
soon to become the kingdom of Prussia, to a position of
influence. A second thread is provided by the threatening
growth of the power of the Turks, and its later coUapse,
giving rise to what came to be known as the Eastern question.
With these two groups of problems the island peoples were
not at the moment very directly concerned ; but since their
later development was to be of very great importance in
British history, we shaU have to consider them briefly.
But it was the third thread of interest which immediately
affected the fortunes of all the British realms. This was the
dazzling strength and greatness of France under Louis xiv.,
which for a time threatened to lead to a French dominance
over the whole of European affairs, and which was in the
end to draw the islands into a conflict only less important
to themselves than the conflict with Spain in the sixteenth
century. Not only for the islanders, but for aU Europe, the
formidable power and the aggressive pohcy of France con
stituted the supreme pohtical fact of the age.
France had suffered, during the second half of the six
teenth century, from the long agony of the rehgious wars.
Her revival in the first half of the seventeenth century had
been interrupted by civil strife, due to the last struggles of
the nobles, and of other elements in the nation, to resist the
growing power of the Crown. In spite of that, France had
played a great part, and acquired large accessions of territory
and prestige, in the Thirty Years' War, and in the war with
Spain which grew out of it. Now that her internal troubles
were over, the nation welcomed the estabhshment of a strong
government able to prevent them from breaking out again.
When King Louis xiv.,1 after a long minority, himself under-
1 There is a life of Louis xiv., by A. Hassall, in the Heroes of the Nations
Series.

512 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
took the conduct of government in 1661. there was no power
in the nation capable or desirous of resisting the royal
authority. Louis had no Parliament to deal with, like his
English cousin : the States General, ,the nearest French
paraUel, had long since ceased to meet, and were not to be
summoned again until 1789. The king was above the law ;
he was the sole maker of law. He levied taxes at his will.
All the officers of State in all parts of the country were his
salaried nominees. The nobles had become a nobihty of
the court, seeking for royal favours . A fine army of veterans,
the best in Europe, led by famous generals, supported the
king's authority. But it scarcely needed such support,
since the whole nation accepted it with fervent loyalty.
Already in 1661 (and this was to become more marked as
time went on) the court of VersaiUes displayed a splendour
such as the modem world had never seen. It set the fashion
in manners and in dress for all Europe, and every petty
prince strove to imitate it. This in itself gave to the Grand
Monarque a prestige which had great political value. France
set the fashion also in letters and the arts : the ascendency
of French critics and poets and playwrights was greater
than those of any nation have ever enjoyed before or since ;
and French became the language of culture, as well as of
diplomacy and of polite society. And, through academies
maintained under royal patronage, letters and the arts also
were harnessed to the glittering chariot of the monarchy.
Under an able foreign minister the French diplomatic
service had been so skilfuUy organised that in every capi
tal the French representative — helped by his country's
prestige — was a political factor of the highest importance.
Above all, under a very able and very industrious
finance minister, Colbert, the resources of France were
developed to the highest point that any country had yet
reached. Agriculture was in every possible way encouraged
and assisted. The manufacturing industries were reorgan
ised under government direction. Magnificent roads, the
finest in Europe or the world, were constructed, as well as
canals such as no other State possessed. The mercantile
marine of France was developed until it was able to compete
with those of England and Holland. And, realising the
importance of sea-power, Colbert built up a navy so powerful
that in 1690, as we shall see, it was able to defeat the
combined fleets of England and Holland. Finally France
entered with zeal into the field of oversea colonisation and
trade : we shall see more of this in the next chapter. All

ch.ii.] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 513
this vigorous and successful work of organisation was going
on during the first twenty years of the reign. Its result was
to make France, beyond all competition or rivalry, the
greatest and most splendid State in the world, and to win
for her people a remarkable increase of prosperity. WeU
might it appear that absolute monarchy, well served,
formed the best means of securing national welfare.
Louis xiv. seemed to have a choice, at the opening of this
brUliant period, between two alternative courses — two ways
of using the power and wealth of the country whose fortunes
lay absolutely in his hands : it was almost the same alter
native that lay before Germany nearly two centuries later.
On the one hand, content with the unquestioned ascendency
which his government possessed in European affairs, he
might have peacefully dominated Europe, and at the same
time developed to a still higher point the industry and trade
of the country, secured for France maritime supremacy, and
created a great empire overseas. If he and his successors
had chosen this course, French civilisation, and the methods
and ideas of absolute monarchy, might very well have
dominated the world. But on the other hand he was in
evitably tempted by the vision of mastery in Europe. In
particular, the crumbhng Spanish empire seemed to be at his
mercy; he could at the expense of Spain round off the
frontiers of France ; he might perhaps gain possession of
the riches of Spanish_America. His irresistible army would
make conquest easy, and there seemed to be no fear of
serious opposition. Spain herself could offer no effective
resistance. The Emperor, whose Austrian lands were
poverty-stricken and ill-organised, was threatened by grave
danger from the reviving power of the Turks. Germany
was exhausted by the Thirty Years' War. The northern
powers were at one another's throats. The Dutch had
overthrown the House of Orange and placed their affairs
in the hands of peace-loving merchants led by John de
Witt; and, being jealous of the loyalty of the army to the
excluded House of Orange, they had reduced their army
to the lowest point. Only England might be dangerous.
But the Enghsh were consumed with jealousy of the Dutch,
and Louis could encourage them to destroy one another.
And the new English king, Charles 11., was Louis' cousin and
admirer, and might, in his eagerness to free himself from
Parhament, readily be bought over either to take the French
king's side, or at least to remain neutral. The prospects
of success in the career of European conquest were very
vol. 1. 2 K

514 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
promising. They were too promising to be resisted ; and
so the tremendous power of reorganised France was graduaUy
turned into a danger to the peace and liberty of Europe.
The progress of Louis' ambitions was of such importance not
only to Europe, but to the islands and to the whole British
Commonwealth, that we must follow them in outline.
§ 3. The Wars of Louis XIV. (to 1688).
During the first six years of his personal rule (1661-1666)
Louis remained at peace, using his splendid army only as
a means of giving magnanimous help to the Emperor in his
desperate struggle with the Turks, to which we shall refer
later. England under her new king was friendly in spite
of colonial rivalry. In 1662 Charles sold to Louis the port
of Dunkirk, which CromweU had acquired in 1658. It was a
wise act on Charles' part, though his chief motive was the
desire for money, but it began to arouse Enghsh jealousy of
France. Louis also brought about the marriage of Charles
to a Portuguese princess (1661) : this was the beginning of
the long unbroken aUiance between England and Portugal.
Portugal (annexed by Philip n. in 1580) had revolted against
Spain in 1640, and the revolt had only been kept going by
French help ; but the peace between France and Spain in
1659 had made it difficult for Louis to go on helping
Portugal. The task of helping Portugal, and thus weaken
ing Spain, was handed over to England, which received in
payment the Mediterranean fortress of Tangier and the
Indian island of Bombay.
The determining factor in the relations of the western
powers during these years was their trade rivalry ; especially
in the tropical seas. Louis watched with satisfaction the
revival of the old acute jealousy between the Enghsh and
the Dutch, from which he hoped to draw profit. When, hi"
1665, this jealousy flamed out into a great naval war, it
seemed at first as if the English would win. For the Eng
lish navy showed in the first two years of the war that its
fighting power was as great as ever ; and that, though Blake
was gone, his old comrade in arms, Monk, was a worthy
successor. There were fierce battles off Lowestoft in 1665,
in the Downs in 1666, and in both of these the English were
victorious. An Enghsh victory, however, would not have
suited France. Louis therefore entered the conflict on the
Dutch side. There was hard fighting between the Enghsh
and the French in the West Indies during 1666-7; and

ch.il] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 515
though the Enghsh held their own, the prosperity of the
English Leeward Islands received a grave set-back. From
this moment the trading interests in England began to look
askance at France, and to fear her even more than they
feared the Dutch. In the later stages of the war bad luck
pursued the Enghsh. The Great Plague which broke out
in 1665, and which affected part of the fleet, led to a terrible
disorganisation of supply, and the Great Fire of London in
1666 completed this dislocation. The fleet had to be laid up
in the winter of 1666 ; and in 1667 the Dutch seized their
opportunity, sailed up the Medway, captured one vessel and
burnt three others, and were with difficulty prevented from
attacking defenceless London. Under these circumstances
the English government was glad to end the war by the
Peace of Breda in 1667 ; all the more so since the Dutch
were so eager for peace as to be wiUing to leave in English
hands trie recently conquered Dutch American colony of
New Netherlands, henceforward to be known as New
York.1 The English government's readiness for peace had un
doubtedly been encouraged by the alarm produced by the
French intervention. And it was the fear aroused by
French ambitions in another sphere which led the Dutch
to make an unfavourable peace at a moment when things
were going very weU for them. For, while the two mari
time powers were at one another's throats, Louis xiv.
had at last and suddenly begun to put into operation
his plans of European conquest. On the flimsy pretext
that his Spanish queen, whose father (Philip iv.) had died
in 1665, was entitled to inherit the Spanish Netherlands
under the local law of succession to land, he sent an army \
into Flanders. The Spanish forces were quite unable to
resist him. Europe was startled by the evidence both of
the French king's overwhelming strength and of his un-
scrupulousness. But the Dutch were especiaUy alarmed;
the Spanish Netherlands were their only bulwark against
this formidable power. They eagerly opened negotiations
for alliances to check the conqueror ; and in 1668 a Triple
AUiance was formed by Holland, England and Sweden.
It was the first sign that Europe would resist any attempt
to establish an overwhelming dominion. Louis as yet"
preferred to avoid a war on so large a scale ; and in 1668
ended what is known as the War of^ Devolution by the
1 See below, Chap. iii. p. 536.

516 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which gave to him a substantial
part of FlandersT"
But the lesson was lost upon the proud king. Instead of
abstaining from European aggressions, he determined to
punish the Dutch. The next four years were devoted to
preparations, and especiaUy to detaching from the Dutch
the aUies in whom they trusted. In 1670 Louis concluded
with Charles 11. the secret treaty of Dover, whereby the
English king undertook, in return for a large subsidy, not
only to desert the Triple AUiance, but to attack the Dutch
once more, and to endeavour to turn England into a Roman
Catholic State.2 It was the longing to be free from parlia
mentary control which led Charles to take this dishonourable
course. In 1672 the Swedes also were bribed to desert the
AUiance, andthe Dutch stood alone. Meanwhile John de
Witt, at the head of the Dutch government, was doing
nothing to prepare for the coming storm. It burst suddenly^
in 1672, when two superb armies under the two greatest |
captains of the age, Conde and Turenne, poured down the
Meuse and the Rhine into the Dutch territories. Frenzied j
with terror, and believing that they had been betrayed, I
the Dutch murdered John de Witt and his brother the i
admiral. They turned for help to the young Prince WiUiam 1
of Orange, the frail, silent, inflexible representative of the
founder of Dutch liberty, whom de Witt had kept in the
background. Under desperate conditions Wilham took up
the struggle with the French king which was to occupy all
his strength for the rest of his life. Once more, as in the
desperate days of the struggle with Spain, the dykes were
opened, and the ocean was called in to defend the land
which had been won from it. And meanwhUe the English
fleet, in conjunction with the French, was attacking the
Dutch by sea (1672 -1674). There were hard -fought
fights, as always, between these old foes. But the Dutch
held their own, in spite of their inferiority of numbers,
thanks to the brilliant leadership of their great admiral,
Ruyter : the two battles of the war, off Southwold Bay
(1672) and off the Texel (1673), were both drawn fights.
Meanwhile in England public feeling, despite the long and
bitter rivalry with the Dutch, was turning strongly against
the war ; Parliament expressed this hostility all the more
vigorously because the knowledge of the iniquitous secret
treaty of Dover was beginning to leak out; and in 1674
1 See the map of the Netherlands, Atlas, Plate 20.
* See below, Chap. iv. p. 545.

CH. il] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 517
this shameful attack upon a recent ally was brought to an
end. Many Enghshmen felt that their country ought to
have been ranged on the side of the Dutch instead of
against them, and under the influence of the new fear of
France the long-standing jealousy of the Dutch began to
diminish. But though Charles n. was forced to make
peace, Louis was still able to count upon his purchased
neutrahty. The Dutch had weathered the first and severest crisis of
the war ; and now other powers, alarmed at the menace of
a French domination of Europe, came to their aid — the
Emperor, and Spain, and the Elector of Brandenburg.
The insolent attack upon the Dutch had led to a general
European war, in which France stood practicaUy alone.
The war continued to rage for four more years ; the brilliance
of the French commanders and the valour of their troops
won many victories ; but they could gain no decision, and
the wealth and prosperity which Colbert had built up was
being wasted to no avaU. At length, in 1678, peace was
made at Nimwegen. Louis acquired from Spain the French-
speaking district of Franche Comte, but this was the only
result of the mighty effort which had strained his resources.1
Externally Nimwegen marks the highest point of Louis'
career ; in reality it was the first step in his decline. For
he had made a deliberate bid for supremacy in Europe, and
he had failed.
Louis himself regarded Nimwegen, as he had regarded
Aix-la-ChapeUe, only as a check in his career of conquest.
During the next ten years, indeed (1678-88), he maintained
peace. But his insolence never reached a higher point than
in these years : it was the blind insolence that causes and
precedes a terrible faU. Though he claimed to be the most
orthodox of Cathohcs, he quarrelled irremediably with the
Pope, because he claimed a supremacy over the Church in
France which the Pope would not yield. At the same time,
to prove his orthodoxy, he instituted a pitiless persecution
of the French Protestants, culminating, in 1685, in the with
drawal of the Edict of Nantes which had protected them for
nearly a hundred years : the absolute monarch could not
permit his subjects to differ from himself. But the Hugue
nots, who were chiefly to be found in towns, included a large
proportion of the most industrious and prosperous of French
traders and manufacturers. Driven in thousands from their
own country, they carried their knowledge and skill to
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 15 (c).

518 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
England and to other lands ; and the loss which was thus
inflicted upon France was even more serious than that which
was caused by the wars. The splendid prosperity of the
early years of the reign was already disappearing. FinaUy,
counting on the facts that the Dutcri were tired of war, that
the Emperor was engaged in a deatri grapple with trie
Turks, and triat England under Charles n. could be bribed
into quiescence, Louis undertook a series of the most
shameless aggressions under legal forms. Trie treaty of
Nimwegen riad given him certain lands ' with their de
pendencies.' French tribunals were set up to determine
what these dependencies were : they gave the decisions
which were required of them, and large territories in Alsace
were annexed on this pretext. The most important of
these annexations was the great city of Strasbourg (1681).
Europe looked on witri anxiety and alarm. Triere was
even a brief, futile attempt at resistance by Spain and the
Emperor in 1683 ; it only served to illustrate the greatness
of French power, and to encourage Louis' self-confidence.
But one man, checked and hampered at every turn, was
grimly resolved that the Great King sriould pay for his in
solence. This was WiUiam of Orange, a morose, unsym
pathetic and heartless man, who was raised to the point of
greatness only by the undying resolution and the undying
hate with which he watched his superb rival, and waited
for the chance to take vengeance upon him. In the
meanwhUe, since his authority even in HoUand was very
insecure, he was powerless ; and it seemed during these
ten years as if, when he chose, Louis xiv. migrit riave his
wUl in Europe.
Whether this was to be so or not depended above all
upon Britain. If her weight were to be thrown into the
scale against Louis, he could never succeed, as time was to
show. Louis partly realised this. Hitherto he had got his
way with Britain easUy enough, thanks to the shameless
dishonour of Charles 11. ; and if Charles sriould show signs
of restiveness, Louis had the whip-hand of him, because he
could always turn loose upon him the angry and watchful
Parliament by disclosing the secrets of Charles' dealings
with himself. Louis kept up relations, through his very
slrilful ambassadors, with parliamentary leaders as weU as
with the king and trie courtiers.
But Louis was not alone in watching Enghsh pohtics with
close attention. WiUiam of Orange, whose supreme desire
it was to bring England into the fray against France, was

ch.il] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 519
also watching them anxiously. His connexions with the
country were close ; his mother was a daughter of Charles 1., v
and he would be the heir to the Stewart thrones if Charles 11.
and his brother James were to die witriout heirs. In 1677
WiUiam strengthened his position by marrying James' eldest
daughter Mary. When an agitation sprang up in England
for trie exclusion of James, as a Catholic, from the suc
cession, Wilham was deeply concerned. But his position
was a very dehcate one; he could only watch and wait,
and keep up his relations with English pohtical leaders.
Thus the great issues of European pohtical history in
fluenced the course of events in the islands ; and, on the
other hand, the destinies of Europe seemed to depend upon
the results of the party strife which was raging in England.
The Enghsh Revolution, when it suddenly came about in
1688, was almost as momentous for Europe as it was for
the islands, and from 1688 onwards it is no longer possible
to deal with the European story apart from the story of the
islands. § 4. Northern Europe : the Rise of the Hohenzollerns.
But before we turn to the long political controversy upon
which so much depended, it is necessary to say something
about other aspects of European affairs which were in the
future to be of great importance to the British Common
wealth, though at the moment they seemed of no concern
to it.
In Northern Europe the Thirty Years' War had led to a
confused series of wars in which all the northern powers
were engaged ; they had been brought to an end in 1660,
just at the opening of our period. We need not trace these
complex struggles, but it is worth while to note their
general results. The most important of these, in the eyes
of contemporaries, was that Sweden, whicri had suddenly
sprung into the first rank of European States under Gustavus
Adolphus, seemed to be estabhshed as the greatest of the
northern powers.1 Her armies were of the first quality.
She had conquered territories which Denmark had long held
on the Scandinavian mainland. She had acquired pos
session of Western Pomerania and the mouth of the Oder
on the Baltic coast of Germany, and controUed aU the shores
of the Gulf of Finland, besides Finland itself. She held
Bremen and Verden in North-Western Germany, and with
1 See the maps, Atlas, Plates 9 and 26 (a).

520 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
them the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. No power had
profited so much by the ruin of Germany. But she was
exhausted by the long strain of war; she had brought
upon herself many enemies, and the days of her great
ness were not to last much longer, in spite of the
brilliant fighting qualities shown by one after another of
her kings.
Far more important, though less impressive to contem
poraries, was the rise of the little State of Brandenburg,
later to become the kingdom of Prussia.1 Brandenburg
owed her rise to the skill and patient labours of the first of
the great Hohenzollerns, Frederick WUliam, known as the
Great Elector. When the Great Elector succeeded to his
throne in 1640, during the Thirty Years' War, his lands were
thinly peopled, divided and desolated by war. They fell
into three distinct blocks : the electorate properin the middle,
with Berlin as its capital ; some small patches of richer land
on the Rhine ; and the duchy of East Prussia, which was
held under the suzerainty of the stiU large and powerful
kingdom of Poland, and was separated from Brandenburg
by the purely Pohsh district of West Prussia. In each of
these separate blocks there were diets which checked and
limited the power of the ruler. By the treaty of Westphalia
(1648) the Great Elector had succeeded in acquiring valu
able accessions of territory, which practically doubled the
area of Brandenburg proper. Notably he had obtained the
eastern part of Pomerania, the western and more valuable
part of which fell to Sweden. But he claimed the whole of
Pomerania, and henceforth regarded Sweden as his mortal
foe. In the wars of the northern States which foUowed the
peace of Westphalia, both Sweden and Poland were engaged.
The Great Elector made skilful use of the struggle. By play
ing the traitor alternately to Sweden and Poland he succeeded
in freeing his duchy of East Prussia from Polish suzerainty.
During the years of peace which foUowed 1660 he devoted
himself to strengthening his power within his scattered
dominions. He fought the diets, and practically turned his
government into an absolute monarchy. He gave assiduous
attention to the economic development of his poverty-
stricken dominions, in order to increase their resources for
maintaining an efficient army. And he created an army
out of all proportion larger than the size or wealth of his
1 There is a map showing the growth of Brandenburg-Prussia in Atlas,
Plate 24 (a).

CH. il] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 521
dominions warranted. Already the characteristic- lines of
Hohenzollern policy were laid down : a high degree of
centralisation in government ; a systematic development
of the material resources of the State ; and the use of these
resources for the purpose of maintaining the greatest pos
sible military power, with a view to further conquests.
When Louis xiv. attacked the Dutch, the bitter rivalry of
Sweden and Brandenburg flared out again. Sweden was
Louis' ally : Brandenburg therefore took the other side, and
one of the most important events of the war was the battle
of Fehrbellin, 1675, in which the Great Elector, to the aston-
ishmeritToFEufope, defeated the military might of Sweden.
This battle marked the beginning of the downfall of Sweden ;
but it marked also the emergence of the Hohenzollern realm
as a factor of importance in European affairs. The steady,
unscrupulous progress by force and fraud which was to bring
the Hohenzollerns in the- far future to the triumphs of
Sadowa and Sedan, and to the disasters of 1918, had fairly
begun. § 5. The Problem of the Turkish Empire.
The changes which this period brought about in South-
Eastern Europe were not less important than those in the
north. The outstanding factor was a recrudescence of
danger from the Turks, followed by the beginning of the
coUapse of Turkish power. The Turks, as we have seen,1
had attained their greatest power in the time of the Sultan
Solyman the Magnificent, the contemporary of Charles v.
and of Henry viil, who had conquered the greater part of
Hungary, had threatened for a time to break into Germany,
then distracted by the Reformation, and had only been
beaten back with difficulty before the walls of Vienna. At
that time the Turkish peril had been real and great. In all
the lands which they have conquered the Turks have never
shown any capacity for good government, or given any
encouragement to the growth of civilisation ; their power
over the Christian peoples of the Balkan peninsula and
(so long as it lasted) over Hungary was a mere disaster,
unbalanced by any compensations ; and any further exten
sion of their dominions would have brought nothing but ill.
Fortunately, after the death of Solyman (1566), there had
foUowed a long period when the Turkish power fell into the
weakness and disorganisation which are apt to overtake a
mere military ascendency. Europe had been unable to
1 Above, Bk. in. chap. iii. p. 234. See also the map, Atlas, Plate 26 (a).

522 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
take advantage of this, because she was distracted by
religious wars; on the other hand, because of their own
difficulties, the Turks also had been unable to turn the
troubles of Europe to their profit. But the Turks x remained
in direct control of the central part of Hungary ; Eastern
Hungary and Transylvania recognised their suzerainty:
even the narrow strip of Western Hungary which was ruled
by the Emperor had to pay tribute to them; and they
controUed all the south coast of the Black Sea, and all
modern Rumania. In this region they had the kingdom
of Poland as their neighbour. But Poland was a disorgan
ised realm, whose elected kings had little power, being
checked by a Diet of nobles who would take no action unless
they were unanimous, and claimed that any one of them
could veto the proceedings. The weak and divided terri
tories of the Habsburg Emperors on the one hand, exhausted
by the Thirty Years' War, and the great but unorganised
kingdom of Poland on the other, formed very ineffective
barriers against any serious Turkish attack, should the old
militant spirit of the Turks revive.
Soon after the close of the Thirty Years' War a remarkable
revival began among the Turks. It was guided and inspired
by a succession of vigorous Viziers (or chief ministers) drawn
from an Albanian family who had entered Turkish service.
In 1663 a great attack was launched against Austrian
Hungary and Moravia : it was only driven back by the aid
of 30,000 French troops lent by Louis xiv. to the Emperor.
Next the island of Crete, which the Venetians had long
maintained for Christendom, was attacked and conquered.
A vigorous war with Poland followed (1672-1676) : it stirred
the patriotism of the Pohsh knighthood, and a national hero,
John Sobieski, was able by dint of unflagging valour and
military skill to beat back the invaders, though they gained
a good part of the Ukraine. Finally, in 1682, while Louis xiv.
was quarrelling with the Emperor over the annexation of
Strasbourg, and no help from France could be expected, a
new attack was directed against the Austrian lands . Vienna
itself was besieged (1683). It was only saved by the valour
of the Poles under Sobieski, who came to its relief. Thus,
twice over, the Poles had saved Christendom from a grave
danger. But the gravity of the peril roused the Christian neigh
bours of the Turks to united action. The Emperor, the
1 See the maps, Atlas, Plates 9 and 26 (a).

ch.il] EUROPE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 523
Poles and the Republic of Venice formed an alhance in
1684. The Poles under John Sobieski and the imperial
forces under the Duke of Lorraine struck blow after blow
against the Turks. AU Hungary was rapidly reconquered ;
and, with a sort of poetic justice, the crowning victory was
won in 1687 on the very field of Mohacz, where, a hundred
and sixty years before, Solyman the Magnificent had
shattered the Hungarian army and made himself master of
the country.
It is not surprising that, with so great an enterprise on
his hands, the Emperor was unable to check the aggression
of Louis xiv. during the decade 1678-1688. But by 1688
the Turkish danger was no longer serious ; and thus, just
at the moment when the Revolution in England deprived
Louis xiv. of security on that side, the overthrow of the
Turks released another enemy, the Emperor, to attack him.
The war against Turkey still went on, alongside of the
greater war in Western Europe. Indeed it is possible that
the western war, by distracting the Emperor, saved the
Turkish power from annihUation, and sentenced the Chris
tian peoples of the Balkans to a continuance of the blighting
Turkish rule. Even as it was, the peace of Carlowitz, in
1699, by which the Turkish-Austrian war was ended, con
fined the Turks to the south of the Danube. Henceforth
theirs was a decaying power, and the problem of what was
to happen to it became one of the most vexed questions of
European politics.
§ 6. The Prevalence of Absolute Monarchy in Europe.
It was thus a period of unceasing and comphcated war
fare which was occupying the attention of Europe whUe in
Britain the problems of constitutional government were
being argued out afresh. And in aU the experience of the
European States during these troubles one lesson seemed, to
contemporary observers, to stand forth clearly. This lesson
was, that those States alone achieved success and security
which possessed strong centralised governments, unhampered
by the interferences of ignorant and meddlesome parlia
ments or diets. France under Louis xiv. was the greatest
of European States : was not her greatness due to the strength
of her government ? The Emperor had begun to overthrow
the local liberties of his dominions : might it not appear that
his increased authority was the source of his victories over
the Turks ? Brandenburg was rising into prominence and

524 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. V.
growing in prosperity : her elector would have claimed that
it was the establishment of his own power at the expense of
the provincial diets which had made this possible. Sweden
was losing her prestige, largely because she had faUen under
the rule of an oligarchy of nobles : she began to revive again
when her king Charles xi. made the royal authority absolute
by a coup d'etat. Poland was prevented by her anarchic
constitution from playing the part which her greatness should
have made possible : it was only when the personal authority
of a great man, Sobieski, gave to her a temporary unity of
purpose that she was able to achieve great things. The
Dutch, when they were threatened by disaster, had only
been saved by falling back upon the personal leadership of
William of Orange. And might it not fairly be contended
that the wavering and humiliating pohcy of Britain was
mainly due to the unceasing friction between Crown and
Parliament ?
It was thus the aU but unanimous opinion of Europe,
supported to all appearance by the facts of history, that
absolute monarchy, or some near approach to it, was the
only means whereby order, strength and safety could be
assured to any State. And the almost universal acceptance
of this belief is a fact which ought not to be forgotten when
we turn again to examine the new struggles of the English
to establish national self-government on an ampler scale.
[Wakeman's Ascendancy of France gives a clear and vigorous
account of this period. See also Seeley's Growth of British Policy,
Abbott's Expansion of Europe and Airy's Restoration (Epochs of
Modern History). The best account of the court and government
of Louis xiv. is by EJLayisse, which forms part of Lavisse's Histoire
de France. See also "Voltaire's Sibcle de Louis XIV., Grant's
French Monarchy, and HassaU's Louis XIV. (Heroes of the Nations) ;
Marriott and Robertson's Growth of Prussia ; Pontalis' de Witt ;
Nisbet Bain's Scandinavia ; Lane-Poole's Turkey (Story of the
Nations) .]

CHAPTER III
RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES
§ i . International Rivalry Overseas.
The colonial and trading ventures of the first half of the
seventeenth century, and above all those of the Dutch, had
shown to the world how much wealth and strength could be
drawn from systematicaUy conducted enterprise oversea.
The Dutch, though but a smaU people, counted as one of
the greatest powers of the world, and certainly the most
prosperous ; and it was obvious that their strength rested
almost whoUy upon their oversea trade and their mercantile
and naval power. Therefore, as soon as the wars of rehgion
were over, the western European States began to take up
colonial enterprise with a systematic thoroughness which
none save the Dutch had earlier displayed.1 Even the
Danes strove to get a foothold in Indian trade, and acquired
the island of St. Thomas in the West Indies. Even the
Elector of Brandenburg built a fort and trading station in
West Africa. The Dutch stiU enjoyed great prosperity in
this period, and were still regarded by the English as their
most dangerous rivals. But in fact the mercantile power
of the Dutch was relatively, though not absolutely, beginning
to decline. The Portuguese, having freed themselves from
Spain and reconquered Brazil from the Dutch, entered upon~
a period of revived prosperity. But they no longer counted
for much in the East : it was the growing riches of Brazil,
and its valuable plantations of sugar, which now formed
their main resource, and they made no new acquisitions.
The Spanish empire in America was stiU, in extent and
potential wealth, the greatest of aU the over-sea empires.
But the Spanish dominions hved a hfe apart, and
counted for httle in the great rivalry of the age. The
two powers which threw themselves with the greatest zeal
and energy into the task of building up and organising
colonial enterprise were France and England. Now began
1 For a general view of colonial enterprise during the period see the
map, Atlas, Plate 48. 525

526 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
their keen rivalry, which was to last for a century and a half ;
now also the two countries began to work out systematic
colonial pohcies, guided by their respective traditions and
methods of government at home. The contrast between the
principles and methods of the two powers as it was worked
out in this age is as instructive as it is sharp and clear.
§ 2. The French Colonial Empire and the Development
of Canada.
When Louis xiv. and his industrious minister Colbert
assumed control of the government of France in i6_6i, they
had almost to begin from the beginning the creation of a
colonial empire. The French settlements in Canada had but
a precarious existence, with a population of only about 2000,
and the maritime province of Acadia had recently been
annexed by Cromwell ; the French West Indian settlements
were little more than buccaneering headquarters, and the
attempt to get a share for France of the trade of India had
hitherto led to no useful results. In twenty years Colbert
brought about an extraordinary change, and if his pohcy
had not been interrupted by Louis xiv.'s great continental
wars it is possible that maritime and colonial supremacy
would have faUen to France.
Colbert naturaUy imitated the Dutch, whose methods
were generally regarded as the most successful : like them
he founded two great trading companies, one for the East
and one for the West (1664). He also formed a body
of practical business men to advise him on trade pohcy.
But from the first the two trading companies were mainly
supported by nobles and courtiers, not by the trading
classes, and they were whoUy dependent upon the support
of the Crown. The Company of the West, which was to deal
with North and South America, the West Indies and West
Africa, soon broke down, and the direction of all trading and
colonial ventures in these regions passed under the immediate
control of government. The East India Company had a
longer life, but not as yet a very prosperous one. Its first
efforts were largely wasted in an attempt to establish a
settlement at . Madagascar, which was for some time the
headquarters of French enterprise in the East. And though
trading stations were started on the mainland of India at
Pondicherry (near Madras) and at Chandernagore (near Cal
cutta), the French were never able in this period to compete
with either the Dutch or the English companies in the East.

ch. in.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 527
It was in North America, the West Indies and West
Africa that the main French efforts were expended; and
here striking results were obtained. In the West Indies,
under the fostering care of Colbert, the sugar islands of
Martinique and Guadeloupe began to thrive, and the
French also got a foothold in the western half of the
great island of Hispaniola, the oldest centre of the Spanish
American power. Spain was compeUed in 1678 to recognise
French sovereignty over this region, which was known as
San Domingo; and thus France got a possession which
balanced the English ownership of Jamaica. The value
attached to West Indian possessions was shown by the
fierceness of the fighting in the Leeward Islands during the
short Anglo-French war of 1666-7 ; from that time the
comradeship which had been maintained by French and
Enghsh adventurers in these waters came to an end, and
was replaced by keen rivalry and mutual suspicion. The
West Indian Islands depended whoUy upon slave labour,
and to secure a supply of negro slaves France estabhshed
her control over Senegal, on the West African coast; just
as the Dutch, the "English and the Portuguese had set
up stations in other parts of the coast.1 One of the
results of the French attack upon the Dutch in 1672
was that the Dutch were compeUed to cede to France
the West African island of Goree. There were also strug
gling French settlements in Guiana, on the north coast
of South America. But the development of trade and
settlement in all this region was gravely hampered by the
prevalence of buccaneering. The period from 1660 to 1675
was the very heyday of the buccaneers, among whom the
French were by far the most active, though Dutchmen and
Enghshmen shared in the ugly game. The buccaneers were
often guilty of the wildest deeds : this was the time when
Morgan and Captain Kidd won their notoriety among the
Enghsh, Grarnmont and Ducasse among the French. Not
until these evil traditions were got rid of could the riches of
the West Indies be fuUy developed ; and it was not until
1698 that the European powers agreed to take common
action to crush them out.
The main efforts of Colbert and his master were, however,
devoted to the development of Canada. They sent a little
army of regulars to check the ravages of the fierce Iroquois,2
1 See the map of West Africa, Atlas, Plate 64 (c).
¦ See above, Bk. iv. chap. ii. p. 380.

528 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
and persuaded officers and men to settle down in the danger
zone by giving them grants of land ; and the curbing of the
Iroquois removed the chief obstacle to the development of
Canada. They despatched carefuUy selected parties of emi
grants, and provided dowries for women who would go out
to marry colonists. They sent out farm implements and
rive stock for the use of the settlers, estabhshed fisheries,
started shipbuUding, and carried out surveys for minerals.
In about ten years the population of the colony was multi
plied fourfold. AU this was done at the king's expense :
unlike the Enghsh colonies, French Canada never during
this period paid its own expenses, but was always a burden
on the mother country.
Because Canada was thus whoUy dependent upon the
king, and also because the government of Lpuis xiv. in
France was the very model of an absolute monarchy, there
was no consultation whatsoever of the colonists in the
management of the colony's affairs. When the greatest
French colonial statesman of the period, Count Frontenac,
summoned in 1672 a meeting of ' estates ' in Canada, he
was sharply puUed up, and told that no such assembly
could be permitted. All authority rested with the Governor
or military head and the Intendant or financial and legal
head, both of whom were appointed by the king ; and their
frequent differences were always referred to France for
settlement. AU land in Canada was held from the long by
feudal tenure, whereas in the Enghsh colonies it was held
in full freehold. Every male inhabitant between the ages
of 14 and 70 was under the obhgation of mihtary service, and
had to submit to frequent drill. It was this centrahsation
of aU power, and this strict mihtary discipline, which alone
enabled French Canada to hold its own against its far more
populous English neighbours.
No emigrant might enter Canada without the king's
approval. Since Louis was resolved to keep New France
strictly orthodox, he refused to admit any Huguenots, and
thus sacrificed an element that might have been of the
highest value in the development of the new lands : there is
a marked contrast between this pohcy and the general
rehgious toleration aUowed in the Enghsh colonies. When
systematic persecution, culminating in the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes (1685), began to drive the Huguenots
out of France, they went to the English colonies and to the
Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope, and thus were
lost to France for ever. FinaUy, all the trade of Canada was

ch. in.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 529
strictly confined to the mother country and closely regulated
by government.
Although Canada throve and grew under the fostering
care of the government, it did not thrive so greatly or grow
so rapidly as the Enghsh colonies, where there was very
httle government control, but a great deal of freedom. In
particular not all the insistence of Colbert and the king
could turn Canada into a self-supporting country : the
colonists would almost have starved if they had not been
largely supported from France. One main reason for this
was that the settlers, unlike their Enghsh neighbours, were
loth to fix themselves down to the humdrum work of culti
vation : they preferred the glorious and often lucrative
adventures of fur-trapping and exploration, and the most
distinctive element in the population consisted of the
coureurs-de-bois, who spent their lives in the wUds. There
was no real parallel to this class in the Enghsh colonies.
Geographical facts largely accounted for this marked
feature of Canadian hfe.1 The soil was not rich and fertUe,
like that of the English colonies, and therefore gave poor
rewards to the farmer. On the other hand, while the Enghsh
were shut off from the interior by the numerous wooded
ranges of the Alleghany Mountains, running parallel with
the coast, the mighty river St. Lawrence led the French
settlers naturaUy and easUy into the vast interior. Hence,
in spite of their smaU numbers, it was the French and not
the English who explored the vast central plain of America
and the waters of the great lakes. Missionary zeal, in which
the French far surpassed the Enghsh, accentuated this
tendency ; and moreover the French showed on the whole
a far greater skiU and tact in getting into friendly relations
with the Indian tribes.
The period with which we are dealing was in fact the great
age of North American exploration, and it was whoUy to
the bold explorers of French Canada that the world owed
the knowledge of the great central plain and its mighty
rivers and lakes. Many traveUers mapped out the Great
Lakes ; others found their way through the vast forests to
Hudson's Bay. But still more remarkable were two great
river journeys of this time.2 In 1673 a Jesuit missionary,
Pere Marquette, and a trader named Joliet made their way
from Lake Huron to the Wisconsin river, and thence down
the Mississippi as far as the Arkansas river. In 1681-2 a still
greater explorer, the gaUant Sieur de La SaUe, made his way
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 55. • Ibid.
VOL. I. 2 L

530 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
from the bottom of Lake Michigan down the IUinois river
and thence aU the way to the mouth of the Mississippi in the
Gulf of Mexico, where he set up a piUar proclaiming the
sovereignty .of Louis le Grand.1 La Salle wished to plant a
new colony here. The project was not carried out until
1717, after his death and that of the Great King. But he
had opened up for France the vast central plain and pre
pared the way for far-reaching imperial claims which, had
they been made effective, would have shut in the populous
and thriving English colonies to a narrow strip of coast-land.
Manifestly these were claims which the Enghsh settlers
could not allow to go by default ; and thus, even before the
English Revolution, it had become apparent that the French
were likely to be more dangerous rivals than the Dutch had
ever been. They would have been stiU more formidable
if Louis xiv. 's costly and wasteful foreign wars had not, in
the last period of his reign, largely undone all the brilliant
work of Colbert. Under the strain of foreign war the king
even felt himself compelled to stop emigration to Canada,
lest it should weaken the man-power of France.
§ 3. A New Era in British Colonial Policy.
If Louis xiv. and Colbert showed vigour and enterprise
in developing the French colonial empire and defining the
principles on which it was to be administered, the govern
ment of Charles 11. was not less active and was even more
far-seeing. Indeed, the twenty years foUowing the Restora
tion form one of the most vitaUy important periods in the
history of the British Commonwealth ; for not only was the
number of English settlements increased, but the main
. principles of English colonial policy, which were to be
foUowed down to the time of the American Revolution, were
defined and worked out with the utmost clearness.
AU the leading statesmen of the Restoration showed a real
and intelligent interest in colonial problems. The king
himself was interested, in his idle way ; stiU more his brother
the Duke of York, and his cousin the gaUant Prince Rupert.
Clarendon, who was all-powerful in the first years of the
reign, claimed later that he had ' used aU the endeavours
that he could to bring His Majesty to have a great esteem for
his plantations, and to encourage the improvement of them.'
The claim was a just one ; Clarendon's was .the dominant
1 A vivid account of these adventures is to be found in Parkman's
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West.

CH. m.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 531
influence in colonial pohcy during the first seven years after
the Restoration, when the new pohcy was mainly defined.
Bennet, afterwards Lord Arhngton, made a good second.
Monk represented the keen imperialism of CromweU. Ashley,
the famous Lord Shaftesbury,1 also a CromweUian, gave
close attention to colonial questions, and his political action
was largely determined by this interest. He brought into
the service of the colonies his friend the philosopher John
Locke. At the very opening of the reign a new body was
sefup, known as the Council of Trade and Plantations,
of which Locke later became Secretary ; and thougri it was
soon abolished, it was replaced by special Committees of
the Privy CouncU. The members of these bodies paid the
closest attention to their work, as their records show ;
they did their best to work out an imperial pohcy, and to
provide an efficient administrative centre for the common
affairs of aU the members of the empire. Whatever criti
cism may be made of the government of Charles 11. , it
deserves the credit of having shown a keener and more
inteUigent interest in colonial problems than any of its
predecessors, or than any of its successors down to the
nineteenth century.
The most important aspect of the work of this period was
the attempt to define the principles of colonial pohcy, and
to fix the relations between the colonies and the mother
country. The principal aims of the new pohcy were to
ensure that English trade and industry should profit by the
expansion of the colonies, and that the empire as a whole
should be bound together by the bonds of trade. England
was to become the central market and workshop as weU as
the administrative capital of the whole empire ; and the
empire's trade pohcy was to be fixed by the government and
Parhament of England. The idea triat the colonies should
be consulted in defining the lines of this pohcy did not enter
anybody's mind : indeed such an idea would, at this date,
have been whoUy impracticable. There were good reasons
why England should claim to make some profit out of the
trade of trie colonies. She had to bear the whole cost of
their defence. Weak and scattered as they were, they
would have lain at the mercy of the other colonial powers
if they had not been able to count upon the protection of
the mother country, and if the navy had not held the seas.
The customs duties levied in England on goods going from
or to the colonies formed the only means by which the
1 There is a good short life of Shaftesbury by H. D. Traill.

532 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
colonies were asked to contribute to the cost of their
common defence.
From these trade advantages Scotland was strictly ex
cluded ; Ireland, though at first admitted to the privileges
of colonial trade, was later shut out from them. Scotland
and Ireland were, indeed, treated as foreign countries under
the protective system of the Restoration, and many of their
products were excluded not only from the colonies but from
England itself. It is futile to condemn this pohcy. It was
the inevitable and logical result of the protectionist theory
which aU men accepted as obviously true, not only in
England but in aU other countries.
The new policy was outlined in the Navigation Act of
1660, which was one of the first Acts of the Restoration ;
and four more Acts strengthening its provisions foUowed
during the next twelve years. The Navigation Acts not only
re-enacted the chief provision of the Act of 1651, whereby
inter-imperial trade was to be carried on only in Enghsh or
colonial ships ; they added the very important provision
that certain ' enumerated articles ' of colonial produce, the
chief of which were sugar, tobacco, cotton and dye-stuffs,
should not be shipped to any country save England or another
colony, so that foreign countries desiring colonial goods
would in the main have to purchase them in England. In
1664 the trade system was completed by the provision that
all foreign goods destined for the colonies should first be
landed in England ; thus England would become the
central emporium of the whole empire. These provisions
were much criticised from the first, and they were evaded
on a large scale, especially by the New England colonies.
But they did in a large degree contribute to determine
the lines of colonial trade. Thus the theory that imperial
unity could be based upon trade regulations and restric
tions was given a full trial ; it lasted for a century, and
ended in the American Revolution.
Yet it would not be fair to blame the statesmen of the
Restoration for the ultimate failure of their plans. Accord
ing to the ideas of the age, they were setting about the
unification of the British realms on a sohd economic basis.
Their pohcy did much to stimulate the growth of the mer
cantile marine both in England and in the colonies, and to
strengthen the foundations of naval power. And it should
be remembered that even in matters of trade their pohcy
was far less restrictive than that of any other colonising
power, since they left the colonies free to trade directly with

ch. ill.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 533
the whole world in non-enumerated goods, while Spain and
France and the Dutch maintained a complete monopoly
for themselves of all colonial trade.
And in other than trade concerns the new imperial pohcy
was immeasurably more enlightened than that of any other
country. In the first place, it was assumed as a matter of
course that every colonial settlement should have a repre
sentative assembly alongside of the governor and council
appointed by the Crown or the Crown's representatives.
This feature of local self-government was indeed the most
distinctive and peculiar characteristic of the English system.
Every Enghsh colony enjoyed it ; no colony founded by any
other nation obtained it. One of the objects of colonial
pohcy during the period seems to have been that of ensuring
that the government of the colonies was carried on upon
a uniform system, with a governor and council and a repre
sentative assembly. And these assembhes were left with
fuU power to make laws not inconsistent with the laws of
England, and to impose taxes for their own needs. No
attempt was ever made to impose direct taxes upon the
colonies by the authority of the English Parhament or
government ; while as for legislation, it was generaUy
assumed that, except in the sphere of trade, the colonial
assembhes should alone legislate on colonial issues, the
imperial Parhament dealing only with matters of common
concern. In that respect also the English colonies stand
alone among the European settlements of this age. In
brief, the new imperial system contemplated that England
should be responsible for the common defence of the whole
empire, and that her government should direct its foreign
pohcy and its trade pohcy ; but that in all other respects
the colonies should be self-supporting and self-governing.
The readiness of the Restoration government to encourage
self-government in the colonies was shown not only in the
constitutions granted to new settlements made during the
period, but in the issue of charters to some of the earlier
colonies. Thus in 1661 Jamaica, conquered by Cromwell
six years before, was given a representative system of the
normal pattern ; while the charters granted to Connecticut
in 1662 and to Rhode Island in 1663 were stiU more striking.
Neither of these colonies had yet obtained a formal charter,
though both had set up governments of their own. Charles
n . had no reason to love the New Englanders, and the two
settlements were at his mercy. Yet their new charters
recognised the system they had set up for themselves, and

534 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
authorised them not merely to elect representative assem
blies but actuaUy to appoint their own governors.
One further feature of the new imperial system which
presents a sharp contrast with the pohcy of France deserves
special emphasis. There was to be complete hberty of
conscience in rehgious matters. The credit for laying down
this principle probably belongs mainly to Shaftesbury and
his friend John Locke. Shaftesbury deeply cared about the
ideal of rehgious toleration, which he had learnt from
Cromwell ; and his policy at home, as well as in the colonies,
was largely influenced by this aim. In an advertisement
intended to attract settlers to the new colony of Carolina
the first place was given to the statement that ' there is fuU
and free liberty of conscience granted.' Even James Duke
of York instructed the Governor of New York that he must
permit ' all persons of all religion soever quietly to inhabit
. . . without giving them any disturbance whatsoever.'
One of the principal grounds of the standing quarrel with
Massachusetts which went on throughout the period was
the demand of the English government that rehgious tolera
tion should be allowed in that colony, and that the franchise
should not be restricted to church members. In view of the
persecution of Dissenters and Roman Catholics which was
going on in England, this insistence upon toleration may
seem difficult to explain. But the persecution in England
was mainly the work of the Cavaher Parliament, and, as we
shall see, government struggled in vain against it.
§ 4. The Establishment of New Colonies.
The work of this remarkable period in the expansion of
English trade and in the creation of new English settlements
abroad was as important as its work in the definition of
imperial policy.
The East India Company entered upon a period of great
prosperity, thanks largely to government encouragement.
It had long since been turned into a regular joint stock com
pany with a large capital. In 1661 the company obtained a
new charter empowering it to coin money, to raise garrisons,^
and to exercise jurisdiction over the inhabitants of its
settlements. And in 1668 the king handed over to the
company the island of Bombay, which had come to him
as part of the dowry of his Portuguese wife. Bombay
was the first territorial possession held by the company in
full sovereignty.

ch. in.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 535
India in this period was beginning to fall into turmoil.
The Mogul Emperor Aurangzib was trying to establish his
direct rule over Southern India, where his predecessors had
never established their supremacy,1 and in the course of
his campaigns he had roused against him the redoubtable
bands of the Mahrattas in the hill country behind Bombay.
Under their daring chief Siyaji they were raiding vast areas
of territory, and already the downfaU of the Mogul empire
was beginning to loom ahead. In this state of things the
Company had to be prepared to defend itself. That was why
it needed garrisons. Its agents showed that they were well
able to hold their own, and even a dim notion of the possi
bility of making territorial acquisitions began to be enter
tained, in the later part of the period, by some of its leaders.
But in spite of these troubles — the Company was at open
war with the Mogul empire in 1686 — its trade was so active
that its shares sold at a premium of 500 per cent.
Again, an attempt was made to organise the African trade,
under a company formed by royal charter in 1662 and re
constructed in 1672. Its main business was the iniquit
ous supply of slaves ; it monopohsed the supply of slaves to
all the Enghsh colonies, and for that purpose maintained
trading ports on the Gambia and on the Gold Coast.2 No ,
one had yet begun to feel any -sense of shame about this
iniquitous traffic, in which all nations shared : without a
supply of slave labour the sugar, cotton and tobacco plan
tations of the West Indies and of North America could
scarcely have been carried on, and men still cozened them
selves into the behef that it was a boon to the negroes to be
brought under civilising influences.
In the West Indies the development of the English islands
received constant attention from the Privy Council ; and
in spite of the damage done in the French war of 1666-7,
this was a period of steady development. The Leeward
Islands were given a distinct government ; and the Bahama
Islands were colonised. Towards the buccaneers the English
government foUowed a wavering policy. The traditions of
" Drake seemed in some degree to protect them, and the noto
rious Morgan was for a time actuaUy appointed Governor of
Jamaica. But on the whole the tendency was to repudiate
them. Their nefarious activities were in fact interfering
with the growth of the valuable trade of the islands, which
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 59.
8 See the map of West Africa, Atlas, Plate 64 (c).

536 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
was to become in the next century the most lucrative traffic
in the world.
But it was to the continent of North America that the
energy of the English government, as of the French, was
mainly turned ; and this period saw the sporadic and dis
connected settlements of the first half of the century trans
formed into a continuous line of thriving and populous
States.1 In 1663 a patent was issued to Clarendon, Shaftes
bury, Monk and others empowering them to found a colony to
the south of Virginia, under the name of Carolina. The plan
of the colony was drawn up with the utmost care, and John
Locke, the greatest political philosopher of the age, was asked
to devise its constitution. This constitution was far too
elaborate to be carried into effect in detail ; but the fact
that Locke was asked to draw it up showed how seriously the
work of colonisation was regarded. Carolina soon broke
into two distinct settlements, of which the southern (with
its capital at Charleston) became the most orderly and
prosperous. Both depended upon slave labour ; and both
had the universal system of an elected assembly with a
governor and council.
In the next year, 1664, an attack was directed against the
Dutch settlement of the New Netherlands ; 2 and, as the
Dutch had earlier conquered the Swedish settlements on the
Delaware, their overthrow meant that the whole coastline
between New England and Virginia passed into Enghsh
hands. This attack was one of the immediate causes of
Charles ii.'s first Dutch war, which was essentiaUy the out
come of the intense commercial rivalry of the two nations ;
and when peace was made (1667) the whole of this valuable
area became permanently an English possession. The im
portance of this acquisition can scarcely be exaggerated.
Not only did it unite the northern with the southern colonies,
but it gave control over the all-important hne of the Hudson
river,8 a deep cleft through the hiUs, which formed trie main
line of communication with French Canada, as it still is
to-day ; while the tributary valley of the Mohawk, coming
in from the west, afforded the only clear passage through
the mountain belt south of trie St. Lawrence, and therefore
gave access to the Great Lakes and the central plain. The
French had long since realised the importance of this great
1 For -what follows see the general map of the colonisation of North
America, Atlas, Plate 54 (a).
2 See the map of the Middle Colonies, Atlas, Plate 54 (c).
3 See the special map of the Hudson Valley, Atlas, 56 (a).

ch. in.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 537
waterway. They already possessed the northern part of it,
as far as Lake Champlain, and had dreamed of acquiring
the rest, and so spritting the Enghsh colonies into two
blocks. Some of the fiercest fighting of the next century
took place along this line. What is more, the posses
sion of the Hudson VaUey brought the English into
contact with the Iroquois, the best organised as well as
the fiercest of the Indian tribes, whose chief centres were
along the line of the Mohawk river. Friendly relations
were early estabhshed with the Iroquois, who formed a
useful check to the French ; and the headquarters for
negotiations with the Indian tribes came to be the Dutch
trading post of Orange, near the junction of the Mohawk
and the Hudson, which was now renamed Albany.
The area conquered from the Dutch was granted to the
Duke of York, from whom came the name of the State of New
York. At New York itself (formerly New Amsterdam) and in
the Hudson Valley were settled a mixture of many European
peoples, among whom, of course, trie Dutcri predominated ;
but Enghsh settlers, mostly immigrants from New England,
were almost as numerous as the Dutch, and this largely
accounted for the ease with which the colony was con
quered, and the readiness with which it accommodated
itself to the new regime. It is noteworthy that this settle
ment was the first in which the British system had to deal
with conquered subjects of European stock. Perhaps this
was the reason why the establishment of representative
institutions was delayed until 1683. But local self-govern
ment was set up immediately ; and the Dutch found that
their own usages were not interfered with, and that no
attempt was made to force them into an Enghsh mould.
Within twenty years they had obtained a system of self-
government such as the Dutch company had never aUowed
to them, and the colony, freed from friction with its neigh
bour, entered upon an era of great prosperity.
In the area which extended from the Hudson to Delaware
Bay the Duke of York made large grants to Sir George
Carteret and others, who estabhshed here a new colony to
which they gave the name of New Jersey : it was at first
divided into two . Into this colony large numbers of Quakers
were admitted — they still form a substantial element of the
population of parts of this country — and here they enjoyed
complete religious toleration and the usual self-governing
rights. On the other side of Delaware Bay lay the land in which

538 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
the Swedes had principaUy settled, though they had never
been numerous. This region, for a time, the Duke of York
retained under his own control ; it was later to be attached
for a time to Pennsylvania, but was ultimately to become
the httle colony of Delaware. In aU these new areas the
English found themselves faced by the task of governing
European settlers of different races from their own. No
serious difficulty was felt : the practice of local self-govern
ment made the task easy.
Behind New Jersey lay a rich and fertile region on the
far side of the river Potomac. Here, in 1681, WiUiam Penn,
the Quaker, got a huge grant of land from Charles 11. in
payment of a debt due to Penn's father, the admiral who
had conquered Jamaica. Penn had already been concerned
in the settlement of Quakers in the neighbouring region of
New Jersey. He now set himself to organise a new settle-
merit, freely open to all comers, which, under his benevolent
guidance, came very soon to be known as the freest and
most liberal of all the colonies, and attracted so great a
stream of immigrants that, though it was the latest of the
series, it soon began to take rank with Massachusetts and
Virginia, the oldest and strongest of them aU. Penn's
colony, to which he gave the name of Pennsylvania, was
distinguished by its honourable and generous treatment of
the Indian tribes with which it had to deal, and by its un
willingness to take part in any warlike enterprises. Its
capital, Philadelphia (' brotherly love '), on the banks of the
Potomac, was the first town in the modern world to be laid
out on a systematic and orderly plan.
The completion of the settlement and organisation of the
American coast from Maine to South Carolina did not
exhaust the activity of this enterprising age. In 1670 two
daring French coureurs-de-bois, having quarrelled with the
Governor of French Canada, suggested the foundation of a
company to develop a fur trade in the wild country north of
the French colonies, approachable from Hudson's Bay. A
charter was granted to a new Hudson's Bay Company with^
Prince Rupert as its governor, and from that time onwards
there was always a trade going on in the vast region which
came to be known as Prince Rupert's Land, though the French
claimed that this trade was illegitimate. Here was appear
ing another ground of quarrel with the French.
The result of the systematic and strenuous work of the
five and twenty years following the Restoration was that
the English lands in North America were consolidated and

ch. in.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 539
organised, and were far better able to resist attack or to
undertake further expansion than they had been when
Charles 11. came to the throne. Not only was their trade
expanding, but they had become the natural place of refuge
for men desiring a new home, whether they came from
England or from other lands. Persecuted French Hugue
nots, Germans driven out by the severities of the Archbishop
of Salzburg or by the ruin and devastation of the Palatinate
which was one of the results of Louis xiv.'s wars, naturally
turned to these free lands of the New World, where a religious
toleration existed such as was known nowhere else, and
where free men had a unique opportunity of sharing in the
control of their own destinies. Already the British Common
wealth was a famUy of free States, like nothing else that had
ever existed in the world.

§ 5. A Period of Friction.
During the first twenty years of Charles n. a great trans
formation had thus taken place in the Enghsh empire. The
Atlantic seaboard from Maine to South Carolina was con
tinuously Enghsh. A clearly defined economic pohcy for
the empire as a whole had been laid down. The system of
local self-government and rehgious toleration had become
generaUy characteristic of the English colonies, both on the
mainland and in the West Indies. And, at headquarters,
the Committees of the Privy Council (especiaUy as re
organised in 1675) had provided something hke a central
machinery of government, issuing instructions to governors
in aU trie colonies.
But there were manifest defects in the system. In the
first place, the governors could not always be trusted to
act as agents for the central power ; and tins was especiaUy
true in New England, where the governors were appointed
by the colonists themselves. In the second place, the new
economic system was widely disregarded, and the restric
tions of the Navigation Acts were openly defied. This also
was especially the case in New England : repprts submitted
by a very able agent, Edward Randolph, who was sent
across , to study the situation, drew a gloomy picture of
New England's defiant attitude. Finally, triere was no
common organisation for the colonies as a whole, and no
provision for the common defence. This was especiaUy
serious in the northern colonies, where men were already
beginning to be perturbed by the possibility of a French

540 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
attack : the French were claiming ownership of the Iroquois
country, which would have brought them into dangerous
proximity to New England and New York. Influenced by
these considerations, Charles n. and James n. proposed
(largely on the advice of Randolph) to undertake a pohcy
of increased centrahsation in America.
There was much to be said in favour of such a pohcy,
if it could be effected without an invasion of colonial hberties.
But the date at which the new pohcy was undertaken was
ominous. In 1681, as we shaU see, Charles 11. had prac
tically estabhshed absolute power in England ; and he was
busily engaged in revising borough charters in order to get
control over Parhament. The same high-handed methods
were adopted with the colonies. Massachusetts was required,
on a plea of quo warranto, to show cause why its charter
should not be annuUed, and after a judicial inquiry, the
charter was canceUed. The charters of the other New Eng
land colonies and of New Jersey were hkewise threatened.
Even Massachusetts submitted with extraordinary mild
ness. James 11. next proceeded to set up a single general
government for the whole region from the Delaware to
Maine, under a single governor, Sir Edmund Andros, whose
task was to unify the colonies and organise the enforcement
of the trade laws.
How this pohcy would have been worked out in detaU,
and what relation would have been estabhshed between
the individual colonies and the new central authority, was
never displayed ; for before Andros was weU in the saddle,
before a new charter had been granted to Massachusetts,
and before the old charters of the other colonies had even
been canceUed, the proceedings were interrupted by the
Revolution of 1688. But, judging by his other actions,
it is safe to assume that the methods of James 11. would
have been high-handed and tyrannical, and that the hberties
of the colonies would have been gravely impaired. Cer
tainly the proceedings of James 11. and of Andros went far
beyond anything that was ever dreamt of by George in.
and his advisers. This makes the submissiveness of the
colonies aU the more surprising : it is, indeed, only explic
able on the assumption that the need for some co-ordination
of colonial government was widely felt.
The Revolution put a stop to this. But in doing so it
almost certainly prevented a breach in that tradition of
self-government which had hitherto been the most dis
tinctive feature of the English colonial system. Indeed,

ch. in.] RIVAL COLONIAL EMPIRES 541
the events of this last period in the great colonial age of
the Restoration showed that the Revolution itself, and
the constitutional struggle which led up to it, were as
important to the colonies as they were to the islands.
They showed that the pohtical hberties in which the colonies
rejoiced, and in which they were almost unique among the
States of the world, were ultimately dependent upon the
maintenance and extension of free institutions in the
mother country.
They were dependent also upon something else. The
absolutist pohcy of James in England and in the colonies
rested upon the support of Louis xiv. of France: under Louis'
direction absolutism was already triumphant in Canada,
whence it threatened the divided colonies. That danger
had to be averted : not only the triumph of pohtical hberty
in England, but the defeat of absolutism in the New World,
was necessary if trie character of freedom which the British
Commonwealth had already achieved was to be made per
manent. On every ground the Revolution of 1688 was an
event of moment to the whole Commonwealth.
[Payne's European Colonies ; C. M. Andrews' The Colonial
Period ; Grant's History of Canada ; Abbott's Expansion of Europe ;
Egerton's British Colonial Policy ; Lucas' Historical Geography of
the British Colonies ; Parkman's La Salle, The Old Rigime in Canada,
and Count Frontenac ; Doyle's English in America ; G. L. Beer's Old
Colonial System; Hertz's Old Colonial System; Christie's Life of
Shaftesbury ; Channing's History of the United States ; Winsor's
Narrative and Critical History of America ; Hunter's British India.
Mahan's Influence of Sea-power on History begins at the Restoration,
and is very important for colonial history.]

CHAPTER IV
THE RISE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND
(a.d. 1660-1688)
§ 1. The First Rudiments of a Cabinet and of Political
Parties : Clarendon, 1660-7.
The reign of Charles n. is sometimes regarded as a period of
political reaction, when monarchy regained much of its old
prestige and power, and when the doctrines of Divine Right
and Passive Obedience were not only accepted in theory
but acted upon. That is a very misleading view. Only at
the end of the reign, and during the short reign of James 11.,
was there a serious attempt at absolute government. The
greater part of the reign of Charles n. was a period of real
constitutional progress, in which Parhament, strongly
royalist though it was in sentiment, added greatly to its own
powers, and made good its claim to a decisive voice in the
main questions of national pohcy.
The period also saw a real, though unconscious, advance
towards the creation of the machinery by which the control
of Parliament over the government could be made effective.
In the long run this machinery was to consist of the
conduct of affairs by a small cabinet of responsible
ministers, drawn from the party which had a majority in
the House of Commons. But before that could happen,
there had to be a coherent group of ministers forming a
cabinet and acting together ; there had to be organised
political parties ; and it had to be recognised that Parlia
ment must be consulted not only about legislation and
taxation, but about all important questions of national
policy. In all these respects the reign of Charles n. saw a
great advance. The nature of the advance can best be
observed by tracing the successive periods into which the
reign falls.
The first period, 1660-1667, was the period during which
Clarendon was the dominant figure. But he was not the
only minister. There was a little group whom the king
specially consulted, since the Privy Council was now too
512

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 543
big and too varied in character to deal with confidential
business ; but, as there was no real agreement among the
members of this group, some of whom were perpetually
intriguing against Clarendon, they can at most be described
as the rudiments or outline of a ' Cabinet.'
Clarendon's attitude, both in politics and religion, was
closely in accord with that of the majority in Parhament.
Yet even he would probably not have wished to go so far as
Parhament in persecuting the Puritans (or, as they should
henceforward be caUed, the Dissenters) ; and the king
himself, who was pledged to a policy of toleration, and would
have hked to deal leniently with the Catholics, as weU as
some of his lesser advisers hke Buckingham and Ashley,
who had Dissenting sympathies, would certainly have
followed a different pohcy had they been free to do so. The
pohcy of rehgious persecution, whatever we may think of it,
j was due to Parliament and showed that Parliament intended
'' to have the deciding voice upon religious questions, which
the Tudors and the early Stewarts had always held to be
speciaUy within the sphere of the Crown. At the end of
1662 and in 1663 the king tried to get an Act passed aUow
ing him to dispense with the Act of Uniformity and other
Acts. Not only was it thrown out, but Parliament adopted
its severest measures against the Dissenters — the Conven
ticle Act and the Five Mile Act — as if in direct reply to the
king's attempt.
Again, foreign policy had always been held to belong
peculiarly to the king and his ministers, and Clarendon
shared this view. But Parliament insisted upon being
consulted ; and throughout the whole period foreign affairs
continually influenced domestic politics. Parliament was
indignant at the sale of Dunkirk to France in 1662 — in
itself a wise act. While it did not at first oppose the first
Dutch war, it attached an ' appropriation clause ' to its money
grants, as a means of making sure that the money was spent
for the purposes for which it was voted ; and this device, which
greatly increased the power of Parliament, became a regular
practice. When the Dutch war began to go wrong, and
stories of mismanagement leaked out, the Cavalier Parlia
ment was as bold in its attack upon Clarendon as the early
Parhaments of Charles 1. had been in their attacks upon
Buckingham, and it was far more successful. It impeached
Clarendon (1667) — only seven years after the Restoration — ~r
and forced him to go into banishment ; and though Charles
was not sorry to be rid of the stiff and formal minister

544 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
whose upright industry was a perpetual rebuke to himself,
the blow to the royal power was none the less severe.
Finally, even when Clarendon had fallen, Parhament still
insisted upon inquiring into the way in which its large
grants had been spent. Nor would it vote enough to clear
the spendthrift king from his financial embarrassments ;
though he was deep in debt to the London bankers, and had (
to spend a large part of his revenue in interest on his loans.
There had indeed grown up during the Clarendon period a
definite opposition. It was known as the Country Party,-,
and it had its own recognised leaders, notably Sir W. Coven
try, whose father had been one of Charles i.'s most faithful
servants . The steady supporters of government were known
as the Court Party. Thus the rudiments of organised parties
were appearing.

§ 2. The Cabal : Religious Toleration, Secret Dealings with
France, and Parliamentary Opposition, 1667-73.
In the next period (1667-1673), sick of the High Church^
Cavahers, who had proved so much less submissive than he
had hoped, Charles entrusted the main conduct of affairs to
a group of men of quite a different character : the change
was so great as almost to resemble a modern change of
ministry. By a curious coincidence, the initials of the five
chief members of this group spelt the word ' Cabal,' for
which reason the name has always been speciaUy attached
to this ministry. All five were alike in favouring a policy
of rehgious toleration : Clifford and Arlington (to whom"\
Charles gave his fullest confidence), because they were secretly
Cathohcs; Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale because
they had connexions with the Dissenters. Ashley (after
wards Earl of Shaftesbury),1 who was much the ablest of
the group, was an old CromweUian, and a genuine behever
in toleration, for its own sake ; and he had given his ardent
support to the king's attempt to relax the penal laws in
1662-3. At first the new government won popularity by joining
with the Dutch and the Swedes in the Triple Alliance, which
helped to persuade Louis xiv. to stop his aggressions in the
Netherlands.2 But soon their foreign pohcy began to veer
round. Louis xiv. was eager to break up the Triple AUiance
in order to wreak vengeance on the Dutch, and wanted to
1 There is a short hfe of Shaftesbury by H. D. Traill.
2 See above, Chap. ii. p. 509.

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 545
buy England over. Charles, tired of his money difficulties
with Parhament, was very ready to be bought. He was
ready even to attempt the introduction of Roman Catholi
cism into England, with the aid of France, since he regarded
the Roman faith as favourable to monarchical power.
On this basis secret negotiations were opened with France
in 1669, and they led to the secret treaty of Dover in 1670,
whereby, in return for large French subsidies, Charles
promised to join Louis in attacking the Dutch, and to
declare himself a Cathohc at a suitable moment. This
monstrous and dishonourable conspiracy could not safely be
communicated to the Protestant members of the Cabal ; it
was known only to Clifford and Arlington, who alone signed
the secret treaty. But as the aUiance with France and the
receipt of French subsidies would have to be explained, a
second and sham treaty was started, in which Buckingham
and Ashley were led to believe that they were fully consulted.
Ashley, deeply interested in trade and colonies, was not
unwilling to profit by the ruin of the Dutch, and as he desired
to grant a toleration to the Nonconformists, to which Parlia
ment would never agree, he was ready to accept French
subsidies towards the cost of the war and thus free the Crown
to suspend the persecuting laws. So the sham treaty was
solemnly signed by the whole Cabal in 1671, and it was
agreed to attack the Dutch in 1672. But as a pohcy of this
kind could not succeed without some pubhc support, Charles
conceived the idea of winning over the Dissenters by grant
ing them toleration by an exercise of the royal authority,
in defiance of Parhament. Ashley and those who thought
with him were not unwilling to admit of this extension of
royal authority as the only means of obtaining toleration.
Protestantism and Enghsh pohtical hberty were thus simul
taneously endangered ; and the Dissenters and their friends
were to be used as tools for their overthrow.
Two events prepared the way for the sudden change of
pohcy which had thus been prepared. , One was what is
caUed the Stop of the Exchequer (January 1672), whereby^
Charles suddenly suspended the repayment of his loans from
the London bankers, though he still paid interest. Ashley
vainly protested against this dishonest folly, which made
it impossible for the bankers to meet their obhgations to
those who had deposited money with them, drove manyjof
them into bankruptcy, dislocated the trade of London for
a time, and made the new pohcy highly unpopular. The
second preparatory act was the issue by proclamation of
vol. 1. 2 M

546 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
' a Declaration of Indulgence, whereby the king, in virtue
of his ' supreme power in ecclesiastical matters,' suspended
all the penal laws. During the next year a multitude of
Dissenting places of worship were licensed, and both Roman
Cathohcs and Protestant Dissenters enjoyed a brief interval
of freedom. But it was freedom bought by the disregard
of the laws : the laws might be unjust, but they were stiU'
laws. It remained to be seen whether by such means it
would be possible to win for the royal power the support of
men who had executed a king for less daring disregard of
the laws of the land.
At first the Dissenters seemed to be willing to profit by the
Indulgence ; and so far the conspiracy was going weU. But
everything depended on the success of the war, which was to
win popularity for the new pohcy, and fiU the Treasury with
the plunder of Dutch commerce. And from the first the war
went badly.1 The Dutch (who, though they knew it not,
were fighting for the pohtical liberties of England as weU as
for their own) foughtwith such desperate heroism on sea, while
Louis' armies threatened their very existence on land, that
they held the English fleet at bay far more successfully than
in either of the previous Dutch wars. The plunder that
was to be got from Dutch commerce was not forthcoming.
Within a year the king was financially as much embarrassed
as ever, in spite of French subsidies ; nor was it easy to
borrow money after the Stop of the Exchequer. There was
no help for it : Parliament had to be summoned (1673). v
It was still the same Parliament which had been elected
in 1661, in the first flush of enthusiasm over the restoration
of the monarchy. But its spirit in 1673 was very different
from that of 1661. The members met in high indignation.
They acutely resented the Dutch war, aU the more because
it was unsuccessful. They feared France, and suspected
that the king was unduly subservient to that power. But
above aU they were indignant at the Declaration of Indul
gence. Not only was it a repudiation of their dehberate
policy against the Dissenters. Far more serious, they began
to suspect that its real purpose was to favour Roman"
Catholicism. Whispers of the secret treaty of Dover began
to leak out. Ashley (now Earl of Shaftesbury) heard how^
he had been duped, and, being dismissed from office, threw
his great ability on to the side of the opposition, vowing ''
vengeance against the king. Most serious of all, the Declara
tion of Indulgence implied the assertion that the king was
1 See above, Chap. ii. p. 514.

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 547
above the laws, and need only carry into effect such as pleased
him. If that were so, if the Crown really possessed such a
suspending power, of what value was the legislative function
of Parhament ? It is noteworthy that the friends of the
Dissenters in Parhament (and there were a good many)
were quite as resolute as the Cavahers in their resistance to
these unconstitutional claims as well as in their fears of
Roman Catholicism. This led to a certain reconcihation ; and
a biU for the rehef of the Protestant Dissenters was actuaUy
carried through the House of Commons, though the Bishops
secured its rejection in the House of Lords. By taking up
a truly constitutional attitude, the persecuted Dissenters
were preparing for a real toleration, a toleration based upon
consent and not merely upon authority.
Charles saw before him, if he resisted, the possibihty of
having ' to go on his travels again.' He yielded completely.
He withdrew the Declaration. He gave his consent to a
Test Act, whose purpose was to exclude Roman Cathohcs
from all pubhc offices by requiring officials to take the
Anghcan sacrament and repudiate the doctrine of Trans-
substantiation. The Duke of York and Sir Thomas Clifford
both retired rather than take the Test, and so confessed
themselves Cathohcs and intensified men's fears. The fears
were further increased when, during the actual session of
Parhament, James married as his second wife a Roman j
Cathohc princess, Mary of Modena. His first wife, a daughter '
of Clarendon, had been a Protestant. But she had borne
him only daughters. If he should now have a son, the
prospect of an indefinite succession of Catholic kings opened
before the nation. In that case, could the royal authority
safely be aUowed to retain its present strength ? Even
staunch Cavahers began to doubt.
§ 3. Danby and the Organisation of Political Parties, 1673-78.
The storm of 1673 had swept away the Cabal, and for the
time being wrecked the great conspiracy. Charles recog
nised that he must bring his government into accord with
the sentiments of Parhament, and therefore took as his chief
minister a sound Cavalier churchman, Sir Thomas Osborne,
soon to become Earl of Danby. That in itself was a signifi
cant thing : it was a recognition that no minister could
safely be employed who could not command the confidence
of 'Parhament. But distrust was now so deeply rooted that
even Danby had unceasing trouble with Parliament.

548 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
The third period of the reign was occupied by Danby's
skUful attempt to re-estabhsh the royal authority by building
up once more what may be caUed the ' Church-and-King '
party. The Dutch war was brought to an end (1674) ; and
in order to show that the king's foreign policy was not
unduly subservient to France, the Princess Mary, heir-'
presumptive to the Crown, was married to William of
Orange, Louis' bitterest enemy (1677). Danby would have'
been glad to break free from France altogether. But
Charles would not permit him to do so, and forced him in
1675 to sign a new secret treaty whereby he promised to
preserve English neutrality in return for subsidies. With
the fear of Parhament before his eyes, Danby noted on the
treaty that he signed it only by the King's express command.
It was a sign of the importance of Parliament, and of the
impossibility of carrying on government without its approval,
that Danby should have found it necessary to organise a
body of steady supporters in the House of Commons to-
vote for government measures. In doing so he may be
described as the first party organiser, and the party which
he organised was that to which the nickname of ' Tory '
was soon to be apphed. But he was not alone in doing
triis. On the other side the astute and subtle Shaftesbury
was busy on the same task — creating an opposition party,
whose members took counsel together as to the line they
should follow in public affairs. This was the beginning of
what was soon to be known as the ' Whig ' party.
The ideas for which the two parties stood were made clearer
by the very fact of their opposition. They became steadily
more definite during the course of the fierce and exciting
struggle that was soon to begin. Danby's party stood for
Church and King, for the maintenance of authority as of
divine ordinance, for the duty of obedience as the first duty
of aU good citizens ; but their difficulty was that (as recent
events had already shown, and future events were stUl
more clearly to show) their twin loyalties, to Church and
to King, could not always be reconcUed. Shaftesbury's
party on the whole stood for the supremacy of Law over aU
authority, including that of the king, and of Parliament as the
maker of the law, and the direct mouthpiece of the nation.
They paid no special veneration to the royal office as such ;
they tended to regard the king as only the first official of
the nation. Some of them were, in private, republicans in
principle, though they dared not say so openly. In religious
matters they professed no desire to alter the position or

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 549
constitution of the Church ; but they wished to keep it in
subordination to the State, and they were in favour of
toleration for the Dissenters. They were already beginning
to develop a theory of government as the expression of
their views, and John Locke, the friend of Shaftesbury,
was to be the philosopher of hmited or constitutional
monarchy. But as yet they made no open profession of'
these doctrines. They were content to play upon the fear
of Rome and the distrust of the Cathohc Duke of York,
which even Danby and his foUowers shared.
The growing opposition of the two parties broke into
violent hostility in 1678, when a number of circumstances
combined to raise the pohtical temperature. In the first
place the infamous Titus Oates turned up from the continent
during the summer recess of Parhament with a story of a
Jesuit plot to murder the king in order that the Duke of
York might succeed to the throne. The duke had been an
avowed Cathohc for two years, and Oates charged his con
fessor with being a party to the plot. The story of the plot
got abroad. It was eagerly believed by the heated imagina
tions of the time. The whole nation went mad ; juries
were prepared to hang the most innocent Catholics on the
most flimsy evidence, and Oates was soon reinforced by
other perjurers, ready to swear to anything. It was a
cowardly panic, of which the nation had reason to be ashamed,
and which responsible men should have done their best to
aUay. But when Parhament met, the temptation to Shaftes
bury and his friends to make use of the Popish Plot in their
attack on the Duke of York and the government was too
strong to be resisted.
Another series of events helped to produce a storm.
WiUiam of Orange had come over for his marriage in 1677,
and there had been talk of an aUiance between England and
the Dutch. Danby was in favour of it ; the king was not
unwilling to let Louis xiv. see that he was not an absolute
captive. Louis on his side resolved that Charles must be
taught not to play fast-and-loose with his patron, and, to
give him a frigrit, Louis let Shaftesbury and his friends v-
know of the secret treaty of 1675.
Here was a magnificent ground of attack. These revela
tions, together with the universal excitement created by the
stories of the Popish Plot, cut the ground from under Danby's
feet. He was formaUy impeached. When he defended him- **
self by stating that he had signed the French treaty by the
king's express command, Parhament replied that this did

550 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
not exonerate him. That is to say, in certain circumstances
it was the duty of a minister to disobey the express com
mands of the king ! The State in which such a rule holds
is anything but an absolute monarchy. Charles only saved
Danby by first proroguing and then dissolving Parliament
(January 1679). Thus ended, in furious opposition to the
Crown, the Parliament which had been elected in a paroxysm
of loyalty in 1661.
§ 4. Violent Party Conflict, 1679-81.
With the dissolution of the Long Parhament of the
Restoration began the fourth period of the reign, nearly
three years of furious party strife, during which the country
seemed to be on the verge of civil war. The supreme
subject of controversy was the Exclusion BiU, a proposal
to exclude the Duke of York from the throne, which was the
outcome of the excitement created by the stories of the
Popish Plot. No less than three general elections (1679,)
1680, 1681) were held during these three years, and the
three Parliaments were so busy with controversy that they
were only able to achieve one measure of permanent value
¦ — the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which pxpjribited delays
in the issue of the ancient writ of Habeas Corpus, and thus
strengthened the safeguards against imprisonment without
trial which Magna Carta had begun and the Petition of
Right had improved. But there was no new principle in
volved in the Act ; and apart from it the record of these
years is a record of barren strife, ending in a violent reaction
which brought English political liberties for a time into grave
peril. The main lesson of this period was that violent and
overbearing partisanship on the part of a majority is in trie
end self-defeating. The opponents of the monarchy so
alienated public opinion by their rancour that for a time
they ruined themselves and the cause for which they fought.
It is needless to foUow this fierce conflict in detail. But
certain aspects of it deserve our attention. One of them
was the attempt to find a new way of carrying on the
government in concert with Parliament. The Parliament
of 1679 insisted upon driving Danby out of power, and he
was actuaUy imprisoned in the Tower for five years. Then
a new experiment was tried on the suggestion of Sir W.
Temple. The secret Cabinet, or conclave of a group of
ministers, was to be done away with ; some men attributed
to this method aU sorts of evil results. The Privv

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 551
Council was to be made once more the active centre of
government ; but it was to be reduced in size, and composed
of fifteen ,king's men and fifteen parhamentary leaders.
This was at least an attempt to bring government into
relation with Parhament. But it was a total failure.
Government can only be carried on by a group of men who
understand and trust one another, who have principles in
common and the habit of acting together : that is the real
justification for fUling governments with men of the same
pohtical views. A body consisting of men violently hostile
to one another could not possibly work.
The second feature of the struggle was the mischievous
results which followed from the fact that all the attention
of Parhament was concentrated upon one issue, so that it
could spare no attention for any other. This was a period
of great importance in foreign affairs : Louis xiv. was be
ginning his high-handed annexations of territory under legal
forms which are known as the Reunions.1 Even Charles 11.
was disturbed, and was ready to make an aUiance with the
Dutch, the Emperor and Spain to check these aggressions,
provided that Parliament would give him enough money
to free him from dependence upon Louis xiv. Had such
an aUiance been made, it is possible that the long wars which
foUowed might have been avoided. But Parliament refused
to vote a penny unless and until the king accepted the
Exclusion BiU. It refused even to vote money for the ,
defence of Tangier, which was hard-pressed, and had to be
evacuated in 1683.
Nothing was to be considered but the Exclusion Bill,
which was introduced in each of the three Parliaments, and
led in turn to the dissolution of each. No other means of
dealing with the problem would even be considered. The
Earl of Halifax, who was no friend of the Duke of York and
was almost a repubhcan in sentiment, but who knew that
exclusion would probably mean civil war, advocated a
pohcy of stringently limiting the royal authority during the
tenure of the throne by a Roman Catholic. But Shaftesbury
and his friends would have none of this. And when, in the
Parhament of 1680, Halifax's eloquence persuaded the
Lords to reject the Exclusion BiU, the Commons, wild with
anger, demanded that he should be removed from the king's
councils for ever. In 1681 Charles even offered to agree that,
provided his brother were allowed to succeed to the royal
title, aU his powers should be exercised by a regent. That \
1 See above, Book v. chap. ii. p. 518.

552 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
device also was scouted : the majority in the Commons
would have their own way in every detail. By this in
sistence they put themselves in the wrong in the eyes of
moderate men.
They put themselves still further in the wrong by putting
forward the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of
Charles il, as their candidate for the succession. If James
were to be excluded, the next heir in the right line would
be his daughter Mary, the wife of WiUiam of Orange, who
was a sound Protestant and the bitterest foe of Louis xiv.
Why did Shaftesbury and his friends advocate a course
which involved the exclusion of Wilham of Orange ? Partly i
because they did not want England to be ruled by a foreigner,
and feared "the subordination of English trade interests to '
those of the Dutch, and partly because they distrusted WiUiam
as a friend of Danby ; but their main reason was the hope
that Monmouth, just because of the weakness of his title,
would be the more easily controUed : ' the weaker the title,
the better the king,' as one of their pamphleteers said.
They wanted no more of inherited Divine Right. But in
taking this line they undoubtedly outraged a great body of
opinion. Monmouth's succession would inevitably have led
to civil war. He was, it is true, popular with the crowds,
for he was a good-looking young man. But the notion of
the succession of a bastard outraged the belief, which was
unquestionably held by a great part of the nation, that a
sort of divine power passed from king to king by hereditary
succession. That belief may seem uninteUigible to us, but
it was real, and it was one of the factors which impatient
reformers had to take into account. It showed itself in
a striking way in the all but universal behef that the king
could cure certain diseases by touching the sufferers. AU the
Stewarts ' touched for the king's evil,' and it is significant
that Queen Anne, the last in the direct line, was the last to
follow the time-honoured practice. A sentiment so irrational
but so deep was not to be lightly disregarded ; it could not be
disposed of by faked-up stories, which few beheved, about
Charles ii.'s secret marriage to Monmouth's mother.
The Exclusionists put themselves still further in the
wrong by the rancour and violence with which they pursued
their cause, and especiaUy by the use they "made of the
Popish Plot. The nation had for a time gone mad about
the plot. But it came to its senses after a while, not without
shame, and those who had hounded it on lost its confidence.
The last victim to lose his life was an old and frail CathoUc

CH. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 553
peer, Lord Stafford. His sentence was due, not to an
ordinary trial, but to an impeachment by the House of
Commons of 1680, the most rancorous of all these Parlia
ments. His execution in December 1680 marked the end of
the shameful fever, and Charles 11. was shrewd enough to
see that the tide was turning.
But the outstanding feature of the period was the fierce
ness of the controversy about exclusion, not only in Parlia
ment, where such violence of language was used as to make
aU men feel that civil war was coming, but also at the
repeated elections aU over the country, and in the press.
The Licensing Act x had expired in 1679 ; Parhament did not
renew it, and this rendered possible an extraordinary out
burst of pamphleteering. Only one of the products of the
period is stiU read and still worth reading : Dryden's great
satire, Absalom and Achitophel, the most brilliant of aU
Enghsh satires, which scarified Shaftesbury and his
coUeagues with venomous point. It was very widely read,
and helped greatly to forward the reaction. It came at
the end of the struggle ; until then the most vigorous writ
ing had been on the other side. In this feverish controversy
the rival parties were sharply defined, and what is almost
as important, they got names, labels that stuck. Fervid
exclusionists tried to ruin their opponents by caUing them
Tories, after the Roman Cathohc Irish outlaws and highway
robbers. Royahsts responded by nicknaming the exclu-
, sionists Whigs, after the bitter Covenanters of Scotland who
were up in arms against aU constituted authority in Church
and State. These nicknames were to become names of pride.
It is a queer thing that the names of the historic English
pohtical parties came respectively from Ireland and from
Scotland. But as soon as men began to recover from the wild fever
of the Popish Plot, it was inevitable that their acrimonies
should be sobered by the reflection that civil war was actu
aUy in sight. The last civil war was too recent and too weU
within men's memories for its lessons to be so soon forgotten ;
and as this nightmare became more vivid, and obscured the
other and less real nightmare of the Popish Plot, many men
who had been carried off their feet began to reflect that the
maintenance of peace and order was the first of all national
needs, and that for this purpose a strong government was
essential. Hence the reaction towards a royalist view was
i rapid. It was not, indeed, reflected in Parliament ; mainly
1 See above, Chap. i. p. 498.

554 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
because four-fifths of the members of the House of Commons
were elected by the boroughs, where Puritan sentiment was
strongest. But it was none the less real. It affected mo
derate minds like Halifax, who called himself a ' Trimmer'
between the frenzies on either side, but who was ready to
support the king now, as the only safeguard against civil
war. And Charles, knowing by instinct how the current of
opinion was going, seized his chance, dissolved the Parha
ment of 1681, and summoned no other during the four years
which remained of his hfe and reign.
In doing this he was deliberately flouting the Triennial
Act, which provided that Parhament should meet every
three years at least. But it shows the danger of extreme
-violence that this aroused httle resentment : Parhament
was beginning to be regarded as a dangerous body. Nor
did public opinion very strongly object when Charles went
on to take vengeance against the Whig leaders. Most of
the more prominent among them took flight to Holland, in
cluding Shaftesbury (who died there) and Monmouth. A
knot of the more desperate actuaUy formed a plot (the
Ryehouse Plot) to seize the king and the Duke of York.
The real leaders of the party had no knowledge of these
desperate devices, though they had undoubtedly held
meetings at which they had discussed the possibihty of
resistance. But the plot was used as an excuse for the trial
of some of the best of them for high treason, and Lord
Russell, a son of the Earl of Bedford and a very honest man,
and Algernon Sidney, an old Repubhcan of the CromweUian
time, were both executed. They came to be regarded as
the stainless martyrs of Whiggism ; and a cause' that can
count martyrs is thereby ennobled and strengthened.

§ 5. Triumphant Reaction and the Disregard of Laws,
1681-88.
In the last years of his life Charles was indeed — thanks
to the extravagant violence of his opponents — very nearly
an absolute monarch, though he stiU had to depend upon-
Louis xiv. for funds, and dared not raise taxes by unparlia
mentary means. He was strong enough to make prepara
tions for summoning a new Parliament that would be more
amenable, by calling in the charters of most of the boroughs,
which had returned the bulk of his opponents, and revising
them in such a way as to ensure that his own partisans would
control their government and the election of their represen-

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 555
tatives. This was a very high-handed, but also a very
effectual, mode of dealing with parliamentary opposition
at the roots. It was not completed in time for Charles
himself to meet a doctored Parliament, for he died in 1685,
having triumphantly avoided the necessity of going on his
travels again, and having even undone much of the pro
gress which Parliament had made during his reign. His
success was due quite as much to the partisan violence
of his opponents as to his own patience, resourcefulness,
and astuteness. It is impossible not to admire the
rogue. His successor, James il, whose chance of succeeding to
the unimpaired authority of the Crown had seemed five
years earlier to be exceedingly remote, actually began his
reign with a more secure and unchaUenged power than any
sovereign since James 1. Parhament, successfully doctored
by the revision of the charters, and still under the influence
of the lessons of 1680 and 1681, was called immediately
after his accession. It voted him for life a revenue of un-
paraUeled magnitude, and showed itself in almost all ways
amenable ; yet even this Parliament refused to repeal the
Test Act against Cathohcs when its Catholic sovereign
asked it, and had to be dissolved after two sessions. Not
only the general submissiveness of Parliament, but every
other factor in the political situation seemed to be favourable
to a restoration of royal absolutism. _The Bishops and
clergy of the Anghcan Church had been more firmly con
vinced by the events of the last few years of the duty of
Passive Obedience. They were preaching this doctrine to
aU their flocks ; no ruler could have desired a more powerful
support for his authority. Yet even the highest of High
Church clergy owed aUegiance to their Church as weU as to the
Crown. Again, James had in England a substantial regular
army of some 16,000 men which had been gradually built
up by Charles n. — the oldest of the still existing regi
ments belong to this date ; and this force, a force such as
none of his predecessors had ever possessed, ought to
be able to overawe discontented subjects. Scotland
was whoUy cowed by long persecutions, and there was an
army in Scotland too. Ireland might well be enthusiastic
at the succession of a Roman Catholic sovereign, and Ireland
also could supply an army. Moreover the most powerful
monarch in the world, Louis xiv. of France, was the king's
close aUy, ready to support him in establishing his own power
and in restoring Catholicism.

556 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
How complete was James' apparent mastery of the
country was shown by the pitiful failure of two risings which
the Whig exiles in Holland tried to stir up at the opening
of the reign : one led by the Earl of Argyll in Scotland,
the other by James' nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, in
England. Argyll's attempt was whoUy futile, and he was
captured and executed (1685). Monmouth drew to his
standard a number of peasants and yeomen in the west
country when he landed at Torbay (1685). But he had not
from the first the faintest chance of success, and was easily
crushed at Sedgemoor. He himself was executed ; that
was the fortune oTwar. His unhappy foUowers were harried
with a ruthless brutality to which there is happily no parallel
in the modern history of England. The Bloody Assizes in
which Judge Jeffreys wreaked vengeance on the rebels have
left their mark in tradition. Apart from the brutal slaughter
which foUowed Sedgemoor, more than 300 were put to death,
and more than 800 were sent as slaves to the West Indies.
Terror was to prevent any future risings.
Yet within four years of his accession, the king whose
power seemed so firmly established was an exUe and a
fugitive, and the foundations of autocracy which he and
his brother had striven to lay were swept away for ever.
The cause of this was simply that with incredible folly James"^
deliberately broke the aUiance with the English Church and J
the Tory party upon which his power rested ; convinced
everybody beyond a shadow of doubt that both Protestant
ism and the pohtical hberties of England were more gravely
endangered than they had ever been since the Reformation ;
and thus gave a chance to the Whigs to redeem the oppor
tunity which their own violence had lost in 1681.
Though the High Commission Court had been formaUy
abohshed in 1641, and its abolition had been confirmed in
1661, James revived'it as a means of getting personal control
over the Church. He appointed Roman Catholic officers
to the army, in defiance of the Test Act, claiming that he
had the right to dispense with any law in any particular
case. He appointed Roman Cathohcs to the Privy CouncU.
He actually filled the Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford,
with an avowed Roman Cathohc (1686), and deprived the
feUows of Magdalen of their right of electing their own head,
in order to force a Roman Catholic upon them (1687).
That Oxford, the centre of High Church loyalism and of the
doctrine of Passive Obedience, should be thus treated was a
more terrible challenge to that doctrine than almost any

ch. iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 557
other that could be imagined. It struck horror into every
country parsonage in England.
James was deliberately cutting away the main pillar on
which his throne rested. The most devoted and thorough
going royalists in England were Rochester and Clarendon,
the two Hydes, sons of the old Earl of Clarendon, ancl the
king's own brothers-in-law. Both were prepared to go far
in the direction of absolutism. James dismissed them both,
the one from the Treasurership and the other from the
Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, because they would not
become Roman Catholics. To govern Ireland James sent a
Roman Cathohc, Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel. The appoint
ment of a Roman Catholic Lord-Lieutenant might in itself
have been a good thing. But Tyrconnel, a reckless loose-
liver, was sent for the purpose not of doing justice to Irish
Cathohcs, but of destroying Protestantism. He dehberately )
weeded out Protestants from the Irish army ; he remodeUed
all the corporations of the Irish boroughs so that the power
was whoUy in Cathohc hands. Irish Protestants looked
forward with trembling to what was coming. Englishmen
dreaded what use was to be made of the Irish army.
In Scotland, again, where the royal authority was now per
haps more complete than in any other part of the islands,
James pursued a similar policy. Complete toleration was
granted to Roman Cathohcs ; Presbyterians were allowed
only the most modest concessions. The towns were simply
ordered to accept royal nominees to their offices. The
Privy Council was fiUed with Roman Catholics, who held
nearly aU the most important offices of State.
A few years of this, and from Scotland and Ireland
James might be able to hope to crush any resistance
that might arise in England. Meanwhile, since he
had declared war against the Enghsh Church, he had to
look for support in England from some other quarter. The
only and obvious quarter was the Protestant Dissenters, ^
to whom Charles had also appealed in 1672. In 1687, v,
disregarding the declared iUegaUty of the Declaration of
1672, James issued a new Declaration of Indulgence far more
sweeping in its terms than that of 1672. It not only granted
complete freedom of worship, it announced that no tests
would be required for admission to any office. If the
Dissenters could be bribed, this ought to bribe them. In
the hope that it would do so, James began to fiU town1
councils with Dissenting members, in preparation for a new
Parhament which was to repeal all the penal Acts. But to

558 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
his chagrin he found that even the Dissenters (though they
sent a few addresses of thanks) were not to be counted upon
to vote for the candidates he desired. The freedom of
the nation was more to them than their own ; their desire
for toleration was discounted by their dread of Popery,
The king professed toleration now. But was not his ally
Louis xiv. dragooning all Protestants out of France ? The
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) could not have
come at a more inopportune time for James, for England
was full of Huguenot exUes bemoaning the cruelty of a1
Cathohc king.
Disappointed with the result of the first Declaration,
James issued a second in 1688, and ordered that it should"*
be read on two consecutive Sundays in every church in the
kingdom. This was to make the clergy the means of their
own destruction. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six of
his colleagues presented a petition in which they begged the
king to withdraw the obnoxious order. It contained a phrase
questioning the king's power to dispense with laws. On
that ground the bishops were charged with having uttered
a seditious hbel, and committed to the Tower. The bishops
were tried. The jury gave a verdict of Not Guilty. And
the crowds of London cheered as at the news of a great
victory : the Dissenters joined in the jubilation : even the
soldiers whom the king had encamped on Hounslow Heath
cheered as loudly as any when they heard the news. That
ought to have made the king reahse what a storm was
preparing. The Declaration of Indulgence had proved the
steadfastness of the Dissenters to the cause of Law : it had
finally overstrained the capacity for loyalty of the Anghcan
clergy ; ' it hath brought aU Protestants together,' said
Hahfax, ' and bound them up into a knot that cannot
easily be untied.'
And while the trial of the seven bishops was proceeding,
James was rejoicing because a son had at last been bom to
him. This meant that the nation might look forward to an
indefinite continuance of the sort of policy James had
pursued ; there was now no hope of rehef by the succession
of a Protestant sovereign. Men were so loth to believe the
news that they invented the story that the infant was a
changehng, brought into the queen's bed in a warming-pan.
The birth of this ill-fated child made revolution inevitable.
On June 30th, the very day on which the crowds were
celebrating the acquittal of the bishops, seven leading men
met and signed a letter to William of Orange begging him

ch.iv.] POLITICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND 559
to come over with an adequate force to save the kingdom.
Four of them were peers, among them Charles ii.'s minister
Danby ; one of them was the Bishop of London ; the other
two were commoners of great Whig houses. The letter was
taken by Admiral Herbert, disguised as a common sailor,
and by him dehvered to WiUiam in.
Violence had destroyed the formidable power whose
establishment had been due to a reaction against violence.
[The best modern summary of the period is Lodge's History of
England from the Restoration to the Death of William III. ; see also
Trevelyan's England under the Stewarts ; Macaulay's History of
England covers the reign of James 11. in detail, but gives only one
chapter to a survey of the reign of Charles 11. ; Hallam's Consti
tutional History ; both Macaulay and Hallam are unduly biased
in favour of the Whigs ; Ranke's History of England gives a more
detached view. See also Airy's Restoration (Epochs of Modern
History) and his Charles II. ; Christie's Life of Shaftesbury ; Fox-
croft's Life of Halifax ; Burnet's History of His Own Times ; Pepys'
Diary. Lord Acton has a lecture on ' The Rise of the Whigs ' in his
Lectures on Modern History.]

CHAPTER V
THE REVOLUTION
(A.D. 1 688-1 692)
§ 1. The European Situation and the Downfall of James II.
The Revolution of 1688, which was begun by the invitation
despatched to WiUiam of Orange, took place in England so
quietly, and led to such important constitutional changes,
that it is usual to concentrate attention upon these aspects
of the great event. In reality the struggle for the establish
ment of the new regime lasted for four years, and the
Revolution was always in danger during that period. The
absence of fighting in England was largely a matter of luck.
There was fighting in Scotland, and still more serious fighting
in Ireland. There was naval fighting in the Narrow Seas,
upon which the issue of the Revolution largely depended.
And there was fighting on a vast scale upon the continent
of Europe, the consequence of which was of the most vital
iriiportance for the islands ; for if the course of events on the
Continent had gone a little differently, the whole future of
the islands and of the Commonwealth would have been
altered. To get a sound view of the Revolution it is neces
sary to remember that it was a turning-point in European
as well as in British history, and for that reason the events
that led to its success must be regarded in the light of
contemporary European history. William of Orange did
not come to England merely in order to stop the unconstitu
tional actions of James 11. He did not come even to win a
crown for himself. He came because the fate of Europe
depended upon how, and by whom, the fortunes of the
islands were directed during these years ; and by him the
whole struggle of these four years was regarded mainly in
the light of the European situation.
We must try to see it in that light too, and realise how
intimately the fate of the islands was linked with that of
Europe. For that reason we shall do well to survey the
four years' struggle first, before we deal with the constitu
tional adj ustments which were going on while it took place,
560

ch. v.] THE REVOLUTION 561
but which would have had no permanence had its result
been different.
We have seen (Chapter in.) how dominant was the posi
tion of Louis xiv. in Europe during the years 1678-1688, and
how insolently he had used his power. His aims were
vaulting. He hoped to secure control over the whole or
the greater part of the vast Spanish Empire, to which he
had a claim by inheritance ; the Spanish king was a fragile
invalid, not expected to hve long. Louis seems also to have
hoped to secure for himself or his son the title of Emperor,
which his strength would enable him to turn into a reahty :
armed with the imperial claims, he might have made himself
master of divided Germany. Had these dreams been
realised, he would have been master also of the world,
more fuUy than ever Napoleon was. So menacing
was his power, and so domineering and unscrupulous
had he shown himself in action, that in 1686 the threat
ened States had formed a secret league, known as the League
of Augsburg : it included the Emperor, Spain, the Dutch,
Sweden, and the chief North German States, and in the next
year it was joined by Bavaria, the princes of Italy and the
Pope. Formidable as this combination was on paper, it could
have offered little resistance if Louis (who knew of its
existence) had struck immediately, while the Emperor was
in the throes of his struggle with the Turks, and James 11.
was securely seated on the British throne. But he delayed
for two years, and in the meanwhile the Turkish power was
broken, and the Emperor was relatively free ; Belgrad was
captured in June 1688. June 1688, the moment at which
the invitation from England was sent to Wilham of Orange,
was indeed the critical moment in the European situation.
The. Prince-Bishop of Cologne, whose lands controlled the
lower Rhine and threatened the Dutch, and who had
been a close ally of Louis, died in that month; and
in order to maintain his mastery on the lower Rhine
Louis resolved to instaU by force bis own candidate
for the archbishopric against the nominee of the Emperor
and the Pope. This was reaUy the beginning of a
great war, which lasted for ten years. In September of the
same year, before Wilham of Orange had set sail for Eng
land, Louis invaded Germany and captured the fortress of
Phihppsburg on the upper Rhine : it fell on October 29th
—just before William set sail.
This was the situation which WiUiam of Orange had to
VOL. 1. 2 N

562 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
consider when the Enghsh invitation reached him. The
opening moves had already taken place in a vast struggle for
the mastery of Europe by Louis, or for its freedom. The
Dutch provinces themselves were threatened by the French
forces in Cologne. Was it safe for Wilham, and would his
Dutch subjects allow him, to choose this moment for em
barking upon a very risky adventure, wriich might involve
the use of the Dutch fleet and of a part of the Dutch army ?
William and the Dutch felt that trie risk, great as it was,
was worth taking for the purpose of detaching the British
lands from the French aUiance and transferring triem to the
other side. Trie decision turned out to be the right one. It
altered the whole complexion of the war. But if the enter- (
prise had not been attended by the most amazing good luck, \
it might have been an unqualified disaster for the European
allies. That is what Louis xiv. hoped it would be.
When we reflect upon the supreme importance to Louis of
being able to count upon the neutrality, if not the active
help, of England and her fleet, it seems incredible that he
should have aUowed trie invasion to take place without
interference. Why was not HoUand attacked ? If it had
been, WiUiam dared not have moved. Why did not the
French fleet come out to resist the sailing of tie expedition ?
Why were not French troops sent to help James ? The
main reason was that James riad been showing a certain v
restiveness under Louis' yoke. In September, before start
ing his German campaign, Louis had warned the Dutcri not
to attack James n. ; for William's preparations for an over
sea expedition were notorious, and indeed could not be
concealed. James had resented this, as a suggestion that i
he was not capable of defending riimself ; whereupon Louis
had left him to his own resources. Louis calculated, indeed,
that James would be quite strong enough, if not to defeat
WiUiam at once, at any rate to tie him up in England, and
to drain away troops from HoUand ; and as he felt that he
could not fully trust James, who riad actuaUy talked oL
allying himself with Spain, the Dutch expedition seemed an i
admirable way of keeping him busy and at the same time
getting WiUiam of Orange out of the way. In effect, Louis '
dehberately allowed the expedition to saU.
But if Louis did not stop trie enterprise, why did not
James, who was perfectly aware that it was being prepared ?
Trie English navy, in which James had always taken a
keen interest, was stationed off the mouth of the Thames.
It was not sent to watch the Dutch coast ; though for an

ch. v.] THE REVOLUTION 563
anxious month a westerly wind — ' a Papist wind,' William's
friends called it — kept the ships of the expedition penned
into Dutch harbours, and might have carried the English
fleet across to the Dutch coast. When at last a ' Protestant
wind ' sprang up on November ist, WiUiam was aUowed to
sail out undisturbed and to traverse the whole length of the
English Channel unimpeded, till he reached his landing-place
at Torbay in Devon.
Meanwhile James had been organising his forces for
resistance. He had about 20,000 regular troops in Eng
land. He brought more than as many more from the
armies of Scotland and Ireland, which had been built up
in preparation for just such an event. His forces were
far superior to the invaders, and they were posted to
defend the approach to London. When Wilham found,
during the fortnight after his landing, that there was no such
national uprising in his favour as he had been led to expect,
the situation looked black indeed for him. Yet within a
few weeks, without any fighting, WiUiam had occupied
London and James was a fugitive and an exile. Resistance
had simply coUapsed. James' chief supporters deserted
him, at first by ones and twos, later in droves — his
own daughter Anne among them. FinaUy James himself
lost his nerve and ran away. To the acute annoyance of
Wilham his flight was intercepted by some fishermen, and
he had to return to London. But he obligingly ran away a
second time, and thus solved every difficulty.
No such safe journey and no such easy victory could
reasonably have been anticipated by WiUiam and his
supporters when the expedition set sail. For the bloodless-
ness of the Revolution in England the chief credit belongs
to the cowardice of James, and his sudden loss of nerve.
He could certainly have made a stand if he had chosen.
Or, if he had been willing to make concessions and to put
himself in the hands of the High Tories, who were eager
for compromise, he could have robbed William of the spoils
of victory, or at least have made the invader's position
intolerably difficult — especially as, in view of the European
situation, WiUiam could not afford long delays. James'
flight saved the situation, and played into WiUiam's hands.
It is the greatest tribute to the magnanimity of Louis xiv.
that he welcomed the ignominious fugitive without re
proaches, and treated him and his son for long years as
honoured guests.
The control of the new government over England was

564 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
absolutely unchaUenged by any resistance from the moment
of the king's flight. It found no difficulty in carrying out
the elections of a new Parhament — caUed the ' Convention,'
because it could not be summoned by royal writs m the
regular way ; and this Convention, which contained a Whig
majority, was able to set about the discussion of vexed
constitutional problems without disturbance. Yet the
position was by no means secure. Even in England
the number of devoted royahsts was very large, and
at almost any time during the next few years James
could have regained the crown almost as easUy as
William had won it, if he would have consented to promise "
security for the English Church. From the first WiUiam ,
was never popular, and had to go very warily : Enghshmen
did not like foreign rulers, and the Dutch had been enemies
in three recent wars. So uncertain was the position felt
to be that many of the leading Enghsh pohticians, Whigs
as weU as Tories, including some of those upon whom
WiUiam chiefly relied, were at pains to safeguard themselves
by keeping in relations with the exiled king. If anything
had gone seriously wrong with the war in Scotland and
Ireland or on the Continent, or if Louis had been free and
willing to throw his strength into the regaining of England,
the Revolution might easily have been overthrown. Its
fortunes depended upon how the struggle went elsewhere.
§ 2. The War of the Revolution, in Scotland, in Ireland
and on the Seas.
WiUiam reahsed that the success of the Revolution de-
pended upon the course of the war far more clearly than
his English advisers, none of whom he fuUy trusted ; and one
of his first acts was to expel the French Ambassador and to
commit England to the continental war. In May 1689 Eng-j
land became a member of the Grand AUiance. British troops
and the English navy were engaged in the vast struggle,
which was now a struggle for the security of the Revolution
settlement as well as for the defeat of Louis xiv.'s aggressive
aims. During 1689, however, the main interest, for the islanders,
lay not on the Continent but in Scotland and Ireland, where
the supporters of the faUen king endeavoured to make head
by force of arms. In Scotland the news of James' flight
brought about a sudden and complete coUapse of the whole
structure of despotism which had been raised since 1660.

ch. v.] THE REVOLUTION 565
The Roman Catholic ministers fled. Everywhere the Pres
byterians began to take the upper hand, and in the south
west, where the persecution had been bitterest, the unpopular
clergy were ' rabbled ' and driven from church, manse and
glebe. In March 1689 a Scottish Convention met. It might %
have been tempted to repudiate the connexion with England,
which had certainly brought few benefits hitherto ; but it
offered the crown to WiUiam and Mary, whose authority was
fully accepted throughout the Lowlands. Only in the wild
Highlands was there resistance to the new regime. There
Graham of Claverhouse,1 now Viscount Dundee, who had
been famous as the hammer of the Covenanters, raised a
Highland host to fight for the exUed king. He won a
brilliant victory at KUliecrankie (July 1689) over a smaU
force of Scottish regularsTmcler General Mackay ; but Dundee
himself was kiUed — by a silver buUet, men said, since the
EvU One protected him against lead — and when its leader
was gone the host melted away.
It took two years more to pacify the Highlands. In 1691
an indemnity was offered to all who would take the oath
before the end of the year, and every chief save one did so.
The one was the hapless Macdonald of Glencoe, who had put
off submission tiU the last moment from motives of pride,
but actuaUy took the oath on January 7th. On the advice
of the ablest of bis Scottish ministers, the Master of Stair,
WiUiam in. decided to make an example of the delinquent,
as a lesson to the Highlands for the future. The hideous
and cold-blooded massacre of Glencoe (February 1, 1692)
was the result. Though it seems clear that he did not know
Macdonald had actuaUy taken the oath, WiUiam in. cannot
be exonerated from the guilt of this ugly crime. Terrorism
always brings its own punishment in the long run ; and the
long-lasting opposition of the Highlands to the new regime,
which caused so much trouble during the eighteenth century,
was certainly stimulated by the Massacre of Glencoe.
Nevertheless Scotland was quiet ; the Lowlands were
actively loyal, the Highlands at any rate submissive, and
no further danger was to be feared from this quarter.
Far more serious was the trouble in Ireland, where fierce
fighting went on for three years. In Ireland the whole
organisation of government, under the Lord-Lieutenant
Tyrconnel, was arrayed on James' side, and the preparations
which had been made in the steady Romanising of the army
and the administration had their effects. Tyrconnel's army
1 There is a hfe of Graham of Claverhouse, byJC S. Terry.

566 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
i had, however, been weakened by the forces sent across to
England to resist WiUiam ; and the consequence was that
the Protestants of the north were able to organise them
selves, especiaUy in Londonderry and EnniskiUen, during the
autumn of 1688. Everywhere else in Ireland the cause of
James was triumphant ; and when, two months after his
arrival in France, he crossed over to Ireland (March 1689),
bringing with him some 1200 troops, he found an almost
united nation ready to greet him, and a Parhament, almost
wholly composed of Catholics, ready to carry out a revolu
tion. James regarded Ireland merely as a stepping-stone
to England. Tyrconnel and many of his foUowers cared
primarily for establishing Irish independence, and this
introduced difficulties from the first.
But on the necessity of reducing the resistance of the
Protestants in the north all were agreed, and during the
spring of 1689 Londonderry was strictly besieged. If
it feU, EnniskiUen must also fall. It was so UI provided
that its governor, Lundy, was for surrendering. But the
inhabitants insisted upon resisting, and did so with the
utmost gaUantry for fifteen weeks. They were aU but
exhausted when a relieving force from England arrived
at the end of July and forced the Catholics to raise the
siege. Three days later the garrison of EnniskiUen won
a briUiant victory at Newtown Butler, which secured the
Protestant control of Ulster. A httle later an army under
WiUiam of Orange's friend, the French Huguenot Schom-
berg, landed at Belfast to undertake the reconquest of
Ireland, but was able to do little in face of James' superior
forces, except to estabhsh a hold over Ulster. Yet the
recovery of Ireland was indispensable for the safety of
the Revolution in England and Scotland : indispensable
also, therefore, for success in the continental war against
Louis. For that reason WiUiam of Orange, eager as he was
to take part in the continental war, determined himself to
lead the main army in the next year. Had Louis realised as
clearly as WiUiam the importance of the Irish campaign,'
he would have sent across large forces, and the issue of the
war might have been different.
Louis might have sent what forces he liked in this year ;
for at this critical moment the English navy failed in its ,
duty. It had been strangely idle, and had faUen into bad,
organisation and indiscipline. On the other hand, the'
French fleet, to whose creation Colbert had devoted so
much pains, was at its strongest, In July 1690 it saUied

ch. v.] THE REVOLUTION 567
forth under the command of Admiral Tourville, found
the combined Enghsh and Dutch fleets off Beachy Head,
and inflicted upon them the most complete defeat yet
recorded in British naval annals ; only the stubborn
valour of the Dutch saved the allies from an irremedi
able disaster. The victory gave to the French . command
of the English Channel. In England there was panic at the
thought that a French invasion by an army which lay ready
at Dunkirk might be effected whUe the king and the best
avaUable troops were in Ireland — a panic all the greater
because the allies had just suffered a severe defeat at Elgurus
in Flanders. The summer of 1690 was an anxious moment
for the friends of the Revolution. But the French made no
use of their naval success. It was in any case too late to
stop WiUiam's expedition to Ireland, which had landed
safely in June ; but the French fleet did not even attempt
to cut his communications.
To the Irish Protestants, who had been living in dread
of they knew not what, and in the certainty of a confiscation
of aU their property if James were victorious, William of
Orange came as a deliverer ; and the battle of the Boyne,
in which on July ist, 1690, he broke the Irish army, was hence
forth, for them, the greatest of events, to be annually com
memorated by those who took pride to call themselves
Orangemen. Yet it was by no means a decisive victory : in
effect it gave to WiUiam only DubUn and the province of
Leinster. An able leader on the Irish side could still have
restored the position, especiaUy as aU the ports of the south
and west were open for French reinforcements. James n.gave
it up for lost, and ran away, back to France, in the moment
of crisis, as he had run away from England.
But though they were deserted by their king and soon
afterwards by the French troops, the Irish still put up a good
fight in Munster and Connaught, a better fight now than in
the time of their success. Their chief centre of resistance
was Limerick, where the gallant Patrick Sarsfield held out
with admirable courage, even capturing William's siege
guns when he advanced to besiege the city ; and the
siege had to be raised. When the campaign of 1690
ended, the west, with Limerick and Galway, had still to be
conquered. Louis now recognised the great importance, for his own
purposes, of keeping the struggle ahve in Ireland ; and having
IstiU command of the sea, in 1691 he sent across a new French-
army under experienced generals to defend the west. Against

568 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
them WiUiam despatched a well-equipped force under the
Dutch general Ginkel, who captured Athlone (the key to
Connaught), and fiT the hard-fought battieof Aghrim broke
the Franco-Irish force. Galway and Connaught fell into
his hands as a result of this victory, and only Limerick re
mained. As successful resistance was held to be impossible,
Sarsfield surrendered on very favourable terms, just a fort
night before the arrival of French reinforcements. He and
many of his followers were left free to go abroad and serve
against England in the Continental wars. But he had (as
he supposed) secured by the terms of his surrender that Irish
Catholics should at least be allowed the same freedom of
worship which they had enjoyed under Charles n. The
shameful breach of this formai agreement wiU have to be
recorded in another place, when we examine the Revolution
settlement in Ireland.
By the end of 1691 all the islands had thus been brought
into obedience, and no supporters of James remained in
arms. But so long as the seas were commanded by the
French, new disturbances in Ireland or the Highlands of
Scotland were always to be feared ; nor could the islands
freely play their part in the great continental struggle. To
win this final assurance for the Revolution, and to give a
death-blow to James' hopes, was the task of the navy, which
had now been strengthened and reorganised and was under ;
the command of Edward Russell, of the great Whig house j
of Bedford.
Whig as he was — he had actually been one of the signa
tories to the invitation to William — Russell was secrethv
intriguing with the exiled court at St. Germains. For 1692
James had planned an invasion of England, and Louis had
promised that the French fleet should clear the Channel and
transport a French army, with the exiled king, to form a
nucleus for an English revolt. An elaborate manifesto
was drafted, and James went down to the coast of Nor
mandy to be ready for embarkation. Russell had under his
command a combined English and Dutch fleet watching for
the French to sail. Had he played the traitor, as at one
time he seems to have meant to do, the worst might have
happened. But when the French fleet came out, the pride
of the navy got the upper hand with him. He fought like a
Trojan, and in the great battle of LaHogue the proud French -*
fleet which had for a time controUed the seas was shattered
in a hard fight and had to flee. Twelve of its best ships
were burnt by Sir George Rooke in the very harbour of La

ch. v.] THE REVOLUTION 569
Hogue and under the very eyes of the unhappy James, whose
hopes vanished in the smoke of the burning.
The battle of La Hogue finaUy ensured the triumph of the
Revolution. More than that, it gave to the English and
their Dutch allies complete command of the seas in the long
wars that were to foUow, and enabled them to do infinite
damage to French foreign trade, and to transport British
troops in safety to the continental fields of fighting. Once
more, the navy had determined the issue.
[General works on the Revolution period will be noted at the end
of the next chapter. Mahan's Influence of Sea-power on History is
important for the naval struggle; for military events, Fortespue's
History of the British Army]

CHAPTER VI
THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT
(a.d. 1689-1707)
§ 1. The General Character of the Settlement.
•
Like the settlement at the Restoration, the settlement which
foUowed the Revolution was separately dealt with in
England and Wales, in Scotland, in Ireland, and in the
colonies, and there was no attempt to work out a coherent
plan for the relations of the Commonwealth as a whole. But
England was very clearly the predominant partner in the
loose confederacy of States, and in various ways her decisions
affected all the rest, partly by imitation, and partly because
(at all events in the cases of Ireland and the colonies) the
English Parliament did not hesitate to legislate for what it
regarded as dependent States. It was, in fact, the form
which the settlement took in England which mainly deter
mined the character of the political development of the whole
Commonwealth for a very long time to come. For the
Revolution in England estabhshed a constitutional system
which became the model not only for the rest of the Common
wealth but for a great part of the world.
This new system was not due to the wisdom of any single
man ; and it would be the greatest of blunders to attribute
it to WiUiam in.1 The personal character and ideas of the\,
king counted for very little in the settlement in any of the
British realms. Great man as he was, his chief interest was
in the struggle against Louis xiv. ; so long as the islands were
brought on to the right side in that struggle, and so long as he>
was given the power to direct their foreign policy and to use j
their military resources, he was content that the problems
of government should be settled as the nations themselves
desired. He was a reticent and self-centred man. He
never understood his British subjects, or cared very much
about the questions in which they were chiefly interested.
He never fully trusted any of the leading Englishmen with
1 There is a short life of William m. by H. D. Traill in the Twelve
English Statesmen Series,
S7P

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 571
whom he had to work, or any Scotsman, except William
Carstairs, who was his confidential adviser on Scottish
affairs ; his only real confidants were Dutch nobles whom he
brought over with him, especially Bentinck, who became
Earl of Portland, and Keppel, whom he made Earl of
Albemarle ; and the favour shown to these foreigners was
deeply resented. His queen, as an Enghshwoman, was more
popular ; all William's worst troubles came after her death
in 1694. But his most important contribution to the settle
ment was that by refusing to take the position of being
merely the queen's husband, and stating that if he were not
offered the crown he would return to HoUand, he put a stop
to arguments about the hereditary succession, and made it
inevitable that Parhament should simply assume the power
of disposing of the crown. Apart from this, he made no
personal contribution to the settlement. He merely ac
cepted it.
§ 2. Tories and Whigs : rival Conceptions of Government.
The outstanding feature of the situation in England was
that as the Revolution was not the result of war, but had
in fact been shared in by Whigs and Tories, Anglicans and
Dissenters, the settlement was not imposed by force in
accordance with the views of any one party, but was the
result of discussion and compromise. And this was what
made its results so lasting, in spite of their manifest imper
fection : it was founded upon ' consent.' A system of
government arrived at by peaceful agreement after discus
sion was a new thing in the history of the world, and the
agreement was aU the more remarkable because it was made
between men who had sharply conflicting theories about
government. The Tories stiU clung to the idea that monarchy was of
divine ordinance, and that the strength of the State must
depend upon the existence of a strong sovereign power,
supported by the behef and the habitual obedience of the
people. They still clung, also, to the idea that uniformity in
rehgion was essential to the health of the State. They could
not bring themselves to accept any settlement which would
weaken the idea of hereditary succession, or do anything
to encourage the notion that violent resistance to authority
was not one of the greatest of crimes. Their views were
almost certainly the views of the great mass of Enghshmen
at that date ; for the dread of the evils that might follow from

572 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
any light-hearted repudiation of established authority had
been driven into men's minds not only by the civil wars
through which their fathers had hved, but by corresponding
troubles in other countries. The Tories were right in the
stress which they laid upon the value of the sentiment of
loyalty and the habit of obedience in holding the State
together ; they were right in feeling that the dislocation of
all order which is apt to result from any loosening of the
foundations of confidence in the power that holds the State
together may bring the most appaUing evils in its train.
The most cogent exposition of the Tory view that a very
strong central power is necessary for the weU-being of the
State is to be found, in Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes,
which was published in 1651, when the civil wars had shown
how easily a settled order might lapse into anarchy. Hobbes
argued that if society is to be held together, there must be
in it a central power with unlimited authority. Civihsation,
he believed, depended upon the existence of such a power.
In his view, when men became members of an organised
society or State, they must be regarded as having made a
contract with one another to set up a government over
them as a means of escaping from the state of nature, in
which every man was free to knock his neighbour on the
head, and human life was ' nasty, brutish and short ' ; once
men began to revolt against the authority they had set up,
they broke their contract with one another, and anarchy
followed. Hobbes' argument, as he recognised, did not
exclude the possibility of this absolute sovereign power being
wielded by a Parhament ; but he doubted whether it could
be effectively exercised by a wrangling and divided body.
But Hobbes was distrusted by most Tories as a free thinker ;
he made very little of the mystical and rehgious side of
monarchy. The ordinary Tory view was better expressed
in Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, in which he tried to prove
that hereditary monarchy was God's chosen device for the
government of the world, and endeavoured to establish his
case by a multitude of scriptural examples.
The Whigs, on the other hand, had no exaggerated respect
for monarchy as such. Many of them were republicans in
theory ; and though they admitted that the traditional
veneration for kings made it desirable to retain monarchy
as an institution, they thought of a king only as the first
official of the nation, liable to be replaced if he was false to
his duties. They believed that the ultimate deciding voice
ought to lie with the nation as a whole, or with the politicaUy

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 573
active part of the nation, speaking through its representatives
in Parhament. They beheved quite genuinely in hberty,
by which they meant the right of every man to order his
life as he thought best, so long as he did not hurt his neigh
bours. And they beheved that the supreme guarantee of
hberty was to be found in a fixed system of Law, not capable
of being disregarded or altered by any arbitrary decision
of any power whatsoever, save only the nation speaking
through its representatives in Parliament. Liberty resting
on and protected by Law : that is the heart of the Whig
doctrine, and the best part of it. And because they held
that trie laws ought to be generally understood and univer
sally accepted, the Whigs did not believe in frequent or
detaUed alteration of the laws ; they would make only the
minimum changes necessary.
But perhaps the most distinctive part of the Whigs' creed
was the strength of their behef in Property as an institution ;
which went so far that the defence of property seemed to
them to be the main purpose of law. The acquisition of
property was in their view one of the main distinctions
between man and the beasts ; they held that civilisation
had mainly arisen out of the endeavours of men to acquire
property, and that therefore, the best state is that in which
property is best protected. And because taxation is
essentially a seizing of part of every man's property by the
State, they held that all taxation must be approved by
Parhament, because no man's property ought to be taken ""
from him without the consent of his representatives. Thus
the essentiaUy Whig doctrine of ' no taxation without
representation ' was a sort of coroUary from the doctrine
of the sanctity of property. In rehgious matters the Whigs
strongly beheved in freedom of behef and of worship.
Many of them were, in fact, free-thinkers, or (in the language
of the day) Latitudinarians. But they beheved in the
necessity of a national Church, to which they were ready to
aUow large privileges ; they held, however, that because
of its influence over men's thought and actions it must be
closely controUed by the State — by Parhament, not by the
Crown. The Whigs were right in the value they attached to the
wiU of the nation as a whole, and to the importance of giving
it a mode of expression and the deciding voice in aU great
matters of. public pohcy. They were right in the stress they
laid upon ' civil and rehgious hberty,' and in their view that
hberty is essentiaUy dependent upon law. They were right

574 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
in seeing the vital importance of an effective public control
over taxation, though the grounds upon which they based
the principle were questionable. It is easy to see the
limitations of their political theory ; but it was on the whole
the sanest and the most enhghtened that had yet been
adopted by a large and powerful body of men in any State,
and it made for progress and the increase of human
liberty. The most effective exposition of the Whig creed is to be
found in the Essay on Government by John Locke, which was
pubhshed in 1689, and became almost the Bible of Whiggism.
Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the people in a State must
be regarded as bound together by an implicit ' contract.'
But he argued that besides the contract whereby the people
agree to organise a State and set up a government, a second
contract must be assumed to have been made between the
people and their government ; and this contract might be
broken by misconduct on the part of the government, and
justify the setting up of a new form of government. AU this
talk about ' social contracts ' has a certain unreality for us,
because we know that historicaUy no such agreements ever
took place, and that the State has in fact grown, not been
formaUy manufactured. But the various arguments based
upon the idea of a contract had such profound influence upon
men's minds, both at the time of the British Revolution and
for more than a century afterwards, that we should be dis
regarding a vitally important element in the brrilding up of
political hberty if we did not keep it in mind.
Between men holding such different views, compromise
was not easy. Even on the question of the offer of the
crown to William and Mary there were long and difficult
discussions. The Tories did not want to suggest that
Parliament or the people had the power to depose a king,
or to admit that the line of succession had been dehberately
broken. The Whigs would have liked formally to declare
that James had been deposed for breaking the laws. That
was, in fact, what had happened ; and the unhappy Tories
could not get over it— they had helped to bring it about. But'
a verbal compromise partly saved the situation : it was voted
that James had abdicated the throne by his flight, and that
it was therefore vacant ; and WiUiam and Mary were invited
to occupy it. In actual fact, though it was wrapped up in
careful words, a king had been dethroned and a new king
had been elected. That is the bottom fact of the Revolu
tion, and there was no getting away from it.

ch. vl] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 575
§ 3. The Constitutional Settlement in England.
The new settlement of the system of government was
carried out in a series of Acts, the most important of which
was the BiU of Rights (1689), based upon an earlier Declara
tion of Rights, the drafting of which had been one of the
first tasks of the Convention. But even this great document
did not lay down any general principles, or try to define a
new system of government. It was content to set forth the
abuses of which James 11. had been guUty, and to declare
them illegal. The most important of these clauses were
those which declared illegal the power of suspending laws
(as by the Declaration of Indulgence), the maintenance of
a standing army within the kingdom without the consent of
Parhament, and aU interference with the free election of
members of Parhament, or with freedom of speech and
debate in Parhament.
But a general declaration of the iUegality of various kinds
of action is of little avail unless the means of preventing
them in future are effective. Parliament found the means
not only of preventing future iUegalities, but of establishing
its own supremacy, in its control over finance. It voted a
fixed grant to the Crown for the ' Civil List,' that is, for the
ordinary expenses of civU government. But this money
was only to be spent for the purposes for which it was aUotted,
and by assigning particular taxes to particular purposes
Parhament ensured that this was done. The Crown had
henceforth no large general revenue of which it could dispose
as it thought fit. And this applied especially to the money
for the upkeep of armies, over which Parliament kept a
very jealous watch, voting it only from year to year. As
the mihtary needs of the State under William in. were very
great, this meant that Parhament had to be summoned
every year, and that no pohcy could be pursued of which it
disapproved. A further device for the same end was found in
the enactment of a Mutiny Act for the period of only one year.
If the discipline of the army was to be maintained, Parlia
ment must be asked to renew this Act every year. These
measures (which seem so modest in themselves) were so
effective that from 1689 to this day the government of
England has always been dependent upon the wiU of
Parhament. The changes thought necessary in the political system
were subsequently completed by the enactment of a Triennial
Act (1694). This did not replace the Triennial Act of 1664,

576 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
which had provided that Parhament should meet at least
once in three years, but had placed no limitation upon the
time for which a given Parliament should sit. Financial
needs and the Mutiny Act ensured that henceforth Parha
ment must meet not merely once in three years, but every
year. The purpose of the new Triennial Act was to ensure
that there should be no more long parliaments, but that a
general election sriould take place every triree years, so as
to ensure that Parliament kept in touch with the con
stituencies. What must strike the student about these provisions is
their extraordinary modesty. There was no elaborate
drawing up of a brand new constitution, with sweeping
assertions of pohtical principles. The minimum changes
were made, and in form they were very sriglit. But they
were sufficient for their purpose : they estabhshed the
supremacy of Parhament.
In rehgious matters the changes were equaUy shght.
There was some talk (as there had been at the Restoration)
of a measure of comprehension to bring back the Dissenters
into the national Church. But the gulf was now too wide ;
and the High Churchmen, whom it was important to recon-
cUe, would have made great difficulties. As it was, a con
siderable number of them, including the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the saintly Bishop Ken, and some hundreds
of parish clergy, could not reconcile it with their consciences
to take the oath of aUegiance to the new sovereigns, and
left their livings. They were known as the Non-jurors.
Very many even of those who took the oath were deter
minedly hostile to the new regime ; and, lest these men
should be driven into open enmity, little was done for the
Dissenters. A Toleration Act was passed (1689), which
allowed freedom of worship to all persons who accepted the
doctrine of the Trinity, provided they took, if required by
a magistrate, an oath of allegiance to the king and queen and
denied that any ' foreign prince or prelate ' had jurisdiction
within the realm. This in theory excluded the Roman
Cathohcs, but in practice they were not interfered with:
if they behaved themselves, the oaths were not tendered to
them. But neither the Corporation Act nor the Test Act
was repealed, and these in theory excluded Dissenters,
as weU as Roman Cathohcs, from aU civil and mihtary
offices, since they required office-holders to take the
Anghcan sacrament. In practice, however, these pro-.
hibitions were largely disregarded. Many Dissenters took*

CH.fvi.]! j THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT ^
the sacrament merely to quahfy for office ; and from
1727 onwards an Act of Indemnity was annuaUy passed
for those who • had faUed to observe the provisions of
these Acts. It was but a lame and halting toleration that
was thus granted, much less than James n. had offered in
his Declaration of Indulgence. But it was effective, and
it rested on ' consent.' Even the High Churchmen accepted
toleration, though they did not like it. They liked stiU
less the habitual evasion of the Test Act, as they showed
when, getting the upper hand during Queen Anne's reign,
they repeatedly proposed, and eventuaUy passed, an act to
prevent occasional conformity.
Yet another change, if possible even more momentous,
was carried out not by enactment but simply by the omission
to enact. The Licensing Act 1 was not renewed, even in a
modified form ; and the result was that the censorship of
the press disappeared altogether. There is nothing more
essential to political liberty than a free press, and nothing
more certain to create in a nation an active interest in
pohtical problems. The Revolution saw a revival of that
eager and unflagging discussion of public questions in
pamphlets and newspapers which had existed for a time
under the Puritan republic, and for another interval during
the heated discussions on the Exclusion BiU. It was never
to die down again. Henceforward pohtical action was to
be influenced, and the mind of the nation was to be formed,
almost as much by writers outside of Parliament as by
speeches within its waUs. And in this regard England and
the other members of the British Commonwealth were a
century and more ahead of nearly all the great States of
Europe. The constitutional changes which were carried out in
1689 and the foUowing years received a tardy extension in
the Act of Settlement (1701), which was passed primarily
to determine the order of succession after Queen Anne and
to fix it upon the Hanoverian Jine, the descendants of
James i.'s daughter Elizabeth ; but the occasion was also
used to establish certain other principles which form a sort
of appendix to the main Revolution settlement. It is worth
noting that the Act of Settlement was passed by a Tory
Parhament which was strongly opposed to WiUiam in.
Many of its provisions were scarcely veiled attacks upon the
king, such as the clause which provided that future kings
should not leave the country without the permission of Par-
1 See above, Chap. i. p. 498.
VOL. I. 2 0

578 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. V.
liament. But it was a new thing to find the Tories striving
to limit royal power.
Two clauses of the Act of Settlement especially deserve to
be noted. One provided that henceforth the judges should
hold their positions for life, unless removed after an address
by both Houses of Parhament. This secured the independence
of the judicial bench, and prohibited the practice of dismiss
ing judges who gave decisions distasteful to the Crown, which
had been common under the Stewarts. It was a reform of
vital importance. The other clause was aimed at prevent
ing the extension of royal influence over the House of Com
mons by the appointment of members of Parhament to
profitable offices. It simply provided that after the death
of Queen Anne holders of offices under the Crown should be
incompetent to sit in Parhament. If this clause had become
effective, it would have prevented the presence of ministers
in Parliament and would in the long run have greatly reduced
the power of Parliament. But it was repealed in 1707, before
the Act of Settlement came into effect ; and the Place Act
of 1707 has been of very great importance in the develop
ment of the British system of . government. It provided
that all persons appointed to offices should vacate their
seats.1 But holders of offices created before 1705 were per-'^
mitted to be re-elected without giving up their offices •; j
holders of offices created after 1705 were not to be members/
of Parliament at all. Thus a rough distinction was drawn
between the offices which might and those which might not
be held by members of Parhament. And this was the first
step towards our modern practice, under which the heads of
the great departments of State are always members of
Parliament and subject to its criticism, while minor officials
are excluded from Parliament.

§ 4. The Relations between Government and Parliament.
The clause against placemen in the Act of Settlement
shows that the legislators of the Revolution had not con
ceived anything like the modern system of cabinet govern
ment, the essence of which is that the chief ministers are
members of Parliament and responsible to it. That system
1 Incidentally this Act for the first time made it possible for a member
of Parhament to resign his seat I This had earher been illegal. Now a
member could apply for an office of profit under the Crown, and so vacate
his seat. That is why members who wish to resign have to apply for the
office of Steward of the Chiltem Hundreds (or a similar post), which, of
course, they give up as soon as it has served its purpose.

CH. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 579
was made possible by the Act of 1707. But it grew up slowly
and by custom ; it was never created by law. It is charac
teristic of British institutions that they grow and change by
the half-unconscious operation of custom ; and the unwritten
part of the system is far more important than the written
part. What has already been said about the Revolution
settlement Ulustrates this : the legal changes which it made
were very shght in form ; but the real changes were of
immense importance. They amounted to no less than the
estabhshment of the sovereignty of Parliament, though not
a word to this effect appears in any of the Acts.
One great change was already graduaUy coming about
in WiUiam in.'s reign. Because it was essential that
the government should be on good terms with Parha
ment, and because Parhament was now divided into
clearly marked parties, the king — though nominaUy
free to choose any ministers he hked — was in prac
tice being compeUed by force of circumstances to choose
his ministers from' the party that commanded a majority in
the House of Commons. William in. started, quite naturaUy,
by trying to bring the best men of both parties into his
government. But he found that this did not work well,
because it meant that his ministers could not co-operate
easUy. As his first two Parliaments had a Whig majority,
he found it necessary to replace his Tory ministers by Whigs ;
and by 1696 the chief ministers were so exclusively Whig
that they were known as ' the Whig junto.' But when the
Tories got a majority, as they did in 1698 and the following
years, and when therefore Parhament began to spend its
time in vicious attacks upon the Whig ministers, WiUiam
found it necessary to replace Whigs by Tories. More and
more, governments were inevitably coming to reflect the
character and opinions of the House of Commons for the
time being ; a faint anticipation of the future party-cabinet
system was beginning to emerge, though it was yet far from
complete. This does not mean that the group of ministers formed a
responsible government, always acting together, like those
to which we are accustomed, though the tendency was in that
direction. Nor does it mean that the king had ceased to be
the deciding factor. The case was very much the reverse under
Wilham in. In the sphere of foreign pohcy especiaUy he
acted quite independently, and commonly did not event
consult his ministers, not to speak of Parhament. A
striking demonstration of this was afforded when, after

580 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
negotiating with France the First Partition Treaty for the
division of the Spanish dominions, he simply informed his
ministers in outline of what he had done, and required them
to send a blank commission duly sealed with the Great Seal
authorising unknown persons to sign an unknown treaty.
For agreeing to this Somers, the greatest of the Whig leaders,
and two of his coUeagues, were impeached by the Tory1
Parliament in 1701. Over foreign policy, at any rate,
Parliament had not yet obtained any effective control,
except through its power of refusing funds for a policy of
which it disapproved ; and this was not enough, since the
honour of the country might easily be committed by a
treaty which would never have been signed had its terms
been discussed beforehand.
The powers of the Crown under the Revolution settlement
were thus still very great. And WiUiam in., though he
accepted loyally enough the formal limitations imposed upon
him, chafed sorely under the restrictions upon his authority.
More than once, especially when the Tories viciously at-\
tacked his Dutch friends in 1698 and 1699, he threatened )
to leave the country and go back to Holland. And he would
have done so if he had not been able to play a free hand in
foreign affairs, of which he had a thorough knowledge, and
of which practically none of the English pohticians, whether
Whigs or Tories, had any real grasp. He was a lonely soul,
never popular in England, especiaUy after the death of his
wife ; he was distrusted as a Dutchman and a foreigner, and
half the provisions of the Act of Settlement were covert
sneers at him and his pohcy. He was never fully happy
except in Holland ; he never gave his full confidence to any
Englishman ; and, great man as he was, perhaps this lack
of sympathy with his new subjects was among his chief
contributions to Enghsh liberty, since it kept Tories even
more than Whigs perpetually watchful to resent and prevent
any enlargement of the royal power.
§ 5. The Revolution Settlement in Scotland and its Effects
upon Anglo-Scottish Relations.
In the struggle against Charles 1. Scotland had played at
first the most active part ; and it is possible that but for her
action the system of Charles and Strafford might have
triumphed. In the struggle against James n. Scotland took
no direct part, because she was cowed by the despotic system
established since 1660, and by the fierce persecution which

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 581
it carried out. But the moment the news of James' flight
arrived, the whole system coUapsed ; and while the Edin
burgh mob sacked the chapel at Holyrood, and the peasants
of the south-west ' rabbled ' the Episcopal clergy, an
assembly of nobles and gentry invited William to assume the
government, and a ' Convention ' was summoned, which met
in March 1689.
This Convention has been described as the most import
ant legislative assembly in Scottish history. Its ' Jacobite '
members soon found themselves helpless, and many of them
went home. Then a ' Claim of Right ' was drawn up,
corresponding to the Enghsh Declaration of Rights, which
condemned the acts of James as iUegal, and without any of
the evasions of the English Convention declared that he had
forfeited the crown, and offered it to Wilham and Mary.
The Convention also condemned Episcopacy and — most
notable change of all — the practice of appointing Lords of
the Articles to draw up parhamentary business, by means
of which aU the Stewart kings had turned Parhament into
their implement. It was practically on condition of his
accepting this new system that the Crown was offered to
WiUiam in.
In a later session the Convention (now turned into a
regular Parhament) began an active pohtical life, such as
had never before been known in the history of the Scottish
Parliament, criticising government with freedom. National
self-government was becoming for the first time a reality in
Scotland. The main subject of discussion was the reorgani
sation of the Church, which was at last settled by an Act of
1690, re-establishing the full Presbyterian order.
Thus Scotland was endowed not only with a democrati-
caUy governed Church, such as she had been aUowed to enjoy
for only brief intervals before, but also, and for the first time,
with a free and independent Parliament, to which govern
ment had to pay continuous deference and attention, and
which showed itself capable (as in the discussion on the
Massacre of Glencoe) of showing as bold and independent a
front as the Enghsh Parhament.
> But this development had one aspect which might lead to
important results. So long as the Scottish Parliament was
under the absolute control of the English king, as it had been
since 1660, there was no danger that Scottish policy would
come into conflict with English policy. But the danger)
became real when Scotland became an effectively independent i
realm, capable of following a pohcy of its own. And this

582 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
danger was not long in showing itself. It became so serious
as to threaten the bond which had for so long united the
two sister nations.
What brought the danger to its height was trade rivalry.
And this is important, because questions of trade privileges
were in fact to be always the most dangerous to the fellow
ship of the peoples within the British Commonwealth. As
a separate kingdom, with its own trade laws, Scotland was
treated by the English Parhament as if she was a foreign
State. She had never enjoyed since the Restoration the
freedom of trade in England which had been the chief com
pensation for the forced union under the Puritan repubhc ;
and she was excluded also from trade with the colonies, and
from the benefits of the Navigation Acts. But Scotland, hke
other nations, was eager to have a share in the rich traffic
of the South Seas ; she looked to this traffic to relieve her
poverty. In 1695 a Scottish company, to which a good deal
of English capital was subscribed, was formed to trade with
the tropics. At first it turned its attention to the East
Indies ; but the jealousy aroused among the friends of the
English East India Company was so great that this had to
be abandoned. Then a scheme was formed for establishing
a Scottish colony at Darien, on the Isthmus of Panama.
Scanty Scottish savings were lavishly invested, and two
parties of settlers were sent out in 1698. They were (as
might have been foreseen) attacked by a Spanish force and
overwhelmed. The colony was a failure, and all the money
invested in it was lost. And it was made a bitter grievance
that no support of any kind was given by William, Scotland's
elected king.
The Darien Expedition was ill-conceived, and doomed to
failure from the first : the Isthmus of Panama was the very
centre of the Spanish empire, and it was unthinkable that
Spain would allow any settlement to be planted there.
Moreover the expedition came at the most unfortunate
moment, when it was highly important that Spain (which
had been a member of the Grand AUiance in the last war)
should be most considerately dealt with, in view of the neces
sity of deciding the future of the Spanish dominions, which
the powers were then discussing. Nothing could have been
more embarrassing to the king than this expedition, which
he had no means of controUing, and which was at the very
least a gross breach of international courtesy. It provided
a striking illustration of the danger and inconvenience that
was always liable to arise when two countries, linked to-

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 583
gether under the same crown, were free to pursue incon
sistent pohcies.
On the other hand, to the Scots it inevitably appeared
that their eager attempt to get a share of the wealth arising
from tropical trade had been baffled by the greed of the
partner nation which was already drawing great profits
from that trade. The link with England seemed to present
only drawbacks and no advantages ; and, looking back over
the century, it might plausibly be argued that half the evils
from which Scotland had suffered had been due to the fact
that the Scottish king was also king of England, and could
use English resources to the detriment of the smaller realm.
In fact, the existing connexion could not remain unaltered.

§ 6. The Union of England and Scotland.
WiUiam in. deserves the credit of having fully recognised
that a radical readjustment of the relations between the two
countries had now become necessary in the interests of
both. In his first message to the Scottish Convention he,
had commended the idea of a union with England ; in his
last message to the English Parliament he urged it to take
steps to bring a union about. At the end of William's
reign, indeed, the question had become urgent. Scotland,
like England, had at the Revolution fixed the line of succes
sion first on WiUiam and Mary jointly, then on their children,
then on the Princess Anne and her children (Anne had
married Prince George of Denmark), and then on William's
Children should he marry a second time. But William and
Mary had no children ; William had not married again ;
and aU Anne's children had died in infancy. It had there
fore become necessary to decide who should succeed Anne,
and the English Act of Settlement (1701), fixing the succes
sion on the Hanoverian line, had been passed. But thet
Scots had adopted no corresponding Act. They were free
to make a quite different settlement. They might even
bring back the exiled Stewarts. In their restive state of
mind, they might take some irremediable step. It was
urgently necessary that this danger should be dealt with.
Accordingly, in 1^02, the English government and Parlia
ment decided to treat for a union as the most satisfactory
solution of the question ; and commissioners were appointed
from both sides. But in Scotland there were two elements
hostile to the idea of union. One consisted of the Jacobites, 1
who wanted to restore the Stewarts, the other of the extreme

584 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
Presbyterians, who feared the effect of union upon the
Scottish Church system. These two mutuaUy hostile ele
ments controUed a majority in the Scottish Parhament of
1793 ; and behind them was a large body of popular opinion,
keenly nationalist in sentiment, which feared that union
would mean that Scotland would be simply swaUowed up
by England.
The result was that the union negotiations came to
nothing for the time being. The opposition in the Scottish
Parliament passed an Act, known as the Act of Security,
which provided that, on the death of Anne, Parliament should
appoint her successor, but that this successor should not be
the same as in England unless ' there be such conditions of
government settled and enacted as may secure the freedom,
frequency and power of Parliaments, the rehgion, hberty
and trade of the nation, from the Enghsh, or any foreign
influence.' Another Act provided that after the death of
Anne the sovereign should be debarred from declaring war
without the consent of Parhament. To both Acts the royal
assent had to be given, because the temper of Scotland was
dangerous. Both Acts were threats. They did not exclude
a settlement, or even a union. But they showed that an
early solution was of vital importance. StiU more alarming'!
was an Act providing for the general arming of the Scottish ;
nation — and this at a time when England was engaged in the
great war against France. The Enghsh government replied
by caUing out the militia of the northern counties ; while '
the English Parliament passed resolutions threatening that
Scotland should in all respects (and especially in trade) be
treated as a foreign state ' until a union be had, or the
succession settled as in England.'
There was thus for a short period a real possibility of war
between the sister nations, unless they found a way to hve
together amicably. The situation needed very careful
handling. But there was one powerful factor favourable
to union. The Scots longed for a share in colonial trade ;
and union would give it to them. It was ultimately the
advantage of being a full partner in the Commonwealth
which overcame the difficulties felt by the Scots.
Commissioners were again appointed on both sides. The
Scots first proposed a federal union. To this the Enghsh
would not agree : they would only concede equality of trade
if Scotland and England became parts of a single unified
State, under a single Parliament. The Scottish commissioners
gave in, subject to a fair financial adjustment, and to the

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 585
condition that the Scottish rehgious system and the Scottish
system of law (which was, and still is, widely different from
that of England) should still be maintained. On that basis
the draft of a treaty of union was agreed to in 1706. The
greatest generosity was shown by the English side both in
fixing the representation, and in dividing the future financial
burdens, of the united States. While Scotland was to have
sixteen peers and forty-five members of the House of
Commons, or one-eleventh of the whole, she was to pay only
/ one-fortieth of the common revenue, and she was to receive '
nearly £400,000 to pay out the shareholders of the bankrupt
Scottish African Company, and for other purposes. Her
Church system and her legal system were to remain un
changed. But this admirably just settlement had stiU to be adopted
by both Parhaments. It naturally met with most opposi
tion in the Scottish Parhament, which it sentenced to death.
The discussions were carried on amid wild demonstrations
of hostUity by the Edinburgh mob and in many parts of the
country. There is no doubt that if a plebiscite of the nation
had been taken at this moment, there would have been
a large majority against the union. Nevertheless it was
passed by a majority of forty in the Scottish Parliament, in
January 1707 ; and by March it had gone through all its
stages in the Enghsh Parhament. On May 1, 1227, the
separate kingdoms of England and Scotland ceased to exist,
and the United Kingdom of Great Britain took their place.
This was the second of the long series of pohtical unions
which have marked the history of the British Common
wealth, the first having been the union of England and
Wales in 1536. It is possible that a federal solution might
have been in some ways better, because it would have given
fuUer expression to the distinctive characteristics of Scotland.
Yet, thanks to the admirably moderate spirit in which the
union was carried out, many of the real advantages of a
federal solution were secured without the complexity which
it involves. No attempt was made, either at the time of
the union or later, to interfere with the distinctive usages of
the lesser nation. She preserved her own educational system,
her own system of law, and above all her own mode of Church
organisation— that democratic system which had given to
her people their main training in the art of self-government,
and which had nurtured their eager love of knowledge.
There can be no kind of doubt that the close and lasting
partnership thus sealed was an infinite source of strength

586 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
to both nations in the great period of expanding oppor
tunities which was about to open before them. But the
partner who profited most was Scotland. She gained, from
full participation in the Commonwealth, infinitely more
than she lost by the sacrifice of her independent existence ;
and she at once began to enter upon a period of rapidly
growing prosperity.
§ 7. The Revolution Settlement in Ireland, and the Penal
Code.
In England and in Scotland the coming of William in.
and the flight of James n. enabled changes to be made which
the nations desired. In Ireland it was the coming of
James n. as a fugitive, dependent upon the support of his
Irish subjects, which enabled the will of the majority of
the nation to be carried into effect, though only for a
moment ; and the subsequent victory of William in. brought
not peace and national content, but the culmination of all
those evils from which Ireland had suffered during the whole
of the seventeenth century. Nothing could be more pointed
or more tragic than the contrast between the effects of the
Revolution in the two islands.
When James n. went to Ireland in the spring of 1689 the
Irish Catholics saw their chance, under a Catholic king, of
undoing all the injustices from which they had suffered;
for the moment the Protestants were a helpless minority,
cooped up in Derry and EnniskiUen. A Parliament (to
which practicaUy only Catholic members were elected)
passed a series of no less than thirty-five Acts, by which it
cancelled the land settlement of Charles n. , restored the
lands which had been confiscated from the rebels of 1641,
secured not merely tolerance but practicaUy supremacy for
the Roman Catholic Church, abolished Poynings' Acts and
the subordination of the Irish Parliament to the Enghsh
and Irish Privy Councils which they embodied, and shook
off all the English restrictions on Irish trade. Had the
settlement thus outhned been permanent, Ireland would
have become in effect an independent country. James II.
recognised this with alarm : he knew that the action of the
Irish Parliament was destroying his chances of regaining/
the English throne. And indeed the very boldness of what
may be called the Catholic Revolution in Ireland made it a"
matter of life and death to the English to reconquer the
country, if Ireland was not to become an instrument in the

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 587
hands of Louis xiv. for the ruin of England and the estab
lishment of French dominance in Europe. It was the
tragic misfortune of Ireland that the redress of her own
grievances should seem to be dependent upon the victory
of a power which was undoubtedly a menace to the liberties
of Europe as a whole, as weU as of England and Scotland.
After the battle of the Boyne and the flight of James n.
the Irish Cathohcs realised that victory was impossible.
It would probably at this moment have been possible for
WiUiam in. to win peace by a generous amnesty and the
re-estabhshment of the conditions which had existed under
Charles n. But the Irish Protestants, having just shaken
off a nightmare of terror, were bent upon vengeance and
upon securing their own ascendency beyond chaUenge. The
chance was lost, and the war dragged on its weary course
till the surrender of Limerick. The terms promised by the
treaty of Limerick might still have been made the basis of
peace and reconcUiation, if they had been generously inter
preted. But they were not even carried out in the letter.
The blame for the era of mercUess repression which now
opened must be divided between the English Parhament,
which was determined to enforce the supremacy of England
over Ireland, and the Irish Protestants, who were resolved
to reduce the Cathohcs once and for all to a position of
helplessness. The first step was taken by the Enghsh Parliament. In
1692, disregarding the rights of the Irish Parliament, it
passed an Act requiring that all officials and aU members
of Parliament in Ireland should take the oath of supremacy
and make a declaration against transubstantiation, which
of course excluded all Cathohcs. The most remarkable
feature of this Act was that it calmly assumed the power of
legislating for Ireland over the head of the Irish Parliament
— a power never hitherto claimed. Even Irish Protestants
later protested with vigour against this claim. But on this
occasion they made no objection, and thus weakened their
'position for the future. The reason was that the Act for the
first time in history excluded Catholics from the Irish Parlia
ment, and thus put all political power into the hands of the
Protestant minority.
They used their power unflinchingly to set on foot a
system of persecution which, though not as severe as Louis
xiv. was enforcing upon the French Huguenots, was quite
unparaUeled, inasmuch as it was imposed by a minority upon
the great majority of the nation. Though there were sessions

588 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
of Parliament in 1692 and 1695, it was not until 1697 that
Parliament undertook the confirmation of the treaty of
Limerick. The delay was in itself significant. StiU more
significant was the fact that when the confirmation came it
was expressly limited to those articles which were ' con
sistent with the safety and welfare of their Majesties' sub
jects in Ireland.' What this meant had already been shown
by earher legislation. In effect, the treaty of Limerick was
treated as a scrap of paper ; and the Revolution settlement
in Ireland was vitiated by the fact that it rested upon a gross
breach of faith. Nothing can excuse this ; it was as unwise
politically as it was morally unjustifiable.
Meanwhile the foundations of the hideous Penal Code
had been laid in the earher session of 1695. Of course all
the enactments of James n.'s Parhament in 1689 were can
ceUed : the very records of that Parhament were ordered to
be destroyed. New laws provided that no Catholics should
be aUowed to teach in schools or even in private houses ; no
children might be sent oversea to be educated as Cathohcs,
under penalty of the forfeiture of lands and goods — half
the proceeds to go to the informer. Even the abominable
encouragement of informers could not secure the complete
enforcement of provisions so drastic ; ordinary decency
forbade ; and Irish Cathohc children of the well-to-do
classes continued to be educated in the faith of their fathers.
But in so far as this enactment was operative- — and it was
largely operative — it sentenced the Irish Catholic population
to ignorance, and to the dangerous degradation and brutali-
sation which compulsory ignorance may engender. Again,
to prevent any future Catholic rising, Catholics were for
bidden to have arms, or even to possess a horse of the value
uf more than five pounds : any Protestant who offered five
guineas for a horse belonging to a Catholic was legally
entitled to take it.
In 1697 the Penal Code was stiU further developed. AU~
Roman Catholic bishops and priests were banished from
the kingdom and severe penalties were imposed upon those
who should harbour them. This was intended to kiU Irish
Catholicism. It did not do so. The priests soon returned.
But it put every Irish Catholic family at the mercy of in
formers. Again, marriage between Cathohcs and Protest
ants was strictly prohibited. If a Protestant heiress married
a Catholic, her lands were to pass to the nearest Protestant
relative. FinaUy the coping-stone was put upon the long
series of confiscations of lands held by Catholics. AU lands

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 589
belonging to ' rebels ' except those who were covered by the
treaty of Limerick, were declared confiscated to the Crown,
with this proviso, that Protestant heirs (but not Roman
Catholic heirs) might succeed to the estates of ' rebels.'
Two years later the English Parliament stepped in to seize
the booty. The lands were sold, and the proceeds went into
the Enghsh Treasury. The only excuse for this was that
the war in Ireland had thrown heavy burdens upon the
Enghsh Treasury.
No words of condemnation can be too strong for the
injustice and the unwisdom of these provisions. They
destroyed any hope that there might have been of a recon
ciliation between the sister islands. They show the spirit of
domination and the brutal misuse of power at their worst.
No Englishman or Scotsman can to-day read even the baldest
records of these Acts without shame for the iniquity by which
the whole Commonwealth was defiled.
But the spirit of ascendency did not show itself only in
relation to the Roman Catholics. Of the Protestant mino
rity at least half- were Dissenters, and their numbers were
steadily increased by immigration from Scotland. The
English Toleration Act did not apply to Ireland ; and in
1704 the Tory government of Queen Anne actually inserted
in an Irish Act a clause providing that no one in Ireland could
hold any public office, or be a magistrate in a municipality,
unless he received the Anglican sacrament. ' Thus the
Protestant Dissenters also were excluded from all political
privUeges. FinaUy even the Anglican minority were not permitted
to enjoy any real freedom of development. The Irish
Parliament was made ineffective partly by Poynings' Acts.
which placed its proceedings under the control of the English
and Irish Privy Councils, and still more by the recently
asserted claim of the English Parliament to legislate for
Ireland over the head of the Irish Parliament — a claim
which had never been suggested in the case of Scotland.
This power the English Parliament continued to exercise.
It used it especiaUy for the purpose of carrying into effect
the pohcy of protecting Enghsh industries. Under Charles n.
the export of sheep from Ireland to England had been pro
hibited. This had led to the growth of a considerable Irish
trade in wool and to the rise of wooUen manufactures. But
as they might compete with the English woollen trade, the
English Parliament, in 1699, prohibited the export of Irish
wool or wooUens to any country save England, where it was

590 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE.EMPIRE [bk. V.
already practically prevented by very high import duties.!
This arbitrary dictation of one country's economic pohcy
in the interests of another was as short-sighted as it was
unjust. It practicaUy destroyed the Irish wooUen trade,
though some export to France was still carried on in defiance
of the restrictions. And it destroyed the chance of finding,
in this trade, a mode of relief for that part of the population
which had been impoverished by the confiscations of land.
Even the small Anghcan minority who held the monopoly
of power in Ireland resented these invasions of the authority
of the Irish Parhament, and this deliberate ruin of Irish
trade. As a mode of escaping from these ills, and at the
same time securing English ascendency, they proposed on
several occasions that Ireland, like Scotland, should be
completely united with England. The Union could have
been quietly and easily carried out at any time during the
reign of Queen Anne. And a union effected at this date
would probably have gone far to reconcile the two countries,
as it reconciled Scotland and England. It is true, the op
pression of the Irish Catholics would not have come to an
end. But the Whigs in England had no such extreme
bitterness against the Irish Catholics as the Protestant |
garrison in Ireland, and union would probably have led to a '
gradual relaxation of the Penal Code. In any case, the full
freedom of trade with all parts of Great Britain, and the
share of the privileges of trade with the colonies, which would
have been a consequence of the union, would have done much
to stimulate industry and prosperity in Ireland, and to
relieve the hideous penury of the peasantry which was one
of the worst results of the existing system. But the oppor
tunity was lost. Ireland was denied fuU membership of the
Commonwealth, and remained a dependent State at the
mercy of its greater neighbour. Postponed for a century,
the Union came only when it was too late to effect any
reconciliation. The treatment of the Irish problem at the Revolution was
not only the most unhappy part of that settlement, it was
the darkest blot in the whole history of the British Common
wealth. Elsewhere membership of the Commonwealth
meant freedom, not perfect indeed, but more generous than
was to be found anywhere in the world. In Ireland it meant
tyranny ; it showed the spirit of mere domination at its
worst. Political crimes of this order bring in due course
their own punishment. Unhappily the punishment does
not fall upon those who committed the crime.

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 591

§ 8. The Revolution in the Colonies.
The results of the Revolution in England were on the
whole quietly accepted, both in the West Indies and in
the North American colonies, and WiUiam arid Mary were
everywhere proclaimed. New York, where James ii.'s per
sonal authority had been most strongly established, was
the only colony in which the Jacobite party made any
attempt to retain its power. The grandiose scheme of
unification which James 11. had begun came to an unlamented
end, and its agent, Andros, found himself suddenly power
less. The government of the Revolution had before it the
opportunity of considering afresh the whole problem of
colonial administration.
Although it was inevitable and right that the autocratic
projects of James il, which had gravely threatened the
liberties of the colonies, should be wholly abandoned, it
would have been a good thing if the opportunity had been
seized to work out some less objectionable mode of unifi
cation as a means of ensuring that the common interests
of the whole group of colonies should be considered. During
the eighty years which had passed since the first settlement
was made in Virginia, the colonies had developed into a
group of weU-estabhshed states. Their total population
amounted to some 200,000, including 50,000 in Massa
chusetts and 60,000 in Virginia. There were sharp distinc
tions of type and character among them, and they were
all proud of their local independence. Yet they had
many features and many interests in common. They were
threatened by the same dangers from France and from the
Indians, though in varying degrees. They were subject
to the same economic system, which they could take no
part in defining so long as they remained distinct and
separate states. Their local traditions were not yet so
deeply rooted as to make organised co-operation between
them very difficult, and in 1689, when the struggle against
the formidable power of Louis xiv. was just beginning, they
were for the most part very conscious of their weakness.
This had prevented the northern colonies from offering any
violent opposition to the projects of James 11. It would
probably have led them to concur in a reasonable scheme of
federation, such as was attempted in vain sixty-five years
later. Had the government of the Revolution endeavoured
to work out any such system, it could probably have

592 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
achieved success ; and the success might have made it
possible to solve the problem of the relations between the
mother country and the daughter states, which was to
become progressively more acute during the next period.
But no suggestion of this kind was put forward, perhaps
because it was thought that the authority of the Crown
could be more easily imposed on twelve smaU and disunited
states than on a single great organised federation. A fine
opportunity for constructive statesmanship was thus lost.
Had the statesmen of the Revolution organised the con
tinental colonies, and those of the West Indies, into two
federated groups, the whole subsequent history of the
British Commonwealth, and«probably of the world, would
have been different.
In the absence of any centralised or federal organisation
among the colonies themselves, the only common legislative
and executive authorities for the whole empire must be the
British government and the Parhament which now con
troUed it. Upon them must necessarily fall not only the
responsibihty for devising and maintaining the imperial
trade system, but the whole responsibihty and cost of
imperial defence. To fulfil these functions a better organisa
tion than had hitherto existed was required ; and in 1696 a
new Board of Trade and Plantations was set up, distinct
from the Privy Council, and with a special office and staff
of its own. Among the most active members at first were
John Locke, and the very competent secretary of the
Board, WiUiam Blathwayt, who must be regarded as the
principal author of the colonial pohcy of the Revolution.
Unfortunately the Board was much understaffed for the
exacting work it had to do ; while, what was even more
serious, it had no independent executive power, but had
to obtain confirmation for aU its acts from the Secretaries
of State or other ministers. This was the system by which
colonial policy was controlled down to the year 1768, when
for the first time a minister with real power was appointed
to deal with colonial questions. By that time the revolt of
the American colonies had almost become inevitable.
But the Revolution brought about another profound
change which deeply .affected the colonies. Hitherto the
colonies had been in the main concerned only with the king
and his Privy Council, from whom they derived their
charters, and from whom their governors received instruc
tions. Except in regard to the main principles of imperial
trade, they had not been regarded as being subject to. the

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 593
legislative authority of Parliament. They were subject to
Enghsh Common Law, and to such statute law as had
existed before their legislative assembhes came into exist
ence. But, in their own view, the colonial legislative bodies
had a concurrent or parallel authority to that of the British
Parliament. This doctrine had, indeed, never been definitely
formulated, and was not to be formulated for a long time
to come ; but it represented, roughly, the practice of the
past, and the working theory of the colonial system. , The
link which held the empire together had been the Crown,
and the independent executive authority which it wielded.
But the essence of the Revolution of 1689 was that the
Crown passed under the control of Parliament, to which
ministers became steadily more clearly responsible. And
this undeniably altered in a material way the relations of
the colonial governments to the government of the home
country. This consequence of the Revolution was not yet
grasped on either side ; but it was to have portentous
results. Meanwhile a readjustment of the colonial system was being
carried out. The new pohcy was nowhere clearly defined,
but expressed itself in practical policy. It had two main
aspects, economic and pohtical. On the economic side it
was governed by theories which will be more fully discussed
in a later chapter.1 The main theory was, that it was the
duty of government and Parhament to use all their powers
for the purpose of stimulating the productive industries of
England. This involved a further development of the
protective pohcy laid down in the Navigation Acts of the
Restoration ; and a new Navigation Act in 1696 substan-
tiaUy strengthened the system. It involved also an attempt
to secure the proper enforcement of the trade regulations in
the colonies, where (especiaUy in New England) they had
been largely disregarded. For this purpose it seemed to
be important that the home government should have control
of the colonial governors, in order to be sure that they
loyaUy carried out the instructions issued to them. For that
reason the Board of Trade and Plantations preferred the
' royal ' type of colony, like Virginia, in which the governor
was directly appointed by the Crown, to the ' proprietory '
type, in which, though subject to Crown approval, the
governor was appointed by the proprietor, or the ' charter '
type, in which the governor was appointed by the
colonists. The great majority of the colonies were of the
1 Book v. chap. iii. below.
VOL. I. 2 P

594 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
' proprietory ' type ; the Board of Trade therefore set itself,
on every opportunity, to get rid of the authority of the
proprietor, or, where that -was not possible, to bring it
under effective supervision ; during the next generation
this pohcy was successful in a majority of cases, and the
' royal ' type became the normal type. Thus economic
pohcy influenced the political pohcy of the new regime.
Apart from this, one of the main aims of the colonial
pohcy of the Revolution was to bring about an assimila
tion of the methods of government of the various colonies,
and in a large degree this was successfully achieved. The
fact that the charter of Massachusetts had been formaUy
cancelled offered an opportunity of revising the system of
government of this very important colony. A new charter
was issued to Massachusetts in 1691, under which the old
forms of the trading company were at last abandoned. The
Crown obtained, for the first time, the right of appointing
the governor ; but in place of the old anomalous franchise
limited to church members a democratic franchise, with a
smaU property qualification, was laid down ; and the
legislative assembly, besides enjoying fuU powers of legis
lation and taxation, was given the unusual right of nominat
ing the ' assistants,' or members of the governor's Council.
It may fairly be said that the Massachusetts charter of
1691 was a statesmanlike piece of work : it put an end to
the rehgious intolerance which had long marked the great
Puritan State, and in a real degree it democratised the
constitution of the colony. IncidentaUy this charter merged
the old colony of Plymouth with Massachusetts. Connecti
cut and Rhode Island, whose charters, though threatened
by James il, had not actually been suppressed, were left
undisturbed in the possession of their old system. They
remained the only colonies in which the governors were
popularly elected. In general, indeed, it may be said that
the Revolution statesmen showed no jealousy of popular
government in the colonies, though they were naturaUy
anxious to secure that the governors should everywhere
be appointed or controlled by the Crown, as the only means
whereby the maintenance of a common policy, under the direc
tion of the central government, could possibly be ensured.
The principle of colonial autonomy in legislation and
taxation was in truth fully accepted by the system of the
Revolution. It was recognised as one of the essential
characteristics of the British system that local represen
tative bodies should alone make new laws or levy taxes on

ch. vi.] THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT 595
the colonies, in every sphere save the sphere of imperial
trade. The executive government, on the other hand, was
held to belong properly to the Crown, in the colonies as in
England. On the political side the main result of the
Revolution settlement was that the variations of the earlier
period largely disappeared, and that a certain uniformity
of method was estabhshed. Everywhere, save Connecticut
and Rhode Island, the head of the executive was directly
or indirectly controUed by the Crown. Everywhere he was
assisted by a small Council, corresponding to the Enghsh
Privy Council, and usually (though not in Massachusetts)
nominated by the governor. Everywhere he had to work
with a representative law-making and taxing body, with
powers which, within the limits of the colony, corresponded
to the theoretical powers of the Enghsh Parhament.
As nearly as might be, this system was, and was meant
to be, a reproduction of the Enghsh system as it was under
stood at that date. But we have seen that in England
Parhament was inevitably led to use its financial powers
as a means of controlling government. The whole long
struggle of the seventeenth century had mainly turned upon
this ; and it had ended by establishing parliamentary
supremacy. It was inevitable that similar conditions should
in the colonies lead to similar results. There was bound to
be a conflict for supremacy between the assemblies and the
governors : it was already beginning in the years immedi
ately foUowing the Revolution. But there was this differ
ence between the constitutional struggle in the colonies and
that in England. Behind the governor was the king who
appointed him ; and the king himself was now dependent
upon the British Parhament. Hence the struggle for
ascendency between governors and assembhes almost
necessarily involved a conflict between the colonies and the
mother country, unless some means of avoiding this result
could be found. The need for such a solution was not yet
realised by anybody. It might weU appear that the colonies
were treated with the utmost generosity when they were
given institutions modelled on those of the home country,
which were the most liberal in the world. Yet the plain
fact was that, just because the colonies were pohticaUy free,
they were bound to aim at the enlargement of their freedom ;
for it is of the essence of liberty that it strives for its own
fulfilment. This inevitable tendency was, however, modified and
partly obscured by two important factors, one of which

596 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
tended to intensify the colonial desire for greater independ
ence, while the other tended to check it. The first was the
commercial pohcy followed by the mother country, a policy
of protection for Enghsh trade interests, certain aspects of
which were resented by many of the colonies. The other
factor was the danger from France, which had now become
very real. For the Revolution coincided with the opening
of the direct conflict between the French and the British
colonies in America, which was to last for more than seventy
years, and was only to end with the destruction of the
French American empire. During all that period the
colonies, disunited as they were, and without mihtary
organisation, could not fail to realise that their security
depended absolutely upon the protection of the mother
country, and especially upon the navy, the maiii defence
against French attacks. So long as this danger lasted, the
constitutional struggle could never be allowed to go very
far. [The books by Lodge, Trevelyan, Ranke, Hallam, already referred
to ; Macaulay's History ; C. G. Robertson's Statutes and Documents ;
Acton's lecture on ' The Enghsh Revolution ' (Lectures on Modern
History) ; Maitland's Constitutional History of England (Period IV. :
Public law at the death of Wilham in.) ; Hume Brown's and Lang's
Histories of Scotland ; Mackinnon's Union of England and Scotland ;
Lecky's History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. ;
Channing's History of the United States ; Lucas' Historical Geo
graphy of the West Indies.]

CHAPTER VII
THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV
(a.d. 1689-1713)
§ 1. The War of the League of Augsburg, and the British
share in it.
The two wars against Louis xiV., of which the first may
almost be said to have begun with the landing of William
of Orange in England, together constituted the second of
the four great ordeals by battle through which the British
Commonwealth has had to pass during the course of modern
history ; and in this struggle, as in each of the others, the
Commonwealth found itself called upon to defend not only
its own liberties, but at the same time the freedom of Europe
from the dominance of a single power. We have already
seen in an earher chapter (Chapter v.) that the security
and even the possibility of the Revolution settlement
depended upon the course of the first of these two wars ;
and we have also seen that if the islands had not been ranged
on the side of the banded peoples of Europe and against
the great French king, Louis' triumph would have been all
but certain. The freedom of the islands did not indeed
seem to be so directly imperilled in this struggle as in the
Elizabethan war against Spain. Yet the expanding liberty
of the British constitutional system would assuredly have
been endangered if Louis xiv. had been successful ; and
the stability of the European system was even more directly
endangered than in the earher war.
By 1692, as we saw in Chapter v., all serious danger to
the islands and their new system of government had been
removed ; and as this meant that they were able to devote
their strength to the continental struggle, it may be said
that by the same date the possibility of victory for Louis
vanished also. The war raged still for another five years ;
but only on one occasion — in 1696 — was there any serious
threat of an invasion of Britain, and that came to nothing.
We need not follow the course of the fighting on the
continent. Its main feature was that though the French
59;

598 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
armies won victories they were never able to turn them to
advantage; because France was ringed about by such a
circle of enemies that she could never throw her whole
strength upon one point. The main fighting was in the
Netherlands ; and here, in the cockpit of Europe, regular
English armies for the first time played their part alongside
of the armies of the allies. Each year Wilham in. went
across to lead the campaign. Year after year he was beaten
in the field, notably at the battles of Steenkerke (1692) and
Landen or Neerwinden (1693) ; but always he was able to
prevent these defeats from leading to disastrous consequences.
His only considerable victory was the recapture of the great
fortress of Namur (1695), which the French had taken in
1692, and which commanded the line of the river Meuse,
the most direct hne of advance against the Dutch. The
campaigns in the Netherlands consisted, indeed, very largely
of elaborate manoeuvres round great fortified places ; for
the art of fortification had been brought to a very high pitch
of perfection by the French engineer Vauban and the Dutch
engineer Cohorn.1 MeanwhUe there was constant fighting,
not so fierce but equaUy indecisive, in Germany, on the
frontiers of Savoy between France and Italy, and in the
north of Spain, where from 1694 onwards Louis xiv. was
conducting an invasion.
The part played by England in the continental war was
far greater than it had ever been in any previous continental
war of modern times, and this ordeal formed and tested the
traditions of the English regular army : the battles of this
war are the earhest enrolled on the standards of some of
the oldest English regiments. But, important as it was,
the contribution of the army was less important than the
contribution of the navy. In the naval operations of this
war the old rivals, Enghsh and Dutch, acted in co-operation.
But the Dutch played a more and more subsidiary part as
the war went on. Their resources were strained by the
land-fighting ; and from this time onwards naval supremacy
unmistakably belonged to England.
No great naval battle was fought after the battle of La
Hogue in 1692, and therefore the naval side of the struggle
attracted little attention. But that was because the French
fleets dared not come out to fight. It is characteristic of
naval warfare that there is apt to be least fighting when the

1 The predominance of the art of fortification in this and the following
wars is reflected in the fortress-games played by My Uncle Toby and
Corporal Trim in Sterne's Tristram Shandy.

ch. vn.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 599
y ,/ ' sUent pressure of naval might is doing its work most effici
ently, and thus its importance is liable to be overlooked ; and
although the best ways of using naval power were not yet
fuUy understood, its influence was decisive. After the battle
of La Hogue British troops could be shipped freely to any
part of the continent where they were needed, while there
was no real chance that French troops could be landed in
any large numbers in the islands. That was one great
result of naval superiority. But it also exercised a more
direct influence on the course of the struggle by land, as was
strikingly shown when a French attack was directed against
'" Spain in 1694. A strong attack, pressed home, would have
forced Spain out of the war, and released French forces
which might have sufficed for a decisive victory in the
Netherlands. But an effective attack could not be carried
out if aU supplies had to be sent through the passes of the
Pyrenees. At first the French were able to use the short ,
sea route from Toulon. But when an English fleet appeared J
in the Mediterranean in 1694 and 1695, its mere presence
was enough to cut the sea-communications of the French,
and to ensure the failure of the Spanish campaign. Thus
a decisive victory was won by the navy, without any fighting
—a victory more important than many battles in Flanders.
In 1696 the Enghsh fleet was recaUed from the Mediter
ranean, because there was a threat of a French invasion of
England. The result was that the attack on Spain was
renewed, and that the Duke of Savoy was forced to make
peace with France. Nothing could have shown more
clearly the importance of naval strength.
Another result of the naval supremacy of the allies was
that French commerce, which had been so laboriously built
up by Colbert, almost disappeared from the seas, and France
had to do without the strength she could derive from this
source. Her saUors revenged themselves by privateering
at the expense of English and Dutch commerce, and the
losses caused to the English and Dutch mercantile marine
were on a very large scale. They were larger than they need
have been, had naval power been rightly used, and they
caused great outcries of alarm at home ; they were indeed
immeasurably greater than the corresponding losses of the
French. But this was because there were extremely few
French ships exposed to capture, whereas, in spite of losses,
the number of Enghsh ships plying the seas grew rapidly
during the war. The losses which were due to privateering
were in fact of very small importance in comparison with

600 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
the total ruin of French oversea trade ; and at the end of
the war Enghsh foreign trade was stronger than it had
ever been.
Finally the war inevitably extended to the colonies, and
the fierce colonial rivalry of England and France, which
lasted, with intervals, until 1763, began during these years.
In 1690 the French in Canada planned a triple attack upon
the divided English colonies. Though the population of
French Canada amounted to only about 20,000, against
some 200,000 in the English colonies, they had the advantage
(for warlike purposes) of being controlled by a single despotic
government, while the Enghsh colonies had twelve distinct
governments, often at cross-purposes with one another, and
each weakened by the conflict of authority between the
governor and the Assembly. The French plan was to win
the Hudson valley, and so cut off New England from the
southern colonies : this remained the principal French
objective throughout the long struggle down to 1760.
But the attack had little success, though the town of
Schenectady on the Hudson was sacked, and its people
massacred. To this the New Englanders replied by a
vigorous attack on Canada, led by Sir WiUiam Phipps,
Governor of Massachusetts. Port Royal and Acadia (Nova
Scotia) were captured and held throughout the war. Quebec
also was attacked. It might have been captured had the
mother country been free to send ships and men to share in
the expedition ; for no help on any large scale could be
expected from France. But the navy was fully occupied
in home waters. There was intermittent fighting also in the
West Indies, and on the coast of West Africa. But this
sporadic warfare was only a foretaste of what was to come
in later wars, when the struggle between France and England
flamed out in every part of the world, and on all seas. So
far as the colonies were concerned, the main result of the
war was that it taught the colonists that they stood in
danger from the French, and therefore strengthened their
loyalty to the British connexion. For it was already
obvious that, but for the shield of the navy, far distant as
it was, the colonies would have been exposed to a much
more formidable attack by French veteran troops.
§ 2. The Problem of the Spanish Inheritance.
In 1697 the dreary War of the League of Augsburg
came to Nan end with the Peace of Ryswick, which

ch. vii.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 601
marks the first stage in the downfall of Louis xiv.
For the first time in his reign he ended a war without
making any gains ; indeed he had to restore aU he had
seized since 1678 with the exception of Strasbourg. '
France was loaded with debt, and the prosperity which
Colbert had built up had almost vanished. Above all, the
power on the seas which, thanks to Colbert's work, had
seemed within the grasp of France in 1689, was now definitely
lost, never to be regained. Most of the allies were not less
eager than France to welcome the restoration of peace.
The Dutch had suffered terribly from the strain of war ;
they had seen the commercial leadership which they had so
long held pass into the hands of their English rivals. The
English, who had gained more from the war than any other
power, scarcely yet realised the value of what they had won,
and were keenly aware of the burdens of war, and of the
hardships it inflicted. Eager above all for peace, now that
the danger of French dominion seemed to be removed, the
Tory majority in Parhament insisted upon reducing the
army to the lowest possible limits, though the king believed
that the maintenance of an adequate force would be the
best safeguard against future dangers, and was convinced
that a new struggle was bound to come before long.
Indeed a complex and dangerous problem, which had
loomed before the minds of European statesmen for more
than thirty years, was becoming urgent : it was in order
to be free to deal with this problem that Louis xiv. had
been eager to end the last war, even on unfavourable terms.
This problem was nothing less than the question what was
to become of the vast dominions of Spain. Charles n. of
Spain, the last descendant of Phihp n. in the direct male line,
had been an ailing weakling ever since his accession in 1665 ;
he had no children, and his death might be expected at any
moment. He had two sisters, who would with their heirs
come next in the strict order of succession. The eldest had
married Louis xiv. of France ; by the marriage treaty she
had renounced her rights of succession, in consideration of
the payment of a large dowry by Spain ; but the dowry
had never been paid. The second had married the Emperor
Leopold 1. She had died after giving birth to a daughter, ,
who had married the Elector of Bavaria and borne a son j
known as the Electoral Prince of Bavaria ; but she also, ;
on her marriage, had renounced her rights to the Spanish
crown. If these renunciations were both held to be valid,
the succession would go to the representatives of the previous

602 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
generation. But Charles ii.'s father had also had only two
sisters ; one of whom had married Louis xni. of France, and
was Louis xiv.'s mother, while the other had married the
Emperor Ferdinand il, and was Leopold i.'s mother. Thus
in both generations intermarriage had given a claim of
almost equal weight to France and to the Austrian branch
of the Habsburgs. Neither of these powers would ever
consent that the whole Spanish inheritance should pass to
the other. None of the other European powers could feel
safe if either of the two great continental States were thus
enriched, and enabled possibly to dominate the world.
Above all, the prospect that the whole of the vast empire
of Spain should pass under the control of France was a
mere nightmare to European statesmen, who had found it
extremely difficult to resist the strength of France alone.
Here, then, was the prospect of a more gigantic and terrible
war than any that had gone before, and the only possibihty
of averting it was by coming to an agreed solution of the
problem beforehand. Louis xiv., who had at last learned
how dangerous it was to have to deal with the united oppo
sition of Europe, was willing for a compromise ; and he
therefore entered into negotiations with WiUiam in., as the
leading statesman of the Grand AUiance. It has been held
that in thus undertaking by ' secret diplomacy ' to arrange
for the partition of the Spanish dominions these two princes
were committing a crime against Europe. They were, in
fact, adopting the only possible means of avoiding war.
A pubhc discussion of the question, by a congress consisting
of representatives of absolute princes all thinking of their
own interests alone, would have led to no result at all. It
was absurd that questions so vital to Europe, and to every
European country, should be determined by the mere
accidents of dynastic inheritance. The Spanish dominions
did not constitute a national State whose fortunes concerned
only the Spanish people. They included some of the most
important parts of Italy. They included the Netherlands
(Belgium), which formed an essential defence of the Dutch
against France. Above all they included the immense and
misused empire in the New World, with all its neglected
opportunities of trade and settlement. And the disposition
of these dominions, scattered over the world, must certainly
involve the issues of peace and war. If Louis xiv. and
WiUiam in. could arrive at a compromise which would
avert war, they would be benefactors of humanity.
After long discussions, in which Louis xiv. showed an

ch. vn.j THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XlV. 603
admirable and quite unexpected moderation, a settlement
was reached in what was known as the First Partition
Treaty (1698), whereby Spain, the Netherlands and the
Indies were to go to the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, while
the Spanish lands in Italy were to be divided between
Austria and France. Even this solution raised a storm
when its terms were announced ; the pride of Spain would
not consent to the loss of any of the Spanish dominions ;
theEmperorwas unwilling to abandon any part of his claims.
These difficulties might have been overcome. But the
practicability of this solution was shattered when in 1699
the young Electoral Prince died of smallpox ; the problem
had to be tackled afresh.
Knowing that the indignation of the Spaniards might lead
them more readUy to accept a French king than to see their
empire divided, Louis xiv. had to choose between this
aUuring prospect and a renewal of his pohcy of compromise.
But it was not certain that the Spaniards might not choose
an Austrian in preference to a French king ; and in either
event a long and dreadful war seemed likely. So Louis
reconcUed himself to a new partition-compromise, and
showed himself yet more moderate than before. In the
Second Partition Treaty (1699), also arranged with William ~
in., he agreed to allow Spain and the Netherlands and all
the Indies to go to the Emperor's second son, provided that
he undertook never to unite the Spanish and Austrian
crowns. France was to be compensated by the acquisi
tion of Lorraine, whose duke was given the Italian-
Spanish duchy of Milan. These were amazing concessions,
and they show how sincere was Louis' desire to avoid
war. But the new arrangement, though it was agreed to by
most of the powers of Europe, did not win the assent of
the parties most immediately concerned. The Emperor would
not accept it : he was not wriTing to renounce one jot or
tittle of his claim to the whole inheritance. Above all,
Spain would not accept it : even in her weakness her pride
refused to submit to the sacrifice of any part of her domin
ions. The aim of her statesmen was to keep the empire
together by securing for it the strongest possible protection ;
and with this aim in view, after long palace intrigues,
Charles n. signed in October 1700 a will bequeathing the /
whole of his dominions to the second grandson of Louis xiv. !
Should he refuse to accept, the wUl provided that the whole
inheritance should go to the second son of the Emperor.

604 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
Three weeks later Charles n. died ; and the terms of his
will were formaUy communicated to France.
What was Louis to do ? If he refused the Spanish crown
on behalf of his grandson, the claim under the will would
pass to the Habsburgs, who would certainly accept it. In
that event, would England and Holland support France in
insisting that the partition treaty should be carried out ?
It was practicaUy certain that they would not : in both
countries the peace party had the upper hand, and in
England, whose voice would be decisive, the Tories, vehe
mently opposed to WiUiam in., had reduced the army to
negligible numbers, and were in declared hostihty to the
partition treaty. They were, in fact, inchned to be friendly
with France, especially those among them who were Jacobite
in sentiment. If Louis held by the partition treaty and
refused the Spanish inheritance, he must either look on while
the Habsburg house, the traditional enemy of France, was
restored to the overwhelming power it had enjoyed in
Charles v.'s time, or he must fight, single-handed, to
prevent this. The acceptance of the wiU, even if it
involved war to defend the rights of his grandson (and
it was not certain that war would be inevitable) — a war
in which all the resources of Spain would be added to
those of France — seemed to him, not unnaturally, to be
preferable to a single-handed war in which he would fight
under every disadvantage. He decided to accept the will ;
and under all the circumstances (and especiaUy in view of
the attitude of the English Tories) he cannot be blamed for
accepting it. William in. naturally regarded his action
as a breach of faith ; but it is fair to remember that the
partition treaty was of little value unless it was accepted
by the Emperor and by Spain, neither of whom would have
anything to do with it.
Louis cannot fairly be blamed, if he is judged by any
standard of seventeenth-century statecraft. But the situa
tion created by the combination of France and Spain under
practically the same controUing will was indeed alarming
for Europe, and above all for the maritime powers. Yet
^so strong was the desire for peace that during 1701 both
l England and the Dutch tardily and reluctantly recognised
(Louis' grandson, Phihp v., as King of Spain. The Emperor,
indeed, refused to consent ; and began war against the
Spanish dominions in Northern Italy, now garrisoned by
French troops. But the Emperor alone could do nothing. He
was almost penniless, and he had on his hands a dangerous

ch. vil] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 605
revolt in Hungary, which broke out in this year. If Louis
could use his position moderately, he might still secure a
peaceful victory more brUliant than his armies had ever
been able to win for him.
But the intoxication of triumph made him forget the
moderation he had so painfully learnt. Already the trading
classes in England and HoUand were alarmed by the pro
spect of being excluded from trade with Spain, which had
been very lucrative to both countries. It was a sign of
what was coming when Louis obtained from his grandson
the Asiento, or monopoly of the import of negroes into
Spanish America, for French merchants. But far more
serious things were to come. Louis declared that his
grandson could not renounce his right of succession to the
French crown^the only thing that would have placated
the alarms of other powers. He displaced the Dutch
garrisons which had guarded the great fortresses of Belgium,
and replaced them with French troops. These places were
known as the ' barrier ' fortresses, because they formed the
only protection for the Dutch against the menace of French
conquest : that ' barrier ' had now gone, and the Dutch
felt profoundly apprehensive. Finally, on the death of
James 11.(1701) Louis formaUy recognised his son as James in.,
King of England, Scotland and Ireland. This was the very
year in which the Tory Parhament had passed the Act of
Settlement, definitely excluding James from the throne.
This action, which seemed like dictation to England, and
threatened the restoration of a Catholic king by the united
Strength of France and Spain, aroused even the Tories to
indignation and to a sense of national peril. War fever
rose to the highest pitch in England. It rose high among the
Dutch also. And Wilham in. found himself for the first
time supported by national feeling in both countries when
he set to work to recreate the Grand AUiance of the last
war. In the new and more gigantic struggle upon which
the islands were entering, there would be no such division
and uncertainty of purpose as there had been in the last war.
But WiUiam in. had no sooner completed the prepara
tions than death came to him. He was not permitted
to see the final issue of the long conflict upon which his
whole hfe and strength had been spent. His successor, the
placid and rather stupid Queen Anne, had none of his
profound knowledge of diplomacy arid" war. But she was
entirely under the influence of John Churchill, Earl of
Marlborough, whom William in. had designated as his

606 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
successor in the command ; and Marlborough was to show
himself as great a diplomat as WiUiam, and an infinitely
greater general.

§ 3. The Military Problem and the Greatness of Marl
borough.
In the War of the Spanish Succession Louis xiv. was far
more favourably placed than he had been in the war of
the League of Augsburg. Then he had had to depend upon
the resources of France alone. Now all the men and
resources of the Spanish empire, which could be turned to
great effect by French organisation, were at his disposal.
He held all the fortresses of the Spanish Netherlands, which
had baffled his attacks in the previous war, and thus he
gravely threatened the Dutch. He was freed from aU
anxiety on his southern frontier. He held the keys of the
Mediterranean, where the aUied fleets had no base of opera
tions. At the same time he had helpers in Europe whose
aid might be of the highest value. The Hungarians were in
revolt against the Emperor. The Elector of Bavaria, v
Austria's nearest neighbour on the west, joined the French
side, and there was good hope that, taken between these
two fires, and threatened also from the Spanish dominions
in Italy, the Emperor might be crushed, and the keystone
of the Grand AUiance knocked out. If in 1702 Louis had
commanded resources equal to those which he had wielded L
in 1689, his complete victory would have been assured, and
he would have been master of Europe. Even after the
exhaustion of the last war, France was still able to put in
the field armies which were slightly more numerous than
those of the Grand AUiance, and they had the supreme
advantage of real unity of command ; moreover they fought
on interior lines, whUe their enemies were both pohticaUy
and geographicaUy divided.
At the opening of the war all the advantages thus seemed
to lie on the side of France : all save one, whose importance
few realised. France had lost the command of the sea,!
which she had possessed in 1689. Her fleets were never
strong enough to meet those of the maritime powers on
anything like equal terms. And that proved to be the
determining factor. This was to be the first great war in
which the weight and power of naval superiority were to be
clearly displayed ; and this in spite of the fact that only
one pitched battle was fought at sea, a battle in itself in-

ch. vn.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 607
decisive and ill-managed. In the long run sea-power won
the war for the allies, though of course it would have been
almost helpless without the land forces. But sea-power
united the allies, it linked all the scattered operations into
a single great campaign, and it opened to the allies and
largely denied to Louis the resources of the outer world.
In WiUiam in.'s war England had been only one of the
partners in the war. In the War of the Spanish Succession
(the first which was fought by the United Kingdom of Great
Britain) the islands played the dominating and controlling
part. It is true that their armies formed but a small part
of the total forces engaged, though they often had to under
take the most dangerous operations. But British wealth
(and in a less degree Dutch wealth) paid in subsidies a large
part of the upkeep of the armies of the allies ; without this
aid they could not have taken the field in sufficient numbers.
The allied fleet was the main piUar of the whole aUiance ;
and in the allied fleet the British contingents now com
pletely outnumbered those of the Dutch. And, finally and
most important, the strategy of the war was in the main
directed by the genius of a great Enghsh soldier. At the
critical moment England produced, in John ChurchiU, Earl
(and later Duke) of Marlborough,1 one of the greatest
generals in history, and certainly the greatest in her own
history ; a man equaUy remarkable in all the gifts of military
leadership, in strategy or the planning of campaigns, in
tactics or the fighting of battles, and in the diplomatic gifts
so necessary when a body of heterogeneous allies had to be
kept together and persuaded to play their parts in sub
ordination to a general plan.
Marlborough had already shown something of his remark
able mihtary gifts during the previous war, both on the
continent and in Ireland. But he had never been given a
command worthy of his abilities, because William in. had
never been able to trust him. In an age of treacherous
pohticians, he had been the most treacherous of all ; his
desertion of James il, and his influence with the Princess
Anne which had led her also to desert her father, had been
among the decisive factors of the Revolution of 1688 ; yet
throughout the reign of William in. he had been in constant
comihunication with the exiled king. A devouring personal
ambition was perhaps the main reason for this lack of prin
ciple ; and with it was linked an extraordinary meanness
and greed in money matters . But whatever may be thought
1 There is a short life of Marlborough by Sir W. Butler.

608 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
of the morality of this great man, in inteUectual and prac
tical power, in courage, in resourcefulness, and in the
capacity for taking broad views without losing sight of
details, he towered above all his contemporaries. WiUiam
in. had recognised some of his quahties, and had named
him as his successor in the military command. When the
chief responsibility for the war rested upon his shoulders,
he rose superbly to a great opportunity ; and, in spite of all
his faults, won his place among the greatest leaders of men
whom the British Commonwealth has produced.
For eight years he wielded a degree of power such as few
Englishmen have ever enjoyed. Through his wife, a very
able and domineering woman to whom he was devoted, he
exercised for some years a complete ascendency over the
mind of the Queen. In close conjunction with his most
intimate colleague, Godolphin the Lord Treasurer, he
directed Enghsh pohcy and played a principal part in the
pohtical intrigues of the time, always with an eye primarily
to the needs of the war. His was the diplomacy which held
the aUiance together ; and it demanded the highest qualities
of, patience and insight, in addition to the personal charm
which Marlborough always knew how to exercise, to bring
the touchy and consequential German princelings and the
obstinate and fussy Dutch merchants to co-operate in
schemes which were often so bold and far-reaching as to be
wholly beyond their grasp. He was the designer of English
war policy as a whole ; his was the brain which planned the
various parts of the attack upon France and Spain in such
a way that each should help the others ; and he showed a
grasp of the relations of land and sea power and of the way
in which they might be used to supplement one another,
such as none of his contemporaries and but few of his
successors have displayed. In addition to all this, he was
the commander-in-chief of the allied armies in the Nether
lands ; and though he never knew what it was to have a free
hand to make the best use of the available forces, and was
inconceivably hampered, especially by the Dutch agents who
accompanied the army, his plans of campaign show a bold
ness and originality which few generals have surpassed.
In the execution of his plans he showed that mastery of
detail which the greatest men are the least ready to despise ;
and the unerring skill with which he seized upon the
critical position and the critical moment in battle made
him as great a tactician as he was a strategist. Though he
led a composite army, hampered by all kinds of jealousies,

ch. vil] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 609
and was nearly always outnumbered by the enemy, he
achieved a complete mastery in the field. To his greatriess
it was due that the slow manoeuvring about fortified towns
which had marked the last war was replaced by bold strategic
moves which left the enemy gasping. Only one among the
generals on either side deserved to be named in the same
breath with Marlborough ; and this was the imperial
commander, Prince Eugene, between whom and Marl
borough ' there was always the most cordial confidence.
Yet even Eugene was unable always to rise to the height of
Marlborough's conceptions . It is hard to say of Marlborough
whether he was greatest as a diplomatist, as an organiser,
or as a leader in the field. Had he ever enjoyed the freedom
of action which fell to Napoleon, his fame would be yet
higher than it is. Yet the skill and patience with which he
moulded refractory material, and gave cohesion to the dis
connected and jealous groups with which he had to deal,
form not the least marvellous of his achievements.

§ 4. The War -of the Spanish Succession.
In the first two campaigns of the war Marlborough's
largeness of vision had little opportunity of showing itself.
The war seemed to fall into three distinct and apparently
unrelated spheres, whose possible connexion with one
another perhaps only Marlborough perceived. In the
Netherlands, where the French held all the fortresses from
Antwerp to the Rhine, and could fall back if necessary from
one strongly fortified line to another, Marlborough began
by skilfully mastering the fortresses of the Meuse, from the
Dutch frontier to Liege.1 That was the work of 1702; and
it was just the kind of war of fortresses to which the Dutch
were accustomed. In 1703 Marlborough made himself
master of the lower Rhine, as far as Bonn, with the direct
object of getting into touch with the forces of the Emperor
in Southern Germany ; the Dutch were meanwhile to attack
Antwerp, but, checked by a sharp defeat, they gave up the
attack, and Marlborough had to come to their aid. But
he found it impossible to persuade the Dutch to join him
in a vigorous forward move against the French lines, and
the campaign ended disappointingly.
Meanwhile the Emperor had fallen into dire straits.
Prince Eugene, after winning some successes in Northern
1 See the map of the Netherlands, Atlas, Plate 20.
VOL, I. 2 Q

610 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
Italy, had been compelled to fall back before a French
attack. The Hungarians were in open revolt ; the Elector
of Bavaria was threatening Vienna, and a big French army
had crossed the upper Rhine, and made a junction with the
Elector. It looked, in 1703, as if the destruction of the
Emperor was inevitable ; only the delays of his enemy
saved him in that year ; and in the next the threat was
bound to be yet more formidable.
The third sphere of the war was on the coast of Spain,
and was at first mainly naval. Here the primary need of the
allies was for a permanent base, from which they could
command the seas and also attack Spain. But an attempt
to seize Cadiz (1702), made by an Anglo-Dutch fleet under
Sir George Rooke, was a fiasco. It was ill-compensated by
Rooke's seizure of the Spanish treasure-fleet, and the
destruction of the French squadron which convoyed it;
though this was acclaimed as a great victory by the Tories,
who strove to set up Rooke as a rival hero to Marlborough.
But the presence of the fleet in southern waters had one
important consequence. It persuaded Portugal to join in
the war on the side of the allies (1703), and thus opened a
chance for a peninsular campaign, which would, it was hoped,
distract the efforts of France. At the same time as the treaty
of alliance, a commercial treaty between Britain and Portu
gal was signed, whereby Portuguese wines were given an
advantage in the British market over French wines ; and
the English began to be a port-drinking people.
Thus the first two years had led to nothing decisive, and
the three fields of fighting seemed to be quite unconnected.
But Marlborough's far-seeing imagination had already con
nected them. From the Rhine he was to help the Emperor ;
from Italy (where the Duke of Savoy had joined the allies)
an attack supported by the fleet was to be made on Toukjn,
and aid was to be given, if possible, to the French ProTest-
ants of the Cevennes, who were in open revolt against the
persecution of Louis xiv. ; from Portugal, and perhaps also
(thanks to sea-power) from the eastern coast of Spain, a
further attack was to be directed against the Franco-Spanish
power. Thus Louis xiv. was to be exposed to a converging
attack on aU sides. Only great military genius could plan
a scheme so far-reaching. Only naval supremacy could
make it possible.
The year 1704 saw the first steps in the execution of this
magnificent conception. First of all the Emperor had to
be saved. For this purpose Marlborough designed a daring

ch. vii.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. du
march through Germany from his base on the Rhine.1 But
he dared not let his plans be known. The Dutch would
have been terror-struck at the notion of being left to defend
themselves against the French ; nor was it safe to let the
French army in the Netherlands get an inkling of his design.
He therefore feigned an attack on Eastern France by way of
the Moselle valley. But this was only meant to divert
attention and to give him an excuse for massing his troops
at a convenient point. The campaigning season had scarcely
opened before he was marching swiftly across Germany, and
by June he had made a junction with the principal allied
army in South Germany. The jealousy of its slow-moving
and pedantic commander forced him to be content with the
absurd arrangement that they should hold the supreme
command on alternate days. But Marlborough used his
own days with such skill that on one of them he won the
dazzling victory of Blenheim (August). The result of this
brilliantly conducted battle was that the combined French
and Bavarian army, rather larger than that of the allies,
was completely broken, with a loss of 14,000 casualties and
11,000 prisoners, including the French commander, Marshal
TaUard. It was the first great defeat in the field that the
French had suffered during Louis' reign. The Emperor was
saved. Bavaria was reduced to impotence. The French had
to withdraw west of the Rhine, followed by an allied army.
The whole situation was reversed, and from this time on
wards the advantage was always on the side of the allies.
During the progress of the Blenheim campaign nothing
of importance had been done in the Netherlands. But the
great Mediterranean scheme had been well begun. A com
bined Enghsh and Dutch force, under the Earl of Galway,
had been landed in Portugal to co-operate with the Portu
guese in an invasion of Spain from the west. Admiral
Rooke had seized the inadequately garrisoned Rock of
Gibraltar (August 1704) to serve as a base for the allied fleet
ufthe Mediterranean ; and when a French fleet saUied out
from Toulon to try to relieve it, he had beaten it off in a
naval battle off Malaga — the only pitched battle on sea
during the war. It was not a decisive victory ; but as the
French fleet never again chaUenged the allies to battle in
this war, it had the effects of a complete success. The loss
of Gibraltar was so serious a matter to Spain (since it gave
to the aUies the control of the entrance to the Mediterranean)
that the fortress was fiercely attacked both by sea and land
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 23 (c).

612 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
during the winter ; but the siege was raised by a British
fleet in March, and henceforth Gibraltar, the key of the
Mediterranean, remained securely in British hands.
In 1705 the campaign in Spain was begun in earnest.
While Galway, with a mixed British, Dutch and Portuguese
force, advanced into Spain from Portugal, the fleet under
Sir Cloudesley Shovell carried round a small force to the
east coast, under ra daring, reckless, irresponsible hero of
romance, Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough.1 Peter
borough landed on the coast of Catalonia, where the people
were violently anti-French in sympathy, and readily took up
the cause of the Archduke Charles of Austria. Catalonia and
Valencia were rapidly won ; and the support of the fleet
made it easy for these provinces to be held.2 In the next
year, 1706, an even more dazzling success was won, when
Galway, advancing from Portugal, succeeded for a moment
in occupying Madrid itself ; and, though he had to evacuate
the city and faU back to make a junction with Peterborough,
the mere fact that enemy forces had been in Madrid, the
very heart of Spain, where no hostUe army had been seen
since the expulsion of the Moors, made a profound impression
upon the imagination of Europe.
1706 was an even more brilliant year for the aUies than
1704. In the Netherlands 3 Marlborough had in 1705 broken v
through the strong fortified line, curving from Antwerp to
Namur, which the French had been preparing for three
years, and which was held by larger numbers than Marl
borough commanded. In May 1706 he followed up this
success by the most briUiant of all his victories, that of
Ramillies, in which he broke the northern French army,
inflicting losses nearly five times as great as he suffered.
The result of this tremendous victory was that nearly all
the fortified towns of the Netherlands surrendered ; and
the way seemed almost to be open for a march on Paris.
Nor was this the end of the tale of victories ; for Prince
Eugene was at the same time driving the French pellmell
out of Northern Italy, and had won a crushing victory at
Turin. Never in the course of modem history had such a
series of disasters been inflicted I upon any power as the
hitherto unconquerable French armies had been compelled
to endure during the years 1704-6. Louis was forced
1 There is a short life of Peterborough, by W. Stebbing, in the English
Men of Action Series. —
2 See the map, Atlas, Plate 19.
* See the map, Atlas, Plate 20.

ch. vn.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 613
to ask for peace. He was willing to let the Archduke
Charles have Spain, and to leave to the Dutch a barrier
of fortresses in the Netherlands. Peace might well have
been made on these terms. But neither the Emperor
nor the British government would agree to the terms pro
posed; and the hammer-blows which were beating down
the pride of the Great King went on.
It would have been well if peace had been. made after the
victories of 1706 ; for the terms then obtainable were as
good as those by which the war was ended seven years later ;
and the campaign of 1707 saw a series of grave disappoint- '
ments for the allies. The romantic adventurer and mihtary
genius, Charles_xii. of Sweden, of whom we shall have
something to say later,1 appeared in Germany and threatened
to attack the Emperor ; the German princes in alarm with
drew some of their troops ; Marlborough had to spend his
time in journeying to see Charles xn. and win him round ;
and so nothing was done in the Netherlands. In Southern
Germany the imperialist forces suffered a severe defeat from
the French, which seemed for a moment to imperil Vienna
once more, as in 1704. An attack upon Toulon, delivered
by Prince Eugene with the support of Sir Cloudesley ShoveU's
fleet, was a fiasco ; its only fortunate result being that the
French burnt the best ships of their Mediterranean fleet to
prevent their capture by ShoveU, and so abandoned any
pretence of holding their own by sea in the Mediterranean.
FinaUy in Spain the aUied forces (who found tiiat everywhere
except in Catalonia popular feeling was against them),
attempting a new attack on Madrid, were disastrously de
feated at Ahnanza by the Duke of Berwick, a natural son
of James n. and one of the ablest generals in the service of
France ; and thenceforth the allies were able to do no more
in Spain than to chng to Catalonia with the support of the
fleet. The position in Spain being now very insecure, it was
necessary to have a base safe from attack, and near the
eastern Spanish coast. The naval supremacy of the allies
made this possible. In 1708 a British force captured the^"
island of Minorca,2 whose magnificent harbour of Port
Mahon gave them a safe place in which to winter and refit
their ships.
But the set-backs of 1707 were only temporary. In 1708,
though Louis xiv. made a desperate attempt to turn the suc
cesses of 1707 to advantage, and for a moment regained most
1 Book vi. chap. ii. p. 667.
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 19.

614 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
of the towns of Western Flanders, Marlborough won a
brilliant victory at Oudenarde, which regained most of what
had been lost, and broke the main French army defending
Paris on the north. If Marlborough could have had his way,
he would have marched straight on Paris, and dictated peace
in the French capital. But even Prince Eugene, who had
come with a large imperial force to co-operate in what had
now become the main field of battle, thought this too daring.
Nevertheless the all-important city-fortress of Lille was
captured ; and, for the first time for two generations,
victorious hostile armies were encamped upon the soil of
France. Once more Louis offered peace. He was willing to make
immense concessions ; willing that his grandson should give
up the whole Spanish inheritance save only Naples and
Sicily ; willing to surrender all the Belgian fortresses as a
' barrier ' for the Dutch, and even to give up Strasbourg and
Franche Comte. The allies demanded that he should, in
effect, himself undertake to expel his grandson by force
from Spain should the Spaniards refuse to accept the
Archduke for their king ; and on this demand the negotia
tions broke down. Marlborough was not directly to blame
for this failure ; indeed, he sympathised with Louis' refusal
to submit to such an indignity. But whoever was to blame,
the obduracy of the allies enabled Louis to appeal to the
patriotism of France, and not in vain, for a final effort.
Yet even so, the tide of disasters continued.1 Though the
French fought with desperate courage, they were over
whelmed in the bloody battle of Malplaquet (1709) ; and
during 1710 and 1711 Douai was captured, Cambrai was
threatened, the allied forces were deep in France, and there
seemed nothing to prevent Marlborough from attaining
his ambition of capturing Paris and dictating peace amid
Louis' own splendours at Versailles. The misery and
impoverishment of France can scarcely be exaggerated.
This was the awful retribution for the high-handed insolence
of Louis' early days ; his people paid the price in ruin.
§ 5. The Peace of Utrecht.
Front the final degradation Louis was only saved by a
change of ministry in England. As the war had progressed,
Marlborough and Godolphin had been driven to throw
themselves more and more upon the support of the Whigs,
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 20.

ch. vii.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 615
who were ready to pursue the war to the bitter end, because
they saw in Louis the encourager of all the evil deeds of
Charles 11. and James il, the protector of the exiled Stewarts,
the tyrant of Europe. The Tories, on the other hand, had
graduaUy drifted back to a sentiment of friendship towards
France. The Jacobite elements in the Tory party were
getting the upper hand ; they were beginning to dislike the
idea of a Hanoverian succession and more foreign rulers ;
and on all grounds they were eager for peace. In 1710 the
ministry of Godolphin and Marlborough, which had carried
on the war throughout, fell from power, and was replaced
by a Tory ministry under Hariey and St. John.1
That the Tories should" desire peace was natural and
healthy : the war had already lasted five years too long.2
But the methods they adopted were indecent in their haste,
and open to the charge of treachery. They opened secret
negotiations with France, without consulting their allies.
They recaUed Marlborough in disgrace ; and gave instruc
tions to his successor, the Duke of Ormond, which practically
required him to leave his allies in the lurch. And when the
negotiations began, they made no attempt to find any safe
guard for the interests of the unfortunate Catalans in Spain,
who had been encouraged to revolt by the promise of
English help.
With Marlborough no longer in command, and the British
forces practically withdrawn, there was no advantage to be
gained by the allies from a further prolongation of the war.
But the issues to be settled were so complex and widespread
that there had to be a prolonged congress at Utrecht before
the terms of peace were concluded among the western
powers (1713) ; and it was not until a year later that the
Emperor could bring himself to accept the inevitable and
to abandon hopes of the Spanish crown. The main features"
of the peace settlement 3 were that Louis xiv.'s grandson
Was aUowed to retain the crown of Spain and the Indies, but
only on condition that the French and Spanish crowns
should never be united. All the outlying Spanish dominions
in Europe passed from Spanish control. The Belgian
Netherlands were given to Austria, but burdened with the
condition that the Dutch should have the right of garrisoning
a hne of eight ' barrier ' towns as a defence against France,
and that in the interests of Dutch trade the river Scheldt
1 See below, Chap. ix. p. 635.
1 Swift's pamphlet, The Conduct of the Allies, gives a brilliant argument '
for the Tory view. 3 See the map, Atlas, Plate 10.

616 THE CONSTITUTION AND THEEMPIRE [bk.v.
should be closed to traffic. This meant the ruin of the great
port of Antwerp. In the eyes of Europe Belgium was only
of importance as a defence against possible French aggres
sion ; and under Austrian rule, and hampered by Dutch
jealousy, Belgium was in practice denied every opportunity
of prosperous development. The duchy of Milan in
Northern Italy, the kingdom of Naples in the south, and the
island of Sardinia were also given to Austria, which thus
became the dominating Italian power ; a position that was
to prove disastrous to herself as well as to Italy. The Duke
of Savoy was rewarded for his faithfulness to the aUies by
the grant of the island of Sicily, with the title of King. He
was later compelled to exchange Sicily for the poorer island
of Sardinia. This new royal house was in the long run to
unify the whole of Italy under its rule. By a curious coin
cidence, the same group of treaties contained the formal
recognition by Europe of the assumption of the title of King
of Prussia by the Elector of Brandenburg ; and just as the
kings of Sardinia were in the distant future to become the
rulers of a united Italy, so the kings of Prussia were to
become the masters of a united Germany.
But the most important aspect of the settlement of 1713
was the position which it gave to Britain, the power which
had been, above all, responsible for the overthrow of Louis
xiv. In Europe Britain acquired the rock of Gibraltar, and
the island of Minorca with its fine harbour. These acquisi
tions meant that a secure foundation was provided for
British naval power in the Mediterranean. They were the
formal recognition of British supremacy on the seas.
Even more important was the effect of the treaty upon the
colonial rivalry of France and Britain. During the course
of the war there had been little fighting in the colonial
field, for the fierce struggle in Europe engrossed all atten
tion and all available resources. The French in Canada,
hopeless of effective aid, did not venture on any attack
such as they had attempted in 1690 ; and though there
were border raids, there was no formal war until in 1710 a v
joint British and New England expedition was sent against
Acadia (Nova Scotia). It conquered the colony, and, in
honour of the Queen, gave the name of Annapolis to its chief
settlement, hitherto known as Port Royal. In 1711 a more
elaborate naval and military expedition was planned against^
Quebec. But it was badly conducted, and failed com
pletely. The treaty of Utrecht 1 ceded Acadia, henceforth
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 54.

ch. vii.] THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS XIV. 617
known as Nova Scotia, to Britain ; but it made no attempt
to define the boundaries clearly, and this gave rise to much
controversy in the future. Newfoundland also, where there
had been both French and British settlements, was recog
nised as a definitely British colony, subject to certain fishing
rights which were reserved for the French. And this meant
that the two sides of the mouth of the St. Lawrence were
now in British control, and that the existence of the French
settlements in Canada proper was endangered. Engrossed
by the strenuous conflict in Europe, the European States
had latterly paid comparatively little attention to colonial
questions. But the treaty of Utrecht may be taken as
marking the establishment of British supremacy in the
colonial field, as well as in naval and mercantile matters.
FinaUy the treaty of Utrecht was accompanied by an
Asiento Treaty with Spain, whereby the monopoly of the
import of negro slaves into Spanish America, enjoyed since
1702 by France, was transferred to Britain, which obtained
also the right of sending one annual shipload of goods to
the Spanish colonies.
The treaty of Utrecht is a landmark in the history of, the
British Commonwealth, which emerged from the second
great ordeal of its modern history as the greatest naval,
mercantile and colonial power in the world, enjoying a
prestige in the world's affairs such as it had never known
before. There were still to be strenuous struggles before
supremacy was won ; but the British power entered upon
the next era, an extremely important one in colonial history,
with every advantage on its side. The first round in the
long conflict with France had been definitely won. Fifty
years before it had seemed an uneven conflict ; for France
was then not only the greatest power in the world, and the
most intelligently governed, but her population outnumbered
that of the islands by nearly two to one — fifteen millions
against eight. Now the reign of the Great King which had
opened in such splendour, and with such superb hopes, was
closing in gloom ; and all the promise of the future seemed
to rest with Britain.
[I. S. Leadam's History of England from the Death of William III.
to the death of George II. is the best modern summary of the period.
Mahan's Influence of Sea-Power in History and Corbett's England
in the Mediterranean for the naval struggle ; Fortescue's History of
the British Army and Stanhoge's War of the Spanish Succession for
the mihtary side ; Acton's lectures on ' Lewis xiv.' and on ' The War
of the Spanish Succession ' (Lectures on Modern History) ; Seeley's
Growth of British Policy; Morris's A ge of Queen Anne (Epochs of
Modern History).

CHAPTER VIII
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS
(a.d. 1660-1714)
§ 1. The Causes of the Growing Wealth of Britain.
One of the most striking aspects of the struggle against
Louis xiv. was the immensity of the financial burden which
it imposed upon Britain, and the ease with which this burden
was borne. In the first half of the seventeenth century
Charles 1. had found it quite impossible to pay the relatively
small subsidies which he had promised to the Protestant
powers engaged in the Thirty Years' War, and had been
compelled to withdraw from the conflict. But in the two
great wars against France between 1688 and 1713 Britain
maintained a navy incomparably stronger than the England
of Charles 1. had ever possessed, even after the levy of
ship-money ; she maintained efficient armies of regular
troops in the Netherlands and in Spain ; she paid, in
subsidies, a large part of the cost of maintaining the
armies of her allies ; she suffered immense losses of her
mercantile marine ; and at the end she emerged as the
wealthiest of the European States, with a financial credit
equal to her military prestige. How is this startling con
trast to be explained ?
In part, no doubt, it was due to the fact that Parliament
gave its support to the French wars, and therefore taxation
could be legally levied on a scale which was never possible
to Charles 1. In part it was due to the fact that the cum
brous and unproductive methods of assessing taxes practised
under Charles 1. had been drastically altered by the Puritan
repubhc, whose changes had in the main been made
permanent: the traditional customs duties on foreign im
ports were revised, an excise was levied on various home
produce, and a system of direct taxation on land, which
under the name of the land-tax provided a substantial
proportion of post-revolution revenue, had been worked out.
But these explanations are insufficient. Whatever system
of taxation had been adopted, the burdens borne by the
generation following the Revolution would have crushed
618

ch. viii.] ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS 619
the England of Charles 1. or of Cromwell. The real explana
tion is twofold. In the first place, Britain had become an
immensely richer country than she had been in the time of
Charles 1., prosperous as she then was. In the second place,
she had learned how to organise her wealth for national
purposes. Her new wealth arose primarily from foreign trade, on
which the strength of the Dutch also mainly depended, and
from the profits of her rapidly increasing mercantile marine.
One of the chief foundations of her foreign trade was her
growing colonial empire, the bulk of whose most valuable
produce gave employment to her shipping and was dis
tributed from her harbours to the principal European
countries. But trade with non-British territories was even-y
more lucrative than colonial trade. England had, indeed,
since the Restoration, definitely wrested the leading place
among the trading nations of the world from Holland. This
was, no doubt, in part due to the Navigation Acts and the
great development of English shipping which they encour
aged ; in part to the heavy strain which wars had imposed
upon the Dutch ; and in part to the fact that the colonial
and tropical produce of which England had the handling
found a ready market in the European countries, and made
it easy to open up trade with them.
But the development of her home industries also gave
a stimulus to the growth of her foreign trade, and was in
its turn stimulated by the demand of goods for export.
New industries, notably the manufacture of silk, were
taking root and thriving ; and this was in no small degree
due to the fact that England offered a safe refuge to exiles
driven forth by rehgious persecution, notably the French
Huguenots, who came over in considerable numbers during
the ten years before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
(1685), and in yet greater numbers after that event.
The new industries from the first were mainly organised
and conducted by capitahst employers — men of substantial
means who devoted themselves largely to studying the
needs of home and foreign markets, and who paid the work
people to produce the kinds of goods most in demand.
The older industries also were more and more falling under
the direction of capitalists — a process which, as we have
seen,1 had begun long before. Capitalist control of in
dustry tended to leave the workpeople too much at the
mercy of their masters, unless government stepped in to
1 See above, Book in. chap. x. p. 344.

620 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
protect them ; and government did very httle in this
period for the protection of the workpeople, because the
capitahst employer was regarded as the mainspring of
industrial development. This led to some unhappy results :
the wage-earning classes certainly did not obtain their fair
share of the growing prosperity of the country, though as
yet it cannot be said that they suffered from such grave
evils as came with the great industrial changes of the next
century. But unquestionably the capitahst system, though
as yet it was in its infancy, did help to bring about a great in
crease in the country's total wealth by encouraging initiative
and experiment. And there was one consequence of the system
which had a definite political importance, as we shaU see.
The capitahst system required that the employer class
should have at their disposal considerable amounts of easily
realisable wealth wherewith to carry on their operations ;
and a part of this wealth could be made available for
national needs.
Already, then, when the great wars with France began,
Britain was becoming the wealthiest country in Europe;
She was on the way to become at once the chief market of
Europe for colonial and tropical goods, the chief carrier of
the world's trade, and one of the chief producers of manu
factured goods ; and, because of this, wealth was beginning
to flow into her coffers from aU sides.
British trade with Spain provides a striking iUustration of
the way in which this happened. Spain depended largely
upon the vast quantities of the precious metals which she
extracted from her American empire. She had done
httle or nothing to develop the productive activity of
these lands in any other sphere than that of the extraction
of gold and silver. She j ealously excluded British merchants
from direct trade with these dominions ; and although a
considerable smuggling trade was carried on with them, the
wealth which they produced did not in any large degree go
directly into British hands. But there was a large sale
for British woollen goods and other manufactures in Spain ;
and since Spain did not produce much that could be ex
changed for these commodities, they had to be paid for in
gold and silver. Hence a large proportion of the buUion
which came from Spanish America indirectly found its way
to Britain : Spain was always on the verge of bankruptcy,
Britain grew richer year by year. The reason for this
contrast was that Spain identified wealth with gold and
silver, and thought that her economic welfare was ensured

ch. viii.] ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS 621
by the stream of gold and silver which came to her from
America ; under the influence of this faUacy she failed to
develop the industry of her people in the production of
the most valuable forms of wealth — the things which gold
and silver can buy, and which can only be produced by
hard work. Britain, on the other hand, being fortu
nately without any gold mines, had learnt to make
wealth in the only possible way, by making the things
that men need, or making them available for men's
use by bringing them to the places where they were
wanted. It was the work and the enterprise of her manu
facturers, her shipbuilders, her sailors and her merchants
which were making her rich ; the gold and silver of the
Spanish mines naturaUy came to them in exchange for the
goods they had to sell, whether these goods were actually
made in Britain itself, or whether they were brought by
British enterprise from the countries which produced them,
to be sold at a profit in the countries which needed them.
The immense growth of British foreign trade and of
British shipping directly contributed to the cost of the war,
because every cargo of goods brought into British harbours
paid customs duties ; and in this way the colonies also
contributed, since all their principal products were by law
required to be sent to England before being distributed over
the world. But in another way, more indirectly, foreign
trade contributed, because those who conducted it had
control of large amounts of wealth which could be easily
realised — unlike the wealth of the landowning class, which
(being sunk in the land) could not be easily realised. And
this easUy realisable wealth could be lent to government in
large blocks, to enable it to meet the expenses of war or
other heavy charges. Hence the second reason why Britain
was able to bear the burden of the wars was that she could
command the ready money to finance them.
Merchants engaged in foreign trade, and even manu
facturers at home, had long since acquired the habit of
depositing their money, until it was needed, in some safe
place — commonly in the strong rooms of goldsmiths. The
goldsmiths were paid for this service largely by being able
to lend out at interest the funds in their hands ; that is to
say, by acting as bankers. It was in the second half of the
seventeenth century that the business of banking began
to be seriously developed in London, and some of the oldest
Enghsh private banks trace their origin to this period.
As the bankers always held, at any given moment, very

622 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
large deposits, they could lend to those who wanted tem
porary advances without at aU interfering with the trading
activities of their depositors, so long as they kept in hand
a sufficient margin to meet aU probable demands, and got
back their loans reasonably soon. Governments had long
been in the habit of borrowing in this way, paying back
as soon as the taxes came in. But it was in the time
of Charles n. that this practice became a regular one,
because Charles n. was always in debt ; he was always
borrowing from the goldsmiths, and paying back when
the taxes or the French subsidies came in : his govern
ment could not have gone on without this convenience.
But of course the loans had to be repaid, at the agreed dates ;
otherwise the goldsmiths could not keep faith with the
merchants whose funds they held. When Charles announced
in the famous Stop of the Exchequer (1672) that he was
not going to repay his loans at the agreed dates, but was
only going to continue paying the interest, the result was a
very serious dislocation in the trading activities of the
London merchants.
Now this sort of arrangement, of borrowing in advance
of the taxes and repaying when the taxes came in, could
only go on if the annual income of government was not
very far short of its annual expenditure, so as to make sure
of regular repayment. When the great wars with France
began, it became impossible to raise by taxation a revenue
equal to the total expenses. Government therefore found
itself getting into deeper and deeper financial difficulties.
The only way out of them was that it should be able to
borrow without the necessity of early repayment. The ordinary
private bankers could not lend what was needed on these
terms, because they had to be ready to repay their depositors
when called upon, and could therefore only make short-
term loans. The adoption of a device for getting permanent
loans was the main means which enabled Britain to meet
the cost of the war. And the device was the founda
tion of the Bank of England, which was carried out in
1694 by Charles Montague, the Whig ChanceUor of the
Exchequer, on the suggestion of a Scotsman, WiUiam
Paterson, who was also responsible for the almost simul
taneous establishment of the Bank of Scotland.
The arrangement which led to the establishment of the
Bank of England was that in return for a large loan not
repayable at a fixed date, government not only undertook
to guarantee the interest by allotting certain taxes for the

ch. viii.] ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS 623
purpose, but also, in order to compensate the lenders for
foregoing the future use of their money in profitable mer
cantile enterprises, granted them a charter whereby they
were enabled, with the support of public credit, to carry on
the business of bankers on a very large scale, lending money
at interest either to government or to private traders
and receiving deposits of money from merchants, just
as the goldsmiths or private bankers had done, but doing
so with far greater security than any private banker
could do, just because the power and credit of the State
were behind them, and because they carried on the busi
ness on a much larger scale than any private banker
could do. The bank thus estabhshed commanded from
the first the confidence of the whole commercial com
munity, because its subscribers and directors included the \
greatest merchants. It transacted the government's finan
cial business, and the funds thus passing through its hands,
as weU as the private deposits of merchants and the annual
interest paid by government on the original loan, could be
used in making temporary advances to merchants and others
at good rates of interest. It raised fresh permanent loans
for government as they were needed. It induced men who
had funds for which they had no immediate use to deposit
them with it instead of leaving them idle in a cash-box or a
strong room, and thus made a larger proportion of the wealth
of the country immediately productive.
Some people feared, in the first years of the bank, that the
lending of large sums permanently to government would re
sult in withdrawing wealth from commercial uses, and would
therefore lead to a restriction of trading and commercial acti
vities. But this fear was not realised. It was not reahsed for
two reasons. The first reason was that government spent
most of the borrowed money in the country, so that it came
back into circulation. The second reason was that the confi
dence which the bank inspired persuaded men to trust it
with their idle money, and thus drew out the buried wealth
of the country, and kept it in active and productive employ
ment. That is, in truth, the main function which a bank
performs : it keeps wealth continually active in the produc
tion of fresh wealth. When a farmer has his bams full of
com, he has that much wealth, but as long as the corn lies in
the bams it is unproductive. If he could sow it afresh as fast
as he reaped it, and so get half-a-dozen crops instead of one
in a year, his wealth would be many times more productive.
What the bank did was that, by keeping the available wealth

624 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
continually active, by lending it to merchants who needed it
for profitable enterprises and getting it back again with
interest to.be used again immediately, it enabled the wealth
entrusted to it to reap three or four harvests in a given time
instead of one. And therefore the new banking system,
while providing government with the means for carrying
on the war, also supplied British enterprise with the means
for extending its influence more and more widely, and for
producing more wealth even faster than it was destroyed
by the operations of war.
§ 2. The Influence of the ' Moneyed Interest ' and its
Effects upon National Policy.
The estabhshment of the Bank of England immediately
increased the political influence and importance of the
merchants and ' moneyed men,' because it gave to them a
definite and important place in the national system. Since
they now obviously provided the essential means for carry
ing on national enterprises, they could not safely be dis
regarded, and consequently their influence began to be
felt in determining national pohcy, especiaUy in matters
of trade, to a degree never before known. But most
of the merchants and ' moneyed men ' were Whigs ; and
they became aU the more resolute in their Whiggism be
cause they feared that a restored Stewart monarchy might
repudiate the debt owing to them. The investors of money
in the new National Debt which the Bank of England
administered were in fact, or felt themselves to be, committed
to the maintenance of the Revolution settlement, and this
came to be one of its strongest bulwarks.
But because the Bank of England was regarded as a Whig
institution, the Tories regarded it with hostility. It seemed
to them that the upstart ' moneyed interest ' was getting
an improper degree of influence, and was ousting the 'landed
interest ' from its proper leadership in the nation. In the
hope of balancing the power of the Bank of England, they
started, in 1696, the idea of a Land Bank, which was to lend
money to landowners, on the security of their land. But
the difficulty was that wealth in the form of land was not
easily realisable. The scheme of a Land Bank came to
nothing ; and the Bank of England and the ' moneyed
interest ' held the field, and wielded an ever increasing power.
The problems of trade and industry, and of the best ways
of organising and encouraging them, had thus become in

ch. viil] ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS 625
this period a matter of deep concern not only to the trading
classes, but to poriticians and pohtical thinkers. During
the generation preceding the Revolution there had there
fore been a far greater activity in speculation, discussion
and writing on economic subjects than had ever been
known before, and this discussion was probably more
active in England than in any other country. It is not
too much to say that the writings of such men as John
Locke, Sir Wilham Petty and Sir Josiah Child on these
subjects constituted the beginnings of modern economic
science. These writers thought of pohtical economy mainly
as a branch of the art of government : they were eager to
discover how national welfare and national wealth were
likely- to be affected by the pohcy of the State, by its taxa
tion, its trade regulations and its relations with other
States ; they asked themselves on what principles public
pohcy could most profitably be directed towards these
ends, and what forms of trade or industry ought to be
encouraged or discouraged as advantageous or disadvan
tageous to the nation as a whole. Though, of course, they
differed on many points, in the main hnes of their thought
they were generally in agreement. They had risen above
the crude blunder of identifying wealth with gold and
silver : they realised how Spain had suffered by basing her
national policy on that fallacy. They saw that the real
wealth of a country depends upon the amount and the
quahty of what it produces by the industry and intelli
gence of its inhabitants. And the object of their thinking
was very largely to determine by what means government
could most readily increase the production of the country.
External trade they valued chiefly in so far as it led to a
demand for British products ; and for this reason they
attached immense importance to what they called the
I Balance of Trade — to ensuring that the exports of home
produce should at least balance the imports of foreign
produce. They looked with great suspicion upon any line
of trade which did not show a ' favourable balance ' — which
did not produce a large demand for British goods ; and
they distrusted aU Unes of trade that brought into Britain
goods which competed with British products.
These ideas of the economists naturaUy dominated the
minds of the trading and ' moneyed ' interests ; and be
cause these interests had now a very great influence upon
national pohcy, especially when the Whigs were in power,
national policy after the Revolution was mainly governed
vol. 1. 2 R

626 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
by a distinctive theory as to what the trade interests of
the nation demanded — a theory which profoundly influ
enced not only the foreign but the colonial and the Irish
policy of the period. The ruling idea of the Whigs was
that the trade policy not only of Britain itself but of the
whole Commonwealth ought to be conducted principaUy
with a view to encouraging and developing industry (in
cluding agriculture) in Britain. They held that those
branches of external trade should be helped and stimulated
which seemed to increase the demand for British products,
while those which did not seem to do so should be repressed.
This idea led to the adoption of a strictly protective pohcy for
British industry, enforced not only by means of tariffs, but
in every other possible way, and in particular by the use of
whatever power the British Parhament was able to exercise
over the other members of the Commonwealth ; the supreme
aim being to make Britain the manufacturing centre, as
well as the market, of the whole Commonwealth, and also
the purveyor of manufactured goods and colonial produce,
on as large a scale as possible, to all other countries.
The effect of these ideas upon foreign pohcy was very
apparent. Because France was a great manufacturing
country, and largely exported manufactured goods, it was
held that trade with France was undesirable. It was actu
ally prohibited as early as 1678 ; the prohibition was natur
ally strictly enforced during the wars ; and it was in effect
as nearly as possible maintained by high duties on French
goods in the period following the war. The men of that
generation could not see that France could not send goods
to Britain without '(directly or indirectly) taking British
goods in exchange ; they thought of France as a rival
shopkeeper, whose trade must be checked in every possible
way. On the other hand, trade with Portugal did not com
pete with British manufactures. Portugal bought British
woollens and other goods, in exchange for her wines and
the products of her Brazihan colonies. Trade with Portugal
was therefore to be encouraged ; and the Methuen Treaty
of 1703, which tried to encourage Portuguese at the expense
of French trade, was regarded as one of the greatest achieve
ments of British statesmanship in the economic sphere.
Again, the effect of these ideas was seen in the attitude
adopted regarding the East India Company. Enghsh
woollens were not suitable for the Indian climate ; the goods
brought by the company from India therefore had to
be largely paid for with sUver and gold, and there were

ch. viil] ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS 627
constant complaints that, instead of encouraging British
industries, the Indian trade only drained away the
bullion which was acquired by trade with Spain. So
long as the imports of the company from India con
sisted largely of spices and other tropical produce, which
did not compete with British products, these complaints
were not much heard. But in the second half of the seven
teenth century the company began to import large quantities
of Indian woven stuffs, especially cotton goods ; and in order
to improve this market they began to direct the work of the
Indian weavers so as to enable them to meet the needs of the
western market, and thus increased the prosperity of the
Indian weavers. But this was held to be destructive to the
British cloth-making industries, both linen and wooUen
(there was as yet practically no pure cotton manufacture in
England). So heavy duties were levied against these goods,
and an attempt was even made in 1700 to prohibit their
sale in England. This was an extremely short-sighted view.
The import of Indian stuffs not only increased the wealth of
India ; it increased the wealth of Britain by giving her people
a greater variety of materials, and her merchants a wider
choice of goods for export to other markets. As a matter
of fact, the attempt to check the trade had only a very
partial success. Woven stuffs continued to form the bulk
of the imports from India, and the Indian weaving industry
continued to be developed by the operations of the East
India Company, down to the time when the introduction of
machinery enabled British operatives to outdo the products
of the Indian looms. In so far as this policy succeeded, its
only result was to check the growth of trade with India ;
which was indeed, at this date and for a long time to come,
far less important than the trade with the West Indies.
It was partly this belief that trade with India was unprofit
able, and partly the fact that the directors of the East India
Company were largely Tories, which led the Whigs to en
courage the ' interlopers,' or private traders who tried to
break down the Company's monopoly. The Whig Parlia
ment of 1693 passed a resolution ' that aU the subjects ofv
England have an equal right to trade to the East Indies
unless prohibited by Act of Parliament ' : and in 1698 av
rival company was founded by Act of Parliament and given
(in return for a loan of £2,000,000) the exclusive right of
trade with India, the old Company being allowed three
years to wind up its business. All individual subscribers
were to be allowed to carry on private, trade ; and it was

628 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
hoped that the members of the new company would export
British goods to India on a larger scale than their predeces
sors. The old company ingeniously met the difficulty by
subscribing to the new one, and thus obtaining the right to
continue its trade. But the situation created by the rivalry
of the two companies was so unfortunate, and had such bad
effects in India, that in 1708 they were united after an arbi
tration by Lord Godolphin, and the old monopoly and the
old methods of trading were re-established. Had the strife
continued much longer, the Indian trade, and the future
development of British influence in India, might have been
imperilled ; for as things were, only a monopolist company
could afford the cost of keeping up the necessary permanent
establishments in India.
The influence of Whig commercial ideas was still more
disastrously seen in Ireland, where the power assumed by
the British Parliament was used to crush out every industry
that threatened to compete with the British staple trades.
We have seen something already of the unhappy pohtical
results of this policy.1 Its economic results were equally
unfortunate. By impoverishing Ireland it not only alienated
her, it made her less able to spend money on British goods ;
and it also reduced the amount and variety of the com
modities which British merchants could take to foreign
markets, to exchange for the goods they wanted there.
The same policy was pursued in the colonies. Here the
object was twofold : to ensure, in accordance with the
principles of the Navigation Acts, that the chief colonial
products were sent to England, and that inter-imperial
traffic was carried on wholly in British or colonial ships ;
and to ensure that the colonial market was reserved for
British manufactures. The first object was aimed at in a
new Navigation Act (1696), which tried to strengthen the
provisions for enforcing the acts ; and in an Act of 1706,
which added rice and naval stores to the list of enumerated
articles which could only be exported to England. The
second object made the Whigs anxious to discourage the
rise in the colonies of any industries competing with those
of the home country. There was even talk of prohibiting
the manufacture of woollen goods in the colonies ; and a
report of the Board of Trade in 1706 complained that some
of the colonies had wrongfully encouraged the woollen and
other industries instead of ' applying their endeavours to
the production of such commodities as are fit to be encour-
* See above, Bk. v. chap, i: p. 505, and Chap. vi. p. 589.

ch. viil] ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS 629
aged in those parts, according to the true design and
intention of those plantations.' It is true that no direct
attempts to enforce such foolish restrictions were attempted
in the period with which we are now concerned ; that was
to come in the next period. And, as yet, the policy of
subordinating all other considerations to the development
of the home industries had not yet done any such harm in
the colonies as it had done in Ireland, because the colonies
naturally devoted themselves to producing commodities
which did not compete with those of the home country.
But it is evident that the attempt to found an empire
upon an economic basis, which had been begun systematic
ally by the statesmen of Charles il, was taking an unfortunate
turn, such as must make it appear that the interests of the
mother country were hostile to those of the daughter
communities in the economic sphere, and that she was
using her power as the head of the Commonwealth solely
with a view to her own interests. That belief was, in the
long run, when the French danger was removed, to lead to
the tragedy of a disruption in the Commonwealth. It undid
the good that was done when these young communities
were made partners in the institutions of self-government.
Trade interests were to prove themselves but a poor founda
tion for imperial unity. Yet it would be unfair to blame the
statesmen of this age for taking a view which they shared
with the statesmen of every other colonising country. AU
held that colonies existed primarily to enrich the mother
country, and that their trade ought to be controlled for that
purpose. Britain alone added to this doctrine the further
doctrine that the colonies should in all local affairs be
permitted to govern themselves. But pohtical liberty
combined ill with economic restrictions.
[Meredith, Economic History of England ; Cunningham, Growth
of English Industry and Commerce; Hewins, English Trade and
Finance in the 17th Century ; Rogers, Bank of England ; Traill,
Social England ; Beer, Old Colonial System ; Egerton, British
Colonial Policy. Of the economic writings of the period probably
the most important were Petty's Political Arithmetic and Child's
Discourse on Trade.]

CHAPTER IX
PARTY CONFLICTS IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE
(a.d. 1702-1714)
§ 1. The Whigs and the Tories.
When Queen Anne came to the throne the very names of
Whig and Tory were less than thirty years old, but already
the two parties divided the whole kingdom between them,
and their conflicts not only engrossed the attention of
Parhament, but constituted the most important factor in
the conduct of government. In the House of Commons
the strength of the two parties was on the whole weU
balanced ; the pendulum had already acquired the habit
of swaying from one side to the other at each election ;
though in each of the five general elections of /the reign, \
except that of 1708, the Tories had a larger or smaller 1
majority. And this seems to indicate, what is probably '
true, that in the country as a whole the preponderance
was on their side, though the Whigs were strongest in
the most progressive and enhghtened regions, notably in
London and the bigger towns.
On the other hand, the Whigs now possessed a standing
*' majority, though not a big one, in the House of Lords : in
1712 twelve Tory peers had to be created to ensure the
passage of the treaty of Utrecht — the only instance of the
use of the royal prerogative of creating peers to enforce the
acceptance of a particular measure. The fact that the
majority of the peers had now become Whigs is of great
significance. It means that the greatest magnates of the
realm were the least influenced by superstitious veneration
for the Crown, and the most ready to thrust aside the royal
authority and to replace it with their own ; the convic
tion that this was their aim largely accounted for the
revival of Toryism. The Whig party was, in fact, always
and essentiaUy an aristocratic party, though it had the
support of the mercantile classes and the Dissenters. It
was becoming, as we shall see,1 a highly organised group of
1 See below, Bk. vi. chap. i.
680

ch. ix.] PARTIES IN REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 631
aristocrats, and was getting ready for that period of oligar
chical rule which we shaU have to review in the next Book.
The conflict of parties has never been more acute than it
was during this reign. It extended even to fashions of
dress ; it divided society. And the strife mastered also the
men of letters. All the best writers of the period lent their
pens to one side or the other, and the keenness of the public
interest in politics was by nothing more clearly shown than
by the fact that politics dominated the literature of the age.
Addison and Steele were Whig journalists as well as social
satirists, and Addison became a Minister of State. On the
Tory side the formidable pen of Swift was enlisted, and few
pieces of pohtical writing can ever have exercised a greater
immediate effect than his brilhant pamphlet The Conduct of
the Allies, in which he defended the peace policy of his
friends Harley and St. John. Both of these Tory politicians
were men of literary tastes, and the friends of men of letters ;
especiaUy St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, who was
himself a writer of great clarity and force. At no period of
Enghsh history have men of letters been more influential in
'.the pohtical sphere, or played a bigger part in the governing
society. One of the greatest of the group, indeed, Daniel
Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was never (like Addi
son or Swift) admitted to the friendship of the party
leaders : he was only a strugghng hack-writer, hired alter
nately by either side. Nevertheless he wrote some of the
most effective pamphleteering work of the time, and his
Short Way with Dissenters has never been surpassed for
bitter irony. The pohtical topics with which these writers
dealt are for us as dead as Queen Anne herself, though
the skill with which they were handled makes them still
interesting. But the all-important thing was that the
British peoples were being taught to think politicaUy by
having both sides in great pohtical controversies presented
to them in a vivid and interesting form. The process had
begun during the Civil War ; it had been revived in the eager
discussions over the Exclusion Act ; it had never died down
since the Revolution ; but it was in Queen Anne's time that
the best literary power of the age began to devote itself to
pohtical subjects.
In considering the nature of the conflict between parties
it is necessary to beware of identifying the ideas of the
Whigs and Tories of Queen Anne's reign with those of the
modern parties which are historically descended from them.
To show the danger of such an assumption it is enough to

632 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
say that the Tories might plausibly be described as a party
of pacifists, little Englanders, and free-traders ; the Whigs
as a party of militarists, imperialists, and high protectionists.
That would be an exaggerated and misleading statement,
but it would have an element of truth in it.
The root-belief of the Whigs was the fear of monarchy ;
and it was because Louis xiv. was the very type of absolute
monarchy, quite as much as because he was the friend of the
exiled Stewarts and the enemy of the Revolution settlement,
that the Whigs were prepared to oppose him to the last, with
implacable hostihty. Their commercial doctrines, and their
belief that France was the most dangerous rival of Britain
in trade and industry, added to the vigour of their anti-
French sentiments. They were also the inheritors of the
continental policy of William in. The great nobles who
formed the strength of the Whig party had a far deeper
interest in and knowledge of continental politics than the
Tories, who drew their strength mainly from the less educated
country squires.
The very reasons which made the Whigs hostile to
France made the Tories generally ready to be friendly with
her. Many of them were Jacobites, open or concealed :
the group known as the Hanoverian Tories were probably
a minority of the party. As the reign wore on, and the
memory of James ii.'s misgovernment grew fainter, their
fears for the Church diminished ; and towards the end of
the reign many of them were prepared to overturn the
Act of Settlement, largely because they feared that the
Hanoverian succession would mean the triumph of the
Whigs. For they regarded the Whigs as a dangerous clique
of great nobles who aimed at reducing the Crown to a nulhty
and putting their own power in its place, using the trading
classes as their instruments. The Tories had none of the
Whigs' enthusiasm for commercial and industrial develop
ment: they thought the 'moneyed men' were already getting
too great an advantage over the ' landed interest, ' and in 1712
they tried to strengthen the position of the landed interest
by a monstrous Act which provided that no person not
possessed of landed estate to the value of at least £200 per
annum should be eligible as a member of the House of
Commons. Nor did they take much interest in European
politics. They would have liked to see England hold aloof
from European wars and politics : if wars must be fought,
they would have preferred to limit the fighting on the British
side as far as possible to the sea. They hated the memory

ch.ix.] PARTIES IN REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 633
of William in., and lost no opportunity of casting reflections
upon him.
In the sphere of domestic politics the conflict between
Whigs and Tories was keenest on the question of religion.
The bulk of the Tories were staunch High Churchmen ; they
hated the Dissenters and the Toleration Act, all the more
because the Dissenters were associated with the detested
' moneyed men ' of the towns. The Whigs, on the other
hand, were largely latitudinarian in religious belief ; they
were anxious to keep the Church under State control, aU
the more because so many of the Anglican clergy were
Jacobite in sentiment ; they did not wish to see the Church
dominating pohtics, and they genuinely believed in toleration.
Thus the pohtical aims of the two parties were sharply
contrasted at nearly every point ; and during this reign
both sides were active in organising their resources. The
Whigs had the advantage that they possessed in the ' Junto '
a recognised group of leaders of great influence, who were in
the habit of acting together and of planning beforehand the
pohcy to be foUowed by the party. Somers, Montague, \
Orford, Wharton and Sunderland, who formed this group, '
were an exceedingly able body of men. They were learning
how to make the utmost use of the prestige of the great
territorial houses in influencing elections to Parhament ; and
under their leadership the Whig majority in the House of
Lords and the solid Whig body of members of the Lower
House commonly presented a united front. The Tories
were more divided. There was a good deal of distrust
between the extreme High Church leaders like Rochester
and Nottingham, and the more moderate and intellectual
younger Tories hke Harley and St. John (Bohngbroke) ; there
was friction also between the Jacobites and the Hanoverian
Tories. The bulk of the country squires would have been
content to follow the High Church leaders, but the group
who may be described as the Young Tories had the brains of
the party. The High Church party found their centre in a club
which they had started in William in.'s time, and which was
known, from the October ale its members loved, as the
OctoberClub. § 2. The War Government of Marlborough and the
Ascendency of the Whigs.
At the beginning of the reign Marlborough and Godolphin
dominated the ministry and were all-powerful with the

634 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
queen. They counted as Tories, though they were pursuing
the continental policy of Wilham in. which most Tories
distrusted. Through Marlborough's influence over the
queen, they controlled the power of the Crown. And for a
time they carried even the extreme High Church Tories with
them. To do so they had to give their support in 1702 to -
the Occasional Conformity Bill, which aimed at putting an
end to the practice whereby many Dissenters got round the
Test and Corporation Acts by taking the Anglican sacra
ment now and again in order to qualify for office. But the
Whigs could be trusted to throw out this Bill in the House
of Lords.
As time went on, however, and the war became more
exacting, Marlborough and Godolphin found that they
could not count upon whole-hearted support for their war
policy from the high Tories. They graduaUy weeded out
the High Church Tories from the government and more and
more tended to throw themselves upon the support of the
Whigs. They were able to do this in spite of the fact that
the Whigs were in a minority in Parhament, partly because
they still kept the support of the Young Tories, led by
Harley and St. John ; and partly because there was in the
House of Commons a sohd block of about one hundred i
government votes, mainly consisting of placemen, kept loyal ,
by fear of losing their places, who were able, in conjunction '
with the Whigs, to outvote the Tories : in the Parhament of
1705, for example, it was calculated that there were 190
Tories, 150 Whigs, and 100 placemen. Ever since the
Revolution the importance of the House of Commons had
made the art of keeping a majority together — the art of
parhamentary management — one of the chief preoccupations
of governments. It could only be done — at any rate it was
done — largely by means of corruption ; and the methods
of parliamentary corruption, begun by Danby in Charles ii.'s
reign, had been continued under William in. and were
consistently practised by Godolphin. These methods seemed
to provide the only means by which a steady and consistent
pohcy could be pursued under a parhamentary system ;
they seemed to be the price that had to be paid for parlia
mentary government.
In 1708 Harley and St. John broke away from the
ministry, which became wholly Whig, much to the distaste
of Queen Anne, who was herself a Tory. The Whigs, having
got the upper hand, and having, in the new Parliament of
1708, a clear majority in the House of Commons, could not

ch. ix.] PARTIES IN REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 635
resist the temptation to strike a blow against the High Church
party, which in their view was consistently undermining the
principles of the Revolution. An intemperate cleric, Dr.
SachevereU, gave them their opportunity by publishing
sermons in which he had preached the old Tory doctrines
of divine right and passive obedience — doctrines which were
obviously hostUe to the ideas of the Revolution. The Whigs
gave Sacheverell and riis doctrines a gratuitous advertise
ment by impeaching him (1710) before the House of Lords,
which found him guilty and sentenced him to suspension from
the right of preaching for three years. The sentence was so
light that it was popularly regarded as an acquittal. Sach-
evereU had got a cheap martyrdom. In the most extra
ordinary way he became a popular hero, as the defender
of the Church against oppression, and he was f&ted where-
ever he passed on his journey to his country parish.
The SachevereU case was only important because it
showed how strong a hold the High Church party and its
out-of-date pohtical ideas stiU exercised over a large part
of the nation. It convinced Harley and St. John that the
High Church line represented the best route to power ;
though Harley had close connexions with the Dissenters,
and St. John was notoriously a religious sceptic. Already
these leaders of the new Toryism were at work endeavouring
to prepare for the overthrow of Marlborough and the Whigs.
They were using with skill the methods of the back-stairs
as weU as the cry of ' the Church in danger.' Marlborough's
position largely rested upon the influence which his wife
wielded over the queen. But Anne was beginning to be
tired of the tantrums of the domineering duchess ; she had
always hated the Whigs, and as a High Churchwoman she
sided with Dr. SachevereU. Harley was able to influence
her through his cousin, Mrs. Masham, whom he got instaUed
as a Lady of the Bedchamber. At a critical point in the
war, when Louis' overtures for peace had been refused, and
the last desperate phase of the war was about to begin,
Marlborough and the Whigs thus saw the very foundations
of their power shaking.
In 1710 the blow was struck. The queen was persuaded-
to dismiss Godolphin and his chief Whig coUeagues, and
Harley became Earl of Oxford and in effect Prime Minister
— though the term had scarcely yet come into use. Marl
borough was stiU aUowed to retain his command for
another campaign ; but he was hampered in every possible
way, and at the end of 1711 he was dismissed from aU his

636 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. v.
offices. The Young Tories had triumphed, and the field
was clear for the development of their pohtical ideas.
§ 3. Bolingbroke and the New Toryism.
Their first work was to open negotiations for peace, with
almost indecent haste, and without any proper consultation
with the aUies. The negotiations were begun before Marl
borough was recalled ; the preliminaries were agreed to in
September 171 1 ; a group of twelve new peers were created
to override the Whig majority in the House of Lords ; and
though there were considerable delays, the final terms were
signed in April 1713. Here was the first note of the new
pohcy. There must be a break with the traditions of
William in. There must be an end to implacable war
against the protector of the exiled Stewarts.
If St. John (now Viscount Bolingbroke), who was much
the more energetic of the two leaders, could have had his
way, the peace would have been followed by friendship with
France. He strove to secure a commercial treaty which
would have given France the rights of " the most favoured
nation,' and done away with the preference on Portuguese
wines which was due to the Methuen Treaty of 1703.
This would have been a substantial step towards
freedom of trade, in which Bohngbroke beheved. But
the commercial classes were clamorous against such
a policy ; and though Defoe was told off to write up
the question, the bulk of the ordinary Tories were not
ready for so great a departure. The commercial treaty
had to be dropped. Undismayed, Bolingbroke started ne
gotiations for an alliance between Britain, France, Spain
and Savoy, which was to be the foundation of the new
Tory foreign policy.
Meanwhile the commercial policy of the Young Tories had
expressed itself in another way. To strike a blow at the
financial supremacy of the Bank of England, that stronghold
of the Whig interest, they had started in 171 1 a new body,
known as the South Sea Company, which was to take over
nearly £10,000,000 of the National Debt, and in return was
to be granted a monopoly of trade with South America and
most of the South Atlantic, using the interest payable on
the debt for its trading operations. This, it was hoped,
would supply a Tory balance to the Bank of England. We
shall hear more of the South Sea Company. The foundation
of these hopes was the expectation that large profits would

ch. ix.] PARTIES IN REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 637
result from the commercial concessions which Spain was to
grant as part of the terms of peace, and which were embodied
in the Asiento Treaty.
It was all very well to strike a blow at the Bank of Eng
land ; but the foundation of a new trading company with
large privileges was hardly a good method of striking at the
predominance of the ' moneyed men ' whom the Tory squires
hated. Oxford and Bolingbroke found a more certain mode
of reassuring them in the Act restricting membership of the
House of Commons to landed proprietors (1710) . But what the
mass of ordinary Tories wanted was to attack the Dissenters.
Such an attack did not come with good grace from Oxford,
who was notoriously in sympathy with the Dissenters, and
had obtained a good deal of support from them.
To the rehgious sceptic Bohngbroke the religious motive
for attacking Dissent made no appeal. But .he was very
ready to strike at a class who were known to be, in general,
supporters of the Whigs and enemies of the Stewarts.
Accordingly the Occasional Conformity Act was at last
passed in 171 1 ; good Churchmen might rejoice that Dissen
ters were now effectively prevented from becoming members
of corporations or holding any public office, and good Tories
that the influence of the Whigs in borough constituencies
was undermined. And in 1714 another Act followed, for
which Bolingbroke was primarily responsible. Excluded
from the universities and from all the public schools, the
Dissenters had created a series of educational institutions
of their own. Bolingbroke's Schism Act aimed at destroying
these institutions, and ultimately killing dissent at the root,
by prohibiting any person not licensed by a bishop from
teaching in any school ; thus all young Dissenters would
have to receive a Church education, or none. This mon
strous piece of persecution was carried by the Tory House
of Commons by nearly two to one. It passed through the
Lords on the narrowest of margins, and a protest was placed
on the records of the House by a number of Whig peers,
including, to their honour, five bishops.
The attack on the Dissenters was accompanied by an
attack upon some of the chief Whig leaders. Sir Robert
Walpole, the ablest Whig debater in the House of Commons,
was charged with malversation of public funds, and, though
his defence was complete, was sentenced to expulsion from
the House and imprisonment in the Tower as guilty of
'notorious corruption.'. The Duke of Marlborough was
charged with having received a commission of two and a half

638 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk. V.
per cent, on British subsidies to the AUies ; and though it
was proved that these deductions had been authorised by
Wilham in. to provide a secret service fund, a prosecution
was started against him, to avoid which he had to take refuge
on the continent.
Behind this venomous vendetta against the leading Whigs
and the Dissenters lay a still more dangerous design. The
Tory leaders were preparing to overturn the Act of Settle
ment and to bring back the exiled Stewarts ; and most of
their foUowers were prepared to support them in this pohcy,
if the Pretender would only renounce Roman Catholicism,
or even give an adequate guarantee for the security of the
Anglican Church ; a substantial number of them were ready
to act even without such guarantees. Oxford and Boling
broke knew that there was no chance of a continuance of
their power if the Hanoverians succeeded to the British
throne ; and they disliked the idea of placing the islands
under a foreign king, whose continental possessions would
embroil British policy in all the complications of European
affairs. In 1713 they opened secret communications with
the Pretender ; while the Jacobite Duke of Ormond, who
had taken Marlborough's place at the head of the army, was
also negotiating with the Pretender's agents. Ormond was
appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, in order that
the gateway into England might be in safe hands.
Oxford and Bolingbroke seem at first to have taken it for
granted that the Pretender would readily renounce his
religion as the price of regaining the crown : to the sceptic
Bolingbroke it seemed ridiculous that he should hesitate.
But to his honour James flatly declined even to discuss the
matter when Oxford sent him a draft declaration. More
serious, he would not pledge himself to give more than
' reasonable security ' for Protestantism. This made Oxford
hesitate. Bolingbroke, who cared nothing for religion, was
prepared to go on. More and more his restless energy tended
to oust Oxford from the leadership. By posing as a stalwart
High Churchman, and as the author of the Schism Act, he
had won the confidence of the queen : she was weak and
ailing, and, as the end of her life drew near, her natural
affections made her more friendly to the cause of her exiled
brother ; she hated her Hanoverian successors, whom she
would never allow to visit the kingdom ; she hated the
Whigs, whom their succession would bring into power. On
July 27, 1714, she gave way to Bolingbroke's eagerness,
and dismissed the vaciUating Oxford.

ch. ix.] PARTIES IN REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 639
Bolingbroke was now, for the moment, master of the
destinies of England. He was able to use all the machinery
of government, and a working majority in Parhament, to
facihtate a second Stewart restoration ; and he looked
forward to being the all-powerful minister under the new
regime. Meanwhile the Whigs, in grave alarm, saw aU the
work of the Revolution endangered. During these anxious
months they were preparing for resistance. They had
collected arms, enlisted troops, and made plans to seize the
principal fortresses. Had Bolingbroke's schemes succeeded,
it is certain that they would have led to civil war, in which
a considerable section of the Tories would have been ranged
on the Whig side.
Civil war was averted by the sudden death of the queen
before Bolingbroke had had time to make any pre
parations. She died on the first of August, only four days
after Bolingbroke's triumph over Oxford, and before Ox
ford's place had even been filled. Two days before her
death, when it was already certain, a meeting of the Cabinet
was caUed at the royal palace at Kensington. Two Whig
Dukes, Argyll and Somerset, who were members of the
Privy Council but not of the Cabinet, presented themselves
and insisted upon their right to take part in the deliberations
as Privy Councillors ; for the Cabinet was still an unrecog
nised institution, though it had practically been the centre
of government ever since the Restoration. The presence
of these Whigs amid the wavering and frightened ministers
turned the scale. Other leading Whigs joined the Council.
The fleet was ordered out. Troops were recalled from
Flanders. The lords-lieutenant of the counties were ordered
to disarm papists and non-jurors. A special envoy was sent
off post-haste to summon the Elector of Hanover. Boling
broke found himself suddenly powerless to do anything.
Power had suddenly slipped from his hands, thanks to the
resolute action of the Whig leaders. He gave in with the
best grace he could muster. The new king was pro
claimed, and everywhere the proclamation was quietly
received. On the 18th of September George 1. landed at Greenwich.
His first act was to give the chief offices of State to leading
Whigs. Then the election of a new Parliament was ordered ;
and under the influence of the discredit which Bolingbroke's
Jacobite intrigues had brought upon the Tories, the Tory
majority disappeared, and the Whigs found themselves with
a clear majority of 150 in the House of Commons. They

640 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE [bk.v.
were careful, as we shall see,1 to use every possible means of
ensuring that they should not lose it again. The first act
of the new Parhament (March 1715) was to move for the
impeachment of Oxford and Bolingbroke. Oxford was
fairly safe : nothing very definite could be proved against
him. Bolingbroke's situation was far different. To avoid
a worse fate, he fled to France, where he became for a time
Secretary of State to the Pretender. In 1723, having
realised the hopelessness of the Pretender's cause, he ac
cepted a pardon under the great seal, and returned to Eng
land to play an even greater though less public part in
national affairs.
It was a happy thing for the islands and for the Common
wealth at large that the conspiracy of 1713 and 1714 was
baffled ; for its defeat was in a very real sense the consum
mation of the Revolution. Though the Whigs would have
fought for their ideas, it is by no means certain that they
would have won, had Bolingbroke been given time to repeal
the Act of Settlement, and had the Pretender given (as in
the end he doubtless would have given) satisfactory assur
ances regarding the security of the Anglican Church. A
restoration at this stage would unquestionably have meant
a great triumph for the theory of divine-right monarchy, and
would have involved a serious set-back in the development
of the institutions of' political liberty. It would also have
meant the abandonment of that policy of religious toleration,
the establishment of which, half-hearted as it was, had been
one of the greatest triumphs of the Revolution.
Nevertheless, though Bolingbroke had played a mischiev
ous and dangerous part in these intrigues, and though we are
bound to recognise that his chief motive was a devouring
personal ambition, it must be recognised that he was a man
of very great power and insight, and that he stood for certain
political ideas of real interest and value. This brilliant and
dissolute sceptic and man of the world was very far indeed
from sharing the traditions and prejudices of the dull country
squires whom he led. Like his distant successor Disraeli,
who admired him profoundly and was deeply influenced by
his ideas, he had set himself to turn Toryism into an inteUec
tual and progressive creed. Though himself the most
virulent of partisans, he proclaimed himself the enemy of
government by party. He held that the Whig clique of
great nobles, backed by the Dissenters and the moneyed
men, were striving to obtain a complete control, for their
1 Bk. vi. chap. i. p. 653 ff.

ch. ix.] PARTIES IN REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 641
own purposes, over the whole system of government, and
he objected to the Hanoverian succession largely because
the Hanoverian kings were likely to become the creatures
of the Whig Junto. He held that the monarchy had an
essential part to play in the British system of government,
especially in preventing the ascendency of anysuch oligarchy,
and in standing above parties and enlisting the services
of the best leaders of national life. He held that the
natural leaders of the nation were the landed gentry, and he
aimed at ensuring their dominance. In foreign affairs he
desired to see Britain pursuing a purely national policy,
holding aloof from European complications and wars, and
relying mainly on her fleet. In the economic sphere he was
feeling his way towards a policy of free trade : he did not
beheve in carrying the hostihties of pohtics into the sphere
of commerce, and he saw no reason why friendship, encour
aged by commercial interchange, should not be established
between Britain and her old rivals, France and Spain.
These ideas were defiled and largely falsified by Bolingbroke's
personal ambitions and by his unscrupulous methods. But
they were tenable and defensible ideas, and they were to
have a great influence in the future.
[Leadam's England from 1702 to 1760 ; Stanhope's Reign of
Queen Anne ; Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century ; Sichel's
Life of Bolingbroke ; Hutton's English Church from 1623 to 17 14 ;
Roscoe's Life of Harley ; Morris' Age of Queen Anne (Epochs of
Modern History).

VOL. I. 2 S

BOOK VI
THE WHIG OLIGARCHY ; AND THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY
(a.d. 1714-1763)

INTRODUCTION
The fifty years between 1714 and 1763 fall superficiaUy
into two almost equal parts. The first, extending from 1714
to 1739, was a period of quiescence, almost of stagnation, in
which no changes or developments of great importance
to the Commonwealth appeared to be taking place. The
second, extending from 1739 to 1763, was fUled with almost
continuous war in Europe, on the seas, in America and in
India, and ended with a series of dazzling successes which
seemed to leave the British Commonwealth securely estab
hshed as the greatest power in the world, mistress of the
seas and of the destinies of the lands beyond the seas, to
east and west.
Yet in spite of the sharp contrast between the first and
the second halves of the period, a real unity links them
together. The great conflict which fiUs the second half was
slowly ripening during the first half, when under the shelter
of peace the rivalry of France and Britain in oversea trade
and in colonies was becoming more acute. Moreover the
period as a whole has a distinctive character, because during
its whole course the life of the islands and their pohcy
towards the daughter communities in the New World and
towards the other States of Europe, were dominated by the
ideas of a powerful oligarchy, the land-owning Whig aristo
cracy, which had secured for itself an extraordinary control
over aU the machinery of government. For good and for
iU the ideas and pohcy of the Whig ohgarchy were to
exercise a profound and lasting influence upon the develop
ment of the Commonwealth.
The ascendency of this oligarchy was perhaps a necessary
stage in the growth of ordered pohtical freedom in the
British realms. It destroyed the possibility of the establish
ment of a system of absolute monarchy such as was almost
universaUy prevalent in Europe. It turned the British
realms into a sort of crowned repubhc, and showed (for the
first time in history) that a large national State could be
held together without the existence of a strong central
power, independent of public control. It worked out the
615

646 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
machinery of cabinet government dependent upon Parha
ment. This system, which almost the whole world has
borrowed from Britain, could never have been dehberately
invented, and could perhaps only have grown up as the
organ of a compact oligarchy. It is true that the Parliament
upon which the new system was dependent was an unrepre
sentative body, largely controlled by the oligarchy, which
did not hesitate to employ the methods of corruption. But
it is probably also true that the machinery of cabinet
government could scarcely have grown up under other
conditions ; and it is almost certainly true that had the
Parliament been entirely free it would, have faUen (in the
circumstances of the period) into confusion ; and the result
of this might have been a restoration of the exiled Stewart
kings, and possibly the establishment of a despotism. How
ever that may be, the Whig ohgarchy, for its own purposes,
devised a scheme of government which proved in the long
run to be capable of being used as the implement of a demo
cracy, and which is the only machinery yet invented whereby
the control of a large representative body over the conduct
of government can be made effective. In another way also
the oligarchy rendered real service to the growth of political
liberty. It securely established freedom of speech and writing
and thought, as part of the daily life of the community ; and
it secured that the administration of law should be inde
pendent of the will of government. i
On the other hand the Whig oligarchy, inspired, as all
oligarchies are apt to be, by the spirit of ascendency, pursued
a far from enlightened policy in relation with the subordinate
States of the Commonwealth. It perpetuated and even in
tensified the iniquitous oppression of Ireland. It failed to
deal intelligently with the problems of government arising
in the high-spirited and prosperous American colonies ; it
even emphasised the defects of the old colonial policy which
were to lead to conflict and disruption in the next age ; and
a large part of the blame for the great schism in the Common
wealth which was to result from the revolt of the thirteen
colonies must be laid at the door of those who controUed
British policy in the first half of the eighteenth century.
FinaUy, it failed to take any notice of, or to provide any
safeguard against, the social ills which were already begin
ning to result from the rapid increase of British trade and
industry. Both by its achievements and by its failures the work of
this period was thus of momentous importance for the future

bk. vi.] INTRODUCTION 647
of the Commonwealth ; and when the period closed in a
blaze of glory, leaving the British peoples supreme on the
seas, supreme in the New World, supreme in trade, and in
possession of the beginnings of an amazing empire in the
East, it left them also faced by an array of problems such
as had never faced any people before — an array of problems
whose variety, complexity and difficulty were scarcely at
aU realised by the generation which had to solve them.

CHAPTER 1
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WHIG OLIGARCHY:
THE JACOBITE RISINGS
George i., 1714: George 11., 1727.
§ 1. The Insecurity of the New Regime, and the Jacobite
Rising of 1715.
Although Bolingbroke's plans for the restoration of the
Stewarts had been easily defeated, thanks to the suddenness
of Queen Anne's death, he always contended that if he had
had only six weeks for preparation, instead of four days, t
he would have been successful. And it is not impossible
that he was right. Probably a majority of the people of
England would have preferred to call James in. king rather
than the German, George 1. ; and when the new sovereign
made his appearance his total ignorance of the Enghsh
language and of English ways, and his lack of the arts of
popularity, increased the disfavour with which he was
regarded. Nobody felt, or could feel, any sentiment of
personal devotion for George 1. On the other hand, a
multitude of the English country gentlemen had a senti
mental loyalty for the exiled house, and this feeling was
shared even by the London crowd. It would have been
stronger and more dangerous if the Pretender had been a
Protestant. But in any case the wide existence of this
feeling was a grave source of weakness to the new dynasty.
As George 1. very well knew, it was only from the Whigs -
that he could expect whole-hearted support. From the
first, therefore, he had to put himself whoUy in their hands ;
the wealth, the territorial influence and the energy of the
great Whig nobles, backed by the support of the ' moneyed
men,' formed the bulwarks of his throne. But the Whigs
did not support the new ruling house from any sense of
personal loyalty. They supported it because its weakness
and its foreignness gave them the chance of giving effect to
the Whig theory of government ; and they used their op
portunity with such unflinching consistency that they
618

CH.L] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 649
turned the monarchy, for half a century, into the mere
instrument of their own ohgarchical power. The fact that
George 1. was completely in the hands of the Whigs naturally
increased the dissatisfaction of the Tories, which might have
been very dangerous if the exiled prince had known how to
use it.
In Ireland the great majority of the people would un
doubtedly have welcomed a Stewart restoration. But the
majority were effectively held down by the system of re
pression estabhshed after the Revolution, and the minority
who ruled the country, and who alone had arms and resources,
were trie staunchest friends of the new line. Nevertheless
Ireland always provided recruits for any attempt to restore
the Stewarts, however desperate, though it was never pro
posed to make Ireland itself the scene of any of these
attempts. FinaUy, in Scotland the Jacobites were extremely strong ;
and they were reinforced by the resentment against the
Union, which had not yet had time to die down : in 1713
there had been a serious demand for the repeal of the Union.
The bulk of the Presbyterian ministers in the Lowlands
were indeed, as was natural, hostile to the Stewarts, and
they carried most of their flocks with them. But even
among the Presbyterians a small section of extremists, angry
because a rigid Presbyterian system had not been univer
saUy enforced, were ready to join the Pretender, and en
deavoured to do so in 1715. A very large proportion of the
nobles and the smaUer landed proprietors in the Lowlands
had strong Jacobite sympathies. And in the Highlands,
where the clans stiU hved their own wild life apart, and were
always ready for war, many of them were willing to repeat
the adventures of Montrose and Claverhouse. They were
not moved solely by the sense of traditional loyalty, though
this was strong among them : a raid into the Lowlands
always had its attractiveness, and the mere fact that the
hated clan CampbeU and its chief the Duke of Argyll were
associated with the Whig side was enough to rouse many of
them. In the main it was the clans hostile to the Campbells
which joined most readily in the Jacobite insurrections.
It was to be expected that the exiled prince would seize
the opportunity of George i.'s accession to strike a blow for
his throne. The Whigs were perfectly aware that an attempt
was going to be made, for they were brilliantly served by the
secret service organisation maintained by Lord Stair, who
was sent as ambassador to Paris, and every move of the

650 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
Pretender and his friends was quickly known to them. The
Jacobite plans included a rising in the west of England. It
was to be organised and led by the Duke of Ormond, who
intended to seize Bristol and other ports, and to raise the
Jacobite gentry in Wales as well as Western England. This
was to have been the main attempt ; and it was hoped
that Louis xiv. would give it the support of French troops.
But these plans came to nothing. The Whig leaders, fully'"
warned, had the principal points garrisoned ; Ormond had
to flee from England to escape arrest ; and the navy made
any landing in force impossible. It was a serious blow to
the cause when Louis xiv. died in 1715 ; for the Regent
Orleans, who ruled France in the name of the infant Louis xv.,
was "determined to maintain friendship with Britain. When
the ill-fated attempt in Scotland was actuaUy made the
Regent not only gave it no help whatever, but on the request
of the British ambassador he seized supphes which the
Jacobites had put on board ship. Worst of all, the Pre
tender himself was obstinate and impracticable. He
would not be persuaded that it was indispensable that
he should disarm the fears of a Catholic revolution which
formed the chief obstacle to success both in England and
in Scotland. When Bolingbroke drafted proclamations
promising security for Protestantism, James altered them
with his own hand ; and he actuaUy appealed for support
to the Pope and others on the express ground that his
restoration would mean the triumph of the Catholic
faith. Everything therefore combined to put difficulties in the
way of a successful Jacobite rising. No foreign help was to
be got, even in money and arms. The rising in England,
which was essential for success, was crushed before it started.
The Protestant Jacobites were uneasy and alarmed. Well
might Bolingbroke say that utter failure was certain. And
when a rising was started, in the autumn of 1715, it was
carried out in a very inefficient way. The main attempt,
in the Highlands of Scotland, was led by the Earl of Mar,
a Scottish noble whose unsteadiness of character was ex
pressed in his popular nickname of ' Bobbing John.' He
had been a Whig ; he had at first welcomed George 1., and
only deserted him because he was disappointed of a post ;
and he was a man of no vigour, courage, or military capacity.
Yet even so his insurrection caused grave alarm for a time ;
for the army had been so much reduced since the Peace of
Utrecht that there was at first no sufficient force to deal

CH.i.] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 651
vigorously with him, the available troops being needed to
guard against the danger of a landing by Ormond in the
south. Mar raised his standard in his own county of Aberdeen
shire in September 1715. He was promptly joined by many
of the clans, and by October he had occupied Perth and
controlled all the central Highlands. Only the Duke of
ArgyU, with a very small force at Stirling, barred his way
southwards. Mar's one hope lay in striking swiftly, yet he
lay idle and did nothing. Meanwhile a few Jacobites in
Northumberland had risen under Forster, one of the mem
bers for the county, and Lord Derwentwater ; and a group
of lords and gentlemen of the western Scottish border
country had joined them with a few hundred men. Rein
forced by a small contingent of Mar's army, this handful
tried to make its way into Lancashire, where the Jacobites
were supposed to be strong ; but they were surrounded and
forced to surrender at Preston on November 13. On the
same day Mar had at last ventured to challenge a battle with
ArgyU, at Sheriffmuir near Dunblane, hoping to force a way
south. It was a stragghng, indecisive fight, though the
Jacobites largely outnumbered their opponents. But after
the battle Mar thought it necessary to fall back again on
Perth, and with this retreat all hope of success vanished.
In December the Pretender landed in Scotland. But he
only arrived in time to see Mar's discouraged force withdraw
northwards ; his appearance and conduct chilled and dis
appointed his followers ; and before a month was out he had
deserted his adherents and fled to France. He could not,
by remaining longer, have helped his cause. But his flight
completed its discredit. A narrow-minded and obstinate
man like his father, and at the same time sensual and faith
less to his friends, the Pretender was an impossible leader
for a losing cause, or even for a winning one. The remnants
of Mar's army melted away, and the rebeUion came to an
ignominious end. On the whole the rebels were lightly
punished, according to the standards of the time.
Some eighty of the minor offenders were put to death,
some hundreds transported to the colonies. Most of
the leaders escaped ; but seven nobles were impeached
and found guilty, of whom four were reprieved and two,
Lords Derwentwater and Kenmore, were beheaded. The
seventh, Lord Nithsdale, made a romantic escape in woman's
dress with the aid of his wife.
The ignominious failure of the rising of 1715 did not end

652 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
the hopes of the Jacobites. In 1718-19 they were aU agog with
the expectation of help on a large scale from Spain and
Sweden. But the warhke King Charles xn. of Sweden, on
whom their hopes were fixed, died at the critical moment
(1718). A Spanish fleet fitted out to land a force in Britain
was scattered by a storm before it could be seen whether the
Navy would let it pass ; and only two frigates with a hand
ful of Spanish soldiers reached the mouth of Loch Duich on
the wild West Highland coast (1719). A few hundred High
landers rose to help them. But they were scattered in a fight
in Glen Shiel ; the Spaniards were compelled to surrender ;
and one more was added to the list of Jacobite fiascos.
Yet another occurred in 1722, when an elaborate plot to
seize the King and the Prince of Wales was discovered in
London, and Atterbury, the High Church Bishop of Roches
ter, was banished for his share in it. Another was projected
in 1727, when George 1. died, but it came to less than
nothing. Thus all the Jacobite plots failed in turn. Meanwhile the
unhappy Pretender had been expelled from France, and had
taken refuge first at Avignon and then at Rome, where he
lived on a charitable aUowance from the Pope. His life was
so scandalous that it forced his wife, the proud and beautiful
Polish Princess Clementina Sobieski, to take refuge in a
nunnery ; and he sank into contempt even among his
sentimental foUowers in England. Not until a worthier
representative of the Stewart hne should appear was
there now any danger from this source to the Whig rule
in Britain ; and even so the only hope of any vigorous
action was among the bold, romantic clansmen of the Scot
tish Highlands.
Aware of this, the Whig government gave much thought,
in the years foUowing 1725, to trying to tame the wild
Highlands. They built forts at strategic points, notably
Fort WiUiam and Fort Augustus, to bridle the clans. They
garrisoned them with English troops, and with regiments
enlisted among the more loyal Highlanders. More import
ant, they sent General Wade to drive roads through the
barren wastes, so as to make them accessible to armies ; and
though, as time was to show, this did not avail to prevent a
further and more formidable rising in 1745, it was the be
ginning of the introduction of law and order into the only
region in the islands where the primitive usages and the
ancient loyalties of tribal society still survived.

CH.L] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 653

§ 2. The Organisation of the Whig Oligarchy.
Once the first danger in 1715 had been overcome, it may
fairly be said that the constant alarms of Jacobite con
spiracies strengthened rather than weakened the ascendency
of the Whigs, by seeming to justify their monopoly of power,
and by discrediting the Tories. Not until Jacobitism was
dead and buried could Toryism as a poUtical creed again
have a serious chance in the islands ; and it is partly to the
Jacobites that the long dominance of the Whig oligarchy
must be attributed. Thus the rising of 1715 gave to the
Whigs the excuse for passing the Septennial Act in 1716,
which prolonged the duration of Parhaments from three to
seven years, and incidentaUy extended the life of the over
whelmingly Whig Parhament which had been elected in the
first year of George 1. It has often been contended that it
was ' unconstitutional ' for a Parliament to prolong its own
life. The precedent was never imitated until the German
war of 1 914-18, during which the then sitting Parliament
repeatedly prolonged its own life on the ground of national
necessity. That argument could equaUy be used in 1716.
The nation needed time to settle down. And the interval
gave the Whigs time to organise their own power. They
made fuU and skUful use of the opportunity, bringing all
the organs of government effectively under their control,
and thus estabhshing what Disraeli has described as a
' Venetian oligarchy.'
In the first place they obtained control of nearly aU the
powers of the Crown, which were still very large. Practic
aUy the king ceased to play any important part in the direc
tion of pohcy, except in foreign affairs, where his position
as Elector of Hanover had an influence. Unable to speak
a word of Enghsh, he ceased to attend the meetings of the
cabinet ; and thus estabhshed a precedent which no sub
sequent king has ventured to break, apart from one or two
doubtful occasions in the reign of George in. The king's
place as president in the cabinet was taken by one of the
ministers, who became, in effect, Prime Minister and the
responsible head of government. Again, the king never
ventured to veto an Act passed by both Houses of Parha
ment ; and thus the royal veto, which had been freely
exercised by WiUiam in. and occasionaUy by Anne, passed
into disuse. This represented a permanent change in the
British constitution.

654 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
In strict law all public offices were filled on the king's
nomination. All this vast patronage now fell to his ministers,
and it formed the main foundation of their power. Not only
the posts that involved administrative work, but an immense
number of sinecures and pensions, were henceforth filled by
the ministers. They were all given to sound Whigs ; and
as many of these posts could be held by members of Parlia
ment, this ensured to every ministry a solid block of trust
worthy votes — usuaUy about 120, or nearly one-fourth of
the House of Commons. Again, all the minor posts in the
customs, the excise, the admiralty dockyards, and so forth,
were ultimately at their disposal. In some constituencies
the holders of these posts formed so large a proportion of the
electorate that, by the simple device of making it clear that
those who did not vote for government candidates would lose
their biUets, it was possible always to ensure the return of
the government nominee. These boroughs were known as
Treasury boroughs and Admiralty boroughs.
But the use of Crown patronage had even more important
aspects. All officers in the navy and the army were
appointed by the Crown, and government made sure that
they were good Whigs, loyal to the Hanoverian establish
ment. The bishops and deans of the Established Church
were all appointed by the Crown, as well as many holders
of lesser benefices. This enabled the Whigs to ensure that
the Church, which had been the bulwark of trie Tories,
should be gradually brought under Whig influence. At
first it resulted in a sharp cleavage between trie higher ranks
of the clergy and the majority of the parochial clergy ; but
the fact that all high promotion was difficult if not impossible
for men of obtrusively Tory views graduaUy influenced the
mass of the clergy, and the process was assisted by the decay
of religious ardour and the spreading of rationahst opinions
which was characteristic of this period not only in England
but throughout Europe. In the immensely important
profession of law the same forces were at work. Every
young lawyer knew that his chances of promotion to the
bench or to any high legal office would be very small unless
he was a sound Whig. Thus the exercise of Crown patronage
was the principal foundation upon which the Whig oligarchy
rested ; and the distribution of this patronage formed one
of the principal cares of ministers. When George in. later
set himself to overthrow the oligarchy, his chief mode of
attack was the resumption of Crown patronage into his
own hand.

ch.l] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 655
The use of the powers of the Crown also gave to the Whigs
the means of getting control over local government. At
the head of the local administration in each county was
the lord-lieutenant of the county, nominated by the Crown.
He was practicaUy always a great Whig noble. And as he
was charged with the duty of drawing up annually the list
of persons suitable to be commissioned as justices of the
peace, it foUowed that the justices also, who carried on in
detail aU the business of local administration, were mainly,
though not whoUy, Whigs.
In the House of Lords the Whigs had a standing majority
even in Queen Anne's reign. It had been temporarily
overthrown by the creation of twelve Tory peers in 1712.
But many Tory peers quietly drifted into Whiggism after
the accession of George 1. ; every new peer was a Whig ;
and the result was that the Whig ascendency in the House of
Lords became absolutely secure. In order to make it safe
from any possibility of attack, one group of Whigs proposed
in 1719 to restrict the royal prerogative of creating new
peers by what was known as the Peerage Bill. If this Bill
had been passed it would have gone far to establish a close
aristocracy which could only have been overthrown by
violence. Fortunately it was thrown out by the wisdom
of Sir Robert Walpole and the jealousy of the country gentle
men in the House of Commons, who not only valued the
powers of their own House, but saw no reason why they as
individuals should aUow themselves to be debarred from
promotion to the peerage.
The Peerage BiU, indeed, was not necessary as a means
of strengthening the Whig control over the House of Lords,
which was complete, or of emphasising the power and
prestige of the members of that House. There was never
a time when aristocratic dignity stood higher in Eng
land. Every ministry was mainly composed of peers.
A very large proportion of the House of Commons was, as
we shall see, composed of the nominees of peers, often
their sons and cousins. For that reason the peers had no
ground for objecting to the practice whereby the actual
business of government was mainly carried on in the Lower
House, or to the control over finance which that House
jealously claimed. In effect Britain and the British Empire
were governed during this period by a group of great fami
lies, some seventy in number, who were linked together by
intermarriageT'and who regarded themselves as having a
right to the controUing voice in public affairs. To the

656 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
doctrine of the divine right of kings had succeeded the
doctrine of the divine right of the great families. It is our
business, in this Book, to see how that system worked ; and
we may say in advance that, on the whole, it did not work
badly ; that it contributed some ideas and traditions to
British government which have been of high value ; and that,
though it obviously could not last very long and was bound
to be overthrown, it was in many ways a useful stage in the
advance towards full national self-government.
§ 3. The House of Commons under the Whigs.
But since the House of Commons had become the main
scene of party conflict, and since its powers, especiaUy over
finance, now made it the driving wheel of the British system
of government, the Whigs had to ensure their control over
this house before their mastery could be effective. The
mode in which the elections were managed made this not
very difficult. The most independent element in the house
consisted of the representatives of the Enghsh counties,
two for each, who were elected by aU owners of land of the
value of 40s. per annum and upwards. In quiet times it
was easy for a few leading magnates of the county to get
their nominees returned ; for a long time, it was said, the
real choice of the members for Yorkshire was made in the
Marquis of Rockingham's drawing-room, and so long as the
nation was peaceful and prosperous the county electors
were ready enough to accept such- nominees. In times of
excitement or crisis it was different.
But the boroughs supphed a very large majority of the
members, and here it was possible to get a more direct
control. The power of the Whigs very largely depended
upon the assiduity with which individual Whig magnates
devoted themselves to getting control over borough elections.
The methods of election, being determined by local custom,
varied very widely, but there were few boroughs which could
not be influenced by a magnate who would take pains.
Some of the boroughs had practically no population : the-
right of voting belonged to the owners or tenants of the land
on which a borough had once existed ; and in these cases it
was easy to buy up the land. In other cases the franchise
belonged to the occupiers of ' burgages,' that is to say, the
original building plots which had been marked out when the
mediaeval borough was founded. If a rich man bought up
the burgages, regardless of price, as the Duke of Bedford

ch.l] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 657
did at Tavistock, he could usually make his tenants vote for
his candidates. In other boroughs the right of voting
belonged to the ' freemen,' who were admitted to the privi
leges of the borough for life by the corporation. These
boroughs were apt to be more independent. But some
of them were httle. places, easily influenced by the wishes
of a great neighbour who troubled to pay some attention
to them. The borough of Bedford, for example, had
the friendly habit of asking the duke to approve lists
of new freemen, and an obliging corporation might
choose a batch of new freemen of the right com
plexion on the eve of an election. But since a free
man once appointed could not be ousted, these boroughs |
needed continuous attention, and were apt to be insecure
at exciting elections. In other boroughs the corpora
tion elected the members, and some corporations were
not difficult to handle : for a round sum they were
often prepared to accept nominations. A rich man
could estabhsh an influence by public munificence— for
example, by providing a water-supply or a park for the
borough at his own expense. In a few boroughs every rate
payer or every resident had a right to vote, and these were
sometimes troublesome places, where bribery had to be
freely employed. In aU these ways the Whig magnates
were able to get control over a large number of seats in the
House of Commons, though they could only do so by con
stant attention and large expenditure.
NaturaUy a magnate who had eight or ten seats at his
disposal expected to wield a corresponding degree of power :
in return for the support he could promise to government,
he looked to get offices and posts for himself and his friends.
Hence there tended to grow up httle groups or interests
within the general body of the party, who were constantly
busy in intrigues against one another, and in the later part
of the period this became very marked. The owners of
groups of seats were also usually anxious that their members
should do them credit. They were therefore (and this was
the best aspect of the system) constantly on the look-out
for young men of promise, and when they found them they
frequently aUowed to them a surprising freedom of action.
The remarkable pohtical capacity shown by a long succes
sion of statesmen produced during this period and the next
was very largely due to this hunt for men of promise. Nearly
aU the great names of English politics, from the Elder Pitt
to Gladstone, got their first chance of distinguishing them-
vol. 1. 2 T

658 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
selves in this way, and were thus enabled to devotethemselves
to a political career while still young, without waiting till
their names were made and their habits of thought fixed
by the practice of other professions. The system of nomi
nation, with aU its obvious defects, did not produce bad
governing assemblies, it produced unexpectedly good ones.
Nor must it be supposed that the House of Commons
elected in this way was entirely venal and corrupt. Far
from it. Many a man bought a pocket-borough as the best
way of entering the service of his country. Many patrons
of boroughs used their power with a high sense of pubhc
obhgation, and with a determination to see that the best
men available were brought into the service of the country.
It is not at all unlikely that nomination, under the condi
tions of the time, produced on the whole better rulers than
would have been produced by the free exercise of choice by
bodies of electors who had next to no knowledge of public
affairs, and very little opportunity of obtaining it. More
over, in times of real crisis, when the mind of the nation was
genuinely stirred, the power of the magnates to control
elections largely disappeared, as the elections in the second
half of the century were to show. Even at the height of
the Whig ohgarchy there was always a large body of in
dependent members of the House of Commons not in any
way tied down to support government.
We may roughly picture a Whig House of Commons as
consisting of three sections. There was a body of placemen
and members for government seats', approximately number- '
ing about 120, who could nearly always be counted on to
vote for the government in power for the time being, but
who sometimes broke away from government control. There
was a body of ' independent ' members, often spoken of as
' the country gentlemen,' and largely consisting of the
representatives of the counties and the larger boroughs ;
they were mostly Whigs, but included some Tories ; they
held it to be generally their duty to support the king's
government, but they were always free to vote against it if
they thought it was going wrong. And finaUy there was a
body of ' nominated ' members, representing ' rotten ' or
' pocket ' boroughs, who were nearly all Whigs, but were '
divided into groups supporting particular cliques among the
Whig leaders and particular views of pubhc policy.
Thus while the Whigs dominated the House of Commons,
and the very name of Tory almost disappeared during the
next half-century, this did not mean that the House of

ch.l] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 659
Commons was robbed of aU independence or freedom of
action. It meant, on the contrary, that while the main
Whig doctrines as to the sovereignty of Parhament and
the danger of monarchical power were triumphant, every
successive government continued to be in a real sense
dependent upon Parliament, and could not hold its place
if its views as to national pohcy did not recommend them
selves to Parhament. And, as we shaU see in a later chapter,
(Chapter ix.) the parhaments of this period were far more
genuinely representative of the real mind and wiU of the
nation than the manner in which they were elected would
lead us to suppose.
§ 4. The Young Chevalier, and the Last Great Effort of
the Jacobites.
The power of the Whigs was thus rooted in a way which
made it very difficult to overthrow. But the Jacobites were
stiU to make one last effort to overturn the Whig system of
government. This was the desperate and gaUant rising of
1745, which was conducted with a spirit of daring that would
have commanded victory had it been shown in 1715. In
1745 it was hopeless. The Whigs had enjoyed an interval
of thirty years in which to estabhsh the foundations of their
power; and these had been, in the main, years of steady
peace, and of such general prosperity that both England
and Scotland were weU content.
Two things suggested the attempt. One was that after
thirty years France was once more at war with England, '
and French help might be hoped for. The other was that
Charles Edward, the Young Chevaher,1 son of the obstinate
trifler of 1715, had grown to manhood, and was a debonair
and gaUant young prince of twenty-five, ready for desperate
adventures and made to inspire loyal affection. The house
of Stewart, which had suffered so many strange vicissitudes,
played a part in so many tragedies, and inspired so much
romantic devotion, was not to come to an end in mere
contempt, but was to end its long story with one last
heroic adventure,3 led by a brave youth whose memory
could be cherished as that of a not unworthy successor to
the moving, romantic figures of Mary Queen of Scots and
Charles 1.
The hope of French aid came to nothing : a proposed
' There is a life of Prince Charles by Andrew Lang.
1 Scott's Waverley gives a moving account of the rising of 1745.

660 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
French invasion of England, planned for 1744, was baffled
by the strength and readiness of the navy. And it was
best so : the romantic adventure which was to end the
Stewart story in glorious disaster was in any case doomed
to fail, and it would have lost its appeal to the imagination
had it taken the form of a French invasion. The young
prince set forth to conquer the islands in a little brig which
he had pledged all his credit to buy and to load with muskets
and broadswords and a few small field-pieces. Narrowly
escaping capture by an English man-of-war, he landed at
Moidart in the West Highlands, and unfurled his sUken stan
dard in Glenfinnan on August 19, 1745. Stewarts, Camerons
and Macdonalds flocked to join him ; and they found him
a prince after their own heart. Tall, graceful and athletic,
with a charm of manner that never lacked princely dignity,
he wore with a gaUant air the Highland dress, slept on the
bare ground wrapped in his plaid, and shared all the hard
ships to which the men of the hiUs were inured. With a
swiftness which compared brilliantly with the sluggishness
of 1715, he marched through the Highlands by Perth straight
to Edinburgh, and the bells of the Scottish capital were
sounding the alarm in less than a month from his landing on
the shore of Moidart. On September 17 he rode into Edin
burgh ; and the sheer romance of his coming, and the gallant
aspect of the young prince, swept the citizens off their feet.
That night there was a ball at Holyrood, the ancient palace
of the Scottish kings : old Scottish ladies in the nineteenth
century still remembered it with a thrill : the princely
youth, heir of a hundred kings and of as many tragedies
woven into the very life of Scotland, captured all hearts.
Meanwhile Sir John Cope, commander of the forces in
Scotland, who had marched into the Highlands to crush the
prince only to hear that he was sweeping down into the Low
lands, had hurriedly shipped his troops from Aberdeen to
Dunbar and was advancing towards the capital. The Young
Chevalier and his Highlanders swept down upon him at
Prestonpans, four days after the ball, and, coming on him
like an avalanche in trie morning mist, sent him and his men
flying headlong. Only 200 of 2000 escaped. Prince Charles
forbade slaughter, and saw to the succour of the wounded.
This brilliant success made the desperate adventure appear
to have a real chance of success. France began to think of
sending a force to the prince's aid — provided that the
English Jacobites would rise. But the English Jacobites
would do nothing unless the prince himself came to them.

ch.l] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 661
So the Highland host had to set off into England. They
captured Carhsle in November. They marched down
through Preston and Wigan to Manchester, where beUs rang
and bonfires blazed, and some two hundred volunteers
joined the force. But already it was evident that there was
going to be no general rising. Even Jacobite Lancashire
(apart from Manchester) remained uncomfortably quiet.
It was one thing to talk romantic conspiracies and drink to
the health of ' the king over the water ' ; quite another to
risk life and lands on a desperate forlorn hope. Not a single
Englishman!)! note had joined. And meanwhile, even in
Scotland, the Lowland towns, recovering from their first
shock, were arming for the defence of the Protestant suc
cession ; and if Manchester was carried off its feet, Liver
pool was raising troops — far more than two hundred- — to
fight for King George. Moreover the royal army under the
king's second son, the Duke of Cumberland, was coming
dangerously near. And the Highlanders were unhappy so
far away from home, and were deserting in groups. The
little force struggled on as far as Derby, which they reached
on December 6. This was only 130 miles from London ;
and the news caused a veritable panic in the capital : ' Black
Friday,' when there was a run on the Bank of England which
could only be checked by paying out in sixpences, was long
remembered. But London had no need for alarm. The gaUant effort
was spent. Since there was no response from the English
Jacobites, and the little Highland host was melting away,
there was nothing to be done but to retreat, back to the
Highlands, where alone men seemed willing to risk all for a
forlorn hope. The retreat began ; and the dispirited army
lost its discipline, began to plunder, and found itself harassed
by the country folk. Even Manchester, which had cheered
the advancing army, stoned its rearguard on the retreat.
On December 20 Charles was across the border again ;
and six days later he was in Glasgow, where Highland
reinforcements began to reach him. In January a brilliant
victory was won at Falkirk over a superior force of royal
troops under General Hawley. But the Duke of Cumber
land was coming up, and in spite of the prince's bitter
expostulations, the retreat had to be continued into the
fastnesses of the Highlands. Nothing but disaster lay
before them ; and the leaders of the retreating army added
to its miseries by quarrels. On April 15, 1746, the agony
was at last ended in a bitter fight at Culloden Moor, near

662 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
Nairn ; where, amid rain and snow, the hopes of the Stewart
house were finaUy extinguished, and the last scene was
enacted in the long wild drama of Highland war.
Culloden was foUowed by a slaughter, lasting for days
after the battle, which earned for Cumberland the name of
the Butcher. All the chiefs who had taken part in the
rebeUion were proscribed. Some of them escaped to France,
some remained, hunted fugitives, among their native moun
tains. The prince himself spent six months in hiding,
wandering with a price on his head from place to place,
passing through hairbreadth escapes, trusting his life con-
tinuaUy to peasants for whom the reward of betrayal would
have meant riches, and to heroic women like Flora Mac
donald, ere he succeeded in getting away in a small French
vessel from the same spot where he had landed.
It was the end of a long and moving story. For the
Highlands it was the end of an era ; and when, in the
tender beauty of the ballads in which the memory of these
deeds was enshrined, the singers lamented the brave young
prince and longed for his return, it was the whole dead past
that they bemoaned, and the wild romantic life of the clans,
now at an end for ever. For Culloden was almost necessarily
foUowed by the abolition of clan-government, the enforce
ment of ordinary law, and the repression, in some respects
needlessly severe, of Highland usages and even of Highland
dress. The abolition of ' heritable jurisdictions ' by an
Act of 1747 was the beginning of a new era in Scottish
history. In one aspect the '45 has been described as the
last struggle of barbarism against civilisation : at all events
it was the last struggle of the tribal system against the wider
unity of the nation. For in spite of all their touching
loyalty to the person of the Young Chevalier, it was for the
maintenance of the old ways against the pressure of new
ideas that the clansmen really if unconsciously fought, and
not for a particular theory of national government. Sooner
than might have been hoped, a new loyalty began to replace
the old ; and, if the wild strife of the clans was gone for ever,
the valour of their sons was ere long to find a new vent.
Enhsted by the genius of Pitt, Highland regiments re
cruited from the Jacobite clans were to win at Ticonderoga,
scarcely a dozen years after the ruin of CuUoden, that
fame of valour which they have since estabhshed in every
part of the world, by deeds as gallant as ever they did
under Montrose or the Young Chevalier, and of far greater
value.

ch.l] ESTABLISHMENT OF WHIG OLIGARCHY 663
As for the prince, he drifted back into exile ; he became
a wastrel and a drunkard. What was there for him to live
for ? At least his degradation, unlike his father's, was
always ennobled by the memory of what he had been.
Nor did he whoUy lose his courage or his hopes : once at
least, and perhaps more often, he visited England in secret,
striving to revive the lost cause which alone gave meaning
to his life.1 But there was no more to be done. The tale
of the Stewarts was over, like an old song ; and it was some
thing that it had ended with deeds of gaUantry that men
can remember with kindling warmth.
[For the Whig system of government see Lecky's History of Eng
land in the Eighteenth Century, Robertson's England under the
Hanoverians, Porritt's Unreformed House of Commons, Acton's
lecture on ' The Hanoverian Settlement ' in Lectures on Modern
History; for the Jacobite risings, Terry's The Young Pretender,
Lang's History of Scotland (vol. iv.), Prince Charles Edward, and
Pickle the Spy.]
1 There is a touching picture of Charles Edward as a middle-aged man
revisiting the land of his ancestors in Scott's Redgauntlet, perhaps the
finest of his novels.

CHAPTER II
BALANCE OF POWER
(A.D. 1714-1739)
§ 1. Characteristics of the Period.
The twenty years foUowing the treaties of Utrecht and
Rastadt, when the Whigs were estabhshing their power in
the islands, were a time of great complexity and confusion
in the affairs of Europe. There was no central dominating
interest in European history during this period, such as the
wars of rehgion, and later the greatness and ambition of
France, had earlier provided. All the innumerable despots
of Europe, great and small, were each following their separate
interests, and the shifts and veers of their alliances and in
trigues are extremely bewildering. Into this spider's web
Britain was drawn to an extent never before known, partly
because she had become, as a result of the overthrow of
Louis xiv., the greatest of the European powers, and partly
because the position of her king as also Elector of Hanover
inevitably involved her in the politics of Germany and of
Northern Europe, which were the most complicated part of
the web. For a time foreign politics became the chief pre
occupation of British statesmen, and it may fairly be said
that their principal aim was the maintenance of peace, an
aim in which they were for a long time successful. It is
not necessary for us to follow in any detail the tangled
tale of these years. But some aspects of it are important,
for new factors were emerging in this period which were in
the future to be of great significance both to Europe at large
and to the Commonwealth as a whole.
In the first place the political geography of Eastern and
Northern Europe was being recast. The formidable Turkish
empire, which had at one time seemed to threaten the
civihsation of the West, was falling into decay, and giving
rise to the thorny problem known as the Eastern Question ;
the once great monarchy of Poland had become manifestly
impotent, and its destruction at the hands of its greedy

ch. il] BALANCE OF POWER 665
neighbours was already foreshadowed ; the brief period of
Swedish greatness was being brought to an end ; and,
rising on the ruins of these three powers, the gigantic empire
of Russia was beginning to loom above the horizon of
European pohtics.
In the second place, while no great changes took place in
Western Europe, its complex politics were marked by two
features of interest. On the one hand, the aspiration after
some organised method of preserving peace received open
expression and was widely discussed ; on the other, the
co-operation of the old rivals, Britain and France, the
beginning of international arbitration by these powers
and the holding of frequent congresses to remove causes of
controversy by discussion, not only gave to Europe a long
interval of peace, but showed that the maintenance of peace
by international co-operation was not wholly impracticable.
§ 2. The Decay of Turkey, Poland and Sweden, and the
Rise of Russia.
During the years when Western Europe had been whoUy
engrossed by the struggle against Louis xiv. (1688-1714),
highly significant changes had been taking place in Eastern
Europe, and the influence of these changes made itself
seriously felt in the general European situation after 1714,
and has made itself felt ever since.
The first of these was the decay of the power of the Turks,
the beginning of which we have already noted (Book v.
Chapter il). The war against the Turkish power in Hun
gary had been ended by the treaty of Carlowitz in 1699,
which drove the Turks beyond the Danube. They renewed
the struggle in 1715, hoping to find the Habsburgs exhausted
by the war against Louis xiv. ; but they only lost still further
territory. After the treaty of Passarowitz in 1718 the
Turks were never again able seriously to threaten any of the
Christian powers in Europe, and the time was soon to come
when the chief importance of Turkey would arise from her
weakness, and from the rivalry of her great neighbours,
eager to succeed to the control of her decaying empire.
The second great change which confronted European
statesmen in 1714 was that Poland, hitherto accounted one
of the great States of Europe, had fallen into helpless weak
ness. We have seen (Book v. Chapter n.) how gallant a
part the Poles had played, under John Sobieski, in stemming
the Turkish peril and saving Vienna itself from capture

666 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
(1683). But already in Sobieski's time and before it Poland
had been terribly weakened by her absurd system of govern
ment. Her kings were elected ; and this meant that they
had no firmly estabhshed authority ; their powers and their re
sources diminished with every successive election. This would
not have mattered had there been other effective organs of
government. But the Polish Diet or Parliament (which
consisted entirely of nobles) was the most preposterously
ineffective body that has ever claimed to rule a country.
Its decisions had to be unanimous ; and a single obstinate
member could render aU its proceedings futile. Besides
this, the country was deeply divided between Cathohcs
and Protestants, and hampered by the jealousies of rival
noble houses. When the great Sobieski died in 1696 these
jealousies prevented the election of his son, or of any Polish
noble, as king. A foreigner, Augustus the Elector of Saxony, /
was chosen as king. During his reign (which lasted until
1733) the unhappy country was dragged into a miserable
war to which we shall have to allude later ; a rival king,
Stanislas Lesczinski, was set up (1704) by the formidable
Swedish conqueror, Charles xn. of Sweden ; and the country
became the helpless prey of foreign armies and domestic
factions, from which it seemed to be quite unable to defend
itself. Henceforth, though stiU one of the biggest States of
Europe on the map, Poland was regarded with mere con
tempt by its neighbours, and only their mutual jealousies
delayed its destruction, which was to be brought about
before the end of the century.
While Poland decayed, a new great power had suddenly
emerged in the East : the Russian Empire, which had
hitherto counted for nothing in the life of Europe. The
appearance of Russia as a European power of importance
dates from the accession of the vigorous, brutal and master
ful barbarian, Peter the Great (1689-1725). While the war
between WiUiam in. and Louis xiv. was raging in the West
Peter was violently forcing his unwilling subjects to adopt
Western methods, was organising an army and the begin
nings of a navy, was visiting the West incognito in order to
learn the secrets of its civilisation, and working with his
own hands in the dockyards at Deptford and in HoUand,
and was bringing in Western advisers of all kinds (mostly
Germans) to aid him in dragging Russia out of barbarism
and forcing her to turn her eyes westwards. Keenly
interested in naval matters, Peter realised that Russia
could never become a great power till she had access to

ch. il] BALANCE OF POWER 667
more open waters than the ice-bound White Sea.1 But the
Turks held all the northern shores of the Black Sea ; the
Swedes held Finland and the lands known as the Baltic
Provinces (Ingria, Esthonia, Livonia) ; the Poles held
Courland, whue the vast area of Poland was interposed
between Russia and Central Europe. If Russia was to be
brought into living contact with Europe, it seemed that she
must advance at the expense of these powers — Turkey,
Sweden and Poland.
Peter's first attack was directed against the Turks, and
¦/¦/in 1696 he. gained a brilhant if temporary success by the
capture of Azof on the sea of that name ; this was the be
ginning of the age-long conflict between Russia and Turkey.
But an outlet on the Baltic would be far more valuable than
an outlet on the Black Sea, the mouth of which was barred
by Constantinople. In 1699, therefore, Peter eagerly became
a party to an aUiance which included Denmark and Poland,
the ancient foes of Sweden, with the object of seizing the
chance of destroying the Swedish power which seemed to
be presented by the accession of a boy-king, Charles xn.2
But the allies found they had no easy task before them ;
for Charles xn. — only seventeen when the war began —
showed himself to be one of the most superb, daring and
romantic fighting leaders in all history ; and the war thus
hghtly and greedUy started was to last for twenty-one years.
We cannot attempt to follow its extraordinary course,
or to narrate Charles xn.'s incredible achievements. He
crushed Denmark with a single blow (1700) ; he routed
Peter the Great's host of 60,000 at Narva with one-eighth
of their numbers (1700) ; he overran and conquered all
Poland and set up a king of his own, a Polish noble, Stanislas
Lesczinski (1704) ; he invaded Russia and Saxony in turn,
and the Duke of Marlborough himself had to travel into
Saxony to secure the neutrality of this marvellous youth of
twenty-five in the war against Louis xiv. He had raised
Sweden to a higher position than she had ever held ; and if
he had been content to make peace at this moment, the
history of Europe might have been different, for (to name
nothing else) Poland might have been saved from ruin.
Unhappily Charles aUowed himself to be drawn into a dan
gerous campaign in the heart of Russia ; and there, at the
1 See the maps, Atlas, Plates 9 and 26 (a) ; Plate 26 (a) is useful for all
this section.
1 There is a hfe of Charles xn., by R. Nisbet Bain, in the Heroes of the
Nations Series.

668 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vl
battle of Pultawa (1709), the gaUant but exhausted Swedes
were overwhelmed. Charles had to take refuge in Turkey,
where he stirred up the Turks to attack the Russians, with
the result that they regained Azof.
The defeat at Pultawa revived at once the hostUe league,
which Charles xn.'s early successes had broken up. During'
his absence in Turkey the Danes attacked Sweden, with
little success ; King Stanislas became helpless in Poland,
and the foreign and disastrous rule of Augustus of Saxony
was restored ; Peter the Great conquered the Baltic Pro
vinces, which remained unchaUenged parts of the Russian
Empire until 1917, and Finland, which he soon had to return.
Russia had reached open water on the Baltic ; and Peter
began to build Petrograd, ' the eye through which Russia
looks out upon Europe.'
The Swedes were waging their desperate war against a
ring of foes when George 1. succeeded to the British thrones.
And shortly before his succession George had, as Elector of
Hanover, practicaUy joined in the combination against
Sweden, in order to get possession of the bishoprics of
Bremen and Verden,1 which Sweden had held since the
Thirty Years' War. Thus Britain found herself indirectly
involved in the northern war because of her sovereign's
continental possessions, over which she ,-'i bd- no control.
And the young hero, Charles xn., who re turned from his
exUe in Turkey to direct the defence of his native land a few
weeks after George's landing in England, was naturaUy
and inevitably turned into a supporter of the Jacobite i
cause, and promised his help for a landing which was perhaps
only prevented by his death in 1718.
In 1715, Swedish privateers were seizing numerous British
ships in the Baltic ; British fleets had to be sent to safeguard
trade interests in these waters, and their mere presence
loaded the scales against unhappy Sweden. These episodes
showed how difficult were the relations created by the link
with Hanover, over whose policy the British government
and Parliament could exercise no control ; they seemed to
justify Bolingbroke's opposition to the Hanoverian succession.
It was difficult to maintain a real neutrality under such cir
cumstances ; and though the Whig ministers were resolved
to avoid war with Sweden if possible, they found themselves
involved in great difficulties. After Charles xn.'s death,
indeed, British influence was ranged on the side of Sweden ; ,
a British fleet joined the Swedish fleet to protect Stockholm
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 9.

ch. il] BALANCE OF POWER 669
ffrom the danger of a Russian attack ; and there was for a
moment even a possibUity of war with Russia : only the
fear of the British navy compeUed Peter the Great to be
reasonable. It was largely by British mediation that
Sweden was enabled to make a series of treaties with one
after another of her ring of foes, the last of them being the
treaty of Nystadt (1721), whereby the Baltic Provinces were
formally ceded to Russia. This treaty may be said to mark
the moment when Sweden, after her brilliant century of
greatness, sank to the level of a third-rate power.
The treaty of Nystadt marked the emergence of Russia
as a power of the first rank, and henceforth that vast,
half-barbaric State had always to be counted with as a
factor of importance in European affairs. This was in itself
a fact of great moment, especiaUy in conjunction with the
downfall of Sweden and the hopeless weakness and dis
organisation of Poland, the two States which might have held
Russia in check. These events were of the deepest concern
to Europe and to the British Commonwealth. But at the
moment what made these events important to Britain was
that they showed how much she must henceforth be involved
in the concerns of Europe ; that they demonstrated the high
value of sea-power, the mere existence of which, without
any use of force, first of all checked Charles xn.'s project of
helping the Jacobites, and later compelled Peter the Great
to act with greater moderation than he would naturally
have shown ; and finally that they showed how British
pohcy might be hampered and complicated by the connexion
with Hanover.

§ 3. The Franco-British Alliance for the Maintenance of
Peace.
Meanwhile in the west and south the political situation
had been transformed by the death of Louis xiv. ; and out
of the settlement of Utrecht, which was to have brought
peace to the world, new problems and difficulties had arisen
which kept Europe constantly on the verge of war. The
equilibrium of the continent was precarious ; and in the
judgment of the statesmen of the age peace could only be
maintained by an anxious and watchful attention to the
' balance of power.' Perhaps, as things then were, they
were right : in the .confused and unhealthy condition of
Europe, there was a strong temptation to the despots who

670 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
were the masters of almost all the States to seize opportunities
for extending their power.
After the treaty of Utrecht one of the diplomats who had
taken part in the Congress, the Abbe de St. Pierre, had
pubhshed a Project of a Treaty to Secure Permanent Peace,
which expressed the weariness of unending warfare felt by
many of the best men. St. Pierre urged that aU States
should combine in a league to maintain peace, by means of
a permanent congress of ambassadors who would settle all
disputes by arbitration. It was a noble dream ; and
during the next eighty years it inspired a long discussion
in which great thinkers hke Leibniz, Voltaire, Rousseau and
Kant speculated upon trie possibility of maintaining lasting
peace by agreement among the nations. But as things
were it could be no more than a dream, firstly because
it was futile to expect that the four hundred absolute
monarchs, great and small, who controUed the destinies
of Europe would ever consent to have their ambitions
checked by such a body, or deal faithfuUy with it if
it was formed ; and secondly because the root principle
of such a system would have to be the maintenance of the
existing division of territories, and the defence of every
despot against the loss of his power ; and this would have
been to give an unhealthy permanence to an unnatural
state of things. There could be no ' League of Nations '
until the divisions of States foUowed the natural lines of
national divisions, and this was very far from being the case.
As things were, the only chance of maintaining peace
seemed to he in maintaining the ' balance of power ' — that
is to say, in preventing any State from imagining that it
could profit by the unsettlement which wars bring. The
Whig statesmen of this age were firm behevers in ' the
balance of power,' and it is fair to say that, in pursuing it,
they helped to give to Europe, or to the greater part of
Europe, a longer interval of peace than she had yet enjoyed
during the modern age.
On Louis xiv. 's death his successor was his infant great-
grandson, Louis xv., a child so frail that he was expected
to die. The next heir in the strict line of succession would
be Philip v., King of Spain, whose succession was forbidden
by the treaty of Utrecht, but who refused to recognise the
validity of his exclusion. The real ruler of France was the
Regent, the Duke of Orleans, who, being descended from a
brother of Louis xiv., would have a claim to the throne if
Philip were excluded. It was therefore to the interest of the

ch. il] BALANCE OF POWER 671
Regent that the treaty of Utrecht should be maintained,
and for that reason he was anxious to make friends with
Britain, and to join in upholding the treaty.
As soon as the failure of the Jacobite rising had made it
clear that the new king was secure on his throne, the Regent
therefore opened negotiations, which led to the conclusion
of a Triple AUiance (January 17J7) between Britain, France
and the Dutch for the maintenance of the treaty of Utrecht.
The friendship thus established between France and Britain
formed the chief factor in European politics for twenty years,
and the principal means of preserving peace. It was equaUy
advantageous to both sides, and it assisted the remarkable
development of French as weU as of British trade which
marked this period. Britain and France, acting in con
junction, were in fact able to check or overawe every
possible disturber of the peace in Western Europe.
Yet from the first there was opposition to this pohcy,
notably in France, where the ' Spanish ' party was always
able to make itself heard. In eacri*~cbuntry there were
men who felt triat the national interests were being sub
ordinated to those of the nation's chief trade rival. And
in France, as the boy-king outgrew his weakness, the original
motive for the aUiance grew weaker, and the party which
wanted to revive the policy of Louis xiv. in close aUiance
with Spain became more influential at court. The experi
ment of friendly co-operation between France and Britain,
useful as it was, was not likely to have a very long life.
The sources of disturbance during these years were the
two powers which were dissatisfied with the settlement at
Utrecht, Spain and Austria. At first Spain was the chief
disturbing factor. She had undergone a real revival of
vigour under the influence of the French administrators
brought in by Louis xiv. Under the guidance of an able
minister, Cardinal Alberoni, she was not only building up
her trade and industry~but creating a navy and preparing
for war. Her first object was to regain her lost Italian
possessions, which the settlement of 1713-14 had given
to Austria. But the obstacle to Alberoni's ambitious
schemes was the aUiance of Britain and France to
maintain the treaty settlement. He tried to stir up
faction in France. He took up the cause of the English
Jacobites, and prepared to send a big expedition to support
a landing by Ormond. He subsidised the Turks against
Austria, and stimulated a revolt in Hungary. He endeav
oured to make an alliance both with Sweden and with Russia

672 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
for a joint attack upon Britain. AU Europe was to be
thrown into confusion, and a general war might have
resulted. — ,
The Franco - British alliance checked all these restless \
plans. The Triple Alliance was expanded into the Quad- .';
ruple Alliance (1718) by the inclusion of Austria. British
mediation helped to bring about the conclusion of the
Austro-Turkish war in the treaty of Passarowitz. And when
Alberoni, persisting in his schemes, proceeded to attack
Sicily, a British fleet practicaUy destroyed the infant Spanish ¦
navy in the battle of Cape Passaro, off the Sicilian coast, while
a French army invaded Spain. In the end Alberoni had
to be dismissed (1719) ; and a settlement was arrived at
whereby two Italian duchies were given to the Spanish ^
queen's son, and the Duke of Savoy was persuaded to hand
over Sicily to Austria, taking Sardinia in exchange ; the
Habsburg claim to the Spanish crown, which had never
been dropped, being finaUy abandoned. A general war had
been averted by the Franco-British aUiance, and by the
naval strength of Britain, which made a Spanish attack on
Italy futile.
This danger was no sooner averted than a new one arose.
Both Spain and Austria were still unsatisfied. Spain was
angry at the British possession of Gibraltar and Minorca.
Austria was annoyed at the arrangement by which the
chief ' barrier ' towns of the Netherlands (Austrian since
the treaty of Utrecht) were garrisoned by Dutch troops.
The Emperor was also anxious to develop the foreign
trade of the Netherlands, and he had founded at Ostend a
trading company whose activities were jealously regarded
by the English and the Dutch.
In 1725 the two restless and aggrieved States whose
differences had nearly led to war and were then being
laboriously adjusted at a European congress at Cambrai,
suddenly made friends, in what is known as the treatjTbf -y
Vienna. Spain undertook to give special facilities for trade
in the Indies to the Ostend Company. Austria undertook
to help in the reconquest of Gibraltar and Minorca. More
than once Britain had expressed her willingness to negotiate
about s Gibraltar, to which little importance was then at:
tached, but the demand for its retrocession at the pistol's
mouth was not to be tolerated. Once again Spain became
the centre of a coalition against Britain, and detailed plans
were drawn up for a Jacobite invasion ; and once again the
party in France which was hostile to the British alliance

ch. il] BALANCE OF POWER 673
began to be active. There was feverish negotiation in all
the courts of Europe during 1726 and 1727.
But the Franco-British aUiance held, and it was sup
plemented (in the treaty of Hanover) by an agree
ment with Prussia (1725), which the Dutch and other
powers subsequently joined. A British fleet was sent
to blockade the Spanish treasure-fleet in Porto BeUo :
without the miUions which it was bringing, no war
could be waged by Spain, and the blockading squadron
succeeded in preventing its sailing. Another British fleet
was sent to cruise off the coast of Spain. MeanwhUe the
Spaniards had begun the attack on Gibraltar (February
1727) — the second siege which that fortress had undergone
since its capture in 1704. But an attack from the landward
side whue the British fleet commanded the seas was hopeless,
and after four months the siege was abandoned. The
Emperor saw that a war promised no advantage, and agreed
to refer his grievances to a congress, which dehberated for
months at Soissons. Spain remained sulky, though in the
end she came to an agreement with the allies at Seville (1729) .
§ 4. The Gradual Rupture of the Franco-British Alliance
and the Question of Poland.
Once again the Franco-Britisri alhance and British sea-
power had prevented the outbreak of what might have
developed into a general war. But the alliance was begin
ning to be strained. It was being strained by the naval
and commercial preponderance of Britain, which was also
(together with the possession of Gibraltar), the chief source
of Spanish unrest. Britain professed her willingness to
negotiate regarding Gibraltar on the basis of an interchange :
Florida had been earlier suggested as an equivalent. But
the Spaniards would not hear of equivalents ; and mean
whUe Gibraltar had become, thanks to the sieges, an object
of pride to the British peoples : any notion of surrendering
it, as Lord Townshend said in 1728, ' would be sufficient
to put the whole nation in a flame.'
Already there were ominous indications that the common
resentment of France and Spain against the overwhelming
sea-power of Britain would bring about an alliance between
the two Bourbon powers. Already jealousy between Britain v
and France was becoming acute ; and was being stirred up
by the opposition parties in both countries. The two
governments were quarreUingFabout the demolition of the
vol. 1. 2 u

674 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
fortifications of Dunkirk, which had been promised by
France in the treaty of Utrecht ; they were disputing also
about the persecution of Protestants which was still goings
on in France. More important disputes were rising about
the erection of French forts in the Mississippi, about the
boundaries of the province of Acadia, ceded by France
in 1714, and about the ownership of West Indian islands.
In 1730 the two nations agreed to settle the fate of the
island of St. Lucia by arbitration — perhaps the first resort
to this method of settling differences in modem history.
But, as we shall see in the next chapter, the trading and"
colonial interests of Britain and France, as weU as of Britain
and Spain, were clashing at too many points to make a
friendly agreement easy. The upholders of friendship and
alliance, Sir Robert Walpole in Britain and Cardinal Fleury
in France, were losing ground year by year ; year by year
the imperiahst groups in each country, WiUiam Pitt and
his friends in Britain, BeUeisle and his group in France,
were becoming more aggressive.
In 1733 an event happened which, though it might appear
to have no relation with the affairs of the western powers,
nevertheless brought these tendencies to a head. Augustus
of Saxony, King of Poland, died : and the question of the
succession to the Pohsh throne agitated Europe. This, it
might have been supposed, was a question for the Poles to
decide. And Polish national feeling was all in favour of
the election of Stanislas Lesczinski, who had for a time held
the Pohsh throne under the protection of Charles xn. of
Sweden. The succession of Lesczinski, who was himself a
Pole, might have saved Poland from ruin by reviving the
national spirit of the country and rescuing it from its de
pendence on foreign courts ; and aU good Polish patriots
supported him. But for this precise reason Poland's great
neighbours, Russia and Austria, were opposed to his suc
cession. They wanted to keep Poland weak and helpless ;
and they declared for the candidature of the son of the late
king, Augustus in., Elector of Saxony.
If the Franco-British alliance had remained firm, and
had given its support to the Pohsh national candidate,
Poland might have been saved from the ruin which sub
sequently befell her. But the British feehng was that
British interests were not concerned in Poland, and Walpole
refused to take any part in the war. ' Madam, there are
fifty thousand men slain this year in Europe,' he said to
the queen, who was in favour of intervening, ' and not

ch. il] BALANCE OF POWER 675
one Englishman.' It was a legitimate boast, and repre
sents one of the strongest arguments for a pacific pohcy.
Yet, looking at the question from a broadly European point
of view, there were strong arguments in favour of helping
the resuscitation of Poland, whose final downfall was en
sured by the war. And it was also clear that British
abstention helped to precipitate the graduaUy growing
cleavage between Britain and France.
For France had decided to take the part of Lesczinski,
partly because Louis xv. had married his daughter, partly
from a desire to estabhsh French influence in Poland as a
barrier against the House of Austria ; this was indeed a
traditional French policy. And, looking about for allies
in an attack on Austria, Erance turned to Spain, who, caring
nothing about Poland, was eager to seize Austrian lands in
Italy. In 1733 a secret treaty was made between the two
Bourbon powers, the first of three such agreements to which
the name of ' Family Compacts ' has been given. The two
kings pledged themselves to eternal friendship, and guaran
teed one another's possessions in Europe and elsewhere.
They promised one another mutual trade concessions. They
annuUed all previous treaties affecting their relations —
including the treaty of Utrecht. And France promised
that Spain should have aU conquests made in Italy, and
undertook to help her to regain Gibraltar. But not a word
about Poland. Obviously this treaty (which was broken
almost as easUy as it was signed) was aimed principaUy
against Britain ; and it marks the real end of the Franco-
British aUiance which had hitherto preserved European
peace. The terms of the Family Compact showed that France
reaUy cared little about Poland. And in fact the War of the
Pohsh Succession was mainly fought in Italy, against Austria.
No effective help was given to the unfortunate Poles, though
they gathered in Dantzic, the chief Polish port, in the hope
of French aid from the sea. When it came, it was too late
to be of any avail. Russia and Austria placed their can
didate on the Pohsh throne ; and henceforth Russian and
Austrian (especiaUy Russian) influence was predominant in
Poland, which lay a helpless victim before its future plun
derers. When the war was ended, in 1735, by the mediation
of Britain and the Dutch, the subordination of Poland to
Russia and Austria was accepted as an estabhshed fact, and
the only important provisions in the final treaty (1738)
related to Italy and the West. Louis xv. got for his father-

676 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
in-law, the ex-king Stanislas, the duchy of Lorraine ;
so he was provided for, and dynastic interests were safe
guarded while Poland was left to the wolves. When Stan
islas died (as he did in 1766) Lorraine was to go to France ;
so France had gained something. Austria gave up Naples
and Sicily to a Spanish Bourbon prince ; so theJ3ourbons
were provided with a third European kingdom, which they
kept till Italy became an united realm. Austria got the
northern Italian duchies of Parma and Piacenza for herself,
and the duchy of Tuscany for the Duke of Lorraine, who
was soon to marry the heiress of the Austrian dominions.
More important, the Emperor, who had no male heir, and
had been for years collecting signatures to a ' Pragmatic
Sanction ' guaranteeing the succession of his daughter
Maria Theresa to all his lands, got the signatures of France
and Spain, having earlier obtained those of nearly every
other European power. Everybody was pleased.
But Poland's ruin was assured. And the grouping of
the European aUies which had hitherto preserved an uneasy
peace was broken. And Spain and France were preparing
to join forces in a great struggle with Britain for maritime
and colonial supremacy. The era of unrestful and precarious ~
balance of power was over ; the struggle for leadership in
the non-European world was about to begin.
[The period is covered by A. Hassall, The Balance of Power. See
also Mahan's Influence of Sea-Power upon History ; Chance's
George I. and the Northern War; Nisbet Bain's Scandinavia, his
Charles XII., his The First Romanovs, and his Pupils of Peter the
Great ; Waliszewski's Peter the Great (Eng. trans.) ; Rambaud's
History of Russia (Eng. trans.); Lane-Poole's Turkey ;' Hume's
Spain ; Muir's Nationalism and Internationalism ; Armstrong's
Elizabeth Farnese ; Acton's lecture on ' the Hanoverian Succession '
in Lectures on Modern History.]

CHAPTER III
TRADE AND COLONIAL RIVALRY
(A.D. 1714-1739)
§ 1. Exaggerated Expectations from Tropical Trade.
We have seen in the last chapter that trading and colonial
jealousies were bringing about an increasing friction between
Britain on the one side and both Spain and France on the
other ; and since these jealousies were soon to bring about
a tremendous and world-wide conflict, it is needful to under
stand their causes and their development.
Nothing was more obvious to Europe, at the end of the
struggle against Louis xiv., than that foreign trade was an
inexhaustible source of wealth and strength to a nation : it
seemed plain to aU that the triumphant position of the
maritime powers, and especiaUy of England, was primarily
due to this cause. Even more eagerly than in the previous
era, the European peoples set themselves to secure the wealth
which could be derived from over-sea trade, especially with
the tropics. Thus the Emperor himself, as we have seen,
set on foot the Ostend Company in the hope of getting some
of this wealth ; and Opportunities for tropical trade were
some of the chief subjects of negotiation in every successive
treaty, from that of Utrecht with its Asiento appendix to the
treaty between Spain and Austria of 1725 and the FamUy
Compact of 1733. jttwas not territory that men aimed at, but
trade : practicaUy no new colonies were estabhshed by any
of the powers during this period, with the exception of the
French settlement at New Orleans (1717) and the English
colony of Georgia (1733). -
Highly exaggerated ideas were entertained as to the
amount of profit that could be earned from tropical trade ;
and these ideas were fostered and encouraged by the evidence
which the last generation had afforded of the way in which
the organised co-operative use of capital, and the employ
ment of national credit, could be made to produce wealth.
We have already seen how the Bank of England and the
great trading companies had enabled Britain to bear easily
677

678 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
the burden of great wars, while at the same time immensely
extending her trading activities ; and the same methods
had been pursued in other countries, notably in HoUand.
Men were discovering the power of capital and credit, and
(like many people in our own days) they attributed to them
a sort of magical quality, a power of making wealth by them
selves ; not realising that wealth can only be increased by
the expenditure of work in making desirable things available
for use, and that capital and credit can only add to wealth
in so far as they help in this process.
Because of these exaggerated ideas the early part of the
eighteenth century was a period of wild speculation, especi
ally in France and England ; and though the speculative
madness ranged over the whole field of commerce and
industry, it was most- unrestrained in regard to enterprises
directed towards tropical trade. In France a brilliant and
sanguine Scotsman, John Law, conceived a grandiose scheme
for bringing the whole of tne foreign trade of France, and all
her colonies, under the control of a single great company,
which was to be linked with a huge national banking
organisation, and the two together were to relieve the
State of the whole burden of the national debt, and were to
take over the collection of taxes. The expectation of im
mense profits from the East and West Indies, and from the
new colony of Louisiana (founded in 1717) led people to
invest lavishly in these schemes. But the trade could not
possibly provide the profits necessary for satisfying these
expectations, and though Law in carrying out riis system
made many useful economic reforms, greatly reduced the
national burden of debt, and gave a remarkable stimulus
to French trade abroad, his projects ended in an appalling
financial crash in 1720.
Almost at the same moment a similar speculative mania
broke out in England. It was due to a scheme far less
ambitious than Law's, but resting, like his, upon a wholly
fictitious idea of the profits to be made from tropical trade.
The South Sea Company had been founded, by the Tories
in Queen Anne's reign partly to take over a large amount of
floating debt, and partly to provide a makeweight to the
Bank of England. In 1720 the company offered to take
over the bulk of the National Debt, to accept a lower rate
of interest upon it from government, and either to give to
the holders of the debt South Sea stock instead, or to buy
them out. This arrangement was undoubtedly advantage
ous to government, since it reduced very largely the burden

CH. in.] TRADE AND COLONIAL RIVALRY 679
of interest on the debt. But the amazing thing was that
everybody became wildly eager to obtain South Sea stock,
partly owing to the notion that there was something magical
about pubhc credit, partly owing to the universally ex
aggerated idea of the profits to be made from the South Sea
trade. In reality this trade could not possibly yield profits ¦<
high enough even to cover the difference between the higher
and the lower rate of interest on the debt, still less to pay
additional profits to those debt-holders who took South Sea
stock in exchange. Yet for a time South Sea stock rose to
ten times its value, and the company promised dividends
of fifty per cent. The speculative mania thus started
extended into all sorts of other spheres, and a host of bubble
companies were started, for the most preposterous purposes.
There could be only one end to this : a huge crash, which
came within a few months of the launching of the scheme.
Thousands of people were ruined ; a few made colossal
fortunes out of speculation. Parhament had to take the
matter up ; and Sir Robert Walpole made his reputation
by the skUl in which he dealt with the problem.
The detaUs of these schemes do not concern us. Neither
Law's projects nor the South Sea Bubble had any permanent
influence upon the course of trade, except, perhaps, by
teaching men caution. But they show how eager this
generation was to make money, and how convinced it was
that vast amounts of money were to be made out of colonial
and tropical trade. And the popular belief had thus much
of justification, that undoubtedly the wealth made by over
sea trade in this period was beyond aU comparison greater
than it had ever been before.
§ 2. The Chief Spheres of Tropical Trade : the Slave-
Trade and the Great Triangle.
In the far Eastern trade the Dutch still had the upper
hand, and the other western nations did little traffic beyond
the straits of Malacca. In Indian trade all the nations had
their share, and this was undoubtedly a period of growing
activity, though it was hampered by the political disorga
nisation into which India was faUing. The English East
India Company, in particular, had made a very advanta
geous arrangement (1717) with the Mogul and with the
Nawab who ruled Bengal, whereby their goods for export
were freed from all customs duties in Bengal ; and as a
consequence their settlement at Calcutta had risen

680 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
from a village to be a thriving city of 100,000 souls
—nearly aU, of course, Indians. The French East India
Company, reorganised after the coUapse of Law's schemes,
was also doing profitable business, especiaUy in the
later part of the period, though it was quite unable to
rival the English company. But, prosperous as the period
was, the East India trade was not yet bringing any very great
stream of wealth into Britain and France. Indeed, as we
have seen, it was regarded with a good deal of distrust at
home, because, since there was as yet no great sale for
European goods in the Indian market, the Indian goods
brought to Europe had to be paid for largely in gold and
silver. India was, in fact, then as always since, a sponge
for the precious metals, sucking them in only to hoard or
bury them, and thus making little or no use of her accumu
lated wealth for the creation of fresh wealth : that is one
of the reasons why India was and is a poor country, in
spite of her great resources.
It was not therefore in any large degree the Eastern trade
which in this period was exciting Europe by dreams of
wealth, but mainly what we may call the Atlantic trade.
The islands of the West Indies were producing sugar in
ever-increasing quantities — cotton also, and tobacco, but
mainly sugar ; and all Europe was eager to buy the sugar
at high prices. It was purchased chiefly by the produce of .
the English and French manufactures. This lucrative trade
was therefore largely in the hands of the French and the
Enghsh, and during this period its principal feature was
the' remarkable success and prosperity of the French sugar
islands, San Domingo, Martinique and Guadeloupe,1 which
were rapidly distancing their English rivals. This seems to
have been due to the greater efficiency of French methods.
The severity of the French competition was causing a
good deal of alarm in England, though the English islands
were prosperous also. And one disturbing feature was
that the New England colonies, which had developed a
large shipping trade, were resorting to the French islands,
and buying cargoes of French sugar, molasses or rum in
exchange for their fish, timber and other products. As
this, though not contrary to the Navigation Acts, was in
conflict with the principle of inter-imperial trade which
inspired the British system, an attempt was made to deal
with it in 1733 by what was known as the Molasses Act,
which imposed prohibitive duties on French molasses
1 See the map of West Indies, Atlas, Plate 53.

ch. in.] TRADE AND COLONIAL RIVALRY 681
importedj^into the NorthfAmerican colonies. This Act was
of quite a^different character from earlier trade Acts affect
ing the colonies. Its aim was to encourage the British
West Indian settlements, and to make the empire econo-
micaUy self-sufficient ; and it involved the levying of
duties in New England. Though its validity was not
seriously questioned, it was deeply resented in New Eng
land, because it (interfered .'with a very profitable traffic;
and the Molasses Act undoubtedly contributed to produce
that irritation in New England which led in the end to the
dissolution of the first British Empire.
In addition to the direct trade between the home countries
and trieir own West India Islands, there was a large trade
with Spanish America. Britain had secured, by the Asiento
Treaty, a monopoly of this trade so far as it was recognised
by the Spanish government, and these privileges were
exercised by the South Sea Company. But they amounted
to httle : apart from the monopoly of the import of negro
slaves, the company was only permitted to send one ship
of 500 tons annually to the Spanish dominions. The capa
city of the one ship was illegitimately expanded by re
loading it at sea. But even so the volume of the trade was
smaU — far too small to satisfy the wants of the Spanish
colonists. Hence a wholesale system of smuggling grew up,
in which aU the nations took part, though the British were
probably the most active.
Smuggling was, of course, a breach of Spanish law,
and the wholesale scale on which it was carried on
aroused a natural resentment in Spain. But in attempt
ing to exclude aU foreign trade save what could be
carried in one annual ship, the Spanish government was
attempting trie impossible. No other country imposed such
extravagant restraints. As it was manifestly impossible to
guard effectively the whole coastline of the Spanish main
land and islands, Spain attempted. "to check the smugghng
trade by the wholly Ulegitimate method of sending out
coastguard vessels to stop and search trading ships
on thej|higli seas. The right of search even in time
of warj|was a doubtful one under international law ;
in time^of peace its exercise was certainly Ulegitimate.
From these searches British vessels especiaUy suffered,
partly because of the growing irritation of Spain against
Britain. The searches were often carried out with
great brutahty, and lurid tales were brought home by
shipmasters which aroused indignation in Britain. The

682 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
most famous of these tales was that of Captain Jenkins,
whose ear had been cut off in a fray provoked by a Spanish
coastguard search. He brought the severed ear home in
cotton-wool ; and its production in the House of Commons
at a critical moment helped to precipitate the war with
Spain which began in 1739. Thus between Spain and
Britain there was acute and growing friction, and irritation
on both sides — a state of things which was almost bound to
lead to war.
Closely linked both with the trade of the West Indian
islands and with the trade of Spanish America was the negro
trade of the West African coast, for all these lands depended
upon this iniquitous traffic for their labour supply. Every
trading country took part in it : the French, the Portuguese/;
the Dutch, the Danes, even the Prussians. But the most1
active were the English slave-traders, among whom a large
number of New England traders were included : the New
Englanders carried many of the slaves required for the
southern British colonies, Virginia and the Carolinas.
The whole coast of West Africa, from Cape Blanco to^
Angola, was dotted with European slaving-stations.1 There^
was no attempt to settle or administer territory in West
Africa. The slaves were supplied by tribal chiefs on the
coast, who made their livelihood by organising slave-raids
into the interior to meet the demands of the European
traders ; and it is impossible to exaggerate the amount of
misery inflicted by this hideous system upon large areas
of the African hinterland. Yet no one felt any qualms about
this traffic. All the nations regarded it as perfectly legiti
mate, and as absolutely necessary for the maintenance of
the American plantations, The British African Company
was described as ' the most beneficial to this island of all
the companies that ever were formed by our merchants.'
It may serve as an iUustration of the total absence of
misgivings about the legitimacy of the slave-trade that
John Newton, the evangehcal divine, the friend of
Cowper and the author of ' How sweet the name of
Jesus sounds ' and many other favourite hymns, was for
some years after his religious conversion the captain of a
slave-ship. Down to 1698 the British slave-trade had been centred
in London. In the early part of the eighteenth century the
predominance passed to Bristol. But from about 1730 on
wards the rising port of Liverpool rapidly got the upper
1 See the map of West Africa, Atlas, Plate 64 (c).

ch. in.] TRADE AND COLONIAL RIVALRY 683
hand, and by the middle of the century its merchants were
the most active slave-traders in the world. This change was
important. It meant that the growing industry of the
Lancashire towns was finding a new market. A great part
of the wealth which went to build up the immense prosperity
of Lancashire in the second half of the century, and to make
the Industrial Revolution possible, was derived from the
slave-trade and the trade with the West Indies which was
linked with it.
There has probably never been a more lucrative line of
trade in the world, on any large scale, than the ' Great
Triangle ' foUowed by the European merchants engaged in
this traffic. In swift chppers specially built for the trade,
they took out cargoes of cheap and gaudy cloths, beads,
muskets and gin to West Africa ; they exchanged them, at
an immense profit, for cargoes of negroes ; they sold these
in the West Indian or American markets at very high prices ;
and they returned with their ships' holds full of sugar,
tobacco and cotton, which were always sure of a good
market at home. It was this traffic which made the South
Sea trade appear to promise profits of unimaginable
dimensions ; and all the European trading nations strove
to get as large a share in it as possible.
§ 3. North American Trade, and Franco-British Rivalry.
The total volume of the trade between Europe and the
West Indies and West Africa was very much greater than
that between Europe and the North American continent.
But in the American trade British traders had an
immeasurable advantage over all competitors. By the
middle of the century there were about a milhon and a
half of settlers in the thirteen British colonies, aU engaged
mainly in producing raw materials — timber, tar, and other
naval stores as well as agricultural produce in New Eng
land and the Middle Colonies ; furs bought from the Indians
in New York ; tobacco in Virginia and Maryland ; rice
in South Carolina. The most valuable of these com
modities, under the Navigation Acts, could be exported
only to Britain, and although the Acts were evaded, un
doubtedly the bulk of colonial produce followed the line
which they laid down. Moreover all these numerous and
prosperous settlers bought nearly all the manufactured
goods they wanted from Britain, for their own manufactures
were as yet on the smallest scale.

684 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
Compared with this great volume of trade, the French
North American colonies yielded very little. Canada had
practicaUy nothing to offer save furs, and her smaU and poor
population provided but little market for French manu
factures. The colony of Louisiana, founded in 1717— its
capital, New Orleans, got its name from the French regent-
had aroused glowing hopes at the time of Law's gigantic
schemes. But its population was not more than some 5000 ;
and though the French were, with immense energy, planting
little forts and trading stations during this period up the line
of the Mississippi, these isolated posts, hundreds of mUes
apart, in an almost unpeopled land, could support httle
trade of value. >
But during this period, though they drew little profit
from North America, the French were showing very great
activity in marking out a great future of imperial develop
ment. They held the two chief natural lines of communica
tion which open up the heart of the American continent,
the line of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, running
roughly east and west, and the line of the Mississippi and
Missouri, running roughly north and south ; x and these
two lines practically made a junction by way of Lake
Michigan and the river Illinois. They enclosed within a
huge triangle the whole of the British colonies, which
hugged the coast, nowhere extended more than about
one hundred miles in depth, and were shut in by the
confused and wooded hill country of the Alleghanies. If
the French could get control also of the vaUey of the
Ohio, which runs close behind the AUeghany chain, and
rinks up the lower lakes, Erie and Ontario, with the
Mississippi, the British colonies would be deprived of aU
possibility of expansion.
The French, thanks to the daring of their explorers, had
grasped this vast geographical conception ; neither the
British government at home nor the British colonists had
yet visualised it. But it was impossible that a small, poor
and thinly scattered body of Frenchmen should be able
permanently to exclude from these immense areas the
prosperous and enterprising settlers in the British colonies,
who outnumbered them now by at least twenty to one. Once
the British settlers began to find their way over the Alle
ghanies — and they were beginning to do so in this period — a
clash was inevitable. It was not to be evaded by any treaties
or bargainings such as could stave off a war in Europe.
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 55.

ch. iii.] TRADE AND COLONIAL RIVALRY 685
And there was one marked weakness in the French
position, a legacy of the treaty of Utrecht. The very en
trance to their main line of communication, the St. Lawrence
river, was flanked by British possessions on both sides.1
Newfoundland, long a subject of dispute, was now recognised
as definitely British. On the opposite side, Acadia had been
ceded to Britain by the treaty. But the limits of Acadia
had never been determined. The British view was that it
included the area later occupied by the colony of New Bruns
wick, and extended over the trackless forests which reached
as far as the St. Lawrence ; and undoubtedly the French
had been in the habit of giving the name to a large part of
this area. The British view would have made Acadia
extend as far as the river St. Croix, where New England
began. The French, on the other hand, were for limiting
Acadia to the peninsula of Nova Scotia. Over this there
was endless disputation.
MeanwriUe the French were labouring in two ways to
amend the strategic difficulty created by the British pos
session of Newfoundland and Acadia. On Cape Breton
Island, which had not been included in the cession, they
began, as early as 1720, to build a great fortress, known as
Louisbourg. It was designed by Vauban, the greatest
military engineer of his time ; it cost thirty miUion livres
to build ; and it was beyond comparison the strongest
fortress on the American continent. It was meant to secure
the entrance to the St. Lawrence. Later they began to
buUd forts on the isthmus of Nova Scotia ; and through
the priests they were meanwhile doing all that they could
to keep alive the feeling of French patriotism among the
French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, and to persuade them
that in the event of conflict their loyalty was due to the
French and not to the British king.
It is fair to say that the French were far more alert than
their rivals to see the probability, indeed the certainty, of
the coming conflict. This conflict was every day becoming
more inevitable ; and the shadow of it was largely respon
sible for the gulf that was slowly widening between France
and Britain in European pohtics. Thus trade rivalry in
the tropical seas, which was forcing Spain into an anti-
British pohcy, combined with the colonial rivalry between
France and Britain in North America to bring about a
natural combination of the Bourbon powers, and to make a
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 54.

686 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
final tremendous conflict for both trading and colonial
supremacy inevitable in the near future.
TCunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce ; Mere
dith's Economic History of England ; Glynn's John Law of Lauriston ;
Egerton's British Colonial Policy ; G. L. Beer's The Old Colonial
System ; Grant's History of Canada ; Parkman's Half-century of
Conflict ; Channing's History of the United States ; Winsor's Nar
rative and Critical History; Lucas' Historical Geography of the
British Colonies]

CHAPTER IV
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS
(A.D. 1714-1739)
George 1.. 1714 : George 11., 1727: George in., 1760.
§ 1. The Whig Ministries.
The period during which the Whigs exercised unchallenged
supremacy extended over two reigns ; over the reigns of
two kings who felt themselves to be foreigners in Britain,
occupying a very precarious throne. Because of this in
security neither George 1. nor George n. ever ventured to
interfere in the internal or colonial pohcy of their realms.
Only in foreign affairs, where "tneir position as Electors of
Hanover modified the situation, did they directly influence
British pohcy ; and even here they went cautiously.
As George in. was to show, the legal powers of the Crown
were stiU very great, and in particular its patronage was so
extensive that if the king had strong personal views he could
readUymake them felt. But any attempt to use these powers
boldly would inevitably have brought about sharp criticism
and opposition in Parliament, as it did under George in. ;
and in the precarious position of their throne, neither
George 1. nor George n. dared to risk this danger. In aU
domestic affairs they left their powers and their patronage
to be wielded by ministers. In effect the royal authority
was now limited to choosing which among the Whig leaders
should be entrusted with these powers ; and in making this
choice the king was limited to the few who could (with the
help of Crown patronage) make a majority in the House of
Commons. The use of Crown patronage, which the king
dared not wield freely, but which he could transfer, enabled
the chosen minister to dominate pubhc affairs so long as he
did nothing that was seriously unpopular.
Even the modest power of throwing the handkerchief to
one or another of the few possible candidates — which was a
very different thing from the free choice of ministers by the
Crown — brought it about that the rather duU and sordid
courts of these German kings were fuU of intrigue, and
their unprepossessing mistresses made harvest from the
687

THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
greed of rival politicians. Moreover in each reign the heir
apparent, the Prince of Wales, was on the worst of terms
with his father, and maintained a sort of opposition court,
which became a centre for disappointed politicians, who
hoped that the handkerchief would be thrown to them when
the son succeeded the father. This rather unsavoury
feature of the Hanoverian famUy had one advantageous
result in the peculiar circumstances of the period. It was
better that poUticians in opposition should fix their hopes
on the heir to the crown than that they should intrigue with
the exiled line.
Because they were conscious of the insecurity of their
own position, and therefore desired to avoid unsettlement,
both George i. and George n. were remarkably steady in ?
the support they gave to the ministers they chose. Hence
the period is distinguished by the length of time for which
power was held by successive ministries. PracticaUy there"
were only three ministries between 1714 and the outbreak
of the Seven Years' War in 1756. The first of these was
dominated by the personality of Stanhope, a very able
soldier and diplomat of the school of "Marlborough. The
chief interest of his rule lies in the firmness with which the
Jacobite danger was handled, and the fixing of the main
lines of British foreign policy : Stanhope largely deserves
the credit for the Franco-British aUiance, which dominated""
foreign politics for nearly thirty years.
Stanhope died in the midst of the South Sea trouble
(1720) ; and the skiU with which the tangle was handled
by Sir Robert Walpole ensured for him the succession to -
supreme power, which he held for an unbroken period of
more than twenty years. For a moment his ascendency was
imperiUed on the death of George 1. The opposition who
had clustered round George n. when he was Prince of Wales
hoped to take Walpole 's place now that the Prince had
become king ; but, guided by his very able wife, who saw
Walpole's value, George n. disappointed the hopes of his
former friends, and Walpole maintained a complete mono
poly of power till the outbreak of war with Spain (which he
hated and conducted badly) brought about his fall (1742).
The ministry which succeeded Walpole was headed at ,
first by Lord Wilmington ; though the direction of foreign^5 '
affairs fell to a very briUiant and witty personage
Lord Carteret, who was distinguished among all his con
temporaries by his intimate acquaintance with European
politics,! and who therefore involved Britain more deeply

ch. iv.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS 689
than ever in the complexities of European affairs at the
beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession. When
Wilmington died after a year of office (1743), his place was
taken, without any material change of personnel or policy,
by Henry Pelham, whose tenure of power (shared at first
with Carteret) lasted until His death in 1754 ; and Pelham
in his turn was succeeded by his brothef~and colleague the
Duke of Newcastle. This long-lived but essentially con
tinuous ministry was supposed to represent a reaction
against the pohcy of Walpole. In reality it adhered in the
main to his methods and aims, though it included a greater
variety of pohtical groups than Walpole had ever combined :
the Pelhams were essentially pupils of Walpole and con-
tinuators of his policy. Thus there is a remarkable contin
uity in the political history of this long period ; and, despite
aU the intrigues and quarrels of the Whig groups, no real
difference of principle is perceptible until the time when,
amid the disasters which marked the beginning of the Seven
Years' War, the commanding personality of WiUiam Pitt
thrust aside the oligarchs and gave a new direction to
British pohcy.
§ 2. Walpole, the Great Whig : the Principles of his Policy.
The long sway of Walpole x thus forms the heart of the
period, and it iUustrates very clearly at once the merits
and the defects of Whig government. Walpole was in many
ways a typical English country gentleman, devoted to a
country life, never happier than when he could escape to
his Norfolk estate, fond of good living, a Philistine in all
matters of art, jovial, good-natured and full of the prejudices
of his class. He was also a sound Whig, believing genuinely
in hberty as the Whigs conceived it, and holding that liberty
was best maintained by the preservation of the Revolution
settlement and the Protestant succession with the least
possible friction or disturbance. He sincerely desired the
welfare of his country, and he identified this welfare with
the maintenance of peace and the expansion of industry
and commerce. He was a man of very great practical
capacity, especiaUy in fields which (like finance and trade)
do not require the display of the higher gifts of imagination,
sympathy and insight. He was a shrewd judge of men,
especiaUy of their weaknesses, and as he never lost his temper
1 Lord Morley has an excellent short life of Walpole in the Twelve
Enghsh Statesmen Series.
VOL. 1. 2 X

690 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
he had a happy knack of managing men. He was whoUy
free from cant ; but he was incapable either of being inspired
by lofty ideals or of understanding those who were — he
shared the contempt of his age for ' enthusiasm.' Long
views, great visions, whole-hearted self-devotion to a high
cause, were altogether beyond him. Religion had no
meaning for him ; the Church was for him (as for his rival
Bolingbroke) a convenient mechanism for keeping people
quiet. He was perfectly satisfied with the world he knew,
and wished only to keep it secure and undisturbed. Such
a man could not be a great national leader, or see far ahead
into trie problems of the future. But he was admirably
qualified to command the confidence of ' common-sense '
men ; he reflected perfectly the temper of his own age and
of his own class ; and therefore he was able to render the
great service of keeping things steady at a time when his
country needed 'just that, when a period of faUow was
required between two periods of strenuous activity.
Walpole owed his long tenure of power largely to his skiU
in managing the House of Commons. For that reason, and
because of the virulent charges of his opponents, he is often
accused of having introduced wholesale corruption into
British political life. He used the patronage of the Crown
to help in making a majority ; he worked in close harmony
with the greatest of all Whig borough-mongers, the Duke of
Newcastle. But in these respects he was only using the
methods habitually employed by aU his predecessors since
the Revolution, though he used them more skilfuUy and more
unflinchingly. Indeed, in the conditions of the time, these
methods were essential to the maintenance of a strong
government. There is no definite evidence that he em
ployed direct bribery, though in occasional instances he
probably did so : at his fall his opponents laboured to
make out a case against him, and whoUy failed to do so.
Methods of corruption were used on a far more wholesale
scale by Pelham's ministry, and still more by George in.,
than they were ever used by Walpole. In the main his
mastery of the House of Commons was due to his shrewd
understanding of that body, and to the fact that he care
fully avoided raising questions which were likely to be
troublesome : his motto was quieta non movere, ' let sleeping .
dogs lie.'
Accordingly the main feature of his long sway was the
absence of all great issues in which principles were involved,
and a remarkable paucity of legislation on any questions

ch. iv.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS 691
of importance other than finance and trade. The Whigs
were traditionally advocates of rehgious toleration, and
friends of the Dissenters. Yet next to nothing was done
to reheve the Dissenters from the disabilities which rested
upon them. Stanhope had repealed the Occasional Con
formity Act and the Schism Act; but Walpole had even
opposed the repeal, probably because he did not want to
rouse the High Church Tories. On several occasions pro
posals were made for the rehef of the Dissenters ; Walpole
threw cold water upon them, and ensured their faUure.
' Let sleeping dogs he.' But from 1727 onwards he passed
an annual Act of Indemnity for those Dissenters who chose
to break the law — a pusiUanimous and dangerous way of
remedying injustice.
Hence his rule was a period of artificial calm. England
lay quiet, and Jacobitism was being gradually suffocated by
prosperity, as the rising of '45 was to show : yet the absurd
outbreak of excitement over the Excise Bill of 1733 (which
wiU be referred to later) showed how easily any serious
controversy might arouse a dangerous storm. Scotland also
was uneasily quiet, and was slowly taking advantage of the
benefits of the Union : Walpole managed Scotland through
Lord Islay, the Duke of ArgyU's brother, who organised the
elections and gave him the steady support of the forty-five
Scottish members and of the sixteen Scottish peers. Yet
the fury of the Porteous riots in 1736, which arose out of the
execution of a popular smuggler, and are only remembered
because nothing else was happening and because Scott chose
the episode as the subject of one of his best novels,1 showed
that in Scotland also excitement could be easily aroused.
Ireland, too, under all her monstrous afflictions, was
astonishingly undisturbed ; but the furious outcry which
was raised over the issue of a new and much-needed copper
coinage (Wood's halfpence) in 1723 showed that here also
storms might readUy arise. The importance of the episode
was that Swift used the occasion to wield his formidable pen
in the Drapier's Letters, in which, starting from a skUful
exaggeration and perversion of the facts about ' Wood's
halfpence,' he went on to denounce the iniquity and in
justice of the system of repression by which Irish trade and
industry were being destroyed. This, with other tracts of
Swift's, was the beginning of effective protest against the
shameful treatment of Ireland. The sleeping dogs were
stirring. They must be soothed to sleep again. Walpole
1 The Heart of Midlothian.

692 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vl
withdrew Wood's halfpence promptly. But he was content
to ' paper the cracks.' He made no attempt to consider or
to deal seriously with the Irish situation ; he maintained
unaltered the repressive system of the Revolution, and even
intensified it. In 1719, before his accession to power, a
Declaratory Act had been passed by the British Parliament -
formally asserting its power to pass measures for Ireland
over the head of the Irish Parliament. Walpole had made
no protest ; and he used the powers thus asserted. Not
for him was any large and statesmanlike pohcy of reconcUia
tion and reconstruction. ' Let sleeping dogs he ' was the
sum of his political wisdom in all the larger fields of states
manship : keep things quiet, and do nothing in particular.
That was his policy also in regard to the American colonies,
except — an important exception — in matters of trade. Ever
since the Revolution a continuous controversy had been
going on, especially in New England, over the question of
the salaries of governors : the home government insisting
that the governors must be paid fixed salaries, the colonial
assemblies refusing to vote money for more than a year at a
time, in order to keep the governors under their power ; and
the same question was also arising in regard to judges'
salaries. It was a constitutional problem of the most
fundamental importance, involving the whole question of
the relations between the colonial assemblies and the central
government. On the principle of avoiding controversy and
'letting sleeping dogs lie,' Walpole's government in 1729^
instructed the colonial governors to let the question drop,
and take what they could get. Colonial questions were
dealt with by the Board of Trade, but under the Whig
system the Board of Trade was only an advisory body to
one of the two Secretaries of State, with whom the final
decision rested. The responsible Secretary of State during
most of Walpole's period was the Duke of Newcastle, whose
simple method of dealing with colonial troubles was — not to
read the despatches. When Walpole was once advised to
tax the colonies by the authority of Parhament, he answered
that he had enough trouble about taxation in England
without raising more in America. It was a srirewd answer,
and showed his practical common sense. But he has been
praised on this ground for his wise statesmanship in colonial
affairs, and this praise he certainly does not deserve. For
his policy was simply a policy of drift. The problem of the
relations between the colonies and the mother country was
a serious and difficult problem ; it was, or ought to have

ch. iv.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS 693
been, obvious that the old colonial system would no longer
work. The interval of peace between the war against
Louis xiv. and the inevitable coming conflict for supremacy
in North America was the time when this question ought to
have been seriously and quietly discussed : the colonists,
aware as they were of the danger from France, felt the value
of the imperial connexion, and might have been ready to
join in working out a new system of relations. But Walpole
shut his eyes to the coming conflict, and had no sense of the
need for any change in the pohtical relations of the members
of the Commonwealth. So a great opportunity was lost ;
an opportunity that was never to be regained. To let
sleeping dogs lie is not a sufficient maxim for statesmen in
a changing world.
For the same reason Walpole's foreign policy, which
consisted essentially of staving off war as long as possible
by patching up each difficulty as it arose, may equally be
charged with lack of foresight. He gave his country peace,
indeed, during a long period when she needed it, and that
was a great gift. But he showed no appreciation of the
importance of the changes which were coming about in the
European scene : of the significance of Poland's downfall
and Russia's emergence : of the real meaning and probable
results of the Franco-Spanish alliance of 1733.
In short, in all the wider fields of politics Walpole's policy
was one of short views and temporary expedients. He was
lacking in imagination and largeness of vision, and for that
reason cannot be given a high place among statesmen, useful
as were his services at the time. His deficiencies were not
peculiar to himself. They were characteristic of the Whig
oligarchy, of which indeed he was the best product.
§ 3. Walpole's Constructive Work.
In some fields, however, Walpole's work was of permanent
value. In the first place he was the first leading British
statesman to recognise in practice, and to do everything in
his power to emphasise, the predominance of the House of
Commons in the British system of government. All his
predecessors, Montague and Somers, Harley and St. John
and Stanhope, had hastened, as soon as they attained power,
to accept peerages and take their places in the House of
Lords. Walpole remained until riis fall plain Sir Robert,
and clung to the House of Commons. When, having
accepted the Earldom of Orford after his fall, he met his old

694 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
rival Pulteney, who had hoped to succeed him and had ob
tained a peerage as Earl of Bath, his greeting showed what
he thought of the relative importance of the two houses :
' You and I,' he said, ' are now two as insignificant men as
any in England.' There can be no doubt that under Walpole,
when the Prime Minister was always present in the House of
Commons and shaped his course by its opinion, that house
became the real centre of Enghsh government as it had never
been before. The idea embodied in the Act of Settlement,
that ministers should not be members of the House of
Commons,1 was finaUy lolled by Walpole's practice. In a
higher degree than Pitt, though in a rather different sense,
he deserves to be called the ' Great Commoner.'
In the second place, he was in a real sense the first British
Prime Minister, controlling and dominating his cabinet, and
exercising a co-ordinating power over the work of aU depart
ments. This was an essential contribution to the growth
of the British system of government. Walpole attained
this position by insisting that ministers who took a different
line from government and pubhcly opposed its measures
must lose their posts. By acting on this principle he drove
many of the ablest men into opposition, but he increased
the strength and homogeneity of his ministry. His action
in this respect was generally attributed to his jealousy of
power, and no doubt that had something to do with it. But
he saw that a ministry must be homogeneous, and that the ^
various departments must be in harmony with one another,
if government is to be efficient. One of the chief grounds
of attack against him, formally put forward in 1741, was
that he had striven to make himself a Prime Minister, a
thing unknown to the British constitution. That such a
charge should be made shows how little the principles and
working of cabinet government were yet understood. The
notion that no one minister should exercise control over his
colleagues, each being alike the king's representative in his
own department, died hard, and was to work much mischief
in the future. But the experience of two centuries has
proved that Walpole's principle was the right one, and that
it represents the only way in which a coherent government
can be reconciled with the supremacy of Parhament.
The field of politics in which Walpole's best work was done
was that of finance. He commanded the entire confidence
and support of the ' moneyed men ' and the trading interests.
He was able materially to reduce the burden of the National
* See above, Bk- v. chap. vi. p. 578.

ch. iv.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS 695
Debt by cutting down the rate of interest and creating a
smking fund for the redemption of debt out of the savings
thusTriadif. He kept taxation low. He freed the raw mate
rials of industry from fiscal burdens, and systematically
encouraged export trade by bounties. There is no doubt
that the very great prosperity of British foreign trade during
this period was encouraged by his wise direction of finance,
and t>y the confidence which it engendered. Of aU his fiscal
devices that which attracted most attention was the Excise
BiU of 1733. Its objects were modest enough. Ever since
the CivU War excise (i.e. duties levied on goods in Eng
land before they were .sold) had yielded a large proportion
of the national revenue — a considerably larger proportion
than customs duties, which were levied on foreign goods
at the port of import. Customs duties, especially on wine
and tobacco, were largely avoided by smuggling. Walpole
proposed to substitute excise duties of the same amount on
those goods : they would be imported free of duty, deposited
in bonded warehouses, and taxed when issued. He hoped
in this way to avoid the loss on smuggling, and at the same
time to encourage foreign trade, because the goods could
be re-exported without paying duty. The proposal aroused
a most amazing and unintelligible outcry, which was un
scrupulously stimulated by the misrepresentations of Wal
pole's opponents. They represented it as the introduction
of French methods of government and as a tyrannous invasion
of the rights of free Britons ; effigies of Walpole were burnt
by excited mobs, to the cry of ' No wooden shoes ! ' ; and
this quite harmless and useful measure had to be withdrawn.
It is characteristic of Walpole's limitations that the loss of
this modest #nd pedestrian measure wounded him more
than any other episode of his career.
Walpole's trade policy, which was nearer his heart than
any other part of his work, was essentiaUy a continuance
of the economic pohcy of the Revolution, which aimed
primarily at encouraging production in Britain, at turning
her into the manufacturing centre of the whole empire, and
at attracting to her market all the products of the empire.
For that purpose he was even more ready than his pre
decessors to use the legislative power of the British Parlia
ment ; and under his guidance the control exercised over
colonial trade was considerably stiffened. Several new pro
ducts were added, by enactment, to the list of ' enumerated
articles ' which could only be exported to England. The
Molasses Act (1733), which aroused such bitter protest in

696 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
New England, was one of Walpole's enactments. It tried
to prevent the colonies from buying the cheap and excellent
sugar-products of the French West Indies. But, more
serious, it was under Walpole and his successors that a
systematic attempt was made to prevent the rise of manu
factures in the colonies by legislative prohibition. The
colonies were forbidden to engage in copper-smelting (1732) ;
all their copper ore must be sent to Britain to be smelted.
They were forbidden to manufacture hats ; the furs of which
hats were made must all be sent to Britain. These Acts
did not, indeed, cause much trouble, because such colonial
manufacture as existed was on the smallest scale. But the
principle was clearly enough enunciated. And in 1750, under
Pelham, the inheritor of Walpole's ideas, the principle was
given a very dangerous application. The colonies were
beginning to produce considerable quantities of iron ore, and
to manufacture some of it, as yet on a small scale. The
Act of 1750 prohibited all iron manufactures in the colonies,
and ordained the closing of all the existing factories. This
enactment, taken in conjunction with its predecessors,
convinced the colonists, and especially the New Englanders,
who were most active in manufacture, that the mother
country was bent upon checking and hampering their de
velopment in her own interests. The whole of this legislation
contributed largely to produce the ahenation which eventuaUy
led to the revolt of the colonies.
At a later date, when they were in opposition to George in.,
the Whigs, blaming the king and his advisers for all the
colonial trouble, took credit to themselves for the greater
wisdom of the colonial policy pursued in the period of Whig
ascendency. It is manifest that no such credit is due. The
greatest of Whig statesmen was not only blind to the need
for a revision of the colonial system : he and his successors
exaggerated its worst features, and prepared the coming
storm. Had America been, in Walpole's time, as she was
in 1763, free from the danger of a French attack, the ' sleep
ing dogs ' of colonial discontent would not have confined
themselves to growling. Their growls could not be heard
across the Atlantic — especially through a Secretary of State
who never read the American despatches.
On a broad view of his policy it is thus impossible to regard
Walpole as a great statesman. His one great service was
that he gave the new British system of government time to
get itself rooted, and contributed to define some of its most
important features. But one other praise must be allowed

ch. iv.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS 697
to this genial, limited, ' practical ' man. He was extra
ordinarily tolerant of criticism. Though he was continuously
assailed with a venom which knew no bounds, he made no
attempt (unlike his predecessors of both parties) to revenge
himself upon his opponents, otherwise than by excluding
them from appointments in his gift. There were no im
peachments under Walpole ; no attempts to restrict freedom
of speech or Writing. The stream of criticism went on with
vigour, in the press as weU as in Parliament, and the habit
of pubhc discussion of political problems continued to grow.
§ 4. The Opposition to the Whigs : the Ideas of Bolingbroke.
Solidly founded as Walpole's power was, it was always
the object of bitter attack. Most of this hostile criticism
was merely factious opposition, the work of men whose real
complaint against the great minister was that he kept them
out of office. ' All these men have their price,' Walpole
once said ; and of most of them the charge was true : when
they got their turn of office under the Pelhams, who tried
to satisfy all factions by sharing the spoils widely, they
showed themselves less enhghtened, less far-seeing and more
corrupt than Walpole had been.
But alongside of this factious and place-hunting opposition
there was a more genuine opposition of principles, the centre
of which was Bolingbroke. He had been allowed to return
from exile in 1723, and, though he was excluded from active
poUtical life, he made his house the centre of the opposition,
and tried to imbue a mixed group of Tories and discontented
Whigs with his own pohtical ideas. Among the disciples of
Bolingbroke was WiUiam Pitt, who, with his cousins of the
house of GrenviUe, was violently opposing Walpole, mainly
on the ground that his foreign pohcy subordinated the
interests of Britain to those of Hanover, and disregarded
the great colonial rivalry which to him seemed to be the
first of aU questions for Britain. Pitt was deeply influenced
by Bolingbroke's doctrines, though he later came to distrust
that brilhant cynic ; and the effect of Bolingbroke's teaching
was apparent in much of Pitt's later career. During the
half-dozen years foUowing 1726 Bolingbroke maintained a
weekly paper, The Craftsman, every issue of which was filled
with witty, effective and often unscrupulous denunciation
of the minister. But through this unending diatribe he
expounded political doctrines which were sharply in con
flict with those of the Whigs, and which he hoped might

698 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
be accepted as the creed of a new and more rational
Toryism. In the 'thirties Bolingbroke grew tired of the
struggle, and in 1^38 he retired once more to France. But
before he left he had written, in 1738 (though it was not v v v
pubhshed tUl much later), a political essay, The Idea of a
Patriot King, which gave a very clear and forcible exposition
of his political creed, and was to wield a remarkable influence
on Enghsh political thought.
The essence of Bohngbroke's political doctrine was that
the Whigs had ruined the balance of the British constitution
by enslaving both the Crown and Parhament for their own
purposes ; thus setting up an ohgarchy in place of a con
stitutional monarchy. If politics were to be brought into
a healthy state rigid party organisation, which the Whigs
had brought to perfection, must be destroyed ; Parhament
must be freed from its dominion, and from aU corrupting
influences, and once more become the free mouthpiece of
the nation. Above all, the Crown must be freed from its
slavery to the oligarchy, and enabled to play the part
designed for it by the Revolution. It must stand above
parties, and disregard them. It must bring the ablest men
into the service of the nation, without regard to their
connexions, without considering whether they possessed
' borough influence ' or not. There must be no more ' Prime
Ministers ' like Walpole, arrogating all power to themselves,
reducing other ministers to ciphers, and denying all chance
of rendering public service to those who differed from them ;
each minister must have his full responsibihty for his own
office, being answerable to the king and to Parhament alone
for the way in which he exercised it. Only the Crown could
save the situation ; because it was by annexing Crown
patronage that the group of corrupt oligarchs held their
own. The one hope of the nation therefore depended upon
the appearance of a Patriot King, who would overthrow
the oligarchs, make himself the leader of a free nation, and
call in the best men to advise him.
These ideas had a real attraction for many men. They
were very attractive to Pitt, conscious of the possession of
great powers, and aware that his lack of ' borough influence '
and the jealousy of the Walpoles and Newcastles excluded
him from power. Bolingbroke's theories were also to have,
in the future, a mighty influence upon George in., who cast
himself for the part of Patriot King.
They even had some influence upon the formation of the
Pelham ministry (1743). which was known as the Broad-

ch. iv.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHIGS 699
Bottom administration, because it tried to include all the
groups, even Tories and Jacobites, and therefore to be a sort
of national non-party government. Perhaps it was for that
reason that (after Carteret, with his extreme ' continental '
views of foreign pohcy, had been got rid of) WiUiam Pitt
accepted a post in this ministry, first as Treasurer of the
Navy, and afterwards as Paymaster-General. But he found
that in these offices he could exercise no influence at all upon
the course of affairs. In reality policy was still directed by
men of the school of Walpole, inspired by Walpole's ideas ;
and the use of patronage and corruption for the securing
of control over Parhament went on more actively than ever
under the management of the Pelhams, who were past
masters of these arts. The only differences were that they
were less competent than Walpole ; and that the mouths of
critics like Pitt were now closed with the sugar-plums of
office. Indeed, there is nothing memorable about this long
ministry save that it carried on the War of the Austrian
Succession in a way which showedf that its ideas of
foreign pohcy were stUl limited to Europe, and that
it had no vision of the vast issues that were awaiting
decision in America and India. The Pelhams hved from
day to day ; they had no clear principles or aims ; their
conception of the art of government seemed to be con
fined to bargaining and bartering with the various groups
of borough-mongers ; and in the end they drifted into
the most momentous colonial war in which Britain had
yet been engaged without being ready for it, or realising
what it involved.
The Whig oligarchy had served its purpose. It had
helped Britain to pass quietly through what might have
been a critical period. But it had been blind to all high
ideals and lofty aims ; and, in spite of the prosperity it had
brought, the period covered by its rule was the most material
istic, and the least redeemed by great ideas, of any period
in the history of the Commonwealth. It left a new genera
tion to deal with vast problems which had been accentuated
by its blindness or neglect, and above all with the problems
of the Commonwealth itself, — with the question whether the
destinies of the New World were to be in French hands or
British, and whether, therefore, these rich lands were to be
ruled on the French system of absolute monarchy or the
Enghsh system of self-government; and with the greater
and more difficult question whether a mode could be found
whereby a fellowship of free States could Uve together in

700 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
brotherhood and freedom. Both of these questions had been
shaping themselves during the period of Whig dominance.
Both of them the Whigs had disregarded.
[Robertson's England, under the Hanoverians ; Leadam's England
from 1702 to 1760; Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century ; Sichel's Bohngbroke ; Coxe's Walpole ; Williams' Pitt ; H.
Walpole's Memoirs of George II. ; Hervey's Memoirs ; Anson's Law
and Custom of the Constitution ; Blauvelt's Development of Cabinet
Government; Hallam's Constitutional History]

CHAPTER V
THE WESLEYS AND THE REVIVAL OF ENTHUSIASM
§ i. The Age of Reason.
Not only in Britain but in all the lands of Western civilisa
tion the first half of the eighteenth century was an age of
materialism, an age of prose, an age of ' common sense,'
when men measured all human activities by their visible
and tangible results, and ' enthusiasm ' for spiritual or ideal
ends was regarded as evidence of an unbalanced mind,
because it aUowed reason to be deflected by emotion.
National weU-being was identified with national wealth,
the pursuit of which was so manifestly ' rational ' that it
justified many iniquities, such as the horrors of the slave-
trade. Pohtics, which is concerned with the organisation
of the co-operative action of human societies in the pursuit
of justice and well-being, and which ought to be one of the
noblest of human activities, became under these conditions
a sordid business. There were no high conflicts of principle
capable of chaUenging men to devotion or self-sacrifice.
The rehgious zeal of the last two centuries had vanished,
and the humanitarian zeal of the next age had not begun to
make itself felt. The ' Liberty ' to which the Whigs pro
fessed devotion, and to which they had rendered real services
in the past, was regarded as something that had been already
secured and only needed to be safeguarded, not as something
that ought to be perpetuaUy growing and that would become
dead and unmeaning if it ceased to grow ; the ' Loyalty '
of which the Tories boasted was not strong enough to enlist
real sacrifices, except among the wild and backward clans
of the Highlands of Scotland. Pohtics became, as we have
seen, a matter of intrigue among rival and corrupt groups
to obtain possession of the spoils of office. Yet, next to
the pursuit of wealth, politics formed the most engrossing
interest of the time, not only among the politicians but
among the inteUigent pubhc.
But these statements, standing by themselves, would be
701

702 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [BK. vi.
unjust to the age. It was an age of enlightenment, which
proclaimed the sovereignty of reason, riated cant, and
strove to free itself from prejudice and to analyse fearlessly
the ideas which it was asked to accept. It was therefore
an age of criticism and of healthy chaUenge to received
behefs ; and in this way it prepared for the great age of
destruction and reconstruction which was to foUow. Its
most characteristic writer and thinker was Voltaire, the
great French critic who had to spend most of his hfe in exUe
because of the unsparing freedom of his pen. Hating aU
sham and unreality, and hating stiU more the injustices
and cruelties to which they led, Voltaire was incapable of
appreciating the realities that lay beneath even formalist
religion, or the potency of emotion, or the limits of pure
reason ; but he rendered great services to his age and kind
by submitting all the institutions and ideas of his time to
the corrosive acid of his criticism, which burnt up a great
deal of rubbish ; and although he had no glowing visions
of a noble future to offer to his feUow-men, and was disdain
ful of the high hopes inspired by Rousseau and others,
yet he is rightly regarded as one of the harbingers of the
French Revolution. Indeed the whole of this great age of
criticism was a preparation for the vast changes that were
coming. In Britain the activity of a critical spirit is the most
marked feature of all the best writing of the time ; even in V
the one great poet of the age, Pope, the critical spirit over
powered the imaginative and emotional elements. The
gentle and kindly social satire of Addison and Steele, the
fierce and venomous satire of Swift, the irony and the
minute descriptive analysis of Defoe, all are aUke criticism,
more or less destructive, of the social organisation in which
these writers hved ; not one of them indulges in ideals or
dreams for the future. Three of the greatest of British critical
phUosophers belonged to this age : Butler, Berkeley and I
David Hume. Behind them came a great army of writers
on theological and philosophical subjects, now whoUy for
gotten ; but their abundance shows that a real fermenta
tion of the national mind was going on. The inteUectual
world was in fact intensely interested in philosophical and
religious discussions along rationahst lines, as was shown
by the excitement aroused by the controversy which raged
round Bishop Hoadly, and the whole of what was known
as the Deist controversy. But it was purely an intellectual
interest. One very important result of this critical spirit

CH.v.] THE WESLEYS: REVIVAL OF ENTHUSIASM 703
was a rapid spread of religious scepticism, which affected
all shades of rehgious belief in Britain and in Europe ; even
in Scotland and New England this was a time of what was
called Moderatism, and of flagging ardour. The higher
clergy in the Enghsh Church were largely sceptical, and
consequently took their religious duties anything but
seriously ; among the parochial clergy a large proportion
regarded their professional duties as more or less of a formal
obligation attached to the incomes they got by patronage ;
many of them were habitual absentees, especiaUy in Ireland ;
many more hved joUy and sometimes useful Uves indis
tinguishable from those of their lay neighbours ; they spent
most of their time in farming, fox-hunting, drinking, and
sitting on the bench, but did not conceive themselves to have
any duties to their flocks beyond the reading of the service
on Sundays ; and though there were honest, kindly and
hard-working parsons hke Parson Adams in Tom Jones,
even they seldom had anything to offer to their flocks
beyond what the rigid Scots used to call ' a cauld and barren
morality,' whoUy lacking in inspiring power. The decay of
fervour and the growth of scepticism were equally marked
in the Dissenting communities. It was during this period
, that nearly all the surviving Presbyterian congregations in
England became Unitarian.
Hence neither the Estabhshed nor the Dissenting Churches
showed any energy in what may be caUed missionary work,
either at home or abroad. Content to carry on the con
ventional exercises of religion for the respectable people
who frequented them as a matter of course, they had for
gotten that they existed for the purpose of insistently
reminding all men that man cannot live by bread alone, and
of bringing into the routine of life the inspiring conviction
of the reality and the supreme importance of the unseen
and the spiritual. The most unhappy aspect of this dead-
ness was that it led to a complete neglect of the new classes
of labouring men and women created by the growth of
British industries : the miners, the weavers, the sailors and
dockyard workers crowded in the waterside slums of great
ports, were whoUy neglected ; they were merely a disregarded
part of the machinery for creating wealth ; nothing was
done to remind them that the dignity of their manhood was
a greater thing than the products of their labour, and that
life was more than livelihood. The idea that national well-
being depended upon the quahty of the nation's manhood
still more than upon the volume of the nation's material

704 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
wealth was in this age strangely forgotten ; and any asser
tion that the cultivation of manhood rather than of wealth
was the supreme interest of the community would have been
regarded as mere ' enthusiasm.' ' Common sense,' indeed,
has never taken kindly to such a view, which it demands
uncommon sense really to believe to the point of acting
upon it.
§ 2. The Beginnings of Organised Philanthropy : the
Colony of Georgia.
Although there were not yet any such vast aggregations
of human beings in industrial towns as the Industrial
Revolution was to bring about, nevertheless there was a
great deal of misery, ignorance and vice in London, in the
big ports like Bristol and Liverpool, in the mining areas of
Cornwall and Newcastle, and in some of the weaving dis
tricts. One sign of this was the craving for cheap spirits
which spread like a pestilence through the country ; the
ineffective attempts of Parhament to check gin-drinking
in 1729 and 1733 may perhaps be described as the first'
attempts in the direction of social reform by legislation. But
they came with a bad grace from an assembly of three-
bottle men ; nor was any cure to be found in that direction.
Another sign of the unhealthy state of society was the
extraordinary ease with which violent agitations were stirred
up about nothing in particular, as in the preposterous
excitement over the Excise Bill, or the Porteous Riots in
Edinburgh, or many other minor riots. Whig government
gave the people little to get excited about. But the best
way of avoiding unnatural and unhealthy excitements is
not to give people nothing to think about : it is to give them
big and worthy things to think about.
Yet there were signs that even in this rather stagnant age
a new spirit was beginning to arise. One of these was the
beginning of philanthropy and of that humanitarian spirit
which was to attain to such remarkable heights in the next
age. Charity schools were established in large numbers
all over the country. A list of British charitable institutions
with the dates of their foundation would show that in many
spheres (notably that of hospitals) this was a period of be- y
ginnings, after a long quiescence since the later Middle Ages.
A number of pubhc hospitals supported by charity were
founded during this period in various parts of England ;
and alongside of them were a number of institutions whose

ch.v.] THE WESLEYS: REVIVAL OF ENTHUSIASM 705
aim was to give a chance to unfortunate children, like
Captain Coram's Foundling Hospital in London, or Captain
Bryan BlundeU's Bluecoat Hospital for orphans in Liver
pool : pity for children is always one of the first signs of
an awakening of conscience. Another sign of new life
was the beginning of concern about the hideous conditions
in British prisons, and especiaUy about the treatment of
debtors, who were left to pine in horrible gaols without hope
of release.
The greatest enterprise for the relief of distress undertaken
during this age was the foundation of the colony of Georgia
in 1733. It was the only British colony founded during
this period, and the last of the famous thirteen ; and, unlike
any of its predecessors, it was founded neither for the sake
of commercial profits (despite their appeal to this genera
tion), nor in order to forward a particular set of religious
or political opinions, but solely for philanthropic reasons —
to give a fresh start in life to unfortunate debtors. The
founder of the colony was General James Oglethorpe, a
weU-known personage in the fashionable and literary life
of London, who had been chairman of a parliamentary
committee on the state of the prisons, and had been horrified
by what he had thus learnt. The necessary funds were
raised by appeals to public benevolence, and a grant of land
was obtained from the Crown, though Walpole was rather
contemptuously hostile to the scheme, which he regarded
as a piece of ' enthusiasm.' Oglethorpe devoted himself
with real unselfishness for more than ten years to the
development of the colony, to which he took out two parties
of debtors, supplying them with the means of making a
start. He also found room for a settlement of Highland
emigrants, upon whom the colony mainly depended for
its defence against Spanish attacks ; and he welcomed a
party of persecuted Protestants from the archbishopric of
Salzburg, and another of Moravians from Bohemia. The
foundation of Georgia represents, on the eve of the great
revolt, and in contrast with the narrow and selfish colonial
policy of the Whigs, the appearance of a new spirit in colon
ising work, which was to have great fruits in the nineteenth
century. Oglethorpe tried to restrict the import of spirits
and to prevent the use of negro slaves ; but both restrictions
vanished when the colony was transferred to the Crown in
1752, and was therefore endowed with the ordinary system
of colonial government.
VOL. I. 2 Y

706 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [sk. vi.
§ 3. The Religious Revival in Wales, and the Methodist
Movement.
But these signs of the birth of a new and more wholesome
spirit were wholly dwarfed by the great religious revivals-
which began in this period. They were to exercise a con
tinually increasing influence during the next period, and
were in many ways to influence the character and develop
ment of the British Commonwealth. It is the Methodist
movement, led and inspired by the Wesleys and Whitefield,
which usually draws to itself most attention. But alongside
of the Wesleys' work, and largely independent of it, there was
an equally remarkable religious revival in Wales, which
began in 1735, and attracted little attention mainly because
it was chiefly carried on in the Welsh language. Nowhere
was a new breath of life more necessary than in Wales, for
nowhere was the deadness of the official Church more marked;
and the consequence was that from 1735 onwards the Welsh
people broke away more and more from the Church, and
from the traditions and ideas of the governing class which
the Church largely embodied ; Wales began to develop for
herself a distinctive and independent body of ideas, of which
the ' chapel ' became the hearth and centre.
In a real sense the religious revival of 1735 and the follow
ing years was the beginning of the history of modern Wales.
The preaching of Griffith Jones and his fellow evangelists,
who appealed to Welshmen in their neglected native tongue,
aroused the most intense religious emotion, and stirred into
life that Celtic hwyl which the ancient bards had known how
to arouse. It was foUowed by the beginnings of a remark
able and spontaneous educational movement, carried on by
travelling schools, which was necessarily crude and shallow
at first, because it had no centres of learning from which to
draw knowledge and wisdom. It also contributed to re
awaken the old contests of poetry and song which the bards
had once maintained ; and in this and other ways helped
to stimulate the rise of a new national spirit in the little
mountain principality. No one yet marked the significance
of this development, which did not rise above the horizon
of the politician and the publicist until late in the nineteenth
century ; but its first beginnings date from the age of reason
and of materialism, which would have scoffed at the idea of
attaching importance to any such obscure movements.
The Methodist movement in England, on the other hand,
from a very early date attracted the puzzled attention of

CH.v.] THEWESLEYS: REVIVAL OF ENTHUSIASM 707
the ruling classes, who did not know whether to be more
disgusted or amused at this strange outburst of enthusiasm,
and who never realised for a moment that what they were
laughing at was enormously more important for the life of
the nation than their own ministerial bargainings and
balance-of-power negotiations.
John and Charles Wesley were two Oxford men of con
siderable academic distinction, the sons of a hard-working
Lincolnshire parson ; x both of their grandfathers, on the
mother's and the father's side, had been among the Puritan
divines ejected in 1662. At Oxford they founded in 1729
a small rehgious society, whose members came to be known
as the Methodists ; and in this body, which devoted itself
amid much ridicule to private prayer, and to visiting the
sick, the poor and the criminals in the gaols, they made
friends with George Whitefield, who had been a waiter in
an inn and was striving to earn his education as a servitor
at Pembroke College. In 1735 the two Wesleys went to
the new philanthropic colony of Georgia, whose object
strongly appealed to them ; they were filled with missionary
fervour, and hoped to convert the heathen. They returned,
disappointed, in 1738. But a new field was ready for them.
Whitefield had meanwhile begun to preach to the degraded
and neglected colhers of Kingswood near Bristol ; and,
preaching in the open fields, he had aroused the most extra
ordinary enthusiasm and produced the most amazing effects
upon the life of his hearers. Wesley took over the torch
from Whitefield, and began, in 1739, the task of preaching
in the highways and hedges, wherever he could get men and
women to hearken to him.
Neither the Wesleys nor Whitefield felt any hostility to
the Estabhshed Church or to its forms of worship ; till his
death Wesley protested that he was a member of that Church.
Their aim was to supplement its work by a more direct
appeal to the neglected masses than the formal reading of
service could possibly make. Had they been recognised by
the Church, their work would have stood in the same relation
to the regular work of the Church as that of St. Francis and
the friars had done in the Middle Ages : indeed there was
much that was akin to the spirit of St. Francis in the life
and work of the Wesleys and Whitefield and their followers.
The Roman Church in the thirteenth century had been wise
enough and humane enough to welcome the help of the
1 Hetty Wesley, a story by ' Q.,' gives a vivid picture of the family Hfe
Of the Wesleys.

708 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
friars ; the English Church of Walpole's time would have
nothing to do with Wesley, whose proceedings seemed to it
to be mere 'enthusiasm,' marked by an unconventional
novelty of method that did not seem respectable. It was
but seldom that a parson would allow this earnest Oxford
scholar to preach in his church ; and all the best work of the
new evangelists was done under the sky — in the streets of a
town, on a bare hillside, in the yard of a gaol, from the roof
of a pig-stye. And wherever they went, the crowds gathered
about them and drank in their inspiring appeals as a parched
soil drinks water. Often indeed riotous or drunken mobs
assailed them ; they were stoned, bruised and battered ;
but nothing deterred them. Their fearlessness generally
awed the crowd into silence ; and the amazing power which
was wielded by their impassioned sincerity would melt the
crowd to tears or reduce them to hysterics. Indefatigable,
they travelled over all the roads and tracks of Britain and
America afoot or on horseback, each covering on an aver
age some five thousand mUes a year. Wesley habitually
preached twenty times a week year after year, beginning
at five o'clock in the morning ; and the audiences who listened
to him sometimes numbered as many as thirty thousand
at a time.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the influence that
was wielded by this unending crusade — -this unflagging
inspired appeal to men of aU types to rise above livelihood
and think of life, to consider themselves not as drudges but
as sons of God. All the dumb masses in aU parts of the
British Commonwealth were stirred and chaUenged to shake
off the habit of taking for granted, to change their lives, to
fix their thoughts on things beyond self. The three great
leaders of the movement had each his special gifts. White-
field was the inspired orator ; he must have been one of
the greatest that ever lived ; he carried away worldlings
like the polished Earl of Chesterfield when curiosity brought
them to listen to him ; and all his power, through aU his
life, was given up wholly to shaking men out of the self-
complacent common sense upon which the age prided itself,
and to challenging them to think of life and God and sin and
the hereafter. Charles Wesley, the tenderest spirit of the »
three, was the poet of the movement ; he produced a whole _
literature of hymns, simple, direct in their appeal, vibrant '
with emotion ; set to ringing tunes, they had a great part
in reshaping the mind and the emotion of a great part of
the nation. John Wesley, besides being an unwearied v

ch.v.] THE WESLEYS: REVIVAL OF ENTHUSIASM 709
preacher of wonderful power, was the master-mind of the
movement, and its supreme organiser. He gave to it a
system which enabled its influence to go on working when
the personal inspiration of the leaders was removed. Schools,
mission-rooms, organisations for charity and for rehgious
communion, and a huge army of lay-preachers sent out to
do the work which the regular clergy of the Church neglected,
aU sprang into being under his untiring direction.
Wesley and the movement which he led were not suffered
to remain in association with the national Church, and in
the end a great new Dissenting sect, spread over every part
of the British Commonwealth, was the outcome of his work ;
Whitefield, who differed from Wesley upon various theo
logical points, became the organiser of another but much
smaller sect ; and there were other offshoots in course of
time. These developments do not belong to the period with
whicri we are concerned, when trie vast movement was only
beginning ; nor was the creation of the Methodist bodies,
important as it was, the most significant aspect of the work
of these great evangelists. Their supreme gift to the Com
monwealth was that they stirred the stagnant pools ; that
they caUed men to think of high issues ; that they asserted
the worth of aU men, even the most neglected and degraded ;
that in a self-complacent and common-sense* age they
revived ' enthusiasm.'
Their work was only beginning when Britain found herself
drawn into a world-wide conflict for maritime and colonial
supremacy : 1739, the year in which Wesley was persuaded
by Whitefield to preach in the fields to the colliers of Kings-
wood, was also the year in which Walpole was unwillingly
forced into war with Spain ; and while the evangelists were
still wandering over all the roads of Britain, the long and
straggling war was alternately kindling and dying down in
Europe, on the seas, in America and in distant India.
Nearly twenty years were to pass before the struggle achieved
its chmax of passionate patriotism under the proud guidance
of Pitt, and national ardour was once more set aflame. Pitt
and Wesley : the two men, different as they were, are in a
strange way linked together. They were the two Great-
hearts who slew the giant Sloth.
["Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century ; Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century ; Overton's, Tyerman's,
or Southey's Life of Wesley ; Wesley's Journal (included in Every
man's Library) ; Overton and Relton, The English Church in the
Eighteenth Century]

CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT FOR
MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY
(a.d. 1739-1755)
§ 1. The Opening of the Conflict.
In 1739 Walpole was reluctantly forced into declaring war ,,
against Spain by the pressure of the parliamentary opposi
tion and the strength of national feeling outside Parliament.
In an often quoted pun the peace-loving minister expressed
his view of the situation. ' They are ringing their bells
now,' he said, as he listened to the public rejoicings ; ' they
will be wringing their hands soon.' He knew that the con
flict would not long be limited to an easy maritime war;
against Spain. He foresaw French intervention, and the
final destruction of the Franco-British aUiance which had
been the sheet-anchor of British foreign pohcy for so long,
and had done so much to maintain European peace ; above
all he feared the possibility of an effective Franco-Spanish
combination, which had been the worst nightmare of Whig
statesmen for two generations.
That was as far as his imagination carried him. He
refused to admit the inevitability of the vast conflict for
maritime and colonial supremacy which was now opening.
Indeed neither he nor his successors at all realised the
importance of the colonial issue. In their eyes America
was of no moment in comparison with the Balance
of. Power in Europe. Dominated by the memory of
the war. against Louis xiv., they allowed themselves to
be drawn into the purely European controversy on the
Austrian Succession, upon which they expended all their
strength. The ruling politicians of France and Spain were
equally blind ; and the result was that the determination
of the great issue was long delayed, and the fighting which
began in 1739 lasted, almost without a break, for four-and-
twenty years. If there was some wringing of hands as the
long struggle dragged on, it was caused by the futility of
710

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 711
much of the fighting, not by any dubiety on the part of the
British people as to the importance of the issues involved.
How gigantic these issues were is shown by the fact that
this was the first war in human history which was world
wide in its range : the New World and the Old, India, West
Africa, the West Indies and the tribes of the American back
woods were all drawn into the conflict, until it reached the
culminating fury of the years 1758-1760.
§ 2. The Maritime War with Spain.
The war with Spain, which began this long fever, was
purely a maritime war, in which the naval supremacy of
Britain ought to have given her an immediate and over
whelming advantage. But although Walpole had main
tained the numbers of the navy at a pretty high level, its
efficiency and moral had suffered during the long period
of peace. The first action of the war was the despatch
(1739) of a fleet under Admiral Vernon, with a land force,
to attack Porto Bello and the isthmus of Panama — the
strategic centre of the Spanish American empire. Porto
Bello was easUy captured. But it .contained practically no
plunder ; it was not held, though this would have dislocated
the whole of the Spanish traffic from Peru. An attempt was
next made to capture Cartagena, the chief town of the
Spanish Main. Thanks to quarrels between the naval and
military chiefs, the attempt was a disastrous failure, and a
later attack on Santiago de Cuba was equally unsuccessful.
Meanwhile a small expedition under Anson (1740) was sent
round Cape Horn to attack the west coast of Spanish South
America. The original idea was that it should seize the
treasure-fleets and also co-operate with Vernon, from the
Pacific side, in getting control of the isthmus. But the
squadron was scattered by violent tempests. When Anson
had raUied the remnant at Robinson Crusoe's island of Juan
Fernandez, he found himself with only three ships. With
these he cruised along the South American coast, taking
some prizes. He then made straight across the Pacific,
hoping to capture two treasure gaUeons sent from Peru to
Manila. By this time he was left with only one ship, but
he succeeded in capturing a great galleon full of coin, and
returned, like Drake, by the Cape of Good Hope. The
.expedition had terrified and embarrassed Spanish America.
But it had no other result. It is remembered chiefly because
of the courage with which all its successive misfortunes were

712 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
met and overcome.1 That was in the best tradition of the
British Navy.
These episodes were the only events of importance in trie
Spanish war ; and although the destruction of merchant
snipping went on actively on both sides, especially in West;
Indian waters, no attempt was made to strike a powerful,
blow at the almost defenceless Spanish empire. The futility
and ill-success of these adventures were among the chief
reasons for Walpole's fall in 1742. It is noteworthy that
France had taken no part in these first stages of the conflict ;
the Family Compact of 1733 had in fact come to nothing.
And the reason for this was that the governing politicians
of France, like those of Britain, still undervalued the im
portance of oversea conflicts. Their eyes were fixed upon
European affairs. And European affairs had come to a
critical point in 1740, soon after the outbreak of the Anglo-
Spanish war. These affairs were to distract the attention,
not only of France, but presently also of Britain and Spain,
from the main conflict beyond the seas.
§ 3. The War of the Austrian Succession, and the Potency
of Sea-Power.
' In 1740 two European sovereigns died. The first of these
was Frederick WiUiam, King of Prussia. Frederick William's
father, Frederick 1., the son of the great Elector of Branden
burg, had gained the royal title (1700) as the price of his
participation in the war against Louis xiv. Frederick
WiUiam himself had acquired a strip of West Pomerania2 as
part of the plunder of Sweden on the downfall of Charles xn. ;
but he had been in general a peaceful monarch, devoting him
self to perfecting the organisation of his absolute authority
in his dominions, to the development of their material pro
sperity, and to the maintenance and training of a highly
efficient army, altogether out of proportion to the size and
resources of his dominions. This army was the most efficient
military force in Europe ; its upkeep was the chief concern
of the Prussian State, whose material prosperity was culti
vated primarily in order that it might bear this burden ;
and it was intended to be used as a weapon for carving out
new dominions for the Prussian Crown. To the control of
this powerful implement, on Frederick William's death, a new
master succeeded : Frederick il, later known as Frederick
1 Anson's Voyage Round the World is a stirring narrative, included in
Everyman's Library.
• See the map of the growth of Prussia, Atlas, Plate 24 (a).

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 713
the Great,1 who was to be the chief builder of the great
ness of Prussia. A man of immense ability and devouring
ambition, he was whoUy free from inconvenient scruples ;
and he was eager to fish in troubled waters, or to stir them
up if they were not otherwise disturbed. It was his inten
tion to turn the small and poor State of Prussia, by force
or by fraud, into one of the great States of Europe.
The desired troubhng of the waters was provided by the
death of Chajles vi., Emperor by election, and by hereditary
descent ruler of the scattered Habsburg domains, which
took place soon after that of Frederick William. Charles VI.
had no male heirs in the direct line, and we have seen how
assiduously he had laboured to get the assent of all possible
rival claimants, and of all the other European powers, to
the Pragmatic Sanction, by which the undivided inheritance
of his hereditary dominions was to pass to his daughter,
Maria Theresa, a lady of infinite pride and courage. To
the imperial crown, which the Habsburgs had held con
tinuously since the fifteenth century, Maria Theresa, as a
woman, could not succeed ; it had to be disposed of by the
eight electors. But Charles had hoped that his daughter's
v husband, Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Tuscany, would be
elected. Triat depended upon the electors. But all that
forethought could do Charles vi. had done ; and if the
pledged word of aU the powers counted for anything, Maria
Theresa would succeed to all the hereditary dominions of
the Habsburg house. For all the States of Europe (save
Bavaria, whose elector was one of the numerous claimants
to the inheritance) had accepted the Pragmatic Sanction ;
notably Prussia, Spain, France, Britain, Russia and the
minor states of the empire.
At first Maria Theresa succeeded quietly. Frederick of
Prussia went out of his way to renew his father's pledge,
and to promise himself and his army for the defence of the
queen if they should be needed. But this was deliberate
deception. Just before the end of the year, putting forward
old claims to certain Silesian lands about which he made
no attempt to negotiate, Frederick suddenly threw his army
into the great and rich duchy of Silesia.2 This precipitated
a chaotic war. Frederick's boldness encouraged all the
greedy claimants to the Habsburg inheritance to forget
their pledges, and to treat the Pragmatic Sanction, as
1 There is a life of Frederick the Great by W. F. Reddaway (Heroes of
the Nations).
' See the maps, Atlas, Plates io and 24 (a).

714 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
Frederick had done, as a mere scrap of paper. France saw
a chance to ruin the Habsburg house, her old rival. She
had no claims of her own, but she intervened to secure the
election of the Elector of Bavaria as Emperor, and sent her
armies into the field to support him. The vultures were
gathered round their prey. Only one of the greater signa
tories to the Pragmatic Sanction — Britain — remained faith
ful to the bond ; the Dutch were half-hearted ; Russia,
distracted by a change of monarch, stood aloof.
Thus Maria Theresa had to fight for mere existence,
supported only by small British, Hanoverian and (later)
Dutch contingents, and by the aid of British money and
the British navy. British statesmen, blinded by the
resemblance of this struggle to the old continental war
against Louis xiv., forgot oversea interests, and devoted
themselves whoUy to the sordid and comphcated struggle
in Europe. France and Spain equaUy forgot the world-
conflict, though in 1743 they renewed the ' Family Compact '
against Britain. France devoted all her efforts at first to
supporting the Bavarian attack on Austria, and later to
an attempt to conquer the Austrian Netherlands on her
own account ; Spain hoped to make herself mistress of
Italy. It is needless to trace in detail the course of this chaotic
struggle. No common purpose bound together the robber
powers save the desire for plunder ; and they were not
even united by a formal instrument of alliance. Frederick
of Prussia was twice persuaded by British mediation to
make peace with Maria Theresa on condition of being left
in possession of Silesia, and twice, with characteristic perfidy,
broke his word when it seemed to be in his interest to do so.
The proud queen was loth to come to these agreements,
because, with justice, she hated and distrusted Frederick
more than any other of her foes ; and he not only justified
her distrust but earned also the distrust of his allies by the
selfishness and faithlessness of his action. France was at
first not even formally at war with Austria, but fought as
the ally of Bavaria ; nor did she make open war against
Britain until 1744, though the armies of the two powers
met one another in the field, the one as an ally of Austria,
the other of Bavaria. The ruin of Austria was averted by
three things : first by the lack of any common purpose or
combined plan of action among her foes ; secondly by the
gallant response made by Maria Theresa's subjects, especi
ally the Hungarians, to her appeals for their loyalty ; and

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 715
thirdly by the power of the British Navy and of British
subsidies, which alone kept the Austrian armies on foot.
Upon the fortunes of the British Commonwealth this
confused and aimless struggle had very little direct effect.
British armies once more appeared on the Continent. At
the ill-planned but gallantly fought victory of Dettingen
(1743), which is noteworthy as the last action wherein a
British sovereign commanded in the field, they took part
in a rather futile German campaign ; after the definite
opening of war with France, at the hard-fought but un
successful battle of Fontenoy (1745), they strove as in the
old days to prevent French armies from conquering the
Netherlands. Fontenoy is chiefly remembered because it
was distinguished by an episode of romantic pohteness
which is often quoted as a proof of the sportsmanship and
chivalry that marked the long series of fights between
British and French troops. But there is something absurd
in the spectacle of armies, busy upon the grim business of
war, reproducing the elegant manners of the drawing-room
and begging one another to fire first. Set against the back
ground of the sordid and cynical policy displayed by most
of the European governments, it has the unreality of the
spurious chivalry of the Black Prince, who could wait on
a captive king, but. could also slaughter thousands of
common men in cold blood.
So far as the war in Europe is concerned, its most import
ant feature from the point of view of British history was the
evidence it afforded of the potency of .sea-power, and of the
gradual revival of the strength and spirit of the British
navy, which had been sapped by Walpole's regime. British
ascendency upon the seas was now overwhelming, for the
Dutch had faUen into the background, and both France and
Spain had neglected their navies ; even in mere numbers
their combined forces were surpassed by those of Britain ;
and, badly as it was used, naval power markedly influenced
the course of the war. Thus the mere presence of a British
fleet in the Mediterranean led to results as important as
great victories on land. In 1742 the Bourbon King of
Naples had supplied 20,000 troops to help the Spaniards
in their attack on the Austrian possessions in Northern
Italy; but a British squadron, appearing off Naples,
compelled the king to withdraw this contingent, and thus,
without fighting, won a victory equivalent to the total
destruction of an army of 20,000 men, and saved the situa
tion in the north. Indeed the whole Spanish campaign in

716 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
Italy was gravely hampered by the fact that troops and
supplies could not be sent by sea, but had to be sent round
by land, through France and the Alpine passes. France,
even while she was still formally at peace with Britain, gave
the protection of her harbours to the Spanish fleet : she even
ordered her fleet to convoy the Spanish warships into
safety, and to resist any attack upon them by the British
navy. This led to the only important naval action of the
first part of the war, an action off Toulon (1744) between
a British fleet and the combined fleets of France and Spain.
It was indecisive, owing to the failure of the British rear-
squadron to join in the battle ; and it was foUowed by a
whole series of courts-martial in which several British
captains were cashiered. It thus led to a reorganisation
of the navy, which was carried out by Anson as First Lord
of the Admiralty, and to the promotion of younger officers
of ability, such as Sir Edward Hawke ; and in that way it
helped to prepare the navy for the glorious part it was to
play in the next war. But even this indecisive fight had
the valuable strategic result of penning the French and
Spanish fleets into harbour, and thus enabling the pressure
of naval power to be brought to bear against the continental
foes of Maria Theresa.
In the later phase of the struggle (1744-8), when France
was formally at war with Britain, the war was more nearly
brought home to the British people by trie threat of a
Jacobite rising, backed by a French invasion. The original
plan was that an army of 15,000 men was to be transported
into England from the Low Countries. This enterprise had
been fixed for 1744. It was baffled by the mere presence
of the British Channel fleet, though a storm which wrecked
several of the transports that were lying off Dunkirk helped
to show its futility ; and when the gallant attempt of
the Young Chevalier took place in the next year,1 France
was unable to give any assistance. The navy kept Britain
secure, while at the same time it helped her continental
allies, inflicted grave damage upon the commerce of France
and therefore upon her strength for war, and protected the
still growing trade of Britain, which gave her the means of
maintaining the armies of her allies by large subsidies.
Without the aid of the navy, it is all but certain that Maria /
Theresa must have been crushed. But neither she nor any \
of the continental statesmen, nor even the statesmen of.
Britain at home, realised these facts.
1 See above, Chap. i.p. 659.

CH.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 717
§ 4. The Beginning of Franco-British Conflict Overseas.
The navy might have rendered yet more decisive ser
vices by making possible a crushing attack upon the
French colonies and oversea trading interests. Indeed,
it had quite definitely placed this opportunity in the
hands of the British government, if they had been able
to realise it. During the years in which France and
Britain were formally at war (1744-8) the French fleet
never dared to challenge a full fleet action. But on
two occasions in 1747 they sent out squadrons, one of
eight, the other of nine ships, to convoy large numbers
of merchant ships across the danger zone, and thus to keep
French trade with the Indies alive. The first squadron was
destroyed by Anson ; the second was overwhelmed by
Hawke. Thus the highways of the ocean were controlled
by Britain, and there was nothing to prevent a vigorous
attack upon the French oversea dominions such as Pitt
later directed. But the Whig government, wholly engrossed
in the European conflict, upon which it spent money like
water, paid no attention to these opportunities.
Yet strife had broken out openly, both in India and in
America, forced on by British and French rivalry in these
fields. The Indian struggle was to have such strange and
momentous consequences that it must be reserved for fuller
treatment in a later chapter.1 In the first phase of the
struggle the honours fell to the French, though they were
the weaker side, and they conquered the town of Madras,
the main centre of British influence in Southern India. This
result was whoUy due to the fact that the Whig government
faded to make use of British supremacy at sea, and even
aUowed the French to establish, for a time, the command
of Eastern waters. It was the local agents of the rival
companies who carried on the struggle in India ; the home
governments, on both sides, took httle or no interest in it.
In America, likewise, it was by spontaneous local effort
alone that the struggle was carried on. When the news of
the outbreak of war with France reached America in 1745,
the spirited governor of Massachusetts, Wilham Shirley,
determined to deliver an attack against the French
fortress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island, which
commanded the mouth of St. Lawrence. The troops
for the expedition, 4000 in number, were raised whoUy
in the American colonies, and mainly in Massachusetts.
1 Chapter viii. below, p. 759.

718 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vl
The home government was asked to do nothing save
to despatch four ships from the West Indian squadron to
guard the line of communications. Louisbourg was the
most perfectly designed fortress in the New World, and it
was garrisoned by some 2500 troops and as many able-
bodied settlers. The attacking force had to be landed on a
surf-beaten, rocky coast ; all their guns and supplies had to
be carried ashore in face of the enemy, and the ground on
which they had to fight was marshy. Yet after a siege of
five weeks they succeeded in compelling the fortress and
the whole of its garrison to surrender. It was a brilliant
achievement, and, although it would not have been possible
without command of the sea, it reflected the greatest credit
upon the courage and martial spirit of the New England
militiamen who carried it out. It was the most brilliant
military achievement of any British colony before the great
revolt. But the Whig government did not share the aggres
sive spirit of the colonists, and no use whatsoever was
made of the opportunity thus offered. An attack vigor
ously pushed home at this juncture would almost certainly
have resulted in an easy conquest of French Canada, but
no such attack was made, or even projected.. As we shall
see, Louisbourg was tamely restored to France in 1748, to
the indignation of the men of Massachusetts, who were
further alienated from the mother country by this neglect
of their achievement. It had to be reconquered later, with
far greater difficulty. For the chief result of the temporary
loss of Louisbourg was to awaken the French government to 1
the importance of the American issue, and to lead them to
use the years of peace in preparation for a new conflict.
In 1748 the dreary Austrian succession war was ended
by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Its details need not
concern us, for it was, and could be, no more than a truce.
In Europe its chief result was that the perfidious Frederick
of Prussia kept Silesia as the reward of his treacherous
violence ; but Austria submitted to this arrangement only
with the deepest bitterness, and with an implacable resolve
to redress the wrong on the earliest possible opportunity.
Prussia and Austria had become rivals for the leadership
of divided Germany, and that conflict had to be fought out
afresh ; during the eight years of restless peace which
followed, both powers were preparing for a new struggle.
That was the main result of the treaty so far as Europe was
concerned ; otherwise a return to the status quo ante was the

CH.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE1 GREAT CONFLICT 719
only outcome of these years of confused fighting. But in
the other great conflict which had become entangled with
the European squabble, the conflict between Britain and
the two Bourbon powers for supremacy on the seas and
beyond them, there was equally no decision. In spite of
the sea-strength of Britain, which her Whig rulers had made
no attempt to use, conquests were restored on both sides ;
Madras was given back to the East India Company in
exchange for Louisbourg, handed back to France.
§ 5. The Years of Nominal Peace, 1748-1755.
The bargains of diplomatists at Aix-la-Chapelle could not
restrain the development of conflict in the remote lands
of East and West. Though a joint Boundary Commission
was appointed by Britain and France in 1750, and continued
its sittings till 1755, its deliberations led to no practical
result. It was a promising sign of the growth of wiUingness
to settle disputes by peaceful means. But the conflict of
interests was too sharp to be thus treated; and both in
India and in North America the eight years of nominal
peace which followed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle were
filled with the warfare of the rival nations — a warfare not
dictated or guided by the governments at home, but arising
almost inevitably out of the local conditions. Both in
India and in America the initiative was taken by the French,
whose Indian and Canadian representatives were definitely
labouring during these years to lay the foundations of
grandiose empires. In both lands French action drove the
local representatives of British interests to take counter
action, and gradually forced the reluctant home government
to take up their cause. We shall have to deal with the
Indian struggle in a later chapter. But it was the increas
ing intensity of the struggle in America which mainly forced
the hands of the home governments, and brought about an
open state of war, just at the time when the development
of European politics had made a new conflict in Europe
inevitable. Our concern in this chapter is to observe how
the pressure of events, first in America, and secondly in
Europe, were stultifying the futilities of the last war and
the inconclusive treaty which had ended it.
The governors of French Canada during these years were
quite manifestly looking forward to and preparing for a
bold attempt to break the British power in America. Such
a challenge might appear mere insanity, since the French

720 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
settlers were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the British
settlers. But the French had many advantages. They
were nearly all adventurers and trained backwoods fighting
men, while the British settlers were mostly farmers and
traders. They were in friendly relations with the Indian
tribes, whom the British had (with the important exception
of the Iroquois) generally neglected. All the resources of
France in the New World were at the disposal of a single
absolute government ; whereas the British were divided into
thirteen distinct colonies, mutually jealous and unwilling
to co-operate, and in each colony the authority of the
governor was generaUy made ineffectual by the often
short-sighted policy of the representative assembly. Self-
government seemed to threaten ruin to the British, by
causing inefficiency, division and infirmity of purpose.
The centrahsation of autocracy gave to the French a
chance of carrying on the struggle on more equal terms, a
chance even of victory. Yet ultimately the supreme ques
tion at issue was the question whether the principles of
self-government or those of autocracy were to control the
destinies of the New World.
During the years foUowing the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
the conflict became acute in two regions ; in Acadia, and
in the Ohio Valley.1 Having regained Louisbourg, the French
strengthened its fortifications and increased its garrison.
The British government, realising, as soon as they had
abandoned it, the importance of the fortress and the threat
which it offered to Acadia, in 1749 organised a new fort and
naval base at Halifax on the Acadian coast, with a garrison
of 3000 men. This was the first British settlement in that
region, the population of which, numbering some 8000, were
all French. The French peasants had been well treated
ever since Acadia became a British possession in 1713 ; their
religion had been undisturbed, their rights of property, their
laws of inheritance, had not been meddled with ; and, left
to themselves, they would probably have been content
enough. But just beyond the isthmus, in a region which
had always before 1713 been regarded as part of Acadia,
the French maintained garrisoned forts which were a per
petual reminder of the old loyalty to the French Crown.
Every influence was exercised upon the Acadian peasantry
to persuade them that their obedience was still due to the
King of France ; above all, the powerful influence of the
1 See the maps : for Acadia, Atlas, Plate 54 ; for the Ohio Valley,
Plate 55.

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 721
priesthood was employed to impress upon them the rehgious
obligation of loyalty to the Catholic king. They were even
warned that the Red Indians who haunted the woods would
be turned upon them if they took or observed the oath of
aUegiance to the British Crown. One of the leaders among
the French missionary priests, the Abbe le Loutre, actually
offered and paid bounties to the Indians, during this period
of peace, for every British scalp they brought in. British
soldiers' lives were unsafe on British territory a mile from
the walls of their forts. Thus the smaU British settlement
at Halifax felt itself extremely insecure, and necessarily
regarded all the surrounding population as potential foes,
not to be trusted. The result was that in 1755, when open
war between the French and English began, the British
administrators of Nova Scotia felt that they could not
safely leave themselves at the mercy of a hostile population ;
and, after several ineffectual warnings, some 8000 of the
French population were deported to the British colonies
farther south.1 The removal was a cruel thing ; but it
certainly was not without justification.
Meanwhile the French had resolved to occupy and fortify
the Ohio VaUey, which lay just behind the line of the l
AUeghany Mountains. There had hitherto been no French
settlement in this region. But some of the more enter
prising of the British settlers were beginning to find their
way over the hills, and were opening up trade relations
with the Indians : they came mainly from Virginia, through
the Cumberland Gap,2 which offered the easiest passage
through the mountains. The British colonies vaguely
claimed the right to extend indefinitely westwards : the
French, on the strength of their exploration of the Missis
sippi VaUey, and of the few small posts which they had
planted in the wilderness, hundreds of miles to the west,
claimed possession of the whole of the vast central plain.
In 1749 — the year after the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle— the
French Governor of Canada sent an expedition to explore
the Ohio VaUey, and to claim it for France. At some points
they buried leaden plates containing assertions of French
dominion ; at others they nailed shields bearing the French
arms to a few trees ; they got into relations with Indian
tribes, and told them that the King of France was their
father; they expelled British traders, and sent formal letters
1 This is the episode which forms the theme of Longfellow's Evangeline.
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 55.
VOL, I. 2 Z

722 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
to the British governors to complain of their poaching upon
French preserves.
The expelled traders and the letters of complaint ought
to have shown the colonists that the French danger was a
real one. Most of the colonists were apathetic. But the
enterprising Scottish deputy-governor of Virginia, Robert
Dinwiddie, resolved to take action. In 1753 he sent a
capable young Virginian squire, George Washington, then
twenty-two years old, to warn off the French in their turn
as interlopers. But a warning of this kind was not likely
to have the least effect, unless it were made clear to the
French that it would be supported by force. Dinwiddie
and other governors wrote urgent despatches to the home
government begging them to reahse the seriousness of
the issue. The home government rephed permitting the
governors to repel force with force, and urging the colonies
to take common action and to negotiate jointly with the
Iroquois Indians to secure their co-operation in checking
any French attacks. Their view was that the colonists
ought to be able to defend themselves.
The result of this was twofold. In the first place, a
handful of Virginians was sent to build a woodland fort
at the junction of the rivers Monongahela and Alleghany,
where Pittsburg stands to-day ; and this fort, the first
attempt to secure British control over the Ohio VaUey, was
to become in the near future the centre of furious fighting.
The second result was even more important. A conference
of representatives of all the colonies was summoned to meet
at Albany in New York, trie nearest point to the Iroquois
country. The conference met in 1754. It was the first
attempt at common action on the part of the colonies, and
under the lead of Benjamin Franklin, who represented
Pennsylvania, it was proposed that a close federation of
the colonies should be organised, with a President and a
Grand Council which should be empowered to demand from
each colony its proper contribution in men and money
towards the needs of the common defence. Had this scheme
been adopted it would have anticipated, by a union under
the British Crown, the union into which the colonies were
later forced in opposition to the Crown, and it might have
altered the whole course of -the history of the Commonwealth.
But the assemblies of the individual colonies were too jealous
of their powers, and too unready to realise their common
interests. They unanimously rejected the scheme, and thus
thrust upon the home government the responsibihty for

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 723
organising and directing — and incidentally for paying the
cost of — the common effort.
Meanwhile the crisis of the struggle was drawing nearer.
In 1753, the year in which Virginia pioneers were building
their fort, the French had erected a fort at Presqu'ile on
Lake Erie, and cut a road through the forests to the upper
waters of the Alleghany. Marching down by this route,
they easily drove out the rustic levies from the rude fort at
the river junction. Next year (1754), while the congress
was sitting at Albany, Washington was sent with some four
hundred men to regain the post. A skirmish between his
force and a smaU body of Frenchmen, in which the French
leader was killed, drew the first blood in the great conflict,
and caused a great stir both in America and in Europe. It
set both the French and the British governments to work,
and persuaded them that they must take definite action.
But before anything could be done by the home authorities,
Washington's force, attacked by overwhelming numbers,
was compeUed to surrender. At the very moment when the
colonies were refusing to take common action, the French,
under the direction of their centralised government, had
won the mastery of the Ohio Valley. They rebuilt and
strengthened the fort at the river junction, and gave to it
the name of Fort Duquesne in honour of the Governor of
Canada. The British government still hoped that the colonies
would provide the bulk of the forces and the money required
for their own defence. In 1755 it appointed a general of-
experience, General Edward Braddock, to take command of
aU the forces, and supplied him with two regiments of
regulars — 1400 men — to form a nucleus for a colonial army.
But it was hoped that each of the colonies would appoint
a commission to consult with him as to the contingents and
supphes which each colony ought to provide, and that, even
if the colonies would not accept the decisions of a common
representative body, they would individually vote what
was required. This hope was destined to be disappointed ;
the main burden, and the whole responsibihty of planning
and leadership, were left to the mother country ; and when
Braddock reached America he found that little help was
forthcoming. While the British authorities were pinning their hopes upon
colonial co-operation, the French government was despatch
ing an army of 3000 men under a practised German captain, -\
Dieskau, to help the Canadian settlers in striking directly

724 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
at the heart of the British colonies by way of the great
waterway of Lake Champlain and the Hudson river. Aware
of the despatch of this force, the British government told
off Admiral Boscawen to intercept it at the mouth of the
St. Lawrence ; it only escaped him by the aid of a fog.
Thus in 1755, though Britain and France were still
nominally at peace, and were not to declare formal war for
another year, elaborate campaigns by regular troops were
being planned and carried out. The war really began in
1755 ; and we shaU take the campaigns of that year as the
starting-point of the narrative of the great conflict which
will occupy the next chapter.
Meanwhile the mutual fears of the European States were
bringing about a new grouping of the powers which was to
have a very direct effect upon the coming conflict. And
in Britain the course of domestic politics was raising the
question of the leadership under which the conflict was to
be fought. It is necessary to survey both of these develop
ments before we deal with the final grapple.
§ 6. The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756.
Just as the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was important rather
as the beginning of acute colonial rivalry between France
and Britain than as a solution of their differences, so on the
continent of Europe also it opened a period of general
nervousness and of preparation for a new struggle. The
centre of unrest was Frederick the Great of Prussia, who,
having benefited from the last war by the seizure of Silesia,
was generally believed to be aiming at a further disturbance
of the Balance of Power to his own advantage. The sus-
I picion was justified. In a political testament which he
| wrote in 1752, when he believed himself to be at the point
of death, he had urged upon his successor the necessity of
rounding off the ill-compacted territories of Prussia by
annexing West Prussia from Poland, and, still more im
portant, by seizing the Electorate of Saxony.1 The former
aim he was to achieve by engineering the iniquitous partition
of Poland in 1772 ; the latter he attempted at the beginning
of the Seven Years' War in 1756. Naturally the suspicion
of these designs increased the distrust with which his be
haviour since 1740 had led him to be regarded.
On the other hand, Maria Theresa of Austria burned for
vengeance against him, and longed to regain Silesia. But
1 See the map of the Growth of Prussia, Atlas, Plate 23 (a).

CH.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 725
to ensure success she must be safeguarded "against a hostile
combination such as had faced her in the last war. The
most skilful of the Austrian diplomatists, Kaunitz, strongly
held that the way to achieve this end was to reverse the
traditions which had governed European politics for two
centuries, and to make an alliance between Austria and
France, while maintaining a close friendship with the new
great power of Russia. So far as Russia was concerned
the programme was easy ; for the Tsarina Elizabeth, who -'
now ruled Russia, had a personal detestation for Frederick,
and personal feelings of this kind counted for a great deal
in the policy of despotic courts. But it was more difficult
to win over France ; and from 1750 onwards Kaunitz, as
ambassador at Paris, seemed to be labouring in vain, until
in 1756 there came about a sudden reversal in the European
situation. France, indeed, was a very uncertain quantity in these
years. Her absolute sovereign, Louis xv., was a lazy de
bauchee, who would neither himself determine the lines
of national policy as Louis xiv. had always done, nor trust
a single minister. He was largely influenced by his mis
tress, Madame de Pompadour ; under his and her lax
and shameless regime, the government of France fell into
gross incompetence and corruption, and absolute monarchy
showed itself at its worst. In a vague way French ministers
and politicians felt that the looming conflict with the
British power ought to be the chief concern of French policy,
and they did a good deal to strengthen the French navy
during these years of peace. But there was an even greater
lack of firm and clear foresight in France than there was in
Britain ; the energy and devotion of French agents in India
and even in America were wasted, because they received
httle support or encouragement from home. Thus in 1754 the v
great Dupleix, who had almost without assistance laid the
foundations of a French empire in India, was ignomini
ously recaUed. And while the French governors in Canada
were encouraged to initiate an aggressive policy which
could only end in war, and were even supplied with
troops to carry it out, no adequate preparations were made
at home to face the conflict which was thus being forced on.
Spain, France's natural aUy, was pursuing a pacific policy ;
and, far from being able to count upon Spanish help in the
coming conflict, France had to witness the triumph of British^,
diplomacy at Madrid, which reduced the Family Compact )
once more to a nullity. Though French statesmen realised

726 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
the probability of war, they made no clear plans as to the
way in which it should be conducted. Their main idea
seems to have been that of an attack upon Hanover by land,
in the hope of either forcing Britain to accept French terms,
or gaining a compensation for colonial losses. For an
attack on Hanover an alliance with Prussia, Hanover's
neighbour to the east, would be useful ; and for that reason
the proposed alliance with Austria was at first unattractive,
since it would involve enmity with Prussia. At the same
time France was by no means prepared to help Frederick in
his aggressive schemes ; and Frederick, who despised the
nervelessness and incompetence of the French government,
put no confidence in the French alliance.
Meanwhile the British government, under the fussy and'
incompetent Duke of Newcastle, was in a state of equaUy
nerveless indecision. It wanted to avoid war ; it showed
no energy in preparing for it ; yet it felt that war was i
almost inevitably coming, and, in accordance with the
traditions of the last generation, its chief preoccupation was
to secure the safety of Hanover should the war come.v
Hanover had to be protected against France. But it was
also endangered by Prussia, its neighbour on the east, whose
cynical greed everybody feared. Tradition suggested a
renewal of the old alliance with Austria. Newcastle accord
ingly opened negotiations with Austria to secure a guarantee
for Hanover. Austria was ready to give the guarantee,
but only on one condition — that she should be supplied'
with subsidies sufficient to enable her to attack Prussia and
reconquer Silesia. But that would mean that the hornet's
nest would be stirred. It was security, not war, that
Britain wanted on the continent : she declined to lend her
self to the Austrian project, and so the long alliance with
Austria came to an end.
During 1754, and still more during 1755, when actual
war was already raging in America, Newcastle, aU anxiety
for Hanover, was desperately touting for European alli
ances. He tried Russia, and made an agreement whereby
Russia was to attack Prussia if Prussia attacked Hanover.
But, after all, the best safeguard against Prussia might be
an alliance with Prussia herself, and to this idea Newcastle
eventuaUy resorted. Frederick welcomed the project. In
the war which he was preparing for it would be a great gain
to have his flank protected by a friendly Hanover. So in
January 1756 a convention was signed at Westminster,
whereby Britain and Prussia mutually guaranteed one

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 727
another's possessions. Thus, at the opening of the great
conflict, the needs of Hanover once more involved Britain
in European complications.
The Convention of Westminster at once brought about
a chang!Tin~the~litlTtifde of France. Feeling that it had
been deserted by Prussia, her government listened at last
to the urgency of Kaunitz ; and in May 1756 a treaty was
made between France and Austria, whereby France under
took to provide troops and subsidies for Austria, and so
committed herself to participation in a great European war.
This was the beginning of an alliance which lasted for a
generation, and brought nothing but disaster to France.
It was also the foundation of a great league of States
which Austria gradually built up for the overthrow of the
malignant trickster of Berlin. She was already sure of the
friendship of Russia. Soon Sweden and the minor States of
the Empire were to join in a coalition by which it might be
confidently expected that Frederick would be overwhelmed.
For Frederick's only aUy was Britain, a power which could
not put large armies in the field, and which was certain to
be distracted by demands elsewhere. Thus it appeared in
1756 that, once more, the main issues of the great con
flict were going to be lost sight of, both by France and by
Britain. Frederick knew his danger. The coalition against him
was not yet formed, but it was forming. In August 1756
he suddenly flung his great army at Saxony, the neighbour
State which he desired to annex ; shut up the little Saxon
army at Pirna ; checked an Austrian attempt to reheve it ;
forced it not merely to capitulate but to take service under
his own standard ; and thus started the war in control
of all the resources of Saxony, as he had started the previous
war by the seizure of SUesia.
Newcastle had hoped to keep things quiet in Europe while
the struggle with France lasted ; his aUiance with Prussia
had been meant to safeguard Hanover, not to expose it to
great dangers. But he had reckoned without his formidable
aUy ; and now Britain found herself saddled with a European
war in addition to the gigantic conflict on the seas and in
America and India into which she had been drawn, and in
which, as we shaU see, she had as yet met with nothing but
disasters. At the end of 1756, while Frederick was enjoying
his Saxon triumph, Britain seemed to be involved in the
most dangerous crisis of her history. And her Whig leaders
were helpless to extricate her from it.

728 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
§7. British Politics and the Great Conflict: Emergence of Pitt.
The government which had directed British policy during
the greater part of the War of the Austrian Succession and
the first six years of the peace had been the ' Broad-bottom '
ministry of Henry Pelham, which had included every faction
and had been almost unopposed. Even the stormy figure
of Pitt, who had thundered against the subordination of
British interests to those of Hanover in Walpole's time and
in Carteret's, had been content to serve under Pelham for
eight years as Paymaster of the Forces, in an office whichv
carried no political authority. In domestic politics the
period was the most stagnant in British history. But
though in form a national ministry, Pelham's administration
had in fact been governed by the traditions of Whig foreign
policy ; and it was under its nerveless guidance that Britain
had drifted into the crisis in which she now found herself.
The ' old system,' as they called it, of constant preoccupa
tion with the Balance of Power in Europe, of alliances and
subsidies mainly designed for the protection of Hanover,
and of disregard of colonial needs and dangers, continued
without a breach. And the dominating influences in British
politics were still patronage and borough influence, the
management of which was the chief concern of ministers.
In 1754 Henry Pelham died, and the ' Broad-bottom ' "*
administration, which his suavity had held together, broke
up. His place was taken by his brother, the Duke of New
castle, king of borough-mongers and past-master of the arts
of political corruption ; the very type of Whig oligarchy
at its worst. As Secretary of State, Newcastle had long
been deeply concerned in the endless web of European
diplomacy ; he was the greatest believer in the supreme
importance of the European Balance of Power, and in the
possibility of maintaining it by a constant patching up of
subsidy- treaties. But 1754, the year in which this minis
terial change came about, was also the year in which war
flamed out in the backwoods of America, and in which
Britain was forced to realise that she was face to face
with a great crisis in her history. Newcastle was mani
festly not the man to guide her through this crisis.
He was obstinately blind to colonial problems, though he
had been concerned with them for a generation. For him,
more fully even than for the other politicians of his genera
tion, politics meant nothing more than the futilities of
European diplomacy, and the sordidness of parliamentary

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 729
1 management.' In forming his ministry he had no thought
but for the placating of interests and the enlisting of pliant
tools ; with the result that in a crisis of her fate Britain
found herself under the most feeble and incompetent ad
ministration to which she had ever had to submit.
But happily there was not lacking an effective opposition,
capable of expressing the national distrust and arousing the
national spirit. William Pitt, who had long chafed at his
exclusion from real political influence, found himself shut
out under the new arrangement from every prospect of
promotion. He passed into opposition, and once more, as
in the days of the opposition to Walpole and Carteret, his
trumpet-voice — the only voice in British politics that could
penetrate the muffled waUs of the House of Commons and
make itself somehow heard by the whole nation — was
thundering against the blindness and incompetence that
were leading the nation to ruin. As disaster followed
disaster during the dark days of 1755 and 1756, Pitt's
denunciations grew more formidable ; and the nation
leamt to regard him as the one leader capable of saving
it from what seemed utter ruin. Newcastle's feebleness
and lack of courage, and the long succession of defeats
which followed from them, had thus much of compensation
that they broke down the barriers of oligarchic self-com
placency, and brought to the service and leadership of the
nation the greatest governing mind which it had produced
since Cromwell.
William Pitt x was in 1756 forty-eight years old ; and
though he had devoted all his energies to political life for
twenty years, he had never yet enjoyed any experience of
pohtical power. As a member of a little group of friends
led by Lord Cobham, and including the ambitious GrenviUe
brothers whose sister he married in 1754, he had first dis
tinguished himself by the vigour and power of his opposition
to Walpole from 1735 onwards. In the course of this cam
paign he had been deeply influenced by some of Bolingbroke's
doctrines, though he learnt to mistrust the man himself.
But always his main themes had been the supreme value;
to Britain of a right use of her naval power, the dominating
importance of maritime and colonial questions, and the folly
and wastefulness of aUowing British foreign policy to be
dictated by the needs of Hanover, and to be enmeshed in
1 The standard life of Pitt is by Basil Williams, in two volumes ; an
admirable piece of work. There is a short life by Frederic Harrison in the
Twelve English Statesmen Series.

730 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
the complexities of European affairs. Inspired by these
ideas, he had been among the most active influences in
forcing Walpole into war in 1739 ; and he had been unsparing
in his invective against the way in which the war had been
conducted first by Walpole and then by Carteret. The
vigour and power of his eloquence had won him a remarkable
position even in those early days. He had completely
dominated the House of Commons ; he had become a
popular hero ; he was known throughout Europe. French
agents thought it worth while to write home about his
speeches ; and the Prussian envoy reported to his master
in 1746 that Pitt was ' the greatest orator in the House of
Commons ... a man universaUy beloved by the nation.'
And this great position he had won solely by his eloquence
and courage, since he possessed neither wealth nor great
rank nor borough influence.
In 1746 Pitt had abandoned opposition to become Pay--s
master of the Forces under Pelham, and at first this accept
ance of an office out of which eighteenth-century politicians
were accustomed to make great fortunes had damaged his
reputation. But Pitt, though he was a poor man, had
signalised his tenure of the office by refusing to take advan
tage of the chances of money-making which it offered, and
which all his contemporaries regarded as perfectly legitimate.
He had declined to accept the usual commission on subsidies 1
paid out of his office to foreign armies ; he had refused to
earn interest by lending the large balances which remained
in his hands ; he had done much to check waste and pecu
lation. In office he had shown that he had been sincere in
the denunciations of corruption which he had made when
in opposition. But his supreme desire was to have the
chance of exercising in the service of his country the great
powers he was conscious of possessing ; and the Pelhams,
though they often consulted him and sometimes followed his
advice, never offered him an office of cabinet rank. He was
excluded from power in part because the king could not
forgive his anti-Hanoverian speeches. But that was not
the only or the main reason. He was excluded because he
lacked ' influence,' because he controlled no borough votes.
Now he was to show that, even in the conditions of eighteenth-
century politics, the man who could at a time of national
crisis win the confidence and trust of the nation might with
that support make head even against the entrenched power
of the Whig oligarchy.
The personality of this great man, who dominated his

ch.vl] FIRST PHASES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 731
era and became the inspirer and the spokesman of a new
imperial conception in British politics, was far indeed from
being flawless. He was absurdly theatrical in his methods.
He was a domineering colleague, impatient of contradiction
and very difficult to work with. Even those who believed
in him most fervently often found their loyalty strained by
the atmosphere of Olympian mystery in which he loved to
envelop himself. He had no clearly thought-out political
principles, and was constantly guilty of inconsistencies.
His inteUectual equipment for the great task of government
was in many respects defective. But no one could doubt
or deny the passionate intensity of his patriotism, the
boldness and courage of his imagination, or his superb
confidence in the British people and in himself. ' I know
that I can -save my country and that no one else can,' he
said ; and such was his power of inspiring confidence that
in his mouth the phrase did not seem boastful. What made
him different from his contemporaries, and what commanded
the devotion of the nation, was that he was patently inspired
by intense and sincere beliefs. He believed in his country
and in the greatness of its destiny ; and he believed in
liberty, without being able to define it. These two beliefs
were with him fused in one ; for England was for him the
mother of liberty, and her triumph the triumph of freedom.
And it was the intensity of his faith, as well as his proud
confidence and courage, which enabled him to inspire those
whom he led, and to awaken in the nation an ardour long
since forgotten. Fortunately for his country he was richly
endowed with all the gifts that could enable his eager spirit
to achieve the leadership it deserved. A noble presence,
a hawk-like face, an eye that could scorch and terrify, a
voice of silver, a marveUous command of every resource of
masculine eloquence, enabled him to dominate the House
of Commons as it has never been dominated before or since,
and, even in those days of unreported debates, to impress
upon the mind of the nation some image of his flaming
power. ' England has been long in labour, but at last she
has produced a Man,' said Frederick the Great. The crisis
had come towards which all the long development of the
nation's oversea activities had pointed ; and with it had
come the Man, to awaken the nation from its lethargy. As
his latest and best biographer has said, ' the Great Com
moner's chief glory is not to have won an Empire, but to
have united a people,' and even during the dark years of
failure with which, as we shaU see, the great conflict opened,

732 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. VI.
Pitt's courage and confidence, and the vigour with which
he denounced the incompetence to which the failure was
due, were rendering the great service of awakening and
uniting the nation.
[Hassall's Balance of Power for a summary of European affairs ;
Marriott and Robertson's Rise of Prussia ; Atkinson's History of
Germany in the Eighteenth Century ; Ward's England and Hanover ;
Carlyle's Frederick the Great ; Beer's British Colonial Policy, 1734-
63 ; Egerton's British Colonial Policy ; Bradley's Conquest of
Canada ; Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century ; Robertson's
England under the Hanoverians ; Williams' William Pitt]

CHAPTER VII
WILLIAM PITT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
BRITISH MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY
(A.D. 1755-1763)
§ 1. The Dark Days.
In the spring of 1755 General Edward Braddock, a brave
and honest soldier, trained in the methods of continental
warfare, but strange to those of the backwoods, arrived in
Virginia with two regiments to take command of an expedi
tion for the recovery of the Ohio Valley. He had expected
to be joined by large colonial forces ; but only 600 irregular j
troops could be obtained, and these had to be paid out of '
the British exchequer. Even the requisite wagons and
supplies could only be obtained with the greatest difficulty.
Braddock has been blamed for his lack of sympathy with
the colonists. His impatience is not surprising.
In June he set out with his little force over the Cumber
land Gap, upon a march of more than 100 miles through a
trackless wilderness to Fort Duquesne.1 The woods swarmed
with Indians in the French service ; there were no Indians
on the British side. Nine miles from Fort Duquesne Brad
dock, who had gone forward with 1400 of his best men, was
ambushed in the woods by some 800 Indians and Canadians,
an invisible enemy, firing from behind trees and bushy ridges
upon a compact mass of well drilled men in parade forma
tion. The doomed force stood their ground, firing wildly
at their unseen foes, and were shot down as they stood.
Braddock himself was killed ; only a remnant of his force
was extricated by the skill of young Washington. Not
only was the mastery of the Ohio Valleysecured to the French,
but the frontiers of the British colonies lay open to their
attacks, and to the bloodthirsty raids of the Indian tribes,
nearly all of whom eagerly joined the winning cause. That
was the first event of the great conflict. The only force ,
of regular troops in the colonies had been obliterated. The
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 55. This map should be used throughout
the present chapter. 733

734 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
threatened colonies themselves were doing almost nothing
for their own defence.
Meanwhile, in the north, the French (who disposed of
5000 regular troops as well as the whole armed manhood of
Canada) were preparing to advance down Lake Champlain
and the Hudson VaUey1 to isolate New England from the
southern colonies. The New Englanders, more vigorous
than their southern neighbours, raised 6000 men to meet'
this danger, and placed them under the command of Sir
William Johnson, an active Irishman, who had great in
fluence among the Iroquois. They too, in their turn, were
ambushed by the French on Lake George, and only escaped
a disaster like Braddock's because, not being held together
by army disciphne, and knowing the woods, they were able
to make their escape. After re-forming, they managed to
beat back a new French attack. But when the campaign
ended they only held the forts at the foot of Lake George,
guarding the access to the Hudson Valley. The French,
based upon their great forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, v
were superior in numbers and in readiness for war, and
threatened to break down the resistance in the next cam
paign. The first formal campaign in America, that of 1755, had
thus been disastrous to the British cause ; the victory of
the French seemed to be assured ; and during the winter
the frontier lands of Virginia and Pennsylvania were terror
ised by Indian attacks, in which hundreds of men, women
and children were slaughtered. Washington, with a mere
handful of men, could not protect a frontier 400 miles long,
though he did his best. Yet the colonial authorities re
mained for the most part lethargic, waiting for British help :
the legislature of Pennsylvania refused to vote a dollar or a
man for the pubhc defence.
This was bad enough news. But soon worse was to come.
At home there were threats of a French invasion : French
troops were mustering in the Channel, and the dockyards of "'
Brest were busy. The British navy was widely scattered
and undermanned ; the French navy, though it was largely
outnumbered, was in home ports and seemed to be all avail
able for action. British ships had to be withdrawn from the
Mediterranean to guard against the danger nearer home.
That was what the French wanted. Suddenly and secretly,
in April 1756, without a declaration of war, a French fleet! I
convoying the Duke of Richelieu in command of 15,000 \
1 See the map of the Hudson Valley, Atlas, Plate 56 (a).

ch. vil] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 735
I troops in 150 transports, was sent out from Toulon against
[ Minorca. The surprise was complete. The Governor of
Minorca, and the colonels of all the regiments in the garrison
of 3000, were away on leave. Port Mahon was besieged.
Its defences were breached and its fall seemed all but certain
when, late in May, Admiral Byng arrived from England with
a fleet practically equal in numbers to the French fleet.
Had Byng been able to destroy the opposing fleet, Richelieu
and his army would have been as good as lost, even if they
captured Fort Mahon. Byng fought a straggling indecisive
battle, in which he got shghtly the worse ; and then drew
off, faUing back on Gibraltar, and leaving Minorca to its
fate. Port Mahon fell at the end of June. In November
of the same year France also got control of the island of
Corsica, from the republic of Genoa., Toulon, Corsica and
Minorca seemed to give her command of the Mediter
ranean. The consternation which these events caused in Britain
surpassed even the painful impression produced by the
disasters in America. Minorca had been since 1708 the main
British naval base in the Mediterranean. The great struggle
had been opened with the gravest blow which had been
struck at British naval power since the battle of Beachy
Head in 1690. And on naval power the very existence of
Britain, as weU as the possibility of success in America,
whoUy depended. Byng was recalled, and tried by court-
martial. He was found guUty, not of cowardice, but of not
doing his utmost to save Minorca ; and, as the articles of war
required, was condemned to death, though with a recom
mendation to mercy. Popular clamour, inspired by panic,
demanded his execution, pour encourager les autres.
While the excitement over Minorca was at its height in
England, both French and British were addressing them
selves to the situation in America. France sent out the
Marquis de Montcalm, a soldier of infinite courage and great
abihty, worth many regiments, to take command of the
operations ; and with him 1200 fresh troops. The Duke
of Newcastle sent Lord Loudoun, a respectable soldier of
rank, but easily disheartened and wholly lacking in capacity
and enterprise ; to add to the shattered remnants of Brad-
dock's force, and to face the 7000 regulars whom Montcalm
commanded, he was given one regiment of 900 men. He
was joined by several thousand colonials, mainly raised in
New England ; but they were mostly untrained men. Each
colony jealously controlled its own contingents ; and there

736 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
was constant friction among the colonial leaders, as well as
between them and the British officers.
It is not surprising that under these circumstances the
campaign of 1756 went badly in America. The only sur
prising thing is that it did not end in sheer disaster. In the
Ohio VaUey nothing was done : Virginia and Pennsylvania
would not provide any troops ; all that was possible was
to defend the shrunken frontiers. Further north Montcalm
seized and destroyed the fort of Oswego, the only British
fort on the Great Lakes. It lay in the friendly Iroquois
country, and was approached by the Mohawk Valley from
Albany. Its loss left the line of advance by the Mohawk
open to the French,, On Lake George there was deadlock.
While Loudoun strengthened the British forts (Edward and
William Henry) and built a flotilla of boats for use on the
Lake, Montcalm was similarly engaged ; and though there
was a great deal of picturesque dare-devil fighting by the
frontiersmen on both sides, the French still held the upper
hand. There was no gleam of success for the British side
in America in 1756.
Nor was it much of a consolation that our sole continental
ally, Frederick of Prussia, had treacherously seized Saxony
and begun the continental struggle. That only ensured
that there would be desperate doings on the Continent, and
that an expedition must be sent to defend Hanover ; which
it might seem would ensure the continued neglect of the
great issue in America. And another disaster had happened
in the Far East, though this was fortunately not yet known
at home ; the news did not reach England till June 1757. \
Siraj-uddaula, the Nawab of Bengal, had suddenly turned 1
against the English, and had captured Calcutta, many of
whose wretched refugees were starving on an island at the
mouth of the Ganges while others had died in the Black
Hole. § 2. Pitt's Opportunity, and his Preparations.
One good result was, however, produced by these disasters.
The Duke of Newcastle, bowing before the storm of public
reprobation which even his willingness to offer Byng as a
sacrifice could not allay, resigned his office ; and George n.
had to call upon Pitt to form a ministry, though he feared '
and distrusted the Great Commoner because of his declared
hostility to fighting in the interests of Hanover. This was
in December 1756. Pitt managed to form a ministry
independent of corrupt influence, with the respectable Duke

ch. vii.] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 737
of Devonshire as its nominal head. In the four months that
foUowed he worked with desperate energy, planning and
preparing vigorous action to retrieve the situation. The
record of his activities in these months shows not merely
immense industry and vigour, but a width of outlook and a
boldness of conception which had hitherto been wholly
lacking in the direction of British policy. America was to
be the main field of operations. Large forces were sent to
Loudoun ; backed by a big fleet, he was to challenge the
French by a direct attack on Louisbourg and Quebec, while
the colonies were to be stimulated and assisted to find
sufficient forces to hold their ground at the other threatened
points. The whole naval forces of Britain were to be boldly
employed, primarily to blockade the French fleets and pre
vent them from sending assistance, secondarily to attack the
French possessions in the West Indies and in West Africa.
A new Mihtia Act was to be passed to raise forces for home
defence, thus releasing all the available regular troops for
foreign service. The valour of the Highland clans which
had been recently in rebellion was to be employed by the
enhstment of new regular regiments among them.1 Attacks
were to be made on the coast of France to distract French
forces from other fields of conflict ; British forces suddenly
landed from the sea would, it was hoped, keep all France in
terror, since she could never know where to expect attack.
Germany was not to be neglected : Prussia was in any case
our aUy, and an army of observation in Hanover would give
occupation to the French, and thus help the main struggle
in America. All these bold and many-sided but convergent
plans, to which Pitt adhered throughout his conduct of the
war, were already being prepared during these active months.
The daemonic energy of the man, though it had not yet had
time to show itself in action, soon made itself felt in all
the departments of government; and the new strenuous-
ness and activity perceptible on all sides produced its effects
upon the nation, and increased its confidence in the minister.
What made aU this more wonderful was that throughout
these strenuous months Pitt was almost crippled by the
agonies of gout.
But Pitt was not yet to be allowed freedom to carry out
his great designs. His ministry was a one-man ministry,
and though he commanded the devoted support of the in
dependent country gentlemen and of the city merchants,
1 Regiments from among the loyal clans had been enlisted as early as
'739- VOL. I. 3 A

738 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
he had no stable majority in the House of Commons. All
the groups and chques of borough-mongers were against
him. The legion of government votes which the Duke of
Newcastle had long controlled was not to be trusted, and
the oligarchy was only waiting tiU popular fury should die
down to return to power. Even popular support was alien
ated when it became known that Pitt was insisting that,'
Admiral Byng ought not to be shot. The king refused to
pardon Byng. ' You have taught me,' he said, when Pitt
urged that the House of Commons was in favour of pardon,
' to look elsewhere for the sense of my people than to the
House of Commons,' and the unfortunate admiral was shot
amid public rejoicings. George il, indeed, had no love for
Pitt, and was only anxious to be rid of this critic of Hanover
politics. When the Duke of Cumberland, who was to take
command of the army in Hanover, refused to serve unless
Pitt was dismissed, the king thought that the public craze
for the minister had weakened sufficiently to make it
safe to dismiss him ; and he received his conge in April v
1757- Thus, at a grave crisis, the nation was deprived of the only
leadership that could save it. But no one could be found
who was willing to accept the responsibility of making a
new ministry ; and during eleven fateful weeks (April-June,
1757) there was no organised government at aU. The in
dignation of the whole people, or of every part of it capable
of forming a judgment, was made very apparent. Any
doubt as to Pitt's command over the pubhc imagination
was dispelled by a rain of petitions and addresses. No less
than nineteen towns, headed by the city of London, voted
him the freedom, enclosing the certificates in gold boxes :
' it rained gold boxes,' as Horace Walpole said.
In the end a coalition was made between Newcastle and
Pitt. Newcastle became First Lord of the Treasury, disposed v
of patronage, and managed the House of Commons ; Pitt
became Secretary of State and directed the war. It was a
division of power that fuUy satisfied both parties. In effect,
during the foUowing four years, Pitt was dictator of the
British Commonwealth. He dominated and dictated to
the cabinet. The heads of the chief executive departments
had to swallow their pride and carry out his imperious orders.
When Anson, for example, told Pitt that as First Lord of \
the Admiralty he could not produce a certain fleet in a cer- j
tain time, ' in that case,' said Pitt, ' you will be impeached <
in the House of Commons ' : the fleet was ready in four days. /

ch.vil] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS"*; 739
The House of Commons was completely under his spell,
especially now that all the traditional methods of ' manage
ment ' were arrayed on his side. During these four years
no one dared to resist his will : at first the dread of national
disaster, and later the intoxication of the incredible suc
cesses brought about by his resolution and his courage,
ensured his ascendency. There were many who resentedi
his dictatorship. Their time was to come. But, in the
meanwhile, he was permitted to save his country.
It was not mere magnetism and courage which enabled
Pitt to carry through the herculean labours of the next
four years, though without his magnetic power of inspira
tion and without his sublime courage they would have been
impossible. The more the work of these four years is studied
the more clear it becomes that Pitt added to these gifts a
very remarkable power of organising the conduct of business,
an assiduous devotion to detail, an astonishing mastery of
aU the complexities of foreign negotiations and of military
and naval administration, a remarkable readiness to leam
from aU who had anything useful to tell him — for such men
he could always find time in his busy day. Above all, he
had a genius for the choice of men, and was ready to dis
regard the ordinary rules of promotion in picking out the
men to do his work. He was not only a great leader and
inspirer of men, he was a superlatively great adminis
trator with an amazing power of getting work done.
Nor even Pitt, however, could in a moment conjure
victory out of disaster. He had planned the campaigns of
1757 ; but he had had to use the resources available, and
the men then in command ; and the carrying out of his
plans had been interrupted by the unfortunate interregnum
at a critical time. The year 1757 showed, on the surface,
no improvement over its predecessor ; on the contrary, it
seemed to have brought a culmination of woes.
In America Loudoun, supported by a large fleet, went to
Halifax with his main forces, now greatly increased, intend
ing to attack Louisbourg ; but, finding the French too strong,
returned ignominiously to New York when the campaigning
season was over. In his absence Montcalm had thrown
himself with all his strength upon the small British forces
that had been left to guard the line of the Hudson river.1
He compeUed the surrender of Fort WiUiam Henry. The
garrison were given a promise of safe retreat ; but Mont
calm's Indian allies got out of hand, and slaughtered many
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 56 (a).

740 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
of the retreating force. If Loudoun had not meanwhile
returned from Halifax with the troops Pitt had sent him,
Montcalm might have advanced far down the Hudson.
The situation in America was graver than ever when the
campaign of 1757 closed.
But it was from the continent of Europe that the worst
news came in this year. Austria had handed over to her
ally France the ports of the Austrian Netherlands ; and the
continental coast of the Narrow Seas, for whose sake
Britain had fought so many wars, was in enemy hands.
Worse stiU, our only ally, Frederick of Prussia, rashly
advancing into Bohemia, had suffered a terrible defeat at
Kolin and been forced to retreat. While France had formed
an army to attack him from the west, Russian hordes were
advancing to attack him on the east, and the Swedes
threatened him from the north. His destruction seemed
inevitable. Worst of all, the main French army had been directed
against Hanover. Resisted only by a mixed force of Hano
verians and Hessians of less than half its numbers under
the command of the Duke of Cumberland, the French had
won a crushing victory at Hastenbeck, and all the lands
west of the Elbe seemed to be lost. In September 1757
Cumberland signed the humiliating capitulation of Kloster-
zeven, whereby the army of observation in Hanover was
disbanded. Hanover seemed to lie wholly at the mercy of
France. That would complete the ruin of Frederick, by
exposing his flank. The next campaign might be expected
to annihilate him ; and then France and her aUies would
be able to turn all their strength against Britain.
A final disappointment, the news of which followed hard
on the heels of Klosterzeven, completed the disiUusionments
of this dark year. Pitt had planned a strong blow at
Rochefort on the coast of France, and had found for it a
fleet under his best admiral, Hawke, and an army. The
attack was delivered at the end of September. The fleet
did well, cap 'ring the fort on the isle of Aix with thirty-six
guns. But Mo. daunt, the general in command of the army,
one of the old cautious school, simply declined to attack
Rochefort ; and the expedition came home again inglor-
iously at the beginning of October. Mordaunt, Loudoun
and their teacher Cumberland had given Pitt his fill of
generals of the orthodox school. Henceforward he chose
his own men, without regard to official precedence.
" It is not wonderful that in the summer and autumn of

ch. vn.] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 741
1757 men should have thought the outlook almost hopeless.
Even Pitt was disheartened : it was, he said, ' a gloomy
scene for this distressed, disgraced country,' for whose
future he felt ' little less than despair ' ; and during the
summer he even offered to surrender Gibraltar to Spain in
return for help in recovering Minorca. The offer was re
fused. ' We are undone at home and abroad,' said the
Earl of Chesterfield, a shrewd judge of public affairs. ' The
French are masters to do what they please in America. We
are no longer a nation. I never yet saw so dreadful a
prospect.' That was the almost universal feehng. The
sun of British greatness seemed to be setting after its brief
splendour. Such is the dark background which sets off the radiance
of Pitt's achievements during the foUowing years. For this-
was the darkest hour before the dawn. Already his work
of preparation was beginning to bear fruit. The navy was
blockading aU the French ports, and forbidding the exit of
French fleets ; but that was silent work which no one noted.
The pervading gloom only intensified the great minister's
resolution. He was eagerly at work upon the plans for the
next year ; he had fixed upon the captains whom he could
trust ; he would abandon hope nowhere, not even in
Germany. The capitulation of Klosterzeven, fortunately
broken by the French, was promptly repudiated. A British
contingent was prepared to stiffen the Hanoverian and
Hessian troops ; a skilful general, Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick, was borrowed from Frederick the Great to
take command of the combined force.
And during the winter, to which men had looked forward
with shivering fear, the first pieces of good news began to
come in. Frederick the Great, instead of accepting his
defeat at Kolin, had in November launched a swift and
brUliant attack at the southern French army which was
advancing against him, and in the battle of Rossbach had
inflicted a blow so crushing that French prestige never
recovered from it tiUtrie time of Napoleon. Then, turning
east, he had suddenly burst down upon tK^ustrians who
had occupied Silesia, and at Leuthen had' defeated vastly *
superior numbers and driven them out of the province,
He was still faced by terrible odds. But the news of these
dazzling victories — the first really good news which had
come since the war opened — aroused in England the most
intense enthusiasm. Frederick became a national hero,
almost as in Prussia. ' The Protestant Hero ' they called

742 MARITIME AND C6L0NIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
him : the name must have amused the brilliant, unscrupul
ous sceptic to whom it was applied.
Good news came in from the Indies also : first the news
that Clive had regained Calcutta ; then the incredible tidings"
of the victory at Plassey, that placed all Bengal at the feet"
of the East India Company. These were victories in no
sense prepared or organised at home. But they raised the
drooping spirits of the nation and prepared it for the aston
ishing reversal of fortune that was to begin in the next year,
and to go on swelling in magnitude as long as the war lasted.
The dark days were over.
§ 3. The Turn of the Tide (1758).
It was in the campaign of 1758 that the genius of Pitt had'
its first chance of displaying its power. The campaign was
to yield an intoxicating series of triumphs in every direction.
They were the result of infinite forethought and care in
preparation. In the first place everything was done to stimulate the
public zeal both at home and in America. The spirit of
Pitt's appeals to the nation was expressed in the king's
speech on the opening of Parliament — a speech written,
of course, by Pitt. ' I have the firmest confidence that
the spirit and bravery of this nation, so renowned in all
time, and which have formerly surmounted so many diffi
culties, are not to be abated by some disappointments. . .
In this critical juncture the eyes of all Europe are upon you.'
To the American colonists similar appeals were made. They
were caUed upon to provide 20,000 men ; the mother country
undertaking to defray the whole cost of arms, equipment
and rations, and to make a grant towards pay and clothing
to those colonies which showed zeal. Under these conditions
the objections of the colonists disappeared, and they raised
nearly 23,000 men, more than twice as many as they had
ever raised before.
The main campaign of the year was intended to be the
campaign in America : here, as Pitt saw and Newcastle had
never seen, lay the great field of conflict. But the American
campaign was to be only part, though the greatest part, of
a vast plan, all the parts of which closely related to one
another. In the first place, powerful blockading squadrons watched
the French naval bases in the Channel and the Bay of Biscay,
to prevent the French fleet from slipping out to do any

ch. vii.] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 743
damage or to help Canada. The weary vigils of the block
ading squadrons were the foundation of the whole fabric
of success, though little was heard of them. And while their
crews, afloat in all weathers, gained in seamanship and the
sense of mastery, the French fleets, locked up in harbour,
steadily deteriorated in quality. In the same way a
squadron based on Gibraltar watched to prevent the French
from shpping out of the Mediterranean : the only attempt
to do so which was made by the Toulon fleet was promptly
baffled. In the second place Pitt found naval squadrons and land
forces to make a series of attacks upon the French coast.1
In May there was a descent in the neighbourhood of St. Malo.
In June there were demonstrations against Havre and
Honfleur. In August Cherbourg was captured and its forts
and shipping destroyed. In September there was a second
and unfortunate attack upon St. Malo. These expeditions
were much criticised at the time, and have often been
criticised since, as a waste of men and money. They led to
no very direct results. But they kept France in a nervous
state. They caused her government to withhold or to
withdraw at least 30,000 men from the German campaign.
Frederick the Great did not share the popular view of their
futility, but begged that they should be continued.
In the third place, the German campaign was vigorously
supported, and large subsidies were paid to help Prussia
in her troubles. Ferdinand of Brunswick, at first with an
army of German mercenaries in British pay, to whom 9000
British troops were added later in the summer, brilliantly
manoeuvred against two French armies each superior to his
own, won a striking victory over one of them at Crefeld, and
by the end of the campaign had cleared them out of Hanover.
For the first time a Hanoverian campaign was followed with
breathless interest in Britain.
It was fortunate for Frederick that Pitt had changed
his views about German campaigns, for Frederick was
hard put to it to hold his own against his ring of enemies
in this year ; the Russians were at last upon him, and
though he won a costly victory over them at Zorndorf, he
had to submit to defeat from the Austrians, Yet he still
retained his hold over aU his territories. He could not
have done so had the Hanoverian army not protected his
flank, and relieved him from anxiety from the French. Pitt
was much taunted with his new attitude on Hanoverian
1 See the map of the Narrow Seas, Atlas, Plate 45 (a).

744 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
campaigns. He had his retort ready. No one could sug
gest that he was giving all his attention to the European
struggle, as his predecessors had done. But by using it to
distract the efforts of France, he was helping the main
campaign in America.
Not cbntent with aU these activities, Pitt found the naval
and military forces for a brilhant little expedition to West
Africa.1 The French fort and trading station at Senegal
were captured by April, and at the end of December the
island of Goree feU to an attack by Keppel. All the
French factories, and all the rich trade of the French
company in gold, ivory, and above all slaves, fell into
British hands.
But the main object of the year's fighting was to redress ~
the situation in America. Here Pitt had planned no less
than four converging campaigns ; and on these he had
expended his best thought and his most anxious and detaUed
preparations.2 The main attack was to be against Louis
bourg ; a second big attack aimed at getting control of
Lake Champlain, and advancing by that route to meet the
conquerors of Louisbourg when they advanced up the
St. Lawrence ; a third and minor onslaught was to be directed
along the river Mohawk against the forts on the Great Lakes ;
a fourth was to redeem Braddock's disaster and secure the
Ohio VaUey. He had chosen his men carefuUy for these
enterprises. For the Louisbourg attack the naval command
was given to one of the best of English admirals, Boscawen,
the mihtary command to a colonel brought back from
Germany, Amherst, with a promising young soldier of thirty-
two, James Wolfe, as second in command. For the Cham
plain command, and for that alone, he kept one of the old
gang, Abercromby, but placed beside him the briUiant
young soldier Howe ; for the Lakes expedition he had picked
out a very successful colonial, Bradstreet, who had done
well on the southern frontier in the last campaign ; for the
Ohio enterprise his choice fell upon a staunch and patient
old Scotsman, Forbes. All of them were provided with
large and well equipped forces ; all of them knew that they
would receive all the support they could ask for, warm
recognition if they succeeded, disgrace only if they failed
through lack of energy.
All save one of the four expeditions met with complete
success. Boscawen, Amherst and Wolfe captured the great
1 See the map of West Africa, Atlas, Plate 64 (c).
a See the map, Atlas, Plates 54, 55, and 56 (a).

ch. vil] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 745
fortress of Louisbourg with 4000 prisoners and 220 guns,
and destroyed a French squadron of thirteen sail which lay
in the harbour ; and with the fall of Louisbourg the path
lay open up the St. Lawrence to Quebec. Bradstreet forced
his way up the Mohawk to Lake Ontario, and not only
regained Oswego, but took the important French Fort
Frontenac, thus cutting communications between Canada
and trie Ohio, and opening the possibility of an attack down
the river against Montreal and Quebec. Forbes, with one
Highland regiment and a large body of colonials, cut a road
. through the forests with dogged patience, and reached
Fort Duquesrie — only to find that its garrison had fled, and
that the Ohio Valley had passed for ever out of French hands.
He dated the despatch announcing his success from ' Pitts
burg ' ; ' I have used the freedom,' he wrote, ' of giving your
name to Fort Duquesne, as I hope it was in some measure
the being actuated by your spirit that now makes us masters
of the place.' The staunch old man, who had overcome a
thousand difficulties, not least his own illness, died soon
afterwards at Philadelphia ; but it is possible that before
he died he was cheered by the fine sentences of praise and
appreciation which Pitt promptly sent to him.
Only on Lake Champlain was the record of complete
success marred. Young Howe, who commanded the ad
miration and affection of all who met him, was unhappUy
kiUed at the opening of the campaign ; and Abercromby
had the foUy to throw his gallant men, unsupported by
guns, against a strongly fortified position which Montcalm
had taken up near Ticonderoga.1 With fruitless valour the
new Highland regiments whose fathers had been rebels, and
their Enghsh and colonial comrades, threw themselves
against impassable obstacles which might easily have been
outflanked; and after futUe slaughter Abercromby fell
back again upon his base.
Yet even with this check, what a record of victories 1758
had produced ! Senegal and Goree ; Crefeld and the freeing
of Hanover ; the French fleets reduced to impotence ;
Louisbourg captured; the Ohio Valley cleared; the forts
on the Great Lakes occupied. It was a draught of triumph
more intoxicating than the British peoples had ever drunk
in any year of their histoiy, and all the more marveUous
by contrast with the gloom of the last year. But 1758
provided only the foundation for the greater triumphs of
1759- 1 R. L. Stevenson has a ballad on Ticonderoga.

746 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
§ 4. The Annus Mirabilis of 1759 '• Que^>ec and Quiberon. ~
The Duke of Newcastle, indeed, was eager to treat for
peace, and to barter Louisbourg against Minorca ; he could
not believe that such successes could be more than a flash
in the pan. But even if Pitt and the British peoples had
been of Newcastle's mind, peace negotiations would have
been of no avail. For a new minister had come into power
in France, a man of courage and resource, the Duke of
Choiseul, who, realising more clearly than any of his pre
decessors the magnitude of the issues that were at stake,
refused with fine courage to despond, or to believe that the
spirit and resources of his country were exhausted, and
resolved to throw all his weight into the struggle against
Britain. Pitt was to have, what hitherto he had lacked, a
foeman worthy of his steel.
Choiseul's chief hope was that he might bring Spain into
the fray, and so gain an equality, if not a preponderance, of
naval force ; for he saw that in this world-wide conflict
everything depended upon naval power. He urged Spain
to realise that the only nations which now counted in the
world were those that possessed colonies, foreign trade and
naval strength. Even Russia, Austria and Prussia were
negligible in comparison with the maritime powers ; and
among the maritime powers HoUand had already faUen into
the background, and unless France and Spain joined forces
Britain would soon be left without a serious rival in the
world— Britain, which counted a population, even including
her colonies, of less than half that of France alone. But
Spain was not yet prepared for his wooing, thougri she was
to listen to it, with disastrous results to herself, two years
later. Failing to gain Spanish aid, Choiseul pinned his hopes
upon the chances of a bold attack upon the very heart of
the British power. He projected an invasion of England
in force ; and during the winter of 1758-9 he was preparing
a great army of 50,000 veterans to be ferried across the
Channel, while another force of 36,000 French, Russians
and Swedes were to invade Scotland under the protection
of a Swedish fleet. Proclamations were actuaUy drafted for
distribution in Scotland. But though the northern expedi
tion against Scotland came to nothing, the hoped-for allies
refusing to co-operate, the plan of an invasion was persisted
in; and, like Napoleon nearly fifty years later, Choiseul
prepared a host of flat-bottomed boats for the transport of

ch. vn.] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 747
the invading armies. It was a perfectly serious project,
which aroused, like its successor, grave alarm in England.
Pitt was not the man to aUow his plans of campaign to
be dictated by anybody else. Far from permitting the
alarm of invasion to reduce his efforts overseas, as it
was intended to do, his oversea enterprises planned for
1759 were, as we shall see, on a still grander scale, and still
bolder in their aims, than those of 1758. But he did not
neglect Choiseul's threat. Instead of keeping back troops
that were needed for America or Germany, he sent more
than ever to those campaigns ; and for home defence he
trusted to the nation, and caUed out the militia, which had I
been reorganised by an Act of his own in 1756. In some
counties trie caUing out of the militia produced riots. But
on the whole it was responded to with splendid spirit ; and
the moral effect of thus calling on the people to fight for
their country was whoUy admirable. It welded the unity
of the nation ; it swept away party feehng ; it weakened
class distinctions. Tory squires who had long sulked in
their manor-houses joined with Dissenters and tradespeople.
' Gentlemen now associate and act together,' as one lord-
lieutenant reported, ' who were very shy lately, and scarcely
knew one another.' Martial ardour spread through the
nation. Towns raised new regiments at their own expense,
or armed and drilled their citizens ; private persons even
undertook the whole cost of raising regiments. No such
patriotic zeal had ever been known in Britain before, not
even in the days of the Armada.
The services of the militia and the volunteers were never
caUed upon ; because the navy, besides meeting all the
demands of Pitt's distant expeditions, was quite capable of
baffling Choiseul's scheme. For like Philip n.'s project of
1588, and hke Napoleon's later, the possibility of carrying
out the invasion was dependent upon the chance of gaining
command of the Channel, if only for a short time ; and even
with large British squadrons scattered far afield, that could
only be done if the whole French fleet could be brought
together. To prevent this was the business of the navy,
and very thoroughly it did its task.
Two great naval battles — the only considerable naval
actions of the war — were fought to achieve this end. It was
essential to Choiseul's scheme, as to Napoleon's later, that the
French fleet in Toulon should get out of the Mediterranean
and join forces with the Channel squadrons.1 In August
1 See the map of the North Atlantic, Atlas, Plate 45 (b).

748 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
1759 the attempt was made. Boscawen's Gibraltar squad
ron caught them as they were slipping through the straits ;
pursued them north-westwards to the Portuguese coast
between Lagos and Cape St. Vincent ; and there destroyed
all but twovessels which escaped, and five which had earlier
taken refuge in Cadiz.
The action of Lagos destroyed Choiseul's grand scheme.
But he still persisted in his project of an invasion. To
convoy the transports, which were gathered in the ports
north of the Loire, the main French fleet under Conflans
came out from Brest in November,1 taking advantage of a.
violent westerly gale which had forced Hawke and his
blockading fleet to beat back to Torbay. Conflans saUed
southwards, towards Lorient and Quiberon Bay. But
Hawke 2 was hard upon his tracks. Conflans thought he
would be safe in Quiberon Bay, the entrance of which is
guarded by dangerous reefs, especially as a violent gale was
blowing on a very dangerous lee shore. He had calculated
without Hawke ; who, defying gale and reefs and lee shore,
ordered his captains to set their course by the French, forced
his way in, and simply annihilated the French fleet.
Quiberon Bay was one of the most brilhant and daring
actions in the history of the British navy. And it was
decisive. It was the Trafalgar of this war. The French
navy no longer counted. The invasion of England was
henceforth hopeless. No more reinforcements or supplies
could be sent to America or India. The British command
of the seas was made impregnably secure.
Henceforth French action by sea was limited to commerce
destruction. In that sphere the French had already shown -
great daring, and inflicted heavy damage, which grew worse
as the war proceeded. Between 1756 and 1760 more than
2500 British ships were captured, and in 1761 no less than
812. But the very numbers of the British ships captured
by French privateers during the next three years was itself
(paradoxical as this may appear) a proof of British sea-
supremacy. For scarcely any French ships ventured out for
trading purposes ; the bulk of the French marine, naval and
mercantile, could find no employment save in privateering.
On the other hand British ships were innumerable and
omnipresent ; new ships were built faster than the old ones
were captured ; during these years the number of British
1 See the map of the Narrow Seas, Atlas, Plate 45 (a).
8 There is a life of Hawke by Montagu Burrows. A favourite toast
in these years was ' The eye of a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe.'

ch. vil] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 749
merchant-ships rose to about 8000, and they enjoyed an
extraordinary supremacy in the world's carrying trade.
But privateering was not by any means limited to the
French side. It was practised with equal vigour by British
and American sailors. Every port had its privateering
craft, armed and licensed to prey upon enemy shipping.
The great drawback of the practice of licensing private
vessels (which every nation foUowed until 1856) was that
these vessels could not be kept under control, and readily
drifted into mere piracy. The difficulty became all the
greater when the French flag almost disappeared from the
seas, and the carriage of goods for France was undertaken
by neutral vessels. Could these goods be intercepted ?
Or must the free supply even of warlike stores to France be
permitted ? On that question controversy raged, and the
neutrals became more and more hostile to British sea-power ;
all the more because of the way in which many of the priva
teers behaved. The Americans in particular ravaged the
Dutch and Spanish shipping in the West Indies, while at
the same time they made huge profits by selling naval stores
to the French. Pitt tried to check the excesses of the
privateers by an Act which he introduced and carried
against considerable opposition in 1759. ' England the
mistress of the ocean should not act despotically there,' he
told the House of Commons. His bill did not remove all
the grievances of the neutrals, which were to be put forward
more vigorously in the next war. But at least he did his
best to restrain the abuses of the system.
Naval supremacy had its dangers and its difficulties, and
it took time to learn how to use it with restraint and justice.
But in the meanwhile it ensured victory in the main cam
paigns ; the triumphs of the navy were the essential
foundations of all Pitt's victories in America, and of all the
amazing triumphs in India. Beyond question Lagos and
Quiberon Bay denied aU chance of success for the desperate
endeavour to restore the French position in India which the
gallant Lally was carrying on during these years, as we shall
see in the next chapter. And even in this year of threatened
invasion, naval supremacy enabled Pitt to strike a vigorous
blow against the prosperous French islands in the West
Indies, where the rich island of Guadeloupe was captured.
In one field alone the navy could give no direct help —
on the continent of Europe. Here Frederick of Prussia,
fighting against impossible odds, had to submit to heavy
defeats with appalling losses from the Russians and the

750 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
Austrians. Half his army was lost ; his enemies, including
the Swedes, were encamped upon his territory; he con
templated suicide ; his only hope lay in help from Britain.
Yet the very gloom that enshrouded Frederick heightened
the value of the brilUant successes which this year brought
in the Hanoverian campaign. Faced by two French armies,
outnumbering him by two to one, Ferdinand of Brunswick
not only held Iris own, but won at Minden one of the most
dazzling of victories, which almost enabled him to clear the
French out of Western Germany. The brunt of the fighting
fell upon six British regiments which still have the name of
Minden on their colours. The French army was as deeply
humiliated as the French navy.
But, as in 1758, the greatest campaign of 1759 was that
of America. Its object was no less than the final destruc
tion of the French power, and this it very nearly succeeded
in achieving. As in 1758 a triple line of attack was planned.1
One expedition, under Colonel Prideaux, was sent to com
plete the conquest of the lake region by the capture of Fort
Niagara, between Lakes Erie and Ontario. It fuUy achieved
its aim, and was ready to co-operate in an advance down
the river towards Montreal. A second force, consisting of
11,000 men, half British and half colonial, was placed under
Amherst, the conqueror of Louisbourg, and charged with the
task of clearing the line of Lake Champlain and advancing
by that route to Quebec. Its task was also achieved with
some ease, for the main French forces had been with
drawn for the defence of Quebec. Amherst was a sound
soldier, but somewhat deliberate in his movements. He
did not advance rapidly enough to help in the attack on
Quebec, which would have been greatly lightened had he
approached it from the west while the main attack was being
delivered from the east. His delay threw upon the third
expedition of the year a very heavy, indeed it might seem
an almost impossible, task.
This expedition, which aimed at the conquest of Quebec,
was entrusted to a combined naval and military force, 22
men-of-war under Admiral Saunders, convoying 9000 picked
troops, all British, under James Wolfe,2 a young man of
thirty- three, without influence, who owed his chance to Pitt's
choice, and who was already known as the ablest, most
thoughtful and most daring of British soldiers. The attempt
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 55.
2 There is a good short Hfe of Wolfe, by A. G. Bradley, in the Enghsh
Men of Action Series.

ch. vii.] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 751
seemed to be in the last degree venturesome. The naviga
tion of the St. Lawrence was held to be almost impossible
for a large fleet ; yet Saunders accomplished it with complete
success. The fortress of Quebec, which overlooked and
dominated the narrowest part of the river, was held to be
impregnable ; it had been protected by the most elaborate
fortifications, and was defended by about 15,000 French
soldiers under a great captain, Montcalm, who commanded
their entire loyalty. When Saunders and Wolfe arrived at
the Isle of Orleans opposite Quebec, they saw before them 1
a high rocky bluff crowned by a fort whose guns seemed to
command the river ; westwards steep cliffs, two hundred
feet high, seemed to make a landing impossible even if the
guns of the fortress could be passed ; eastwards a deep river,
the St. Charles, coming down from steep high ground, pro
tected the citadel, and beyond it, facing the British forces
on the Isle of Orleans, a stretch of low land, backed by cliffs,
was guarded by a continuous line of elaborate earthworks,
behind which lay an army larger than Wolfe's. The nut
seemed too hard to crack, unless Amherst, coming down the
river from the west, should co-operate by an attack from
that side. And of Amherst there was no word.
The months of July and August passed without anything
achieved. Guns mounted on Point Levis, opposite the city,
battered down its houses and mastered its artillery ; but that
did httle good, except that it aUowed Saunders to send four
ships above the city. A joint naval and military attack on
the main French position east of the town was beaten off
with serious loss. September came ; soon the river would
begin to freeze. Wolfe wrote home to Pitt a desponding
letter saying that his only hope was the desperate one of
an attack above the town, for which, after leaving garrisons
below, he could spare only 5000 men.
Immediately after writing this letter Wolfe embarked
upon his forlorn hope. On a dark starlit night, the 12th of
September, his little force set out to land at a steep and
narrow path leading up the precipice to the Plains of
Abraham above. French sentries saw them, but took them
for an expected flotilla of boats bringing provisions for
the garrison : Wolfe had counted on that. Twenty-four
volunteers scrambled up the path in the starlight and over
powered the sentries above, while the clustered boat-loads
below lay and waited, scarcely daring to whisper. Then
the little army clambered up, dragging with them two guns,
1 See the plan of Quebec, Atlas, Plate 55 (a)-

752 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
and as morning dawned fell into line on the Plains of
Abraham, looking across to Quebec. Montcalm, taken by
surprise, brought up his men with what haste he could, and
ordered a charge which should sweep the invaders over the
cliff. The British troops lay still tiU the enemy were within
forty paces. Then three withering volleys, foUowed by a
charge, turned the French advance into a disorderly rout.
Seldom has a victory so great been so quickly won. Wolfe,
leading the charge, was struck by three buUets ; but he did
not die, this happy warrior, till he knew that he had won one
of the most momentous battles in his country's history.
His gaUant opponent was struck down almost at the same
moment. Montcalm's successor withdrew most of his forces,
and on 18th September, five days after the battle, Quebec
capitulated. This was the crowning victory of the annus mirabilis
which had witnessed the most astonishing series of triumphs
that ever was announced to an exulting nation. On June 13
London had learnt of the conquest of Guadeloupe ; on
August 5 of the capture of the neighbouring island of Marie
Galante : on August 6 came the intoxicating news of the ,
victory of Minden ; before the end of August word came of
the defeat of the French fleet at Lagos ; during September '
tidings arrived of the capture of Fort Niagara and the
occupation of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, names of dread
for four years past ; October heard of the glory of Quebec ;
November of the culminating victory of Quiberon Bay. ' It '
is necessary,' wrote the quidnunc, Horace Walpole, ' to ask
every morning what victory there is, for fear of missing one.'
And this was only two years from the time when Chesterfield
was moaning that ' we are no longer a nation.' The contrast
is the measure of the genius of Pitt.

§ 5. Negotiations for Peace : the Fall of Pitt.
In comparison with the glories of 1759, the campaigns
of 1760 and 1761 seemed to be something of an anti-climax.
In 1760 it was made clear that the fall of Quebec did not
mean the conquest of Canada. Wolfe's small army, after
a hard "winter, was attacked by the revived French forces,
which greatly outnumbered it, was beaten almost on the
scene of its victory, and was for a time besieged in Quebec.
But the siege was raised by a fleet coming up the river and
a land force advancing by Lake Champlain ; the French
army fell back upon Montreal, where in September it was

ch. vil] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 753
forced to surrender, yielding the whole of Canada to the
British Crown ; and the long war for North America was
over. The same year, as we shall see, yielded a decisive
triumph to British arms in India in the defeat of the
French at Wandewash.
Meanwhile on the Continent the outlook was gloomy.
Ferdinand of Brunswick, though the British forces urider
his command were now larger than they had ever been, could
achieve no very definite success. The British public, accus
tomed to victories, were losing patience with the German
war, which only victory had made popular, and which
was the most costly of all Pitt's enterprises. Frederick of
Prussia was all but exhausted. He was only able to make
head at all by drawing troops from Ferdinand. In 1760
the Russians for a time even occupied Berlin ; and though
his indomitable spirit enabled him to drive the Austrians
once more out of Silesia at trie battle of Liegnitz, to clear
Berlin of the Russians, and to win the terribly costly victory
of Torgau over the Austrians in Saxony, he was worn out.
Among his opponents Austria and France were in a not
much better condition.
The campaigns of 1761 were equally uneventful and
indecisive. On the continent they were almost featureless,
though Ferdinand of Brunswick won two successes. But
Frederick was manifestly almost at the end of his tether.
On the seas the only important event was the capture of
the island of Belleisle, off the coast of France ; a position
which, occupied by British forces, would have formed a
perpetual menace to France. Pitt was planning expeditions
against the remaining French possessions in the West Indies,
but he had not yet launched them.
The reason for this comparative lassitude was that peace
negotiations (for which everybody, even Britain, was longing)
had begun. Pitt was altogether ready to make peace, but
only on two conditions — the first that Britain should receive
a recompense commensurate with the sacrifices she had
made and the victories she had won ; and the second that
Frederick of Prussia should not be left in the lurch.. He
had willingly entered into negotiations in 1759, but had
dropped them when France had made it clear that what
she wanted was a separate peace, leaving out Frederick.
In 1760 he renewed them with equal willingness. But now
the conditions had changed. George n. had died ; and his
successor George in. was imbued with the desire to over
throw the Whig oligarchy and to restore the Crown to the
VOL. I. 3 B

754 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk.vi.
position designed for it in the Revolution settlement. In
that aim Pitt, who had no love for the ohgarchy, would have
been his natural ally, as indeed George in. and his confidant
Lord Bute did not fail to recognise. But in the king's view the
first step towards a restoration of the royal authority must
be a cessation of war, and the termination of the powerful
ministry which had conducted it. Nor was the king alone
desirous of peace. Some of the leading Whigs, like the
Duke of Bedford, were frightened by the very magnitude
of the British success, and feared a general coalition against
British supremacy on the seas. Others, like Pitt's own
brother-in-law, George Grenville, were terrified by the
spectre of the mounting national debt. And there were
many who would not be sorry to shake off the dominion
of the terrible dictator, now that the peril was over. The
growing unpopularity of the war in Germany encouraged
aU these feelings. And as a result of these causes, Pitt
found during 1760 and 1761 that his mastery in the cabinet
was graduaUy weakening.
In the course of the peace discussions in 1761, though the
terms proposed by France were not unreasonable, Pitt was
struck by a certain stiffening in the French tone, and by
signs of a rapprochement between France and Spain. A
new king, Charles in., had ascended the Spanish throne in
1759. He was decidedly French in his sympathies, unlike
his predecessor, who had remained neutral throughout the
war ; and Choiseul had found him ready to listen to the
suggestions of common action against Britain which he had
already made in vain in 1758. In August 1761, while the
peace negotiations were going on, a secret treaty between
France and Spain, the Third Family Compact, was concluded.
It was a treaty of close and perpetual aUiance ; and one of
its clauses bound Spain to declare war on Britain unless
peace was signed before May 1762. This was not known
in England; but when the French negotiator in London
not only insisted that Britain must give no further help
to Prussia, but also produced various demands on behalf
of Spain, and explained that these must be satisfied before
peace could be signed, Pitt concluded that the two Bourbon
powers were acting in conjunction. He broke off the nego
tiations, and recommended the cabinet at once to declare
war upon Spain.
But the peace party in the cabinet was now in the majority.
Pitt found only one supporter. His dictatorship was at an
end. Declaring that he would not be responsible for meas-

ch. vil] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 755
ures he did not manage, he resigned his office (October 1761).
The most glorious ministry in British history was over. It
had found the Commonwealth divided, disheartened and
apparently on the verge of ruin. After four brief years, it
left it united, triumphant, and recognised as the greatest
power in the world.
§ 6. The Aftermath : the Downfall of Spain.
It may be that, in recommending war against Spain, Pitt
looked forward to renewing and redoubling the triumphs
he had already won, and to making Britain the inheritor of
the Spanish colonial empire, as he had already made her the
inheritor of the French. That was the view of many of his
critics, who pictured him as rejoicing in war and insatiable
with conquest. But there is not a word to justify such a
view in all his correspondence, which shows him genuinely
eager for peace, provided only that the terms were reasonably
good and that honourable obhgations to Frederick were
rulfUled. He was convinced that, with Spanish aid, France
intended to try a last gambler's stroke ; the old nightmare
of a Franco-Spanish alhance, which had haunted Whig
statesmen ever since the time of Louis xiv., was reviving,
and he thought that the quickest way to peace was to strike
it down swiftly, as he knew he could do. Events were soon
to prove that he was right. As soon as the annual treasure-
fleet reached Spain in safety, her behaviour made war in
evitable ; it was declared in January 1762, three months
Rafter Pitt's resignation.
Pitt had already made aU his plans for the anticipated
renewal of the war, and the campaign of 1762, against both
France and Spain, was carried out in accordance with these
plans. It was one of the most dazzling of the series, for the
instruments of war which Pitt had sharpened were still at
their finest. An expedition under Rodney which Pitt had
already sent out against the French West Indies achieved'
the rapid capture of Martinique, Grenada, St. Lucia and
St. Vincent, and all the Lesser Antilles were in British hands.
A fleet and an army of 10,000 men attacked Havana, the
capital of Cuba, and captured it in a few weeks, together
with twelve Spanish ships of the line and vast treasures.
This was a blow against the very heart of the Spanish
empire. When Spain endeavoured to force Britain's old
aUy, Portugal, into the confederacy and invaded the country,
a British fleet and an army of 8000 men were despatched to

756 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
Lisbon, and the Spaniards were ignominiously driven back
over the frontier. Finally an expedition despatched from
India attacked and captured Manila, and compelled the
surrender of the whole group of Philippine Islands and the
payment of a heavy ransom. Under these crushing blows
the Spanish empire seemed to be breaking up ; and, indeed,
it was clearly in the power of the British Commonwealth,
had it chosen to do so, to bring down in ruin the oldest of
the European colonial empires. The campaign of 1762 was
even more dramatic than its predecessors in the suddenness
of the ruin which it inflicted, and in the demonstration
which it gave of the deadliness of the weapons which Pitt
had sharpened. § 7. The Peace of Paris.
But these events made France and Spain realise that
nothing was to be gained by a prolongation of the war ; and
as the British government, now headed by Lord Bute, was
eager for peace, terms were agreed to before the end of
1762, and confirmed at the beginning of 1763.
The treaty of Paris was the triumphant culmination of
the history of the first British empire. No diplomatic
instrument in history had ever disposed of regions so vast
and so full of potentiality as those with which it dealt ; nor
had any dominion made by man shown so wide a diversity
of character and opportunity as that which this treaty
confirmed to the British peoples. Canada and all the ter
ritories east of the Mississippi save New Orleans became
British, including the territory of Florida, which was ceded
by Spain as the price of the restoration of Havana. On the
North American continent France retained nothing but the
unexplored territory west of the Mississippi, which she
handed over to Spain, and the two tiny islands of St. Pierre \
and Miquelon in the St. Lawrence estuary, which she kept
as a foothold for her fishermen, for whom fishing rights off
Newfoundland were preserved. The destiny of the North
American continent lay in British hands : self-government,
not autocracy, was to shape the future development of that
vast land. In the West Indies France regained her richest
islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe ; but Grenada, St. Vin
cent, Tobago and Dominica, hitherto neutral, became British.
In the Mediterranean Minorca was restored, to become once
more a British naval base and a security for British supre
macy in that sea. In distant India France regained her
two trading stations, but only for purposes of trade, not as

ch. vii.] PITT AND MASTERY OVERSEAS 757
mihtary establishments ; and in effect she recognised the
political supremacy of Britain both in Bengal and in South-
Eastern India. Thus in the East as in the West and on the
seas, the absolute supremacy of Britain was estabhshed.
The most striking omission of the treaty was that of any
definite settlement of European problems. Frederick of
Prussia was, in fact, deserted by Pitt's successors ; and but
for the lucky accident which brought to the Russian throne
his devoted admirer Peter in. (1762) in place of his enemy
Ehzabeth, the desertion would have involved his ruin. As
it was, he ended the war with no addition to his exhausted
and enfeebled dominions, though with enormously height
ened prestige ; and because he believed himself to have been
treated with a treachery which was only pardonable in
himself, he was henceforth distrustful and hostile to Britain.
The failure to observe faith with Frederick is the main
criticism which can be fairly made against the treaty of
1763. But it was bitterly criticised at the time, and has
often been criticised since, on the ground that it gave to
Britain less than she had a right to claim. It may be
admitted that she could have insisted upon greater acquisi
tions had she chosen to do so. Had she willed it, no power
could have prevented her from taking all the French West
Indies and practicaUy as much as she liked of the Spanish
dominions ; she could have kept the French West African
possessions ; she could have seized Louisiana ; she could
have excluded France from the trade with India and from
the Newfoundland fisheries ; she could have annexed the
Philippines. All these things her statesmen voluntarily
gave up ; partly, no doubt, because they were eager to
conclude peace, but partly also because they dreaded the
reaction that would foUow such a use of overwhelming
power. And for that reason the treaty of Paris may fairly
be described as a moderate treaty.
It was a wise moderation. Britain had won an unchal
lengeable supremacy on the seas ; it behoved her not to
use it tyrannicaUy, and, despite the complaints which have
come from neutrals as to the way in which this power has
been used in war-time, it cannot fairly be said that it has
ever been tyrannicaUy employed. Britain had become the
first of trading nations. Had she tried to turn her leader
ship into a monopoly in those tropical lands which had so
long attracted the traders of the world, as Spain and Portugal
had earher done, she would have courted a doom hke theirs,
and she would also have stultified her own professions of

758 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
liberalism. She had made great material acquisitions — as
great perhaps as she could profitably attempt to administer.
But what is more important, she had assumed responsibihties
of a magnitude and complexity such as no people in the
world's history had yet undertaken. She had ensured the
establishment of self-government throughout the continent
of North America, but in doing so had necessarily raised in
an acute form the problem of justly determining the rela
tions between these self-governing communities and the
mother country under whose aegis they had been planted.
She had undertaken in India a task whose magnitude and
complexity no human being could yet perceive. In one
aspect the treaty of Paris is the culmination of a century
and a half of colonising activities and of international
rivalries. But after it there was immediately to open a new
era of great problems and great opportunities, in the treat
ment of which human history had no guidance to give ;
since human history presented no parallel to the amazing
structure of the British Commonwealth of free peoples, as
the genius of Pitt had left it.
[Williams' Life of Pitt ; Mahan's Influence of Sea-power in History ;
Corbett's England in the Seven Years' War ; Fortescue's History of
the British Army ; Bradley's Conquest of Canada ; KembaU's Pitt's
Despatches to Colonial Governors ; Marriott and Robertson's Rise of
Prussia ; Atkinson's History of Germany in the Eighteenth Century ;
Carlyle's Frederick the Great (especially the magnificent battle-
pieces) .]

CHAPTER VIII
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA
§ i. The Main Factors of Indian Politics.
During the twenty years' struggle which led to the estab
lishment of British supremacy on the seas and in the
continent of North America, a still more remarkable trans
formation was taking place in the East : the foundations of
British pohtical power in India were being unconsciously
laid. In many ways the course of events in India was
deeply affected by the struggle in the West. In particular,
as we shall see, British naval supremacy, as soon as it began
to be skilfuUy wielded, exercised a decisive influence upon
Indian affairs, by making it impossible for the French to send
adequate reinforcements to their representatives in India.
Nevertheless the struggle in India can best be treated as a
separate story, all the more because its main features were
due to great changes which were taking place in India itself.
During the first century of British and French trade
relations with India the traders had had to deal with strong
and consohdated Indian powers whose existence made the
creation of territorial dominion by the European traders
unthinkable.1 The whole of Northern India, together
with Afghanistan, had formed the powerful Mohammedan
empire of the Moguls, with its capitals at Agra and Delhi,
while in the south three substantial minor Mohammedan
States divided the greater part of the peninsula between
them : only in the south-east were there numerous indepen
dent Hindu principalities, known as the Polygars.
Thus almost the whole of India was under the rule of
Mohammedan princes, though the Mohammedans formed a
smaU minority of the population ; and this had been the case '
ever since the first Mohammedan conquests in the eleventh
century. Since that date the history of India had mainly
been the history of a succession of invasions from the north
west through the Afghan passes, of a succession of empires
maintained by mere mihtary force over the subject popula-
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 59 (a). 759

760 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
tions, and of an endless series of wars between these con
querors. For nearly seven centuries India had known no
government save the military rule of foreign conquerors,
separated from the mass of their subjects by profound
barriers of religion.
That is a surprising fact, which has to be explained. It
was mainly due to the disunited condition of the Indian
peoples. They belonged to many different races, in many
stages of civilisation, from the primitive and backward
tribes of jungle and hill-tracts to the highly cultivated
Brahmins and the proud and warlike Rajputs. They spoke
a multitude of languages, more numerous than those of
Europe, and differing more widely from one another. And
these differences were intensified and complicated by the
remarkable system of caste, which was not only far more
deeply rooted than the distinctions of class in any other
land in the world, but was maintained and enforced by aU
the sanctions of the Hindu religion. This is not the place
for any discussion of the Indian caste system. But it
formed, and still forms, the fundamental and dominating fact
of Indian life. The castes were innumerable. In part they
represented racial distinctions, in part they corresponded
with trades and occupations. Each caste had and has its
own peculiar usages, its own religious observances, its own
rules as to food and clothing, its own caste organisation, its
special occupations. Every Hindu was and is born into a
caste, from which he can never escape save by ceasing to
be an Hindu ; and by the rules of the caste- the whole of his
life is in the main determined. Any intermingling of castes
by intermarriage, or even by intimate social intercourse,
was and is prohibited : a man who broke caste rules
in these matters would become outcaste, excluded from all
human relationship not only with his caste-feUows, but with
the members of other castes.
This remarkable system had one great virtue : it kept
the machinery of society at work, whatever wars and
revolutions might sweep over the country. Invaders might
come and go, empires rise and faU, but trie castes continued
to carry on their hereditary functions in accordance with
their inherited traditions, with which no conqueror ever
found it possible to meddle. That is the explanation of the
extraordinary fixity of Indian life. The system also made
it easy to govern the country through the great priestly caste
of the Brahmins, who exercised a religious ascendency which
all the lower castes accepted and recognised, and whose

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 761
inherited aptitude for learning and skill in intrigue made
them indispensable for administrative work. AU the suc
cessive conquerors used the Brahmins as the agents of their
authority. On the other hand the system was necessarily
destructive of individual initiative, and of readiness to
act otherwise than as caste usage dictated : it made the
co-operation of members of different castes extremely
difficult ; and it therefore made India a very easy country
to rule. The caste system gave to India a very stable social
order, and a sort of social unity ; but it was a unity rooted
in disunity. In conjunction with the chaos of languages
and races which had enabled it to grow up, the caste system
prevented the rise of any sentiment of national patriotism
such as would have made the rule of foreign conquerors
impossible. The castes had been trained not to look beyond
the traditional demands of caste rules : so long as these
rules were not interfered with, they were indifferent to the
transference of power, over their heads, from one conqueror
to another.
The Mohammedan conquests had introduced another ele
ment into the chaos of Indian racial and caste distinctions
— the bitter conflict of religious beliefs. Between Hinduism
and Mohammedanism there were fundamental differences, as
fundamental as those between any two religions in the world.
The Mohammedan believes in one God ; Hinduism includes
in its pantheon thousands of divinities, and, though many
Brahmin philosophers hold an exalted and rarefied mono
theism, that does not affect the beliefs of the mass of ordinary
Hindus. The Mohammedan regards all images not merely of
gods but of men or animals as irreligious : Hindu worship
largely turns on the use of innumerable images and symbols.
The Mohammedan holds that all faithful believers are equal
in the sight of God, and largely carries this belief into his
ordinary practice ; the most essential thing in Hinduism
is the caste system, and the behef that every man is born
into certain obhgations, and a certain status, from which he
can never escape. Between two religions so opposite nothing
but antipathy could exist. The conflict was restrained, as
a rule, by the wise moderation of Mohammedan rulers, but it
formed a powerful obstacle to the rise of any sense of unity
among the Indian peoples.
Thus the Mohammedans were a ruling class, entrenched in
power : everywhere save in the Punjab (which was nearest to
their original homes) and in Bengal (where large numbers of
low-caste Hindus had been converted to Mohammedanism)

762 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
they were in a smaU minority. They formed a sort of gar
rison for the Mohammedan ascendency, and were deeply
conscious of their own superiority. They had little of
the intellectual subtlety which centuries of training had
developed among the Brahmins ; they drew their strength
partly from the fact that they were constantly reinforced by
vigorous new invaders from Central Asia, and partly from
the fact that they were not divided into mutuaUy exclusive
castes, but were unified by that common zeal which Islam
has always known how to create.
None of the empires and kingdoms which had successively
risen and faUen in India had ever been more than mere
dominions, or had ever attempted to establish a stable
system of equal justice and impartial laws for its subjects.
Apart from the misery which their wars inflicted, their rise
and fall had made very little difference to the mass of the
people. Hindus lived under Hindu law, Mohammedans under
Mohammedan law ; the notion of one equal law for all did
not exist ; and those who administered the law habitually
used their power in an arbitrary way, and expected to make
profit out of their authority.
The Mogul Empire had been the best of the long series of
Indian empires. It had at least organised a systematic;
method of collecting the revenues, taking about one-third
of the gross produce of all lands ; the earlier Moguls had
followed a wise policy of toleration towards the Hindus ;
and they had tried to secure more efficient administration
of their huge dominions by dividing them into large subas
or satrapies, each under the absolute control of a Nawab
(deputy), with a Diwan for financial administration. The
courts of the Great Moguls were very splendid ; their armies
were innumerable ; their power seemed irresistible. But
of course all their wealth was drawn from the people ; and
traveUers from Europe who visited India during the period
of the Moguls' greatest splendour speak in as strong terms
of the misery and poverty of the mass of the people as they
do of the opulent magnificence of the court. So long as
peace was maintained, and the due amount of revenue was
regularly paid, the Moguls were content to leave their
subjects in the provinces at the mercy of the great officers
who ruled them. Even at the height of the Mogul power
order was ill-maintained. The Moguls never succeeded in
creating a system which would secure the impartial adminis
tration of justice. Their authority depended altogether
upon the vigour and the power of the sovereign. Every

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 763
Mogul emperor in turn had to fight his way to the succession,
and at every such dispute the whole fabric seemed in danger
of dissolution ; for merely mihtary dominations of this
character always rest upon very precarious foundations.
But for all that, the Mogul Empire succeeded for nearly
two centuries in maintaining a certain degree of peace and
order over the great expanse of Northern India ; and so
long as this lasted it could never occur to the European
traders, whose factories were dotted round the coasts, to
create a political dominion for themselves.

§ 2. The Chaos of Eighteenth-Century India : the
Mahrattas and the Afghans.
In the first half of the eighteenth century the Mogul
Empire feU (as sooner or later it was bound to do) into
sudden and utter ruin ; and it was the chaos which arose
from this downfaU that rendered possible the dramatic
events with which we are immediately concerned. The
Emperor Aurangzib,1 in the second half of the seventeenth
century, had entered upon a career of conquest in Southern
India. He had overthrown the southern Mohammedan king
doms, and organised the whole of this vast region as a single
great suba, the suba of the Deccan. But he had been un
able to make his authority real in his new conquests. In
Southern India he had only produced anarchy, while the
strain of his long wars, combined with his militant rehgious
policy, had weakened his hold even in the north. Above
all he had stirred into activity a hornets' nest among the
Mahrattas of the west, whom his conquests had aroused
into activity.
The Mahrattas were Hindus, mainly of low castes, who
inhabited the jagged mountains which border the western
Indian coast, and much of the uplands behind.2 They spoke
a distinctive language of their own, which gave them a
certain unity ; they were skilful horsemen and formidable
guerilla fighters ; and they had among them an extremely
able race of Brahmins, the Chitpayan Brahmins, who have
shown themselves to be possessed of even more than the
average degree of Brahmin subtlety and administrative
capacity. The Mahrattas had found a brilliant leader in
their prince Sivaji, under whose rule they had suddenly
1 There is. a short life of Aurangzib, by S. Lane-Poole, in the Rulers of

ndia senes.
* "See the map, Atlas, Plate 61 (a).

764 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
begun to play a great part in Indian politics ; before his
death in 1680 they were already a great power. Their light
horsemen gravely embarrassed Aurangzib's armies ; triey
raided immense areas of country, gathering plunder ; and
all attempts to crush them were in vain. They were the
first great Hindu power that had arisen in India for many
centuries, and that was part of their strength.
At the time of Aurangzib's death in 1707 the Mogul throne
was already undermined. During the brief and troubled
reigns of his successors it rapidly fell into complete dis
organisation. The viceroys of some of the great provinces
became practically independent princes, paying only a
nominal allegiance to the Mogul at Delhi. The most
important of these 1 were the Nawabs of Oudh and Bengal
in the north, and the subadar of the Deccan in the south,
where a very vigorous prince, the Nizam-ul-Mulk, was making
Hyderabad the centre of a large hereditary dominion ; sub
ordinate to the ruler of Hyderabad was the Nawab of the
Camatic. These potentates gave a nominal recognition to
the Mogul, whose real authority was now limited to the
country round Delhi ; but they obeyed him only when it
suited their convenience to do so. And they were not able
to enforce their authority even in their own provinces.
Petty local rajas, in many parts of the country, became in
effect independent princes. In the midst of the confusion
adventurers found it easy to carve out dominions for them
selves. Thus a band of Afghan raiders, known as the
Rohillas, established themselves in the country known as
Rohilkhand (near Delhi and north of Oudh ) : thus the
warlike Hindu sect of the Sikhs were establishing their power
in the Punjab, so far as Afghan raiders from the hills would
aUow them to do so : thus the daring adventurer Hyder Ali
a little later made himself master of Mysore in the south,
and extended his power on all sides.
But the most impressive feature of the period was the
rise of the power of the Mahrattas. During the first half
of the eighteenth century their raids and conquests were
extending over every part of India. They had won more or
less direct control over a vast area in Central India, where
every raja paid them tribute. Their armies of raiding
horsemen were seen in every part of India ; they appeared
almost simultaneously in 1740 before places so far apart as
Calcutta and Madras. They claimed chauth (a fixed share
of the public revenues paid as blackmail to secure the
1 See the map, Atlas, Plate 61 (a).

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 765
country from devastation) even from some of the greatest
princes : thus one-fourth of the revenues of the Deccan
were paid over to them, for no service at all save that of
abstaining from plunder. During all the period of the
French and English conflict, which forms our main theme,
the power of the Mahrattas was still growing, and in 1750
and for long afterwards it seemed as if they were to be the
new masters of India in place of the Moguls.
But the Mahrattas showed no capacity for the develop
ment of a just and firm system of government. For them
government meant simply the exaction of revenue, not the
rendering of services to their subjects. They could not
even create a unified government of their own dominions,
such as the Moguls had been able to create. The supreme
authority among the Mahrattas had now been annexed by
Brahmin rulers, known as the Peshwas, who acted nominally
as hereditary prime ministers for the descendants of Sivaji,
kept in seclusion at Sattara, but really as the independent
heads of the whole confederacy. During the period with
which we are concerned — the first half of the eighteenth
century — the power of the Peshwas was real, and from their
capital at Poena (behind Bombay) they effectively con
trolled the general pohcy of the Mahrattas. But even in
this period they were not without rivals, notably the family
of Bhonsla, who ruled the greater part of the vast region
now'known as the Central Provinces, and whose perpetual
jealousy and opposition greatly hampered the action of the
Peshwa. Other chiefs also, heads of raiding bands, were
rising into prominence, and tending to act independently,
notably the famihes of Sindhia and Holkar. Even when it
was most formidable, the Mahratta power was never well
organised ; it was destructive rather than constructive ; and
it did not at any time make any contribution towards the
creation of a just and impartial system of government,
primarily concerned about the welfare of its subjects.
The only serious competitors of the Mahrattas for the
succession to the Mogul supremacy seemed to be the Afghans,
who controlled the passes of the north-west, through which
all the successive conquerors of India had come. Indeed
the loss of control over these passes, which is necessary for
the safeguarding of India, was one of the first marked signs
of the downfaU of the Moguls. When in 1739 Nadir Shah,-,
master both of Persia and of Afghanistan, burst down into
India and sacked Delhi, it seemed as if the inheritance of
the Moguls was his for the taking — as if he would repeat

766 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
what the early Moguls of the sixteenth century had achieved.
The sack of Delhi marks the final ruin of the Mogul Empire ;
henceforth the emperors were mere puppets in the hands of
one power or another. But Nadir Shah was content to
plunder, and withdrew beyond the mountains, only claiming
supremacy over the great province of the Punjab ; and here
the Afghan supremacy was perpetually chaUenged by the
Sikhs. Nevertheless an Afghan incursion always seemed a
possibility ; and any serious student of Indian politics in
1750 would have said that the future overlordship of India
lay between the masters of Afghanistan on the one hand
and the Mahrattas on the other. The Mahrattas themselves
realised this ; and when Nadir Shah's empire broke up, and
the Afghans, now apparently less formidable, began once
more to raid the plains, the Mahrattas sent an army to
occupy the Punjab and drive the invaders back to their
hills. For a moment they were successful ; and this date
(1759), which corresponds with the most dazzling victories
of Britain in the west, may be said to mark the highest
point of Mahratta power. They dominated Indian affairs.
Their influence was felt all over India, from the Khyber Pass
to Cape Comorin. The greatest of the Mogul provinces,
Bengal and Hyderabad, paid chauth to them ; their horse
men were known and spread terror in every part of the
country. But in 1759 the Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah, came
down with all the fighting men of the hills ; and after
raiding and plundering for two years fought a pitched battle
with a huge Mahratta host at Panipat (1761), north of
Delhi. The Mahrattas were routed with tremendous
slaughter. It is a striking coincidence that it was at Panipat
that Baber, the founder of the Mogul Empire, who also
came from Afghanistan, had won the decisive victory which
established his power in India in the sixteenth century :
it looked as if a new invading dynasty from over the
hiUs was to repeat the old cycle, and found a new
empire. But Ahmad Shah, like Nadir Shah, was content
to raid and plunder. He returned to Afghanistan, keep
ing only Kashmir and the borders of the Punjab. The
field was left clear for the Mahrattas. But it took them
a long time to recover from Panipat ; and from this time
onwards they were increasingly weakened by the quarrels
of their various chieftains, who became more and more
independent. They also, like the Afghans, were sacrificing
their chance of supremacy ; and they had already shown

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 767
that if supremacy had fallen to them it would have brought
no improvement in government for the mass of the Indian
peoples. In comparison with these gigantic conflicts, and with the
immense spreading power of the Mahrattas, the httle squab
bles of French and Enghsh traders in a corner of the country,
and the petty succession-disputes of Indian princes with
which they were mixed up, seemed altogether unimportant.
Yet those apparently insignificant conflicts were to bring
into the field a new and involuntary candidate for the
supremacy of all India, the British East India Company. In
1750, or even in 1761, no one could possibly have foretold
or imagined, and least of all the East India Company itself,
that this body of foreign traders was ultimately to succeed
in establishing a dominion far more complete and extensive
not merely than that of the Mahrattas now was, but even
than that of the Moguls had ever been ; a dominion which was
to give to India pohtical unity, which she had never known
in aU her history, peace such as not even Akbar had ever
been able to give, and a uniform system of impartiaUy
administered law, a boon which no Indian dominion had
ever conferred. It is important to remember that the first
stages in the marveUous development which has led to these
results were due to the chaos resulting from the coUapse of
the Mogul Empire ; and that these first stages were passed
through whUe the far more impressive growth of Mahratta
power was taking place, and were overshadowed by the
conflict of the Mahrattas and the Afghans. This conflict,
indeed, contributed very directly to the growth of the
British power. If it had not taken place, and if the Mah
rattas had not suffered the crushing blow of Panipat in 1761,
it is extremely unlikely that the power of the British traders
would ever have been established. The background of
conflict which we have tried to sketch may seem confused
and bewUdering, but it is essential to an understanding of
the amazing story which we have now to tell.
§ 3. French and British in the Carnatic : the Projects of
Dupleix.
On the edge of the whirring chaos into which India had
now been reduced lay the factories or trading stations of
the European powers, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British ;
we need only concern ourselves with the French and British
stations. British trading activities were organised under

768 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
the control of three main trading centres, Bombay, Madras
and Calcutta, each independently managed by a President
and Council, who reported separately to the Directors at
home ; each had a number of branch collecting stations in
the wide area with which it dealt, but it was only at the three
headquarters that there was any considerable number of
British residents. The French had only two main factories,
Pondicherry, some distance south of Madras, and Chander-
nagore, a little north of Calcutta ; but the Chandernagore
factory was definitely subordinated to that of Pondicherry.
Both companies had found it necessary to fortify their head
quarters, in view of the disordered state of the country, and
to maintain small bodies of troops — Indian sepoys who were
trained to fight in the European manner under European I
officers. It had often been proved in the past that small
forces of Indian troops thus trained and led could hold their
own against the vast disorderly mobs which Indian princes
brought into the field ; but the fuU extent of this superiority
was yet to be shown. The French had one considerable
advantage over their British rivals. In the island of Mau
ritius, near Madagascar, they had a calling station for their .
ships, and a possible naval base, such as the British lacked.
During the quarter of a century foUowing the death of
Louis xiv. the French had displayed an unwonted energy in
the development of their trade, which, though it was far
from rivalling that of the British company, was nevertheless
growing so rapidly as to arouse their jealousy and alarm.
They had opened new branch trading stations, notably
one at Mahe on the west coast (1725). Benoit Dumas at
Pondicherry (1735-1741), and Francois Dupleix his subor
dinate at Chandernagore (1730-1741),]^ put a new vigour
into their work. Dumas, in particular, had estabhshed
very friendly relations with the neighbouring princes, and
had given a refuge at Pondicherry to the family of the
Nawab of the Carnatic when he was slain by the Mahrattas :
this connexion was to be of great importance in the future,
though in 1740 this family lost its throne and was replaced
by another ruler, Anwar-ud-din. Thus the French, in
advance of the British, were starting the policy of building
up their influence at the native courts.
From about 1740 onwards, while the War of the Austrian
Succession was raging in Europe, and Britain and Spain were
fighting on the seas, the traders of both nations in India
were anticipating, some with alarm, others with hope, the
outbreak of direct war between France and Britain. It was

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 769
long delayed ; it did not actually begin tUl 1744. But the
intervening years were fiUed with preparations. Some
hoped that the rival traders in India would maintain neu-
trahty as they had done during the wars of Louis xiv.
The English company would readily have welcomed this
means of carrying on their rich trade without interruption.
The French company at home was of the same mind. But
two bold and enterprising Frenchmen had recently succeeded
to the control of the two chief' French posts : Mahe de
Labourdonnais, a famous and adventurous seaman, had
become Governor of Mauritius in 1735 ; Francois Dupleix 1
had become Governor of Pondicherry in 1741 ; and both of
these men, very different as they were in temper, had con
ceived the idea of using the opportunity to strike a blow
against British trading superiority. Labourdonnais, in par
ticular, had created a fleet at Mauritius, with which he hoped
to do much damage. To guard against danger from this fleet,
the British government sent out a squadron as soon as the
war began. It arrived off Madras before Labourdonnais
was ready, and it might have done grave mischief to the
French. But the Nawab of the Carnatic, Anwar-ud-din,
perriaps influenced by Dupleix, warned the British that he
would not permit any fighting between the Europeans in
his dominions. The fleet left the coast ; and the British
lost the moment of their superiority of strength.
In 1746 Labourdonnais appeared with his fleet off Pondi
cherry ; and, though he and Dupleix quarrelled violently,
they managed to direct a joint naval and mihtary attack
against Madras. The British, trusting to the protection of
the Nawab, were unready and had no adequate garrison.
Madras was easily captured. Dupleix had previously
tried to win over the Nawab by offering to hand over the
town to him. But once in possession he clung to his gain,
and when Anwar-ud-din sent an army of 10,000 men to
enforce his wiU, they were routed by a little force of 500
European-trained troops. This was a startling revelation of
the capacity of such troops. It raised French prestige to the
highest point. The British were left with only the little
Fort St. David, a hundred miles further south, where they
were hard pressed. When a large British naval squadron
came out in 1748 and attacked Pondicherry without success,
French prestige rose to a still greater height, and Dupleix's
influence at the native courts rose in proportion. The
1 There is a short hfe of Dupleix by Colonel Malleson in the Rulers of
India Series.
VOL. I. 3 c

770 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
British seemed to be crushed ; their trade in this region
might be expected to fall into the hands of the French.
It was a bitter disappointment to Dupleix when the war
was ended by the treaty of Aix-la-ChapeUe in 1748, before
he had completed the destruction of the British power, and
a stiU more bitter disappointment when, under the terms of
the treaty, he had to hand back Madras in exchange for
distant Louisbourg. But the peace did not lead him to
abandon his ambitious schemes. It only changed their
character. He resolved to use the immense prestige that he
had acquired, and the power of his European-trained troops,
to intervene in the dynastic disputes of the South Indian
princes. He would become the arbiter of South Indian
politics, and thus establish French influence over the native
governments. Having done that, he would be able, through
his princely alhes, to make the position of the British
intolerable, to destroy their trade, perhaps to order
them out of the country. If the British remained neutral,
so much the worse for them ; if they intervened, he was
confident of being able to deal with them. This bold project
he proceeded to carry out in spite of the fact that there was
formal peace between Britain and France. UnwiUingly and
half-heartedly the British were forced to follow suit ; and
thus, in India as in America, the eight years of nominal
peace (1748-1756) were years of intensified strife.
Dupleix's main plan was to dethrone the existing Nawab
of the Carnatic, Anwar-ud-din, and to place on his throne
a French protege, Chanda Sahib, a member of the previous
ruling family whom the French had earlier befriended.
Chanda was a prisoner in the hands of the Mahrattas, and
Dupleix helped to obtain his release in order to put him
forward, knowing that a prince thus established would feel
himself dependent upon the French, as weU as bound to
them by gratitude. But just at the moment when this plan
was maturing the old Nizam of Hyderabad died, and rival
candidates appeared for the succession to this great dominion,
the greatest in Southern India, of which the Carnatic itself
was a dependency. Dupleix took up the cause of the weaker
of the two candidates. If he should be successful in his
bold schemes, all Southern India would pass under his
influence, and the British would be at his mercy.
It is needless to follow the details of the campaigns.
By 1750 Dupleix was wholly successful. His candidates
occupied the thrones both of Hyderabad and of the Carnatic.
A large force of Sepoys with French officers, under the

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 771
command of a briUiant French soldier, the Marquis de Bussy,
but paid for by the Nizam, was established at Hyderabad
to protect the Nizam — and to keep him loyal. In the Car
natic Anwar-ud-din had been defeated and slain, and Chanda
Sahib, the French protege, occupied his throne. Anwar-
ud-din's son, Mohammed Ah, was holding out with difficulty
in the fortress of Trichinopoly ; but apart from this there
was no effective resistance. French prestige had reached
a dizzy height ; Dupleix seemed to be master of Southern
India. Once Trichinopoly was captured and Mohammed
Ali disposed of, his ascendency would be complete.
The British in Madras looked on at these proceedings
with helpless alarm. They had dismissed most of their
troops when peace was made ; and, though they saw that
they would be ruined if the French candidates were securely
estabhshed, they were unable to give any material assistance
to Mohammed Ali in Trichinopoly, who formed the only
barrier to a complete French victory. In 1751 the situa
tion at Trichinopoly seemed to be desperate : not only were
the armies of Chanda Sahib and of the French besieging it,
but large forces had been sent to their aid by the Nizam.
Fortunately for the British a new Governor, Thomas
Saunders, had recently arrived at Madras. He understood
the danger. He was a man of courage and tenacity ; and
he had the imagination to listen to the daring proposals of
a young officer of twenty-six, and to provide him with the
means for what seemed a reckless adventure. The young
officer was Robert Clive,1 who had come out to Madras seven
years before as a writer in the comparly's service, but had
exchanged the pen for the sword during the recent war, and
had distinguished himself at the defence of Fort St. David.
His proposal was that, instead of trying to send troops to
Trichinopoly, where the enemy were overwhelmingly numer
ous, an attempt should be made to reheve it by a bold attack
on Argot, the capital of the Carnatic, which was much nearer
— only about fifty miles inland from Madras. On this
desperate adventure he set forth with a force consisting of
8 officers (six of whom had never seen service) and 500 men,
of whom 300 were Indian sepoys. The blow was so swift
and sudden that the garrison of Arcot — far outnumbering
its attackers — fled in panic. The immediate result was that
1 Macaulay's brilhant essay, though it needs correction, is still the best
short account of Clive ; there are also short lives by Colonel Malleson in •
the Rulers of India Series, and by Sir Charles Wilson in the Enghsh Men
of Action Series.

772 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
Chanda Sahib had to withdraw large forces from Trichino
poly to regain his capital. Chve and his gallant 500 stood
a siege of fifty days by a force of 10,000 men, including some
French ; and though his provisions ran out, and the mud
waUs of the fort were in disrepair and far too extensive to
be properly held, he maintained his position, beat off an
attempt to storm the place, and, when the siege was raised,
salhed forth and defeated the enemy in the open.
The capture and defence of Arcot marked the turn of
the tide. In a purely military sense, indeed, the exploit
counted for httle, except that it relieved Trichinopoly for v
the moment. But it was an achievement so dazzling that
it instantaneously raised British prestige, which had sunk
almost to zero, and so made it easier for Mohammed Ali,
whom the British were helping, to get aid from various
Indian powers. More important still was the briUiant reUef
of Trichinopoly in June 1752 by a British force under Major v
Lawrence and Chve, which compeUed a large French force
to surrender and finally raised the siege. Chanda Sahib,
who had surrendered to the Raja of Tanjore, was put to
death by him; and Mohammed Ali, the British protege,'
became Nawab of the Carnatic^
This was a grave blow to Dupleix's schemes. But he was
not yet by any means defeated. Bussy's army stiU domi
nated Hyderabad, and kept that great power loyal to the
French ; and for two years more war swayed backwards
and forwards. But the complete French ascendency of
1751 had vanished. Dupleix was in sore difficulties for
money ; and the French company at home was beginning
to be anxious about this ceaseless fighting, wriich certainly^
was not good for trade. In 1754 the company recalled «
Dupleix, and sent out a sound business man to clear up the
mess he had made. The two companies agreed not to inter
vene in local pohtics any more ; Dupleix's grandiose visions
of an easily acquired empire were gone. He went home to
disgrace and poverty. Yet he had nearly created a great
French dominion ; and he had shown how easily, and by
what methods, a European empire in India could be created.
Even after Dupleix's recall the position of the French in
Southern India was stronger than that of the British.
Mohammed Ali, it is true, occupied the throne of the Carnatic,
and Mohammed Ali was a British protege\ But he was by
no means yet under British control. On the other hand
Bussy was stiU at Hyderabad, and the far greater power of r
the Nizam was wholly under the influence of the French. I

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 773
Bussy's army protected the Nizam against the Mahrattas,
whom he feared ; and this bound the Nizam stiU more firmly
to the French. In 1755, the year after Dupleix's recaU, the
Nizam ceded to Bussy, for the support of his army, the best
parts of the extensive region known as the Northern SarkarsJ
which extended along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. This
was a territorial possession such as the British did not yet pos
sess, and had not yet dreamed of. Thus, on the eve of the final
greatstruggle between France and Britain, the French seemed
to have all the best of the position, in India as in America.
§ 4. Renewed Conflict ; and the Establishment of British
Influence in Bengal
1755, the year in which the French acquired the Northern
Sarkars, was also the year in which war began in the Ohio
VaUey. Everybody knew that formal war between Britain
and France could not long be delayed. The French were
preparing to send out an army to destroy the recently and
insecurely estabhshed power of the British in the Carnatic.
Owing to the lax naval administration of the British govern
ment before Pitt's accession to power, it was aUowed to sail
in 1756, under the command of an Irish exile, Count LaUy,
though it did not reach India tiU 1758.
. MeanwhUe Robert Chve had gone home to England,
where he had a great reception ; and he had urged upon
the directors of the company the necessity of taking mea
sures to counteract Bussy's influence at Hyderabad. For
that purpose he was sent out with a smaU force and a
squadron of ships under Admiral Watson. They arrived
in India in 1756. Their first task was to root out a nest
of Mahratta pirates who had been doing much damage to
British shipping at Gheria on the west coast. Then they
went on to Madras. But there was nothing for them to do
there. The news of the formal declaration of war had not
yet reached India, and nothing could be done against Bussy
while peace lasted. But at Madras terrible news reached
them from Bengal, where hitherto there had been no trouble.
The prosperous British factory at Calcutta had been sud
denly attacked and destroyed by the Nawab of Bengal :
the situation must be restored, and Clive and Watson had
arrived in the nick of time to restore it. The great ques
tion was, could they do what was necessary in Bengal
before LaUy and his army reached India and joined forces
with Bussy ? For the next three years the centre of interest

774 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. VI.
shifts to the hitherto placid and undisturbed province of
Bengal in the north.
The shrewd old Nawab of Bengal, Ahverdi Khan, had
died in April 1756. He had been watching the events in
Southern India ; and just before his death he is said to have
advised his grandson and destined successor, Siraj-uddaula,
to beware of the Europeans and especially of the British.
Siraj-uddaula, a vicious, degenerate and tyrannical youth of
nineteen, resolved to signalise his accession by a bold stroke.
He demanded the surrender of a rich Hindu who had taken
refuge in Calcutta. He ordered the British company to
stop work upon the fortifications, which they were strength
ening in view of the danger from France ; and his only
answer to a remonstrance was to march against Calcutta
with an army of 30,000 men. Calcutta was iU protected,
and only had a small garrison. The President and most of
the leading residents ran away and took refuge on an island
in the Hooghly ; those who remained tried to defend the
Fort, but were easily overpowered. After the surrender
146 captives were shut into a small guard-room known as
the ' Black Hole,' where they had scarcely standing-room
and no air : during an awful June night 123 of them were
suffocated,1 and the remainder were afterwards marched in
chains to the Nawab's capital at Murshidabad. The thriving
British trading settlement in Bengal was simply wiped out.
This was the news which brought Clive and Admiral
Watson hurrying from Madras, with ten ships and a few
troops. They reached the Ganges in December ; on the
2nd of January 1757 they recaptured Calcutta. The
Nawab marched to attack them ; was beaten ; and signed
a treaty by which he promised restitution and compensation
(February 1757).
But Siraj-uddaula had no intention of carrying out the
treaty. He opened negotiations both with the French
governor in Chandernagore and with Bussy in the Northern
Sarkars, for a combined attack upon the British. The news
of the outbreak of war in Europe had now reached India.
It was known that LaUy was on his way with a considerable
French army. Clive felt that his presence might soon be
needed at Madras. The danger was great. To diminish
it, Clive struck suddenly at the French station of Chanderna-
1 An attempt has been made to discredit the story of the Black Hole.
But few events in history are better authenticated. The crime was com
mitted without Siraj-uddaula's knowledge. He expressed no regret and
punished nobody.

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 775
gore, captured it, and thus for a time removed the danger
of a French attack in Bengal.
But the danger from the Nawab was still great, the treaty
was stUl in abeyance, and the Nawab was very indignant
at the attack upon Chandernagore. In the meantime his
capricious and greedy tyranny had alienated the chief
personages at his court. Already a conspiracy was on foot
to dethrone him, and to put in his place his bakhshi or
military treasurer, Mir J afar, an old friend of his father's.
Trie conspirators entered into negotiations with Clive, who
eagerly seized the opportunity. At one moment their plans
were endangered ; for an intermediary, the Hindu Omichand,
threatened to tell the secret to Siraj-uddaula unless he was
promised a vast sum of more than a quarter of a miUion.
Give overcame the difficulty by a treacherous device which
stains his memory : he drew up two treaty forms, a false
one to satisfy Omichand, a real one to bind Mir Jafar. It
was agreed that Mir Jafar should desert the Nawab ; that
he should be placed upon the throne ; and that he should
pay for British assistance immense sums, amounting to
nearly £3,000,000, nominally as compensation for the
damage inflicted by Siraj-uddaula. He was also to transfer
to the British company the administration of the district
round Calcutta, known as the ' twenty-four parganas.'
This secret treaty was signed in May 1757. Clive now be
came peremptory in his demands on the Nawab ; and in June
he set forth with an army of 3000, one-third of which consisted
of British troops, to march against the Nawab's capital,
Mursbidabad. On the other side Siraj-uddaula gathered an
army of 50,000 men, with whom were some fifty Frenchmen.
The odds seemed dangerously great, unless Mir Jafar should
fulfil his promise, and turn against his master. As the
armies drew near one another, doubts of Mir Jafar's staunch
ness began to affect Clive ; and for a moment he almost
decided to avoid a fight. Defeat would mean utter ruin
for the British in Bengal, and perhaps ultimately also in
Southern India. AU the members of his council save one,
Eyre Coote, were for withdrawing. But after an hour's
meditation Clive decided to take the risk. He ferried his
troops across the river, and advanced against the enemy
host, which was encamped in a grove of flowering pilash
trees, at the spot for ever famous as Plassey. The fight
which followed, and which established British power in
Bengal, scarcely deserves to be called a battle : it was a panic.
There was scarcely any serious fighting ; the Bengali troops

776 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
simply ran away. The British lost only 19 men ; the
enemy not more than 500.
The rout of Plassey had portentous results . Siraj -uddaula
fled, and was caught and killed by Mir Jafar's son. Mir
Jafar became Nawab ; his treasury was emptied to meet the
demands of his aUies under the treaty. But he knew, and
all Bengal knew, that henceforth the East India Company
was master : it could dethrone Mir Jafar as it had dethroned
Siraj-uddaula. Mir Jafar was a puppet prince in quite a
different sense from Mohammed Ali in the Carnatic.
The revolution in Bengal was not completed a moment
too soon. In April 1758 a French army landed at Pondi
cherry under the command of Count LaUy, an Irish exile
who had seen service in the French armies in Europe, but
knew nothing of Indian conditions. He was a brave man
and a skilful soldier ; but his tactless and overbearing temper
made it difficult for his officers to work under him, and he
alienated his Indian allies by his disregard for their usages
and ideas. Bussy still dominated Hyderabad ; and the addi
tion of his resources and the power of the Nizam to LaUy's
army promised victory. LaUy began weU by capturing
Fort St. David, which had held out agamst all Dupleix's
attacks. But his campaign was gravely hampered by
the appearance of a British naval squadron, which the
smaU French fleet on the Indian coast did not venture to
resist. To strengthen himself, LaUy recalled Bussy and his
army from Hyderabad, and proceeded (December 1758) to
attack Madras. If Madras should fall, British power in the
south-east of India would come to an end. After a siege of
two months, LaUy was making ready to storm the town,
when once again the appearance of a British squadron at
sea changed the position and compelled the raising of the
siege. Meanwhile the withdrawal of Bussy from Hyderabad had
had disastrous results for the French. Only a smaU French
force remained to defend the Northern Sarkars ; and in the
absence of the great captain, the Nizam's allegiance began
to waver. The Sarkars could be attacked from Bengal ;
and in October 1758 Clive, in spite of the insecurity of
his position in Bengal, despatched Colonel Forde with
every available man to drive the French out of the ''
Sarkars. The expedition was ably conducted. The French
force was defeated ; Masulipatam, the chief town of the
Sarkars and the centre of a "considerable French trade, was -
captured (April 1759)- The Nizam, who had begun to

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 777
move in support of the French, changed his mind, aban
doned the French aUiance, and aUowed the British to
estabhsh themselves in the Sarkars.
The loss of the Nizam's support was fatal to the French.
It completed the downfall of their prestige in the eyes of
those Indian potentates who might have helped them.
LaUy struggled on heroicaUy during the years 1759 and
1760. But his troops were half-starved and inclined to be
mutinous ; and no aid could be expected from France,
because her fleets had been reduced to impotence : Quiberon
Bay had decided the issue in India, as in the West. In
January 1760 LaUy fought the decisive battle of Wandewash
against an army about equal in number to his own* under
Eyre Coote, one of Clive's men from Bengal. The battle
was hard-fought ; but it ended in a complete British victory,
and the great Bussy himself was among the prisoners who
feU into Coote's hands. All that remained after Wandewash.
was to secure the few remaining French posts. They fell
one by one during 1760 ; and in January 1761 Pondicherry
itself, the centre of the French power, was captured, and
the dream of a French empire in India was at an end.
LaUy himself went as a prisoner to England ; when he got
back to France he was tried and beheaded.
Beyond a doubt the final defeat of the French in the south
had been due in part to British naval supremacy and in part
to the strength which the recent conquest of Bengal had
placed in British hands, and the prestige which this conquest
brought in the eyes of all India. Chve had not hesitated
to send troops out of Bengal, and this bold act had deter
mined the course of the conflict in the south. Yet his
position in Bengal was by no means secure. He had to deal
with several revolts against Mir Jafar : only the efficient
troops of the Company could deal with them. He had to
defend Bengal against an attack by the powerful neighbour
ing Nawab of Oudh, who brought with him the Mogul's
eldest son, and claimed in his name the right of disposing
of Bengal as an imperial province. The army of Oudh
was defeated at Patna (1759), once more by the Com
pany's troops. He had to deal with the hostility of the
Dutch, who feared the results of British ascendency,
started intrigues with Mir Jafar, and sent a fleet of
seven ships from Batavia. Chve did not hesitate to
attach; the Dutch factory at Chinsura by land, while a
squadron of three British ships attacked and defeated the
Dutch ships. Wherever Clive and the company's troops

77& MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. VI.
appeared they were victorious. By 1760 the position in
Bengal seemed to be secure, and Clive thought it safe to
leave for England.
§ 5. The Nature of the British Power in India in 1760.
At this point we may break off the narrative of the amazing
series of events which laid the foundations of the British
Empire in India. By 1760 the East India Company had
acquired a complete domination over Bengal. It had not
annexed this great province, or assumed any responsibility
for its government, which continued to be carried on by an
Indian Nawab as before. But this prince was, and knew
that he was, utterly dependent upon the Company for his
very existence. Revolts against his authority had been
crushed — by the Company's armies. A dangerous attack
upon his dominions from without had been repelled— by the
Compan}^ armies. The Nawab dared not pursue an in
dependent policy, or resist the demands of the Company
and its agents, who enjoyed absolute power without any
responsibility for securing good government. Further south
the Company had acquired an ill-defined control over part of
the long stretch of coastal territory known as the Northern
Sarkars. This was far less important than Bengal, and for
the most part the petty rajas who ruled this rather backward
region were left to themselves, without interference . The im- ,
portance of the Sarkars was that they linked up Bengal with!
the Carnatic, and prevented the French (or other seafaring '
rivals of the British power) from having direct dealings with
the Nizam. FinaUy, the throne of the Carnatic was held
by a Nawab who knew that he owed his position to British
aid. He was by no means so completely dependent as the
Nawab of Bengal. Yet British influence was preponderant
at his court, and British trade covered his territories. The
Nizam also had become friendly to the British power ;
though there was no British force dominating Hyderabad,
as Bussy had dominated it from 1748 to 1758.
Such were the beginnings of British territorial power in
India. It consisted of influence based upon military prestige ; ',
it had not yet begun to assert direct sovereignty anywhere.
Clive, indeed, with characteristic -boldness of vision, was
ready to take the next step, and in 1759 he wrote a remark
able letter to Pitt urging that the British government should
assume direct responsibility for the administration of Bengal.
But even Pitt, though he was sympathetic, was not ready

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 779
for so great a change. And the directors of the Company
at home, far from desiring any increase of responsibihty,
were inclined to feel, after the first excitement of victory,
that the power which had fallen into their hands was by no
means an unmixed advantage. The cost of maintaining
armies was very great, and swallowed up more than all the
profits that came from Mir J afar 's concessions. The servants
of the Company in India were being diverted from their main
work, which was, after all, that of trade ; they were getting
out of hand, and becoming too fond of dangerous adventures,
which might be advantageous to themselves but brought no
profit to the Company.
For the truth is that the East India Company had drifted
into the possession of an empire without desiring it, or know
ing what to do with it. They had been drawn into conflict
with the French in the south in sheer self-defence against
Dupleix's ambitious schemes, which would have led to the
destruction of their trade. They had been dr^awn into the
business of king-making in Bengal by Siraj-uddaula's
attack on Calcutta, and by the proved impossibihty of
trusting him. They now found themselves saddled with
costly and indefinite liabilities, and they wanted no increase
of such responsibihties ; they wanted only to get back to
peaceful trade, leaving India to settle her own political
problems. But there was no evading the new responsibilities . Unless
the Company was prepared to evacuate Bengal and Madras,
and to abandon the trade which they carried on there —
and this was an unthinkable alternative — the strength and
prestige which had been won must bring with them political
power ; and power cannot be separated from responsibility
without disastrous results. How dangerous such a separa
tion may be was, indeed, already being demonstrated by
the behaviour of the Company's servants in the years foUow
ing Plassey ; it was to be still more terribly demonstrated
in the next decade. The Company's servants had gone out
to India not for philanthropic reasons, but to make money.
They were paid ridiculously low salaries, and in compensa
tion they had always been allowed to make what money
they could by private enterprise. That was all very well
when they were mere traders, kept in order by powerful
native governments. But now they had suddenly become
the masters of the country ; and at the same time they had
no responsibihty for its government, or for the welfare of
its people. Nobody in Bengal dared deny them what they

780 MARITIME AND COLONIAL SUPREMACY [bk. vi.
asked ; the only authorities who could control them were
seven thousand miles away. What wonder that they took
advantage of their position, accepted, or even demanded,
huge gifts from the Nawab or his nobles, and took unfair
advantages in carrying on their private trade ? What
wonder that they became rich with startling rapidity, and
returned to England to buy country estates and borough
seats in Parliament, and to astonish English society with
their lavishness and luxury ? They were enjoying power
without responsibility, and only exceptional men can re
sist such temptations. Some of them did resist : notably
Warren Hastings, a young writer in the Company's service
whose capacity and vigour had attracted Clive's attention.
But the majority succumbed to the temptation ; and during
the first years of British power in Bengal, and in a less degree
in the Carnatic, it appeared as if the only result of Plassey
and Wandewash were to inflict upon the unhappy Indians
a plague of devouring locusts. British influence — it was
not yet British rule — appeared in these years to be a mere
curse. Thus the acquisition of power in India thrust upon the
British peoples and their Tulers a problem of unexampled
difficulty, the like of which had never had to be faced by
any nation in the world's history. How was this strange
power, which the course of events had thrust into British
hands, to be employed ? Was it to be used merely for the
exploitation of the subject peoples, and the enrichment of
their conquerors ? Or were the distant Islands of the West
to find some means whereby their power should bring an
increase, not a diminution, of justice and hberty ? How were
the habits of life and thought of a Western people to be
adjusted to the social life and the political systems of a
land so utterly unfamiliar as India ?
These were immense and exacting problems, even more
difficult than the problems created by the establishment of
British supremacy in the North American Continent. But
in 1760, when Clive came home to enjoy his triumph and to
restore the fallen fortunes of his family, the magnitude and
complexity of these problems were not yet apparent. The
one obvious and outstanding fact was that the power
of the old rival France had been shattered even more
completely in the East than in the West, and that by a
sort of miracle Britain had become the mistress of an
amazing new empire. Throned on the seas, she wielded
at once the sceptre of the Old World and the New. That

ch. viil] BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 781
was enough for the men of 1760, while the great war was
still raging.
fMnir's Making of Modern India ; V. A. Smith's History of India ;
Roberts' Historical Geography of India ; Wheeler's or Innes' Short
History of India; Dodwell's Dupleix and Clive; Forrest's Life of
Clive ; Lyall's Rise and Expansion of the British Power in India ;
Malleson's~TAe French in India; Mahan's Influence of Sea-power
upon History ; Grant Duff's History of the Mahrattas]

CHAPTER IX
THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF THE BRITISH COM
MONWEALTH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHT
EENTH CENTURY
The culmination of splendour and success which was attained
by the British Commonwealth in 1763 was immediately to
be followed by a period of great change and great problems —
the period of the American Revolution, of the Agrarian and
Industrial Revolutions, of the awakening of Ireland to a
sense of her grievances, of the beginning of a demand for
pohtical reconstruction in England, and, finaUy, as the
climax of all these revolutionary movements, of the French
Revolution. Under the impact of these successive up
heavals the old social order and the old pohtical ideas
were to be challenged and eventually overthrown ; and it is
necessary, before we turn our attention to these tremendous
events, that we should obtain as clear an idea as possible of
the old order which was to be so profoundly transformed.
§ 1. The Prosperity and Freedom of England.
A historian of the period has made the large claim that
except in the Roman Empire under the Antonines there has
never been a country or a period in which prosperity was
so widely diffused or contentment so general as in England
during the first half of the eighteenth century. We shall see
that though this may be true, it suggests a too rosy view of
the time. Yet the statement was not without justification.
Foreign observers who visited England during this period —
and they were numerous, because England was widely re
garded as the very model of a free, prosperous and orderly
State — almost unanimously fixed upon two main themes for
their praises : the general comfort of the people and the
freedom which they enjoyed.
Even the poorest classes, these observers noted, did not
need to go barefoot, or to wear wooden shoes, like the
782

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 783
peasantry of France ; they mostly ate wheat-bread, an un
heard of luxury among the poorer classes on the Continent ;
there were few famihes which did not have meat at least
three or four times a week ; the general impression left with
the traveller was that of a well-clad and well-fed people,
very different from the ragged and emaciated peasantry
of France. And although a closer analysis of the conditions
does not wholly bear out these assertions, it is impossible
to disregard them. With the possible exception of the Dutch
there was no people in the Old World among whom there was '
a higher standard of comfort than among the English ; they
were only surpassed, in all the world, by their own daughter
communities in the New World, which enjoyed the inex
haustible riches of a virgin land. There was much to deplore
in their condition, as we shall see. But they were at least
happier than the inhabitants of any other European country,
and probably happier than their own ancestors in any period
of their history.
As for their freedom, in that respect they were incoriipar-
ably better off than the people of any other country save the
British colonies. Serfdom had ceased altogether to exist
in England. Every man might think or say or write almost
what he pleased, and there was no serious restraint upon
the expression of opinions. In theory at all events, if not
always in practice, the law was the same for all men, rich
and poor. There were no caste restrictions recognised by
law, and a man of vigour and enterprise could make his way
in most careers. AU this was true, even if it was also true
(as we shall see) that this freedom was in practice restricted
in many ways. And it was further true that a very much
larger proportion of the English people had the right and
the opportunity to take a share in the management of com
mon affairs than was the case in other countries. Though
England was far from being a democratic country, she was
in a real sense a self-governing country ; and her superiority
in this respect aroused the envy and admiration of foreign
observers. As we shaU see, material quaUfications must be
made to the sweeping statements about English political
liberty in which the panegyrists of the British constitution
were fond of indulging. But at least it is true that the
British peoples had advanced further along the painful and
difficult road towards real pohtical and social freedom than
any country in the world had yet done. They were the
pioneers of liberty.

784 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.

§ 2. English Rural Society and its Organisation.
Despite the rapid progress of her foreign trade and of her
manufacturing industries, England was stiU predominantly
an agricultural country, and more than three-fourths of her
population lived on and by the land. The great bulk of
this large number — that is to say, the main body of the
Enghsh people — belonged to the class which worked with its
own hands on the land : the peasantry. But there was
very wide diversity among the members of this class. Some
were hired servants living with their employers. Some were
day-labourers, earning a wage by working on the land of
others ; but these in very many cases had a patch of land
of their own, and in most cases could keep a few geese, or a
pig, or even a cow, with the help of the viUage commons,
which also provided them with fuel ; while their wives and
daughters could supplement the family income by spinning
yarn for the weavers : their bare wages by no means repre
sented their real incomes. Others had little farms of their
own which occupied almost the whole of their own and their
families' labour, though sometimes they might do a few days'
work for a large farmer, and some of them might occasion
ally employ a day-labourer. There was thus a gradation
among the hand-workers of agriculture ; there were pro
spects and possibihties of advancement ; and the majority
of the members of this class had some interest in the land
they tilled.
The class of the peasantry shaded insensibly into the next
class, the cultivators of substantial farms who worked their
farms by hired labour. This class included both men who
owned their own farms — still a large number — and men who
paid rent for them ; it may be conveniently described as
the Yeomanry, though strictly speaking the term should
be reserved for small proprietors. Between the prosperous
peasant who occasionally hired extra labour, and the small
yeoman who worked hard alongside of his men, there was
no sharp distinction ; the one easily passed into the other.
In the same way the yeoman class shaded insensibly into the
class above it, that of the squirearchy, who may be de
scribed as the class which drew its livelihood from the rent
of land. There was very little difference between a sub
stantial yeoman and a small squire who farmed some of his
own land. Thus the agricultural society, though it was
divided into grades, was more or less homogeneous, and there

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 785
were no such sharp distinctions of classes and interests as
later arose.
This homogeneity of village society was accentuated by
the way in which most villages were organised. In spite
of the large number of ' enclosures ' which had been made
during the previous centuries, probably three-fifths of the
cultivated land of England was still organised on the open-
field system. Under this system the arable land of the
viUage was divided into very large fields, each having many
strips held by many cultivators, all of whom had to agree to
grow the same crops, and to plough, sow and reap at the same
times. After the crops were cut, the big fields could be used
for pasture, and there had to be agreement as to the number
of beasts each viUager was entitled to turn into the fields.
Then every viUage had its meadow-land for hay ; many
viUagers snared in the hay in agreed proportions ; and the
meadow-land also was used for pasture when the hay was
cut. FinaUy almost every viUage had its wide expanse of
common land, used by all for pasture and often for peat-
cutting. This system had the great drawback that it made
the introduction of new crops or improved methods very
difficult, and presented serious obstacles to agricultural
development. But just for that reason it protected the
smaU man against the competition of his more enterprising
neighbour. It also turned the viUage into a real community,
in which everybody had a part ; for all had their share in the
annual discussions as to what crops should be grown, and
when they should be sown and cut ; and in the election of
the numerous petty village officers whose services the
system demanded.
The system could not last permanently. Indeed, it was
already slowly decaying. In large parts of the country it
had practically disappeared. Even where it survived, the
more substantial proprietors had in many cases succeeded
in getting their holdings concentrated in a single block, cut
out from the common fields and ' enclosed,' which they
could cultivate as they thought best, without being bound
by the agreements of the whole viUage. But over the
greater part of England the system still survived in a more
or less complete form, and with it survived the community-
spirit which it engendered. Even where it had almost
wholly broken up, the village commons still generally
survived, and these were in many respects treated as common
property under common management.
Moreover, alongside of the village organisation of agricul-
vol. 1. 3 d

786 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
ture there was the parish organisation, which managed local
roads and little local charities, and, above all, the adminis
tration of poor relief. The controUing body of the parish
was the vestry, originally an assembly of all ratepayers
which met once a year to elect parish officers, to receive the
reports of the outgoing officers, and to fix rates. In many
cases the open vestry had been displaced by a ' select vestry '
of the leading people of the village. But in very many
cases the open vestry still survived, and everybody could
be present at its meetings. In practice the work was usually
done by a few of the more substantial men, who took turns
in serving (without pay) as overseers and churchwardens ;
but the ordinary viUagers knew what was going on, and had
their share in it.
The life of the English peasants, who formed the majority
of the nation, was no doubt a hard and laborious one. But
it was not a hopeless hfe. It had prospects for the indus
trious. It had the pleasures of companionship and of
common responsibihty. Most of the peasants were illiterate,
though viUage schools were growing up here and there.
They knew little or nothing about what was going on in
the outer world, or about the great affairs of national pohtics.
But they had their traditional songs and folk-tales ¦; and
Puritanism had failed to stamp out the healthy rough
merry-making of village Ufe. In the main the Enghsh
village was a free society ; especiaUy because it was a
homogeneous society, in which there were no sharp or rigid
barriers between classes.
But there was one respect in which this freedom was
seriously qualified, especiaUy for poor men ; and this was
due to the operation of the Poor Laws. Since the Poor
Laws threw upon each parish the responsibility for main
taining its own poor, every parish was anxious not to have
too many poor residents ' settled ' upon it. A series of
'Acts of Parliament, the first of which was passed soon after
the Restoration (1662), had endeavoured to define what
constituted a ' settlement ' which would give to poor men
the right to obtain relief from the parish ; and these Settle
ment Acts gave to the parishes, in effect, trie power of
refusing to a man who was likely to become a burden on the
rates the right of settling in the parish. This constituted a
real restriction upon the freedom of movement of poor men
who could not find employment in their own parishes. The
number of such poor men was steadily growing during this
period, just because the old system was slowly breaking up.

CH. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 787
Poor rates were everywhere growing. It had been found
necessary in 1722 to empower groups of parishes to set up
workhouses to give employment to their poor. The problem
of dealing with those who were displaced by the dissolution
of an old and settled order was already becoming difficult
in the first half of the eighteenth century. It was not yet
very serious, because the breaking up process had not yet
gone very far; the vast majority of Enghshmen stiU hved
out their hves in the viUages in which they were born.
But the tremendous changes of the next era were to make it
a very terrible problem ; and, as we shaU see, the attempts
to solve it were conceived in so short-sighted a way that
they led to disastrous and cruel results. One of- the
main causes of this was that the problem of unemploy
ment and poverty was never treated as a national pro
blem on broad lines, but was in the main left to be
dealt with by each parish or group of parishes by itself,
and by the justices of the peace in each county. And
as the parishes, chiefly concerned to keep down their rates,
tried to do so by preventing the immigration of families who
might become burdensome, the result was to draw poor men
into a sort of slavery. The working of this system was a
serious blot on Enghsh society in the period with wriich we
are now concerned. It was not yet very grave, because the
great majority had a more or less assured position. But
the survival of this system through the next period, when
the old order was breaking up in all directions with very
great rapidity, inflicted a large amount of unnecessary
misery, and needlessly intensified the evils which so great a
change was in any case bound to produce. It is a fair ground
of criticism against the timid and hand-to-mouth policy of
the Whig ohgarchy that they failed to make any attempt
to deal broadly and generously with this problem while it
was still of manageable dimensions.
§ 3. The Ruling Classes : the Squirearchy and the
Magnates : an Aristocratic Society.
The natural leaders of this homogeneous society of land
owners and tillers of the soil were the Squires, the substantial
landed proprietors or country gentlemen, who hved in the
thousands of rural manor-houses scattered all over the
country. And this leadership was recognised in the pohtical
powers which they exercised. They were, as they had been
ever since the thirteenth century, the most politicaUy active

788 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
class in the community, its representatives and its real rulers.
As Justices of the Peace they carried on the whole work of
local administration ; and in performing this work they
were scarcely at all checked or controlled by the central
government. Under the Tudors and Stewarts the Privy
Council had maintained a close supervision over them ;
they had been in the main simply the local agents of that
powerful body. But under the Whig oligarchy — and, indeed,
ever since the Restoration — the Privy Council had become
mainly a formal body. The Cabinet, which took its place,
consisted of ministers who were primarily concerned with
questions of national policy ; it was nobody's business to
devote special attention to local government ; and, ac
cordingly, the Justices of the Peace were in the main left
to their own devices, subject only to general regulations
made by Parliament, whose members were nearly all them
selves country gentlemen and Justices of the Peace. Sitting
jointly in Quarter Sessions at the county town, the justices
of each county dealt with serious offences against public
order, managed county affairs, controlled the main roads
and so forth ; sitting in smaUer groups in Petty_Sessions,
they dealt with minor offences ; whUe as individuals each,
in his own justice-room in his own manor-house, exercised
large powers of committing persons to trial, and supervised
the working of the village administration and especiaUy the
management of poor relief.
The powers which they wielded as Justices of the Peace
gave to the squirearchy a very remarkable ascendency.
They were like little kings in their own viUages, and
if they chose to behave as petty tyrants, as they some
times did, there was very little chance of redress. Yet,
on the whole, they performed their duties, if not with
great enlightenment, at any rate with a good deal of
public spirit and neighbourly good feeling. The litera
ture of the century abounds with portraits of the Justices
of the Peace. But if there are many descriptions of petty
tyrannies, there are as many of generous, public-spirited
and large-minded performance of pubhc duties. Over
against Fielding's description of Squire Western must be
set his portrait of Squire Airworthy, and Addison's of Sir
Roger de Coverley. It was only when the agrarian and
industrial revolutions in the second half of the century
brought about a great cleavage in rural society, and de
stroyed the community-spirit which had held English viUages
together, that the Justices of the Peace came to be regarded

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 789
as enemies and oppressors of the poor. In the first half of
the century they were still on the whole the accepted leaders
of rural society. And if, in their enthusiasm for field-sports,
they were already disproportionately severe against breaches
of the Game Laws, that was not yet a very grave matter.
For the Game Laws were not yet the ferocious and tyrannical
things they later became ; the preservation of game had
1 not yet become the chief interest of the rural gentry ; and
the peasantry were not yet reduced to such a state of misery
as to be driven to wholesale poaching to keep the breath
in their bodies. These things were to happen later. In
1750 the squires were still the natural leaders of a homo
geneous rural society, and the great powers which they
wielded, though too unchecked, were on the whole reason
ably and healthily employed, and represented a natural
mode of organisation which ensured that common affairs
should be managed in sympathy with pubhc sentiment.
Just as the peasantry shaded into the yeomanry and the
yeomanry into the squirearchy, so the squirearchy shaded
into the supreme class, whom we may call the Magnates.
These were, in truth, simply squires on a very great scale,
often owning estates in many parts of the country, main
taining princely state in splendid mansions, and coming
together annuaUy for the season in London. This regular
assemblage of the great leaders of Enghsh rural society
did indeed give a unity to the whole of England, every part
of which had its representatives in the intimate luxurious
life of the capital during the season. It was as natural
that the magnates should in the main govern the country
as a whole as it was that the yeomen should in the main
govern the village and the squires the county. The mag
nates were in a real degree in touch with the local life of
England ; as Lords-Lieutenant they were the leaders of
county affairs ; and their activity in electioneering business x
had at least this advantage that it gave them an intimate
knowledge of the feelings and desires of the whole country.
So long as their interests were not in conflict with those
of the mass of the people whom they ruled — and as
yet there appeared to be no such conflict — these great
rural magnates seemed to be the natural leaders and
spokesmen of this homogeneous, rural society. Their im
mense political power, therefore, was not as unrepre
sentative of the national mind as it might at first sight
appear to be. Until the time when the transformation
1 Electioneering methods are described above, Chap. i. p. 656.

790 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
of the social system made them no longer the natural leaders
of English society, they ruled the country by ' consent.'
The httle group of great families who dominated British
affairs during this period in many ways resembled the great
senatorial families who ruled Rome during the most splen
did period of the repubhc. They formed a very exclusive
society, closely linked by intermarriage. They were on
the whole a highly cultivated body of men, with a fine
taste in the arts and a real delight in literature ; many of
them were widely read in the great hteratures of Greece
and Rome. They encouraged and rejoiced in the utmost
freedom of thought and speculation, and many of them gave
their patronage to thinkers, men of letters and artists.
They travelled widely, especiaUy in France, and many of
them had an intimate knowledge of European conditions,
which gave them a great advantage in dealing with questions
of foreign pohcy. In their country palaces and in their
town mansions they hved a life of great luxury and splen
dour, and sometimes of fantastic extravagance ; and the
clubs which they created in London as the centres of their
social activities ensured that they were mostly on terms of
intimate acquaintance with one another. Under these
conditions, national politics became almost a family affair.
The magnates were full of pride, and very conscious of
their own dignity. They had both the virtues and the
defects that mark most oligarchies. They thought it right
and natural that all power should rest in their hands, and
that they and theirs should be enriched by pensions and
offices at the cost of the State. But they had also a high
sense of personal and national honour, and a real feeling
that noblesse oblige to public service. With their great
wealth they might easily have been content with a life of
idleness ; but few of them gave way to the temptation, and
many of them spent laborious days in the work of Parha
ment and the administrative offices, or trained themselves
to serve the State in arms by sea or land. Few of them were
lazy triflers ; and they did much to establish the tradition,
which has been one of the strongest things in English public
life — stronger perhaps than in any other country — that
public service has a rightful claim upon the time and thought
of all who are not wholly engrossed by the demands of live
lihood. They had a real pride in their country and in its
traditions of law-abiding freedom ; and if their conception
of liberty was a narrow one, it was sound so far as it went,
and it was a great gain that liberty and equal laws should

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 791
be proclaimed as the supreme governing principles of the
State, even if they were narrowly conceived. When aU is
said, the British realms were almost the only lands in the
world which had emblazoned these principles upon their
banner. On the other hand the magnates were slow to under
stand the needs of other countries which they did not
know. The self-complacency which marks all oligarchies
blinded them to the grave injustices they were perpetu
ating in Ireland, and to the magnitude and difficulty of
the problem of combining freedom with the unity of the
Commonwealth in the young lands beyond the seas ; nor
could this body of aristocrats understand or sympathise
with the democratic society of New England. Above
aU, they were terribly blind to the needs and sufferings
of the poor in their own country. They could not
rise to the conception of the State as a great free partner
ship for the common weal. That is a conception slow
to arise anywhere ; it did not yet exist in any of the countries
of Europe ; but the self-complacency of this small, briUiant,
powerful society made it impermeable to such an ideal.
They thought of the whole nation as living under their
shadow, secure in their protection ; they thought of the
poor as owing their livehhood and their safety to the rich ;
they were, as Burke put it, the great oaks which sheltered
the field, and they did not see that their spreading roots
often hampered the cultivation of the soil, and that their
luxuriant branches often shut out the sun.
This was to become terribly apparent in the next age, when
the great social transformation changed the whole texture of
Ehglish society. In that age the ascendency of the great
famUies was to be as ruinous to the social health of the British
peoples as the ascendency of the senatorial oligarchy in
the last century of the Roman republic was ruinous to that
of Italy. But as yet this evil effect of oligarchic rule was
not apparent, because the great landowners were the natural
leaders of a nation which still consisted mainly of men
interested in the land ; and it may fairly be said that the
rule of the great famUies, despite its defects, had been of
real service, by destroying the possibihty of despotism, by
perfecting the machinery of parliamentary government in
a form which was capable of being turned to the needs of a
more genuinely national co-operation in government, and
by maintaining a high sense of national honour and a fine
tradition of the obligation of public service,

792 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
The extraordinary ascendency of the land-owning mag
nates was the chief feature of English life in the eighteenth
century. It was the natural result of the predominance of
the landed interest in the hfe of the nation. But it extended
itself over almost the whole organisation of the nation's life
and thought. The Established Church was treated simply
as an appendix of the State. Its offices, all but the humblest,
provided respectable positions for younger sons. Its bishops
and deans were members or proteges of the great famUies,
and shared in their life and ideas ; its parochial clergy be
longed to the class of the squirearchy, often sat with them
on the bench, and gave more attention to pubhc than to
religious duties. The function of the Church was to be
decent, dignified and orderly, and to teach the people to be
so — not to challenge them to rive nobly, or remind them
that they were sons of God.
The legal profession was even more directly incorporated
with and controlled by the ruling class . All the great j udicial
offices were filled by members of that class, and the highest
of these offices formed the most frequent mode of access to
the inner sanctum of the House of Lords. The system
produced some reaUy great lawyers, for the great families
had a profound respect for law, and regarded its interpreta
tion and enforcement as the highest function of the State.
But the lawyers inevitably regarded their functions in the
light of the ideas of the class from which they were drawn ;
they were the chief upholders of the fundamental idea that
the land-owning class formed the most essential and vital
element in the State.
The universities, again, had been in effect annexed by the
great families. Their sons attended them with special
privileges, wearing the tuft that marked the ' nobleman.'
Dons and tutors looked to noble patronage for promotion,
and became ' tuft-hunters ' ; the mass of undergraduates,
preparing themselves for the Church or the bar or public life,
either belonged to the class of the squirearchy or looked to
the ruhng class for their future careers ; and thus the
universities became funnels through which the ability of
the country was sucked into the service of the oligarchy.
In the same way the great public schools, Eton and Win
chester, Westminster and Harrow, originally founded for
the education of poor scholars, had become the training
grounds of an aristocracy. Here, amid Spartan conditions,
the sons of the ruling class were trained to be loyal gentle
men and good sportsmen, and to know something of that

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION

793

world of old Rome which their own lives were so nearly to
reproduce. Through these schools, with their traditions of
loyalty and self-government, and their insistence upon self-
restraint and the rules of a rigid ' good form,' the proud
aristocracy of the eighteenth century has handed down,
more completely than in any other part of English life, that .
which was best in their manners and ideals, and has diffused
it graduaUy among other elements of the population.
§ 4. The Commercial and Industrial Interests : the Growth
of Capitalist Control.
The ascendency of the landed aristocracy, thus buttressed
by the Church, the law, and the most ancient and powerful
educational institutions of the country, was all the more
complete because there were as yet no other economic
interests which at all compared in importance with those of
the land. Although it was by the development of commerce
and industry that the wealth of the British realms was being
increased, and their position in the world established, and
although, for that reason, commercial and industrial ques
tions occupied much of the attention of government and
Parhament, the representatives of these great interests had
very little direct political power ; they could and did in
fluence, but they did not directly control, national policy
in these respects.
The most powerful group independent of the landed in
terest consisted of the great bankers and foreign merchants.
A few of them sat in Parhament, as members for London and
one or two of the chief ports. They were, in fact, few in
tiumber, and were mostly congregated in London, the head
quarters of the greatest financial corporations, the Bank of
England, the East India Company, the South Sea Company,
the African Company. In the management of these great
concerns they found sufficient occupation for all the thought
and leisure they could spare from the conduct of their
private businesses, and they were content to leave the man
agement of national affairs in the hands of the landowning
magnates. Through the bank and the other great companies,
indeed, they wielded great power, especially because it was
they who found the money for carrying on national wars.
They were generally able to impose their own conditions in
regard to industrial and commercial policy without them- .
selves wielding political power or occupying any public
office; for no government dared disregard them. Moreover

794 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
they had long been intimately linked with the governing
famihes ; most of them were ambitious of becoming members
of the landowning aristocracy, and spent much of their
wealth in buying landed estates. Their influence was strong
enough to ensure the triumph of their ideas as to what
national interest demanded in the sphere of economic policy,
and it has left its mark deeply upon the statute book. But
the men who worked for them, the sailors and the clerks,
had no direct spokesmen in the national government. It
was nobody's business to see that they enjoyed decent
conditions of life.
The development of foreign trade was the chief pride and
the chief interest of England in the first half of the eight
eenth century, but it had brought about also a great expan
sion in manufactures ; and the manufacturing system was
beginning to pass through a crisis, due to the fact that the
limits of expansion possible under the old methods had
almost been reached.
The greatest of English industries, beyond comparison,
was the woollen manufacture. It was still carried on by
hand-looms. But the rate at which cloth could be produced
from the looms was dependent upon the amount of yam
which could by produced by the spinners. The yarn was
still spun by women, working at home on the old-fashioned
spinning-wheel ; and the demand for it was so great that
in almost every part of the country the wives and daughters
of poor folk made a substantial addition to the family income
by spinning. Even so, it was often impossible .to keep the
weavers' looms going on fuU-time work ; and the result was
that many weavers combined work at the loom in their own
cottages with the cultivation of a little land. This was
especiaUy the case in the Yorkshire woollen area, in the dales
of the West Riding. Here the trade was mainly carried on
by home industry ; the weaver worked up on his own loom
the yam spun by his wife and daughters and by other women
in the neighbourhood ; took his piece of cloth to seU in
Leeds market; and between-whiles tilled his aUotment.
Under these conditions he could afford to work for long
hours in his spells at the loom without sacrifice of health.
He was his own master ; he fixed his own hours.
But in other regions, and notably in the West of England
area (Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset) another method of
organisation, which had long been practised, had now
definitely got the upper hand. The capitahst had taken the
industry under his control, Substantial men, known as

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 795
' clothiers,' kept large numbers of weavers in their employ
ment, sometimes providing them with their looms, or even
bringing them together to work in a central place under
supervision, and keeping them supplied with yam bought
from the spinners over a large area. Under these conditions
the weavers ceased to be their own masters ; they became,
in a greater or less degree, ' hands,' working for an employer
at fixed wages. The system had some advantages. It
economised labour. It brought about a better organisation
of the various stages in the process of manufacture. It
enabled styles and patterns to be more intelligently fixed
in view of the needs of the home or export market. But
it left the weavers very much at the mercy of the clothiers
for whom they worked. It robbed them of their independ
ence. The clothier was tempted to demand long hours of
work, and to pay the lowest wage for which he could get
labour. The workman no longer had the protection of the old
craft-gUds which had in the Middle Ages regulated the
conditions of labour by co-operative agreement. When
the craft-gUds broke down, the Tudor and Stewart govern
ments had tried to do their work by regulating wages and
(to a less extent) conditions of labour, mainly through the
Justices of the Peace. But under the Whig oligarchy the
attempt to work out a national system of protection for
labour was abandoned, and the weavers (and in the same way
the workers in other industries which were passing under the
control of capitalists) were left without protection, unless
they could somehow devise it for themselves. From the
point of view of the governing class, it was the great clothiers
who were responsible for the organisation and expansion of
industry, and they must not be interfered with. And it was
doubtless true that but for the better organisation which
the clothiers provided, the industry could scarcely have
expanded as it did. But the maintenance of a healthy and
self-respecting population is an even more important national
interest than the increase of wealth ; and this the system
disregarded. No very widespread evils had yet arisen as a
result of the growth of the new system, because as yet the
weaver mainly worked at home, often had a patch of land
of his own, and was usually paid customary wages which
bore some proportion to the cost of living. But many of
them were in a very unhealthy condition, working too long
hours, losing their real freedom, unable to make proper
provision either for their children or for old age. Already

796 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
there was some indication of the tragic miseries which were
to come when new industrial conditions were created by the
great inventions of the next period.
What has been said of the woollen manufacture, the
premier industry of England, is equally true of the infant
cotton industry of Lancashire, which was beginning to
produce considerable quantities of cloth woven from a
mixture of linen and cotton, and very suitable for the
tropical trade, or of the silk industry, which had found a
home in Spitalfields and elsewhere. Though there were no
such abject miseries as the next period produced, there was a
good deal of suffering ; and but a small share of the wealth
which growing trade and industry poured into England
went to improve the conditions of life of the labouring poor.
Thanks to the way in which it was organised, industry was
not producing much, if any, betterment in the mass of the
nation's manhood. But the proportion of the population
engaged in industry was still so small that the significance
of this was not realised.
Still more was this true of the mining industries, which
almost necessarily fell under capitalist control. Mining was
as yet a minor industry. The iron-fields of England were
becoming less instead of more productive, because iron could
only be smelted by burning wood, and the supply of timber
was running out : this difficulty was especially felt in Sussex,
hitherto the main source of supply of English iron. Coal
was used, as yet, only for domestic fires ; it had not yet
become the key of all industry, as it was rapidly to become
in the next age ; and only a few mines were worked, chiefly
in the Newcastle district and in the Wigan area. But
wherever it was carried on, mining was the worst-treated
of all industries, and miners were universally regarded as
the most depraved and brutalised elements in the nation.
Their needs and claims were wholly neglected, until White-
field and the Wesleys came to give them the consolations
of religion, and to remind them that they too were sons of
God, as precious in the sight of Heaven as the brilliant and
cultivated aristocrats who managed the affairs of the nation.
It would be unfair to blame unduly the ruling class of
this period for their failure to work out an intelligent system
of protection for those who were engaged in the manufac
turing industries. They knew little or nothing about these
industries. They were anxious that the industry and trade
of the country should be developed as rapidly as possible ;
they believed that every increase in its volume must be to

CH. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 797
the advantage of the workmen equally with the masters ;
they thought that the best way of increasing British trade
was by making trade-agreements with foreign countries,
by opening up new markets, and by using their power to
kill competition from Ireland and the colonies. That was
the universal behef of the age ; it was not merely the limited
view of a smaU governing class. The complex and difficult
problems affecting the organisation of national industry in
its relation to national well-being were only beginning to be
explored ; Adam Smith had yet to write his great book,
which was the foundation of inteUigent thinking on these
problems ; and even when the most acute intelligence began
to be devoted to them, the principles which at first seemed
to be established appeared to justify the belief that any
attempt to interfere with the processes of industry would
only lead to disaster. But, without blaming anybody, we
have to note that the brilliant development of British wealth
and power was attended by shadows, as yet faint, but
destined to become deeper and blacker.
The manufacturing and trading interests had in effect no
share in the government of the country ; some of their
chief centres, hke Manchester, were unrepresented ; and
the representation of most of the boroughs which did return
members was controlled, as we have seen,1 by the landown
ing interest. But they possessed in some degree their own
machinery of local government. Every borough, large or
small, had its town council, whose jurisdiction was singu
larly free from any ccntroi by the central government. It
is true that these councils were not popularly elected, but
almost universaUy filled up vacancies in their own member
ship as they occurred. But the total number of men who
through these councils had some share in the management
of public affairs was large ; and in many boroughs the
presiding officers, mayors and bailiffs, were elected by the
whole body of freemen.
The town councUs, however, took no very large or
generous view of their functions. They represented only
a privUeged group of burghers, and their main business
was to administer the ancient inherited properties and
privUeges of these burghers, the town-lands, the town-
dues, the town-markets. They were loth to undertake any
new duties, such as those of providing paving, drainage
and water-supply for the growing towns which the develop
ment of trade and industry was bringing into exist-
1 See Chap. i. above, p. 657.

798 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY tBK. vt.
ence. To deal with these new needs new bodies were be
ginning to come into existence, created by private Acts of^
Parliament on the apphcation of the residents in individual!
boroughs ; and these new bodies were as a rule popularly
elected by the ratepayers, and empowered to levy rates for
the special services they were established to render.
The system of urban local government in England during
this period was far too complicated and variable to be de
scribed in a few sentences. It foUowed no system ; it varied
from place to place ; it was unregulated and uncontroUed by
the central government. Not even in the most powerful
boroughs did there exist any single authority invested with
powers sufficient to enable it to deal with aU the needs of
growing populations ; and those places which did not possess
chartered rights descending from the Middle Ages, however
large and important they might be, had to be content
with the same organisation as the viUages — the old feudal
manorial court, and the parish vestry. This chaotic system,
or absence of system, was to cause great evils in the coming
time of rapid change ; and the ohgarchy who ruled England
in this age may weU be blamed for having done nothing to
provide the towns with an orderly and efficient system of
government. But as yet the deficiencies of this state of
things were not very apparent ; the mediaeval machinery
stiU worked reasonably well. And it is fair to add that in
the town councils, narrowly as they conceived their powers,
in the new boards which were being created to remedy their
deficiencies, in the parish vestries, which in the largest towns
as in the villages managed the administration of poor rehef,
and in the old traditional manor-courts which had to under
take so many new and difficult functions, a great multitude
of men were in fact practising the arts of self-government
with better results than might have been anticipated. The
Enghsh were stUl a self-governing people, though their
system needed reconstruction, and was Ul-adapted to meet
the terrible strain that was soon to fall upon it.
§ 5. The Growth of Prosperity in Scotland.
The first half of the eighteenth century was for Scotland
the beginning of a new era. When the century opened she
was still a very poor country, full of turbulence and disorder •
the Highlands especiaUy were in a state of tribal anarchy
and barbarism ; almost the only features of hope and
promise in the life of the nation were the stem discipline

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 799
of her Church and the work of her schools and poverty-
stricken universities ; and in aU the material aspects of
civihsation she was at least three centuries behind England.
TraveUers in Scotland were struck, in the Lowlands as well
as the Highlands, by the wretchedness and dirt of the houses,
the poverty of the greater part of the people, the multitude
of beggars, and the backwardness of agriculture and industry.
Wheaten bread, which every peasant used in England, was
in Scotland a luxury known only to the weU-to-do ; oatmeal
brose, sometimes enriched (in the Highlands at any rate)
with blood drawn from the living cow, or peasemeal, seemed
to be the almost universal fare ; and half the population
seemed to go barefoot. Agriculture was hampered by out
worn mediaeval restrictions and by the inadequacy of the
implements and methods employed ; there were scarcely
any industries of importance ; even the fisheries in the
swarming seas which surrounded the country were un
developed, and were exploited by far more Dutch than
Scottish ships ; and foreign trade was almost neghgible.
Not only were the Highlands themselves in a condition of
inconceivable rudeness and anarchy, but the Lowlands were
perpetuaUy raided by Highland robbers : the most famous
of aU the Highland caterans, Rob Roy Macgregor, was at
the height of his activities, waging war with aU his neigh
bours, defying outlawry and living by plunder ; he died
peacefuUy in his bed in 1736, at the age of eighty.
From these miseries Scotland was able ±o rescue herself
by four facts : the union with England, which gave her the
chance of developing her trade and industry ; the overthrow
r-of tribal anarchy in the Highlands after 1745, and the aboli
tion of the powers of chieftains in the Highlands and feudal
lords in the Lowlands by the destruction of ' heritable
jurisdictions ' in 1747, which foUowed Culloden ; the cessa
tion of rehgious persecution, which was the result of the
Revolution ; and, finally, the development of a universal
system of popular education, which had been planned by
Knox, but was never fuUy carried out until the eighteenth
century. These events did not, of course, produce an im
mediate result. The beneficent result of the union, for
example, did not begin to be apparent until about 1730.
But by the middle of the century the tide had turned :
modem Scotland was coming to birth.
It was perhaps in the Highlands that the change was
most marked ; and here, apart from the cessation of tribal
war, the first results did not seem to be altogether happy.

8oo . THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
The noblest thing in Highland life had been the romantic
and chivalrous devotion of the clansman to his chieftain :
in the hard years foUowing 1746, when many chiefs were
outlawed and their lands confiscated, this devotion had dis
played itself in a wonderful way by the contribution, out of
grinding poverty, of large sums for the upkeep of the exiles,
or by the beautiful loyalty with which the hiding-places
of those who remained in the country were concealed.1 Yet
in many cases this loyalty was iU-rewarded. Under the
Heritable Jurisdiction Act those chiefs who had not been
outlawed became landlords of the clan lands instead of
chieftains. Many of them, eager to make the maximum
amount of money, turned the glens into sheep-runs, and
pitilessly evicted their clansmen, now become their tenants.
As a result thousands of them had to emigrate, though
emigration was. peculiarly painful to the Highlander, speak
ing a tongue uncomprehended beyond his native hUls.
Thousands more enlisted in the army : the Highlands were
beyond comparison the best recruiting grounds of the British
army during the next two generations, and the kilt won
deathless glory in the fields of Spain and the Netherlands,
India and America. Many of those who remained won but
a bare and precarious living as crofters and fishers. Yet,
though romance might lament the disappearance of the
wild old life, the new conditions were certainly an improve
ment. The Highlander learnt to substitute a national for
a tribal loyalty. He was drawn with Celtic enthusiasm
into the stern religious life of his country, which had hitherto
little affected him. He began to play his part in the uni
versities, and to make his own distinctive contribution to
the imagination and thought of the world. And he had
become a member of a great commonwealth which beckoned
his adventurous spirit to every quarter of the globe.
In the Lowlands the transformation was more gradual,
but even more radical. The frugal, shrewd, patient genius
of the Lowlander began for the first time systematically to
turn its attention to the business of wealth-making, of which
he had hitherto had little experience : he was soon to show
that this was not because he lacked qualifications. Already
the Scots had seen, more quickly and more clearly than the
Enghsh, the strength that could be drawn from a sound
system of banking — perhaps because, in a poor country
where nobody had much capital to dispose of, the advantages
of pooling many small sums was more easily appreciated.
1 Stevenson's Kidnapped gives a fine picture of these conditions

CH. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 8oi
It was a Scotsman who originated the scheme of the Bank
of England ; Scotland herself already maintained no less
'than three considerable banks, in spite of her poverty ; she
'was, in 1750, in advance of England in the development of
1 banking facihties outside the capital ; and undoubtedly this
was one of the reasons why a country so poor was able very
rapidly to win great wealth. In 1750 she had already
developed to real prosperity the linen industry, which had
been in a very backward and struggling condition at the
beginning of the century ; she was creating a woollen
industry of her own in the Tweed country ; and these pro
ducts gave her something to form the basis of an export
trade. In 1718 the first ship was launched on the Clyde :
till then Glasgow had not even owned a single vessel, but
had carried on her almost negligible foreign trade in ships
borrowed from Whitehaven. By 1760 the Clyde had
already become an important shipbuilding centre ; Glasgow
had opened up a vigorous traffic with the New World; she
handled more tobacco than any other British port save
London. Plainly the tide had turned.
No small part of the credit for the skill and patience with
which poverty-stricken Scotland was making for herself a
new wealth was due to the fact that she was educating all
her people in her parish schools : her system of popular
education was definitely in advance of that of any other
European country, and immeasurably ahead of that of Eng
land. It was a system, not (like such popular schools as
existed in England) an accidental growth. It was planned
on a national basis by the General Assembly of a democratic
Church, and assiduously nurtured by the ministers in every
parish, who, unlike the Anghcan clergy, were themselves
of the people. They were narrow, hard, tyrannical in the
use of the extraordinary powers of moral discipline which
they claimed and exercised : there was much that is repellent
in their work. But they trained the whole nation to study
and to think, not only by maintaining schools, but also by
the hard inteUectual discipline of their sermons and their
catechism. Moreover the Scottish universities — poor and
mean places as they were in comparison with Oxford and
Cambridge — were stirring into a new life : they were be
ginning to produce that remarkable series of philosophical
teachers who in the second half of the century contributed
to transform the thinking of Europe. In these years David
Hume, a Scot, though not connected with a Scottish uni
versity, was accepted as the most profound and challenging
vol. 1. 3 E

802 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
of writers in English ; and soon Adam Smith, a Glasgow
professor, was to give a new turn to scientific thinking on
economic and pohtical questions. The hard discipline of
the Scottish Church system was beginning to bear its fruits
in other spheres besides the ecclesiastical.
It was still through the Church, also, that Scotland was
training herself in self-government. Her share in the
British Parhament meant nothing to the great majority of
her people : in boroughs and counties alike the number of
electors was so small that it was easy to get control over
them, and there was no section of the united Parhament
that was so easy to manage, or so completely at the disposal
of the great Whig borough-mongers. Until 1832 the Scot
tish representatives in Parliament could not be said to
speak for the Scottish people. Nor was there any effective
system of local self-government in Scotland such as formed
the pride of England. It was through the Church, and its
parish sessions, presbyteries, synods and General Assembly,
that the Scots were training themselves for future participa
tion in the life of a Commonwealth of free nations.
The period was thus for Scotland one of beginnings. In
all respects save education she was still far behind her great
partner. There was stiU far more suffering among her poor
than there was in England. The shadows that attended
her slowly rising prosperity were yet deeper than those which
attended the secure and growing wealth of England. If the
English miners, for example, were a degraded and neglected
class, the miners of Scotland (not yet numerous) were in a
still more unhappy phght. For Scottish colliers and salt-
workers were in this period actually serfs — the only legal
serfs in the islands — bound to the mines or quarries which
they worked, and passing with them from one owner to
another. § b. The Stagnancy of Ireland.
It is needless to say much about the condition of Ireland
in the middle of the eighteenth century, for we have already
described1 the ugly system of oppression to which the
majority of her people had been sentenced by the Revolu
tion settlement. She lay chained and bound, helpless,
stagnant and motionless.
The great mass of her population, whether they belonged
to the Protestant minority or to the Roman Catholic
1 See above, Bk. v. chap. vi. pp. 586 fi.

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 803
majority, drew their livelihood from the land. But most of
the land was in Protestant hands ; Cathohcs were forbidden
by law to acquire land except as tenants. Many of the
landlords, especiaUy the greatest among them, were habitual
absentees, living in England, and spending there the rents
which were exacted from their tenants by agents. Others
spent their time largely in hunting and drinking : the Irish
country gentry had become notorious for the reckless and
thriftless joviality of their hfe. They took, except in rare
instances, no interest in the improvement of their lands,
but were content to draw their rents. Between these
resident gentry and the peasantry relations were not un
friendly, in spite of the rehgious differences which separated
them, and the miserable penury to which the system con
demned most of the peasants. Good-feUowship and the
common love of sport tended to ease and obscure the cruel
ties of the system. On the whole, though nothing had been
done to relax the Penal Code, the position of the Catholics
had improved by the middle of the century. Rehgious
intolerance was dying out, largely because the Protestants
had ceased to fear a Catholic revolt ; Catholic priests were
aUowed to go about their business without interference ;
and the gueriUa warfare which had been waged by bands of
' tories ' and ' rapparees ' for a generation after the Revolu
tion had practicaUy come to an end. Ireland seemed to
be quiet.
Nevertheless the country was in an unhappy state. Re
spect for law is the very foundation of a healthy society ;
and respect for law could not and did not exist in Ireland.
It was destroyed among the Catholics by the iniquity of the
laws to which they were subject ; it was weakened among the
Protestant landlord class by the feeling that they were above
the laws, which existed for their protection. No society
can be healthy unless its members can feel that its organisa
tion, however defective, is meant to help and protect them.
That feeling was impossible for the majority of Irishmen,
who knew that society was so organised as to deny them all
civic rights, to forbid them to educate their children, to
exclude them from the means of attaining prosperity, and
to ruin and destroy their rehgion. These were the express
objects of the Irish system.
We have seen1 that the development of aU industries
save the linen manufacture had been crushed by the English
Parliament. This meant that except in the smaU linen area
1 See above, pp. 506, 587.

804 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
the whole population had to draw its livelihood directly
or indirectly from the land. But even the resources of the
land could not be fully developed, since the export both of
wool and of woollen manufactures was prohibited, and even
Irish cattle could not be sent to England. To some extent
the prohibition of the export of wool was evaded, and there
was a very large smuggling trade with France, which in
creased the general contempt for law. In spite of the pro
hibition of the export of wool and cattle, much of the best
land in Ireland was given over to pasture, which employed
little labour in comparison with agriculture. The result
was that there was terrible competition for the land which
remained, and extortionate rack-rents were charged for the
smaUest plots. Living in the most abject penury the
peasantry had neither the means nor the knowledge to
cultivate their land properly.
It may safely be said that in no country of the world
was destitution so great as in Ireland. ' Never did I behold,'
wrote a Protestant bishop on being transferred to an Irish
see, ' even in Picardy, Westphalia or Scotland, such dismal
marks of hunger and want as appeared in the countenances
of most of the poor creatures I met with on the road ' ;
and he describes how, one of his carriage - horses being
killed, a crowd of famished peasants tore the flesh from
its bones to take to their children. After a bad season,
under such conditions, the most appaUing famines almost
inevitably resulted. In 1740 and 1741 it is said that 400,000
perished of starvation and of consequent diseases ; and the
pictures of horrors drawn by those who witnessed this famine
surpass imagination or belief. Well might Burke say, of
the system which produced such results, ' It was a machine
of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as weU fitted for the
oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people,
and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever
proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.'
§ 7. The British Lands oversea : their Social Character.
From Ireland, the one land to which membership of the
British Commonwealth had brought nothing but evil, it is
refreshing to turn to the oversea settlements created by
the strenuous activities of the previous century and a half.
For in these settlements, under a political and legal system
whoUy derived from England, there were to be seen an
abounding prosperity, a progressive energy and a wide

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 805
diffusion of political liberty, such as could be seen scarcely
anywhere else in the world.
These settlements fell into two main groups, the West
Indies and the continental colonies ; the little group of the
Bermudas, far out in the Atlantic, forming a sort of link
between them. But each of the two great groups was
divided into a number of separate colonies, which, though
they had many interests and many characteristics in
comfnon, had no common centre of government, but were
equipped with their own governors and their own repre
sentative assembhes. Hence, apart from the parent islands,
and leaving out of account the newly established British
power in India and the trading stations on the West African
Coast, the British Commonwealth already included no less
than twenty-three distinctly organised States, all subordinate
to the British Crown, and (though in a more indefinite way)
to the British Parhament, all priding themselves upon their
British citizenship, nearly aU possessing representative
institutions, and aU linked together by the same imperial
system of trade regulation.
Of these twenty-three States, five were included in the
West Indian group ; which had, in 1760, attained almost
its highest degree of prosperity. There was the great island
of Jamaica, upon which depended several tiny islands, as
well as certain logwood-cutting stations on the coast of
Honduras, later to develop into the colony of British
Honduras. Long the headquarters of piracy, and hampered
by constant wars with the descendants of Spanish slaves
(known as Maroons) who had their fortresses in the wooded
mountains of the interior, Jamaicahad nevertheless developed
into a highly prosperous colony, where a planter aristocracy
employed an army of negro slaves in the cultivation of
sugar and other tropical products. In 1763, Jamaica was
more prosperous than it had ever been, for the war had
brought it great riches ; * and at a time when the whole
commercial world valued the West Indian trade beyond
all others, Jamaica seemed to many to be ' the brightest
jewel in the British Crown.' The island of Barbados, almost
the oldest of the British West Indian settlements, ranked
next after Jamaica in wealth and population. Its white
inhabitants included many Irishmen ; they had shown
great zeal in raising contingents of volunteers to take part
in the war. Next came the federated group of the Leeward
Islands, St. Kitts, Antigua, Nevis, Montserrat, Barbuda,
Anguilla and the Virgin Islands, which had now fuUy

806 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
recovered from the set-back caused by the struggle of the
seventeenth century with France. The Bahama Islands
formed a fourth separately organised group ; long infested
by pirates, they had only begun to enjoy settled order and
prosperity during the generation before 1760. Finally, the
conquests of Pitt had added a new group in the Windward
Islands — Grenada, Dominica, St. Vincent, Tobago and the
little Grenadines — which, being close neighbours of the
great French islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe, had
already seen, and were stiU to see, more fighting than any
other group. But in 1763 they were a new acquisition,
scarcely yet settled, and only beginning to be provided with
the normal institutions of the British colonial system.
All these five colonies, though separately organised, were
marked by common features. They were aU (except the
Bahamas) devoted mainly to the cultivation of sugar. They
were aU dependent mainly upon slave-labour, and their
negro population outnumbered their white population, in
many cases, by ten to one. Their whole social structure,
the very foundations of their prosperity, rested on the
assumption (which was as yet unchallenged) that negro
slavery was legitimate. Their white population constituted,
therefore, a proud aristocracy, with the defects, but also
with many of the virtues, of an aristocracy. And in any
case they were a free aristocracy ; for each island-group
had its representative assembly, and made its own laws.
Sharply contrasted with the West Indian colonies was
the little group of the Bermudas, far out in the Atlantic,
whose total area only amounted to nineteen square miles.
With no great natural resources, these tiny islands never
theless supported a considerable population. They were
able to do so because their enterprising settlers had shown
great vigour in ship-building and in trade. They had
played a lively part in the settlement of the Bahamas and
other West Indian islands. They were very active in
privateering during the war. And their ships were to be
seen in every harbour both of the West Indies and of the
continental colonies. Freedom and enterprise marked
none of the British colonies in a higher degree than this
little group, which was almost the earliest of the whole
brotherhood. Of the sixteen distinct colonies on the mainland of North
America, three had been the subject of long conflict with
the French. Canada, just conquered, and peopled, as yet,
wholly with Frenchmen, was naturaUy stiU under mihtary

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 807
rule. Newfoundland, the scene of the first British experi
ment in colonisation, had long been disputed with the
French, and only became finaUy and definitely British in
1713. Even then the French had retained certain rights,
for fishing purposes, over a part of the coast. The settlers
were stiU but a small number of hardy fishermen scattered
along the shore ; and it was only since 1728 that they had
enjoyed organised government. Nova Scotia, which had
been twice conquered from the French during the seven
teenth century and twice restored, had been finally ceded
to Britain in 1713 ; but it was only since 1755, when the
French settlers were deported1 and 4000 British immigrants
were brought in, that Nova Scotia became in any full sense
a British colony. She had obtained the normal institu
tions of representative government in 1758. But the par
ticipation of these three St. Lawrence colonies in the history
of the British Commonwealth was only beginning in 1763.
The greatest glory and pride of the Commonwealth at
that date consisted in the thirteen free States which were
soon to break away and found a new independent common
wealth of their own. Their progress during the first half of
the eighteenth century had been amazing. At the begin
ning of the century the West Indian colonies had been
regarded as more important, or at any rate as commerciaUy
more valuable, than the continental colonies. But even
in regard to trade, the latter now took first place : their
exports to England were rather larger than these of the
West Indies, and their imports from England were twice
as great. And in aU other respects — in population, in
enterprise, in the development of a progressive civilisation,
they stood far ahead not only of the British West Indies,
but of any colonies that had been established by the
European peoples.
In 1760 their total population numbered about a milUon
and a half, of whom nearly half a million were negroes.
This represents an increase of more than 700 per cent.
since the Revolution. The settled and cultivated area
showed an increase proportionate to the growth of popula
tion ; it now extended to the edge of the mountain belt.
Along the great length of the western border there was a
vanguard of adventurous frontiersmen and pioneers, who
had begun to find their way across the lulls into the great
central plain, even before the overthrow of the French,
and who were now ready to enter into that great heritage.
1 See above, Chap. vi. p. 724.

808 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
In the more settled regions a highly developed civihsation
had already been estabhshed. There were thriving and
prosperous towns, notably Boston, New York and Phila
delphia. There was cultivated society, not only in these
towns but among the planter aristocracy of Virginia.
Education was widely diffused, especially in New England.
Already there were the beginnings of a newspaper press ;
and coUeges which were to develop into universities had
been established in all the more populous and progressive
colonies. Not only were representative assemblies every
where in existence, and everywhere active ; not only were
the white settlers everywhere protected in their civil hberties
by the usage of English Common Law ; not only was
rehgious toleration everywhere practised ; but (what is far
more difficult to secure) a real degree of social equahty
existed, because the inexhaustible abundance of unoccupied
land made it unnecessary for any white man of vigour to
remain in a condition of permanent dependence.
The widely diffused prosperity of the colonies was, of
course, due to the inexhaustible riches of a new land ; their
unrestrained freedom to the fact that in this new land
traditional restraints and inherited obhgations did not,
for white men, exist. But it was only in the new lands
peopled from Britain that these blessings were fully enjoyed.
Before long the colonies were to revolt, not against any
grave oppression, but against an invasion of their pohtical
liberties which no other people would have dreamed of
mentioning. The spirit which could be so ready to resist
any, even the most modest, infraction of freedom was
itself a product of the liberty which the British system had
planted and nurtured.
To white men, beyond a doubt, these happy lands afforded
a degree of freedom and of opportunity not to be attained
anywhere else in the world. But there was a dark shadow
in this otherwise bright prospect. Nearly one-third of the
population consisted of negro slaves, who enjoyed no share
in these blessings . The slaves were naturally most numerous
in the planter-colonies of the south, where the staple in
dustries largely depended on their labour. But they were
to be found in all the colonies, even in the Puritan north ;
and everywhere they were subject to extremely harsh and
even ferocious laws, drawn up by the colonial legislatures.
Even the free negroes were nowhere aUowed the civil
liberties that belonged to white men. The harshness of
these laws was perhaps not unnatural in the southern

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 809
colonies, which hved in fear of black rebellions ; and the
fear was sometimes justified. There was less excuse in
the northern colonies, where (except in New York) the
negroes formed a small minority of the population. Yet
Quaker Pennsylvania ordained, for example, that any negro
found ' gadding about ' on Suriday should be locked up
without meat or drink until Monday, and should then
receive thirty-nine lashes ' weU-laid on' before being released;
while Puritan Massachusetts enacted that all free negroes
should be bound to white masters, and that any free negro
sheltering^ a negro slave should be heavily fined and flogged.
Like the West Indian colonies, those of the American con
tinent were still far from being ready to share with all men
the freedom which their white inhabitants so abundantly
enjoyed. In this respect, at least, the mother country Was
weU in advance of her daughter states ; for in Britain
slavery was practically non-existent, and in 1772 it was to v'
be declared, by a great judicial decision, to be inconsistent
with the Common Law of England.
The thirteen colonies feU into three clearly marked groups,
sharply distinguished from one another by their social
systems. The first group consisted of the New England
colonies-— Massachusetts (with Maine as a dependency),
New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut ; these
four colonies had a population of nearly 500,000. The
second group consisted of the Middle colonies, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, with a population
of over 400,000. The third group included the southern
or planter colonies, Maryland, Virginia, North and South
Carolina and Georgia, with a population of over 700,000
including 250,000 negro slaves.
The New England colonies were essentiaUy agricultural
settlements. They had scarcely yet begun to develop manu
facturing industries, except in the crudest forms. But under
the shelter of the British Navigation Acts, which placed
their shipping on equal terms with that of the mother
country, they had developed a large oversea trade, especiaUy
with the other colonies and with the West Indies ; they had
also a share in the West African slave-trade ; and they had
shown themselves during the war expert and active in priva
teering, at the expense not only of French but of Spanish
and Dutch shipping. They were more vigorous and enter
prising than any of the other colonies, and had taken the
largest part in every phase of the long struggle with France.
They were also the best educated of the colonies, having a

810 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
school in every parish : they alone had developed the
beginnings of a literature of their own ; and, as in Scotland,
the hard discipline of their Church system had strengthened
their inteUectual grasp, and made them lovers of disputation.
The bitter rehgious intolerance of New England had indeed
been largely moderated by the middle of the eighteenth
century. There were now many rehgious sects in aU the
New England colonies, and there was no rehgious persecu
tion. But the old dour Puritan temper was by no means
dead. It showed itself in an austerity of hfe which made
the New England colonies less attractive to immigrants
than the other colonies ; and for that reason they retained
a more marked unity of character than their neighbours.
And the fondness for discussing principles, and the stiff
ness in maintaining them, which Puritanism had en
gendered, still survived. It found a vent in constant
controversies with successive governors, and also in a keen
interest in law : the New Englanders were a notably litigious
people. From the time of their estabhshment, these colonies
had been distinguished as the most unmanageable of all
the American colonies. Now, with their steadily expanding
commerce (much of which was carried on in direct defiance
of the trade regulations), they were tempted to be more
critical and more prickly than ever. Their system of govern
ment, local as well as central, had become, under the Charter
of 1691, genuinely democratic. There was no serious
poverty among them. Hard-working, thrifty, enterprising,
inteUigent, clean-living, tenacious of their rights and full of
self-complacency, the New Englanders formed a magnificent
stock, though scarcely a genial one.
The middle colonies were the most cosmopolitan of the
group. Though the bulk of the settlers were British, there
were also many Dutch, Swedes, Swiss and Germans ; and
the variety of rehgious denominations was as great as that
of races. For these reasons the middle colonies had no such
clear-cut character, and no such highly organised unity of
sentiment, as the New England colonies. On the other hand
there was in them a greater social freedom, because of the
absence of any single dominating standard of hfe such as
existed in New England. Like New England, they were
chiefly concerned in agricultural work, though they also
carried on (especiaUy in New York) an active trade with the
Indians ; while Pennsylvania had begun iron-works. They
exported a large part of their products to the West Indies ;
but they traded mainly with British ports, and did not

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 811
defy the prohibition of trade with the French West Indies
on anything hke the same scale as the New Englanders. It
is noteworthy that the bulk of this oversea trade belonged
to Pennsylvania, not to New York, which, though a thriving
port, was stiU far from attaining the primacy in American
trade that was later to fall to it. The rapid development
of Pennsylvania was, indeed, one of the most striking
features of colonial history during the first half of the eight
eenth century. More and more this colony attracted to
itself the main stream of emigration from Europe. Poor
emigrants were brought out on an undertaking to pay for
their passage by working for three to five years without
wages. But at the end of this period it was the practice
. in Pennsylvania to give to the immigrant a grant of fifty
acres of land. This attraction drew especiaUy a steady
'i stream of emigrants from Germany ; and the German
settlers, who clung together in defined areas and maintained
the use of their native tongue, formed a very substantial
element in the population. Under an Act of the British
Parhament of 1740, ahen immigrants acquired the full rights
of British citizenship after seven years' residence. They
were thus able to take a part in pohtics such as had never
been open to them in their homeland. But the German
settlers were docile folk, who brought with them no tradi
tions of self-government. They were content to leave
pohtical power in the hands of the Enghsh element. Hence
it came about that the Quakers, though now a small minority
in the population, stiU retained control of the government
of Pennsylvania. The Quakers were obstinate folk, as they
showed when, at the crisis of the struggle with France, they
refused to vote either men or money even for the defence
of their own frontiers. But the communities of the Middle
Colonies as a whole, just because of their lack of homo
geneity, were more docile and more easily handled than the
New Englanders. They seem also to have shown less
resentment against the trade regulations ; at aU events,
they did not openly defy them as New England did.
The southern colonies were all aUke distinguished by
the fact that they depended oconomicaUy on slave-labour.
There were slaves in the other colonies — there were even
slave-revolts, very crueUy suppressed, in New York — but
elsewhere slaves were used mainly as domestic servants :
in the southern colonies the conduct of the staple in
dustries mainly depended upon negro slaves, who, formed
one-third of the population in Maryland and Virginia, and

812 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
two-thirds in South Carolina. A slave-owning society is
seldom a democratic society ; and alongside of the negro
slaves, in all the southern colonies, was a large population of
' mean whites,' many of whom had originally come out as
transported convicts. Shiftless and idle, they formed an ele
ment in the population unlike anything in the more northerly
colonies ; but in that happy climate they found it easy to hve
somehow, as hangers-on of the planter aristocracy. All the
southern colonies were, indeed, essentially aristocratic in
character. But an aristocracy can be as proud and as
tenacious of its rights as any democracy ; and while the
easy-going and lavish-living Virginian gentleman was above
troubling himself about trade regulations, he could be as
stiff as the New Englander (or the British aristocrat) when
he thought his rights were threatened.
§ 8. Problems of the Commonwealth.
The British Commonwealth, which emerged triumphant
from the ordeal of war in 1763, manifestly the greatest power
in the world, was a loosely organised bundle of communities,
no one of which, not even the happiest, could be described
as having won for its citizens the full enjoyment of justice
and freedom, yet all of which, with the flagrant and tragic
exception of Ireland, had attained a nearer approach to both
justice and freedom-, and were more palpably striving after
them, than most societies that had yet existed on the face
of the earth. With that tragic exception, they formed a
fellowship or partnership of free communities, the like of
which history had not yet seen.
The triumph of 1763 was the culmination of the first great
phase in the history of the Commonwealth, to which it
opened a magnificent vista of opportunity. But 1763 was
not only the culmination of past history, it was the opening
of new and vast problems, such as had never yet been set
before any group of peoples. The supremacy of the seas
had been won : how was it to be used ? Was it to be used
in a spirit of mere domineering ascendency, like that which
had earlier led Spain and Portugal to their ruin ? Or was
it to mean a greater freedom and a greater security of the
seas for all peoples, and «a restriction of opportunities for
none ? The foundations of an amazing and undesired
dominion had been laid in India : how was it to be used ?
Was it to be used (as the spirit of a trading company might
naturaUy suggest) merely for the exploitation of unhappy

ch. ix.] SOCIAL ORGANISATION 813
subjects ? Was it to be, like earlier dominions in India, a
sway exercised solely for the profit of the rulers, or was it
to bring to the Indian peoples an enlargement of justice
and of liberty ? Supremacy over the whole North American
continent had been won for the British peoples and for the
Enghsh tongue. But that momentous decision raised fresh '
problems. It raised the problem of dearing with an alien
and proud people in conquered Canada. Were they to be
dealt with in the spirit of mere ascendency, which had been
aUowed unchecked sway in Ireland, or were they to enjoy
freedom for their own mode of life, and a liberty larger than
they had hitherto known ? It raised also the problem of the
relations between the mother country and her proud and
free daughter States. Was that to be a relation of dominion
on the one side, dependence on the other, or could some
mode of organised partnership be wrought out ? In all the
new lands, but especiaUy in the West Indies, the amazing
growth of wealth and power had been won at the expense
of the servitude and suffering of multitudes of unhappy
negroes. Could the freedom of the British Commonwealth
be extended to them also ? Could this iniquity be got rid
of without a ruinous dislocation ? At home in the islands
the misery of Ireland affected not only herself, but shamed
and weakened the whole Commonwealth. Could it be
amended ? In Great Britain the power of a proud
aristocracy, necessary perhaps as a stage in the develop
ment of pohtical freedom and as a security against despot
ism, was manifestly becoming harmful and acting as a
restraint upon freedom. Could it be replaced by a more
generous system of co-operation in the direction of public
affairs ? The machinery of local self-government, which
had done so much for England, was becoming rigid and
unreal. Could it be revitalised ? The marvellous economic
progress which the British peoples were making was en
riching the nation indeed, but by the forms which it was
assuming was tending to diminish the freedom and happiness
of very large elements in the population. Could this pro
gress be enhanced and accelerated without hurting the
happiness of the mass of labouring men ?
All these problems, and many others besides, presented
themselves inevitably to the triumphant British peoples.
Has a more difficult bundle of problems ever been laid before
any generation ? They had to be dealt with by fallible
men, largely unconscious of the magnitude of the issues
which faced them, and governed, as all men at all times are

814 THE WHIG OLIGARCHY [bk. vi.
governed, by the traditions and presuppositions which
belonged to their generation. They made many blunders,
and answered many of the questions in a disastrously wrong
sense. Nevertheless the period during which they had to
answer them was one of the most instructive, as it was one
of the most critical, in the history of the British Common
wealth. It wUl be dealt with in our next volume ; and in
view of the momentousness of the issues then to be raised,
we may well feel that the triumphs of 1763 ought to be
regarded not merely as the chmax of a long and varied story,
but as the preamble of a story yet more complex, more
stimulating and more noble, a story which the Fates are
still teUing.
[Lecky's History of England and Ireland in the Eighteenth Century ;
Traill's Social England ; Cunningham's Growth of English Industry
and Commerce ; de Saussure's Foreign View of England in the Reign
of George I. and George II. ; S. and B. Webb's English Local Govern
ment; Nichol's History of the Poor Law; Hasbach's English Agri
cultural Labourer ; Graham's Social Life in Scotland in the Eighteenth
Century ; Channing's History of the United States]

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX
[Only the principal events referred to in the text are included, together with a few events
not mentioned in the text, which are inserted for purposes of reference.]

DATE PAGE
Dateless. The New Stone Age (Neolithic) . 6
,, The Bronze Age .... 7
,, Stonehenge  7
B.C. (c.) 600 invasions of the Gaels 7
c. 400 Invasions of the Britons . . 7
326 Voyage of Pytheas ... 8
66-54 Julius Caesar in Britain . 9
B.C. 27- a.d. 14- Augustus Jirst Roman Emperor —
a.d. 43-61 Roman Conquest of South Britain 9
84 Battle of Mons Graupius . . 9
Erection of the Roman Wall . 10
St. Alban, the first British Martyr —
Barbarian Irruptions into the
Roman Empire . . . .12
The Romans abandon Britain 10, 12
Legendary date of the first Teu
tonic settlement in Britain
(Hengist and Horsa). . . 15
St. Patrick in Ireland . . 19
Clovis and the Frankish Conquest
of Gaul ... 12, 16,
Theodoric and the Ostrogoths
conquer Italy . . X2, 16
' King Arthur ' and the British
Resistance . . . .15, 108
The Scots invade Scotland . 18, 19
The Saxons driven back at Mount
Badon ....
St. Columba at Iona
Battle of Deorham
Landing of St. Augustine
Battle of Chester .
Supremacy of Northumbria . . 21
Mohammedan Conquest of Syria
and Persia  18
St. Aidan at Lindisfarne . . 20
Synod of Whitby . . .20
The English Church organised by
Theodore . . . .20
Battle of Nectansmere . . . 21
The Saracens reach Spain 18, 22, ig6
St. Boniface in Germany . .21
Battle of Poitiers . . . .22
Completion of Bede's ' Ecclesi-
astical History ' . . , . 2r
768-96 Offa king of Mercia . 21,107
768-814 Charlemagne king of the Franks 21, 22
789 First Viking raid on England 23, 26, 27
800 Charlemagne crowned Emperor 22, 83

c. 125
c. 305
from 375 410
449

c. 450
481-511 490
c. 500 603
c. 616
563
577597 613
617-86
632-40 636
664
669-73 685 711
723732
c. 732

18

18

DATE
802-39 826 829843

854-5
867-70 871
871-99 878886
899-924 909 913
913-18
924-40 937
959-76 960
962-73
978-1016 980
987 991
992
1002 1013 1014
101 6-90 1016
1016-35 1018
1042
1042-6
1055-65 1066

1076-85

PAGE
Egbert . . . 21, 2a, 23, 28
Battle of Ellandun . . . 21
Egbert overlord of all England 21-3
Formation of a united kingdom of
Scotland  31
A Northman overlord of Ireland 27
A Danish settlement in Thanet . >8
The Danes settle in Yorkshire
and East Anglia . . .28
Battle of Ashdown . . .29
Alfred the Great . . 29-31
Treaty of Chippenham . . 29
Danes confined to ' Danelaw ' 29, 38
Edward the Elder . 3X, 32, 114
Founding of Cluny Abbey . .38
Northmen in Normandy 26, 36, 41
The English regain Mercia . . 31
Athelstan .... 32-34
Battle of Brunanburh . . 32
Edgar  33, 38
Dunstan, Abp. of Canterbury 34, 38
Otto I, Emperor . . - 33, 192
Ethelred the Redeless . 34, 35
The Danes explore Greenland . 26
Hugh Capet king of France . 33
Battle of Maldon . . . .34
1 Danegeld ' imposed . . 34, 45
Massacre of the Danes. . . 34
England submitted to Sweyn . 35
Battle of Clontarf: the Danes
driven from Ireland . . .28
Norman Conquest of Sicily and
Italy ... 39, 41, ss, 84
Edmund Ironside . . 35
Canute . . . . 35, 37
Battle of Carham : Lothian added
to Scotland . . 35, 4g, 113
Edward the Confessor . . 36
Lanfranc at Bee . . . .36
Westminster Abbey rebuilt . 36, 92
Harold II  36, 37
Battle of Stamford Bridge . . 37
Battle of Hastings . 37, 40, 42
William the Conqueror
37, 39, 42-48, 58, 60, 69, 108
Lanfranc undertakes the reform of
the Church ... 47
' Investiture ' contest between
Gregory VII. and Henry IV. 39, 43
815

816 SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

DATE 1086 ii
1087
1095-99 1097 1100 1106 11071122
1124-53 1128
1135
1139-53
1146-87 1152
1152-90 1154
1159-83

1164
1165-1214

1166

1171
1174
1176 1177
1180-1223 1181
1189
1190-94
1190-971194-99
1194-12401198-1216 1199
1202-4
1205-13 1207 1213
1214
1214-95 1215
1215-60 1216
1221-24 1224
1226
1226-70

PAGE
Oath of Salisbury . . . .43
Domesday Book . . 46, 58
William II. . 45-48, 109
The First Crusade 41, 46, 54
Banishment of Anselm . . .48
Henry I. . 44-46, 48, 51, tog
Battle of Tenchebrai . . .46
English settlement of the question
of ' Investitures ' . 48
Concordat of Worms : end of the
Investiture contest in Europe . 48
David I. king of Scotland 49, 50, 114
The Cistercian Order established
in England . . 53, 74
Stephen . . . . 48i 49
Civil War in England . 48, 51, 53
The Second Crusade . . - 53
Marriage of Henry of Anjou and
Eleanor of Aquitaine . 52, 63
Frederick Barbarossa Emperor 52-5
Henry II. 52-63, 65, 66, 71, io9, Ir4
Contest between Frederick Bar
barossa, the Papacy, and the
Italian Cities ... 52, 55
Constitutions of Clarendon . 52, 60, 73
William the Lion king of Scot
land . . 56, 6t, 114, 115
Assize of Clarendon: the Jury of
Presentment . 58, 59, 71, 203
Strongbow in Ireland . . .56
Murder of Becket .... 60
Inquest of Sheriffs . . .58
Henry II. Lord of Ireland . . 56
William the Lion does homage for
Scotland . . . 56,61, 114
Assize of Northampton . . 58
Council of Oxford : the Welsh pay
Henry homage .... 109
Philip Augustus king of France 56, 63, 124
Assize of Arms . . . - 59
Richard I. . . 54-56, 61
Richard absent on the Third
Crusade  61
Henry VI. Emperor . 55, 61
War with France . . . .61
Llywelyn the Great prince of
North Wales . . . .110
Innocent III. Pope . 52, 62, 83, 193
John . . 56, 62-64, 66, 83, 84, 95
Loss of Normandy . . 63, 86
John's quarrel with the Pope 62, 83
Langton, Abp. of Canterbury 63, 95
John becomes the Pope's vassal
62, 83, 84, 95, 150
Battle of Bouvines . . .64
Life and work of Roger Bacon 91, 93
Magna Carta 63-66', 95, 387, 389, 398
Frederick IL Emperor . 84, 97
Henry III. . . 66, 92, 95-99, no
The Mendicant Friars settle in
England . . . • 9°, 93
Genghiz Khan invades Russia . 88
The Teutonic Knights in Prussia 85
Louis IX, king of France 87, 99, 124

DATE
1242-3
1246-83 1246
1249-86 1253

1257
125812591263 1264

1270-95 1272
1273-91 1275 1277
12781279
1282-4 1285

PAGE
Loss of Poitou . . . .96
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd prince of
Wales . . 97, 99, "o, in
Carpini sent to Asia by the Pope. 88
Alexander III. king of Scotland 114-5
Louis IX. sends Rubruquis to the
East  88,238
1254 Sicily offered to the Earl of Lan
caster ... 84, 97, 99
Richard of Cornwall crowned
Emperor . . . . 84, 97
Provisions of Oxford . . 98, 99
Treaty with France . . 99
Battle of Largs .... 114
Mise of Amiens . . . 87,99
,, Battle of Lewes . . . .99
1266 Simon de Montfort's Parliament . 99
,, Battle of Evesham ... 100
Marco Polo in Asia . 86, 88, 238
Edward I. 98-106, 111, 112, 115-118,
122, I24, 133, 152
Rudolf of Habsburg Emperor . 85
First Parliament of Edward I. 102, 144
Treaty of Conway . . . m
Writs of ' Quo Warranto ' . .104
Statute of Mortmain . . .105
Conquest of Wales 82, io6rxix, 122
Statute of Winchester . . 104, 152
1 285-1 314 Philip IV. king of France 87, 106, 124
1291-1399 Swiss Independence attained . 85
1291-2 Edward I. asserts feudal superi
ority over Scotland : John
BaUiol king of Scotland . . 115
1294-1303 War with France : Balliol aids the
French 102, 103, 105, 106, 115, 124
The Model Parliament . 102, 144
First Conquest of Scotland 106, 116
i, Issue of bull ' Clericis laicos' . 105
1297 Confirmation of Charters: restric
tion of the king's powers of
taxation .... 103, 105
11 Battle of Stirling Bridge . . 116
Battle of Falkirk , . . .116
Second Conquest of Scotland 106, 1x7
Wallace executed .... 117
The Popes at Avignon 89, 124, 142, 194
1 306-29 Robert Bruce king of Scotland 117-
XX9, X22, I46, l86
Edward II. 118, 119, 122, 145-147
The Lords Ordainers appointed . 145
Battle of Bannockburn . 118. 146
Edward Bruce in Ireland . 119, 189
Thomas of Lancaster executed :
Parliament of York: concur
rence of ' the community ' in
legislation laid down . 146, 149
Deposition of Edward II. 147l j6o
Edward III. 119, 120, 122, 123, 125-
I29) 138, I47-I5X, l66, 189
Treaty of Northampton : recogni
tion of Scottish independence 119
Philip VI. king, of France . . x?$
David II. king of Scotland no, I20,
124, 126

1295 1296

1298
1303-05 1305
1305-76

1307 13101314
1315-18 1322

13271327

1328

1328-50 1329

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX

817

1342 1346

125149138125126

1347
1348-9 1349
1350-64 1351
1353
1356 1360

1361

1362

1366
1367
1370
1370-89

DATE PAGE
1332-41 Edward BalHol in Scotland . 119,125
1338 Edward III. claims the French
crown
1340 Parliament asserts control over
taxation
Battle of Sluys . 125,
Invasion of Brittany
Guienne attacked ....
Battles of Cressy and Neville's
Cross ... . 120, 126
Capture of Calais 123, 127, 128, 129, 137
The Black Death . 117, 135, 136
Ordinance of Labourers 135, 150, 154
John king of France . . 123, 127
First Statute ofProvisors . 142, 150
First Statute of Praemunire . 150
Battle of Poitiers . 123,127
Treaty of Bretigny . 128
Institution of ( Justices of the
Peace' . 152, 202, 212, 339, 343
Battle of Adrianople : the Turks
established in Europe . 88, 200
English becomes the language of
Parliament and the law-courts . 141
Parliament claims control of the
Customs duties . . 149
Statute of Kilkenny 189
Battle of Navarete . . 129
Massacre of Limoges . 123, 129
Disasters of the French War 129, 153
c. 1370-1400 Geoffrey Chaucer's literary
activity . . 92, 140, 141, 335
RobertIL king of Scotland 120, 1S7
Battle of La Rochelle . . .129
Death of the Black Prince . . 151
The Good Parliament : Institution
of Impeachment . . . 151
1 Piers Plowman ' written . 140,141
fl Richard II. 129, 153, 155-161, 190
1378-1417 The Great Schism 89, 194
1379-82 Wycliffe's activity . 142,154,158
1380-1422 Charles VI. king of France 166, 168
1381 Revolt of the Peasants 136, 142, 154
Wycliffe's doctrines condemned . 158
The 'Merciless Parliament' 154, 157
Battle of Kossovo : Turks supreme
in the Balkans . . . 200
1380-97 Richard rules with the aid of Par
liament .... 157, 158
Robert III. king of Scotland . 187
Great Statute of Praemunire . 159
Richard II. visits Ireland . . 190
A truce with France . . 129, 158
Union of Kalmar (Denmark, Swe
den, and Norway) . . 197
Parliament of Shrewsbury . . 159
Deposition of Richard II. . 160
„ Henry IV. . 160-163, 165, 166, 190
140O-6 Rising of Owen Glendower ii2, 161,185
1401 The statute ' de haeretico com-
burendo' . ¦ 161, 263
Battle of Shrewsbury . . . 161
James I. king of Scotland . 186,187
Alliance with Burgundy ¦ 166
I,

1371
1372
1376

1377

138213881389

1390 1393
13941396
1397
13981399

1403
1406 1411
VOL.

DATE 1413
1414-18 1414 11
14151419
1419-36 14201422
1422-35 1422-61 1429
1430-31

1431-49 1434
143614371450

1451
1453

1454
1455-85 1460 11
1461-83 1461

1464

1469-71 1471
1475
1476
1477 14791483
1483-98 1483
1485 11
1487

1488
1492

1492-97 1493

PAGE
Henry V. . . 163-168, 173, 190
Council of Constance . 194, 247
Universityof St. Andrews founded 187
Lollard Conspiracy 163
Battle of Agincourt . . 163, 167
Murder of the Duke of Burgundy 167
Struggle of Bohemia against Habs
burg rule . . 158, 246, 364
Treaty of Troyes . . . .168
Henry VI. . . 168, 175-181
Duke of Bedford Regent 169-171, 175
Charles VII. king of France 168-171
Joan of Arc relieves Orleans . 170
Capture and death of Joan of Arc 170
Limitation of the Franchise to
forty-shilling freeholders . . 174
Council of Basle . . 194, 247
Peace between the Duke of Bur
gundy and Charles VII. . . 171
The English lose Paris . . .171
James II. king oj Scotland . . 187
Battle of Formigny and loss of
Normandy . . . 171, 177
Jack Cade's Rebellion . . .177
Glasgow University founded 187, 275
Battle of Castillon and loss of
Aquitaine . . . 171, 177
FaU of Constantinople . 201, 222
The Duke of York made Protector 171
Wars of the Roses . 178-183, 185
Battle of Wakefield . 178,179
James III. king of Scotland . 187
Louis XI. king of France , 181, 182, 196
Battles of Mortimer's Cross and
Towton . . . 179, 180
Edward IV. . . 179-182, 187
Battles of Hedgley Moor and
Hexham  x8o
Scotland acquires the Orkney and
Shetland Islands . . 115,187
Struggle between Edward IV. and
Warwick .... 181
Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury 181
Treaty of Pecquigny . . ,182
Caxton's Printing-Press . . 225
Marriage of Maximilian and Mary
of Burgundy . . . 199
Union of Aragon and Castile . 196
Edward V. . ... 182
Charles VIIL king of France 230, 231
Richard III. . . . 182, 183
Battle of Bosworth . . 183, 185
Henry VII. 210-214, 217-220, 231, 244
Battle of Stoke . .211
Statute against ' Liveries and
Maintenance' . . - 211, 213
Court of Star Chamber 213, 387, 433
James IV. king of Scotland 220, 221
Granada conquered by Spain 196
Treaty of Etaples . . . - 231
Columbus' first voyage. 233, 239, 244
Risings of Perkin Warbeck . . 121
Papal division of new discoveries
between Spain and Portugal 239, 245
3F

818 SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

DATE PAGE
1494 Poynings' Acts .... 219
11 Charles VIII. invades Naples 230, 231
1494-98 Savonarola's ascendency in Flor-

1496
1497-8 1497-9
1498-1516 1499 11
1500 1501
15021509

1509-15

. 247
. 217
244, 314
. 240232 226232241

1512
1513

1514
1516-47 1515-29 15161517
1519-21
1519-221519-55 1620
1520-66 1521

1522 1523
1524-5 1525

1525-35 1526

1527
152815281529

ence ....
The ' Magnus Intercursus '
Cabot in America .
Voyage of Vasco da Gama
Louis XII. king of France
Colet and Erasmus at Oxford
Louis XII. captured Milan .
Cabral discovers Brazil .
Marriage of the Prince of Wales
and Catherine of Aragon 231, 252
Marriage of James IV. of Scot
land and Margaret Tudor 220
Henry VIIL 214-216, 218, 220,227-
229, 232, 233, 235, 249, 251-265, 275-
278, 324-327
Henry marries Catherine of
Aragon . . 232, 252, 255
Albuquerque governor of the
Portuguese E. Indies 240, 372-375
Henry VIII. joins the Holy
League . . 220, 232
Spain conquers Navarre . 196
Machiavelli's * Prince' . . . 228
Battle of Flodden Field 221, 275
James V. king of Scotland . 275-277
Alliance with France . . 232
Francis I. king of France 232-5, 244
Wolsey chief Minister of State
215, 216, 227, 232, 235, 252
( Utopia ' published . 227
Luther protests against f Indul
gences' . . . 234, 249
Cortez' conquest of Mexico . 243
Voyage of Magellan : circum
navigation of the Earth 242
Charles V. Emperor 199, 233-235,
243, 249-251, 261, 268, 324
Luther burns the Pope's Bull 249
Solyman I. Sultan of Turkey 234
Diet of Worms 234, 249
The Turks capture Belgrad . 234
Controversy between Henry VII I.
and Luther . . 249
War with France . . 216, 235, 275
Parliament refuses supplies . . 216
Revolt of the German Peasants . 250
Battle of Pavia 235, 250
Treaty with France : the ' Balance
of Power' . ... 236
Tyndale's English Bible . . 254
Pizarro's conquest of Peru . 243
Baber founds the Mogul Empire
in India . . 374, 762
Diet of Speyer : the ' Protestants ' 250
Battle of Mohacz : Turkish con
quest of Hungary 234, 523
Henry seeks a divorce . . . 252
William Hawkins reaches Guinea 304
Patrick Hamilton, the first Scottish
Protestant martyr 221, 277
Fall of Wolsey . . . .252

DATE
1529-36

1532
1533

1534

1534-36
1534-40

1535 1536

1537

1539

1540 1541

1542 11
1542-68 1543-46 15441545 1546

PAGE
The Long Parliament of the Re
formation . . - 253-255, 257
Act of Annates .... 255
Henry marries Anne Boleyn 252-256
Actof Appeals : Cranmer adjudges
Henry a divorce . . 255
C6uncil of Wales . . 260,433
1 Submission of the Clergy' 254, 255
Acts of Supremacy and Succes
sion . .... 356
Cartier discovers Canada . 244, 379
Thomas Cromwell in power 253, 256,
257, 260, 261
Sir Thomas More executed 248, 256
Calvin's ' Christianas Religionis
Institutio' ... —
Union of England and Wales 260
Henry marries Jane Seymour . 256
The 'Ten Articles' . .257
Suppression of the lesser monas
teries . 257-259
Pilgrimage of Grace . 259, 262
Council of the North set up 260, 433
Execution of the chiefs of the
Geraldine clan . . . 325
Suppression of the greater monas
teries . . . 257, 258
Order of Jesuits founded . . 288
Act of Proclamations. Act of the
Six Articles . 260, 263
Calvin dictator of Geneva 251, 263, 280
Henry proclaimed King of Ire
land ... . 56, 324
Jesuits in Ireland . . 322, 324
Henry's settlement of Ireland 323-327
Battle of Solway Moss . . 276
Mary Queen of Scotland 277-279, 285,
289, 291-295, 301
War with France. 261, 275
Sack of Edinburgh 261, 278
The English ravage the Lowlands 278
Charles V. summons the Council

of Trent

251, 287

1 546-60 John Knox's labours for Cal
vinism . 279-286
1547 Edward VI. 262, 264-267
1547-61 Somerset Protector . 263-265, 278
1547 Battle of Pinkie . . . 264,278
., Suppression of the Chantries . 265
1 548 Betrothal of Mary of Scotland and
the Dauphin . . 264, 268, 279
1549 First Book of Common Prayer
and Act of Uniformity 212, 263-265
„ Religious rising in the West of
England  264
„ Rising against ' Enclosures ' in
Norfolk . . . 258, 264, 342
1552 2nd Book of Common Prayer 265, 272
„ Second Act of Uniformity , 266
1553 Mary I. . . 266-271,306,325
„ Chancellor reaches Archangel . 304
1554 Mary of Guise Regent of Scot
land . . . 280-283
,1 Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt 268

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX

819

1554 Marriage of Mary and Philip of
Spain . . . 268
11 Execution of Lady Jane Grey 269
11 Restoration of papal authority in
England . . 269
1654-5 Revival of statutes against heretics 269
1555 Abdication of Charles V. . . 268
1555-58 Mary's religious persecutions 269-70
1556-98 Philip II. king of Spain 268, 270, 288-
291, 295, 298-303, 315, 319, 330-332
1566-1606 Akbar Mogul Emperor of India 374
1558 Loss of Calais .... 270
1558-60 Jenkinson's travels in Russia and
Asia . . . 305
1558 Elizabeth 271-273, 289-295, 298-301,
306-312, 326-328, 332, 346-3S4, 388
1559 Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity 272, 273, 347
1, Peace of Cateau-Cambresis . 282, 288
11 Rebellion of the Scottish Pro
testants . 282, 289
1560 England helps the Scottish Pro
testants  283
h Siege of Leith : death of Mary of
Guise . ... 283
11 Reform of the Church of Scotland 284-286, 406
1560-67 RebeUion of Shane O'Neill . . 326
1561 The 'Book of Discipline' drawn
up by Knox . . . 284, 285
11 Mary's return to Scotland . 285, 292
„ David Wolfe lands in Ireland . 328
1562 Hawkins' first Guinea voyage . 309
1562-98 Wars of Religion in France . 290, 299
1562 Elizabeth aids the French
Huguenots . . . 290
1563 The ' Thirty-nine Articles ' . . 273
1564 Birth of Shakespeare . —
1565 Marriage of Darnley and Mary
Queen of Scots . . 293
1566 Murder of Riccio . . 293
n ' Advertisements ' of Parker . 348
1567 Murder of Darnley : Mary marries
Bothwell ... . 294
„ Death of Shane O'Neill . 326
„ Battle of Carberry Hill 294
11 Revolt of the Netherlands 290, 306
1568 Battle of Langside : Mary sur
renders to Elizabeth . . 285, 294
n James VI. king of Scotland 285,286,
.295, 296, 406-408
11 Capture of the treasure-fleet 307, 310
fi Hawkins at St. Juan de TJllua . 309
1569 Plot of the Duke of Norfolk and
the northern Earls . • 295
1569-73 Revolt in Munster . .329
1570-82 Negotiations for Elizabeth's mar
riage to a French Prince . . 299
1570 The Pope excommunicates Eliza
beth .... 295, 297
1571 The Ridolfi Plot . . . 295
„ Battle of Lepanto . • 300, 303
„ Extension of the Treason laws . 297
1572 ' Beggars of the Sea * take Brill . 298

"ATE PAGE
1572 William of Orange leads the
Netherlands against Spain
287, 298, 300, 306
11 Massacre of St. Bartholomew 297, 299
11 ' Admonishment to Parliament ' . 348
1672-3 Drake's Voyage to the West
Indies and the Spanish Main 311
1575 First executions of Catholic
missionaries .... 297
1576-78 Frobisher's search for a North-
West Passage . . . 305
1577 Revolt in Connaught . . . 329
1577-80 Voyage of the Golden Hind 311, 312
1579 Spain and the Papacy instigate
rebellion in Ireland . . 330
1580 Massacre of Smerwick ' . . 330
¦1 Arrival of Parsons and Campion
in England .... 297
n Annexation of Portugal by Spain
300, 303, 305
1581 Melville issues the ' Second Book
of Discipline ' . . .285
1582 The Ruthven Raid . .296
1583 Whitgift Abp. of Canterbury . 349
11 Powers of the High Commission
Court enlarged . . 347, 420, 433
,, Settlement in Newfoundland 314, 342
1584-86 English ' plantations' in Munster 331
„ Murder of William of Orange . 299
11 League of the French Catholics
with Spain . . . ¦ 299
1584-90 Raleigh plans colony in Virginia 3x3-4
1585 Elizabeth sends an army to the
Netherlands . . 300, 312, 339
1585-6 Drake in the West Indies . 301, 313
1585-87 Davis explores Greenland and the
North American coast . 305
1586 Restrictions on printing . . 350
1586 Battle of Zutphen : death of Sir
Philip Sidney . 300
,, Babington Plot . . . .301
15S7 Execution of Mary Queen of
Scots  3°J
„ Drake raids Cadiz harbour . . 315
1588 The Spanish Armada . 314-318
1588-9 ' Martin Marprelate ' tracts . . 350
1589-1610 Henry IV. king of France 359, 361, 364
1589 Drake attacks Spanish ports . 319
1 590-6 Publication of the ' Faerie Queene ' —
„ Cartwright's agitation for Synods 350
1591 Attack on the Azores : the Revenge 319
1593 Peter Wentworth imprisoned . 352
1595 Rebellion of Hugh O'Neill . .33=
1596 Essex burns Cadiz . • 3*9
1598 Battle of Yellow Ford . . 332
„ Edict of Nantes - 359, 5*7
1599 Essex sent to subdue the Irish 332, 339
1600 Establishment of the East India
Company - - - 346, 372, 376
1601 Monopolies abolished . . 354
„ 'Poor Law' Act . -339,343
„ A Spanish force lands at Kinsale 332
.. Rebellion and death of Es^ex 332

820 SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

DATE 1603

1604
1604-11 1604 n
1605
1605-27 16061607 ii
1608

1610 1611

1612 1613
1613-15 1614 ii
16151616 1617
1618-48 1618 1619
1620 iiii
1621

1624-30
1624-54
1624-26 1624 ii
1625

PAGE
James I. 361, 364-366, 373, 374, 381,
385-9, 39J-395, 4°3, 4°7-4io
End of the Irish Rebellion . 333, 401
Hampton Court Conference . 386
First Parliament of James I. 390-2
PeacewithSpain 362,364,371, 375,386
French settlement in Acadia . 379
The Gunpowder Plot . . .385
Jehangir Emperor of India . 374
The Virginia Companies . 372, 380
First settlenwnt in Virginia. 381, 811
The Catholic League . 360
Calvinist Protestant Union 360, 362
Plantation of Ulster . 402
Issue of a 'New Book of Rates' 391
French settlement in Quebec 379
Murder of Henry IV. of France . 364
Completion of the Authorised
Version of the Bible . . 386, 417
Gustavus A dolphus king of
Sweden .... 367, 519
Bermuda Islands colonised . 382, 806
Marriage of Princess Elizabeth
and the Elector Palatine . 362, 364
Champlain explores the great
Lakes  379, 529
The ' Addled ' Parliament . 392
Downton defeats the Portuguese
off Surat .... 375
Sir Thomas Roe's embassy to the
Great Mogul . . . 374, 375
British ' factory ' at Surat . 375
Raleigh's expedition to Guiana 378
Thirty Years' War 364-369, 395-7
First British trading-post at
Gambia ..... 535
Representative government in
Virginia . . 357, 382
Council of New England es
tablished .... 383, 421
Voyage of the Mayflower . . 383
Battle of the White Mountain . 365
I mpeachmen t of Bacon and
Mompesson . . . 392, 393
Dutch West India Company
organised . . . 371, 376
English settlements in St.
Christopher , 378, 805
Massacre of Amboyna . 373, 374, 480
War with Spain 365, 393, 403, 414
Dutch supremacy in Brazil . 377
Dutch Colony of the New
Netherlands . . . 377
Settlement of Barbados . 378, 805
British alliance with France 366
Charles I. 366, 394-400, 404, 409-415,
422, 427-438, 441-444, 449-451, 454-
457, 475
Projects of English intervention
in the Thirty Years' War 366, 395-
397,618
First Parliament of Charles I. . 395
Attack on Cadiz . . 365, 396
Grotius' ' de Jure Belli et Pacis ' 362

DATE hAl»E
1626 Charles' second Parliament :
Buckingham impeached . . 396
M Virtual promise of the ' Graces '
to Ireland .... 404, 405
„ Battle of Lutter . . . 366, 397
1627-58 Shah J ehan Mogul Emperor . 374
1627-29 War with France . 366, 380,403, 414
1627 Company of New France created 379
1627 Imposition of Benevolences' and
' Forced Loan ' 397
1628 Third Parliament: Petition of
Right. 397-399) 421, 428, 433
11 Murder of Buckingham . 399, 414
11 Massachusetts Company founded 421
n Colonisation of Nevis and Bar
buda ... . 378, 805
1629 The Edict of Restitution . .367
1629-40 Personal government of Charles I.
367, 395, 399. 4i4, 4*8, 427-430
1629-32 The English occupy Quebec . 380
1630 Puritan settlement of Massa
chusetts .... 422, 809
1631 Battle of Breitenfeld . .367
1632-40 Wentworth Lord-Deputy of Ire
land . . 404-406, 430, 436
1632 Gustavus Adolphus killed at
Liitzen . . . 367
h Colonisation of Maryland, Antigua
and Montserrat 378, 426, 427, 811
1632-33 British factories opened in Bengal
and at Masulipatam . . 375
1633 French intervention in the Thirty
Years' War . . . .368
11 First settlement in Connecticut 4=4, 533. 809
11 Laud Archbishop of Canterbury
395, 4io, 418-421, 432. 435
11 Prynne's ' Histrio-mastix' 418, 420
1634 A High Commission Court set up
in Scotland . . . 410, 412
n First levy of 'ship-money' in
England . . . 428, 475
1 635 Issue of the Book of Canons for
Scotland .... 410, 412
1635-59 France at War with Spain
368, 480, 482, 514
1635 Second levy of ship-money' 428, 475
11 French plantations in Martinique
and Guadeloupe . . 377, 680
1636-8 Settlements in Rhode Island 425, 427
1636 Third levy of ' ship-money ' 397, 419
1637 Hampden's Case . . .429
n The Scots reject Laud's liturgy:
the ' Tables ' set up . . 410-412
1638 Scottish National Covenant 411, 502
11 Swedish settlement in Dela
ware . . . 536-538, 810.
11 Colonies founded in New Haven
and Honduras 378, 4Z5] 809
n General Assembly of Glasgow . 412
1639 Erection of Fort St. George
(Madras) ... _ 3?6
11 First Bishops' War : Truce of
Berwick . ,„„

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX

821

DATE 1640 11
1640-60 1640-88
1640-68 1641

1642 11
1642-44 1642-48 1642

1643-1715

1644

1644-45 1645

1646

1648

1649

PAGE
The 'Short' Parliament . 413, 431
Second Bishops' War . . . 431
The Long Parliament {Nov. )
431-439. 455, 465. 4^5
Frederick William the Great
Elector . . . 520, 521, 523
Portuguese struggle for independ
ence  514, 5=5
Triennial Act (Feb.)" . . 433, 500
Attainder and execution of
Strafford {May) . 432, 434-436
Charles I. in Scotland (Aug.) 432, 501
The Irish Rebellion (Oct.) . . 437
The Grand Remonstrance (Nov.) 437
Arrest of the Five Members . 438
French settlement of Montreal 380
Explorations of Tasman . . 373
Civil War . . 358, 427, 440-455
Assembly of Irish Catholics at
Kilkenny . . 440, 449
Battle of Edgehill : the Royalists
take Oxford . . 443
Louis XIV. king of France
511-518, 522, 526-530, 544, 549, 551,
561-563, 567, 601-606, 613, 614, 650
Westminster Assembly of Divines 445
Royalist successes at Adwalton
Moor and Bristol . . . 443
Charles seeks aid from Ireland :
Cessation of arms . 444
The Solemn League and Cove
nant . . . 445, 462, 498
New England Federation formed 425
Battles of Marston Moor and
Tippermuir . . 446, 447
Areopagitica published . . 471
' Directory of Public Worship ' 445
The Self-denying Ordinance : the
New Model Army . 448, 449
Battles of Naseby and Langport 448
Charles I. negotiates with the
Irish Catholics .... 449
Battlesof Kilsyth and Philiphaugh44g
Surrender of Oxford : Charles
joins the Scottish Army . 449
Battle of Benburb. Siege of
Dublin  45°
The Scots leave Charles with
Parliament . . . 451
The Army elects Agitators : ex
pulsion of the Eleven Members 453
Ormond surrenders Dublin.
Battle of Dangan Hill . . 450
Charles escapes to Isle of Wight 454
The Second Civil War . 442, 454, 455
The Shorter Catechism . . 445
Treaties of Westphalia 363, 368, 520
Pride's Purge (Dec.) . - 455
Execution of Charles I. (Jan.) 456-8
Abolition of the Monarchy and
House of Lords . • 458
Reform of the Navy (Feb.) 475, 476
Milton Secretary to the Council
of State . 459» 464

v

1651

DATE PACE
1649 Battle of Rathmines . .460
11 Cromwell storms Drogheda and
Wexford  461
11 Royalist ships driven from Kin-
sale (Nov.) . . . 460,476
1650 Montrose executed . . . 462
11 Charles II. in Scotland (June):
, battle of Dunbar (Sept.) 460, 462-3
Portuguese vessels sunk (Sept.) :
Rupert's fleet destroyed (Nov.) 476
Dutch settlement at the Cape of
Good Hope . . . 373
,1 Battle of Worcester . . . 463
„ The Navigation Act 478, 480, 532, 628
n Hobbes' Leviathan . 572, 574
1652 Surrender of Galway. Articles
of Kilkenny . . . 462
11 Institution of the ' Board of
Triers ' 464, 471
First Dutch Naval War . 478-481
Battles of Kentish Knock and
Dungeness . . • 479
1653 Naval actions of Portland, Gab-
bard Shoal, Scheveningen . 478-480
,, Rump Parliament ejected (April) 465
„ Barebone's Parliament (July) . 466
The Irish ' Act of Satisfaction ' 473'4
The Instrument of Government
(Dec.) . . . 467, 472
Cromwell Lord Protector
(Dec.) 467-474, 477- 480-484
English occupation of Acadia 481
First Protectorate Parliament . 467
Blake attacks the 'Barbary cor
sairs '  4^2
Attack on Hispaniola and
Jamaica . . -48x1 533
England under major-generals 468-g
Anglo-French war with Spain 482, 483, 514
1656 Blockade of Cadiz . . 48a
„ Second ProtectorateParliament 469-70
1657 The 'Humble Petition and Ad
vice ' . - 469, 472
,1 Spanish fleet sunk at Santa Cruz 482
1658-17 '07 Aurangzib Mogul Emperor 535»763
1658 Battle of the Dunes: England
gains Dunkirk . 482,483,514
„ Richard Cromwell Protec
tor ¦ ¦ 4^4, 4°5
1659 Third Protectorate Parliament . 484
„ Rump Parliament restored : the
Protectorate abolished . . 485
1659-80 Sivaji leads the Mahrattas\ 535, 763
1660 The Long Parliament restored
(Feb.) and dissolved (March) 485
„ Convention Parliament 486, 497, 498
,1 Declaration of Breda - 486> 496
„ The Restoration (May) 486,494-507
1660 Charles II. 486, 495, 500, 501, 504,
5i4, 516-518, 540, 543-551, 554
1660-67 Clarendon Chief Minister 497, 53°. 542
1660 Act of Indemnity and Oblivion . 497

1652-54 1652

1653-55 1653

1654-67 1654
1654-55

1655
1655-59

822 SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

Navigation Act . . 53a, 539, 628
East India Company reorganised 534
The Scottish Rescissory Act . 501
The Savoy Conference . . 498
Cavalier Parliament 498-500, 543*50
Abolition of Prerogative Courts . 500
Militia Acts  500
Corporation Act . . 498, 499, 576
Act of Uniformity . 498, 499, 543
Licensing Act . . 498, 553, 577
British African Company founded 535
The Royal Society established 510
Act of Settlement for Ireland 505, 586
Poor Law ' Settlement Act ' . 786
Dunkirk ceded to France 483, 514
Foundation of Carolina 534, 536, 811
Turkish attack on Hungary 513, 522
Completion of Paradise Lost . 499
Conventicle Act 499, 5°2, 543
Triennial Act . 500, 554, 575
The French West and East India
Companies established . 526
English attack on the New
Netherlands . . 515, 536, 537
Second Dutch War . 514,536,543
Battle of Lowestoft . . 5x4
„ The Great Plague . 499, 515
n Quaker settlements in New
Jersey . . . 537, 810
1665-1700 Charles II. king of Spain 601, 603

I66O
1661

1661-79 1661
1661-63 16611662

1663
1663-4 1663 1664

1665-67 1665

1665-72 1665
1666-67 1666

1667-8 1667

1667-73 1668

1670

1672-76 1672

1673
1673-79 1673

The French in Madagascar . 526
Five Mile Act . . 499, 543
France aids Holland against
England . 514, 527, 535
Battle of the Downs . . . 514
French Academy of Sciences
founded . . 510
The Great Fire of London 515
The Pentland Rising 502
The ' War of Devolution ' . . 515
The Dutch in the Med way (June) 515
Peace of Breda (July) . . 515, 536
ImpeachmentofClarendon(J4M£-.) 543
The 'Cabal'. . 544-547
The Triple Alliance (Jan.) . 515, 544
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (May) 516
Bombay granted to the East
India Company . . 534
Scottish Conventicle Act . 503
Secret Treaty of Dover . 516,545
Bahama Is- granted to proprietors 535
Stop of the Exchequer 545, 546, 622
Declaration of Indulgence 545-7, 557
Anglo-French war with Holland :
battle of Southwold Bay . 516, 546
Polish resistance to the Turks . 522
France invades Holland 516, 521. 527
William of Orange Stadholder 516
Murder of the de Witts . 516
The Test Act . 547, 555, 556, 576
Danby chief Minister 547-550
Battle of the Texel . . .516
Second marriage of the Duke of
York  547

DATE 1674

1674-96 1675

1681-82

1681-82 1681

1681-84
1682-99

1683

1685

1685

1686-8 1686

1688 i)
1688-97 1688

PAGE
England and Holland make peace 5i6, 548
French factory at Pondicherry . 768
John Sobieski king of Poland 522, 665
Battle of Fehrhellin . . .521
Second secret treaty between
Charles II. and Louis XIV. 548, 549
Marriage of William of Orange 519, 548» 552
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress . 499
The Popish Plot . . 549, 55°, 553
Treaty of Nimwegen . . .517
Danby impeached (Dec.) . .549
Cavalier Parliament dissolved . 549
Habeas Corpus Act . 65, 398, 550
Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell
Bridge  503
Exclusion Bill introduced . 550, 551
First ' Chamber of Reunion * 5x8,551
Colonisation of Pennsylvania and
the Delaware Territories . 538, 810
La Salle explores the Mississippi . 329
Strasbourg annexed by France 5x8, 601
Dryden's A bsalom and Achitophel 553
Forfeitures of Borough Charters 554
Conflict between Austria and
Turkey . . . 522, 665
The Rye House Plot . . .554
Siege of Vienna . 522, 665
Execution of Lord Russell and
Algernon Sidney . . . 554
Holy League against the Turks . 523
Charter of Massachusetts sus
pended .... 540
James II. 540, 555-558, 562, 563, 568
Battle of Sedgemoor : the ' Bloody
Assizes'  556
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
517, 528, 558
Andros' colonial rule 540, 591
Court of High Commission re
vived . .... 565
The League of Augsburg . 561
Tyrconnel Lord - Deputy of
Ireland . . 557, 565
Declaration of Indulgence . 557, 577
Second battle of Mohacz . . 523
Publication of Newton 's Principia 5 10
Trial of the Seven Bishops
(June) . ... 558
Capture of Belgrad by Austria . 561
War of the League of Augsburg
561, 564, 567, 597-600
William of Orange lands at
Torbay (Nov.) . . 561-563
Flight of James II. (Dec.) . 563, 574
The Revolution 523, 540, 560-596, 640
Convention Parliament(/««.) 564, 575
Declaration of Right (Feb.) . . 575
William III. and Marv II.
564-568, 570, 574, 579-583, 591, 598,
602-605
JamesII.landsin Ireland . 566, 586

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX

DATE PAGE
1689 Scottish 'Claim of Right '(March) 581
11 Mutiny Act, Civil List, and
Toleration Act . . . 575, 576
1, England joins the Grand Alliance 564
11 Battle of Killiecrankie (July) 565
11 Relief of Londonderry (July).
Battle of Newtown Butler 566
1889-1725. /VrW- t/ie Great Emperor of
Russia . 666-669
1689 Bill of Rights . . . . S75
11 Locke's Essay of Government . 574
1690 Presbyterianism re-established in
Scotland  581
„ Battles of Beachy Head, Fleurus,
and the Boyne . . 512, 567
11 English factory at Calcutta . 679, 768
1690-97 War in the Hudson Valley and
Acadia  600
Capture of Athlone and Battle

568
568, 587, 588

594, 810
• 565
568, 598
¦ 598
¦ 598
622-624 575
571, 58o 622
• 59S
8, 692

1691 of Aghrim .
11 Treaty of Limerick
11 Massachusetts granted
charter
1692 Massacre of Glencoe
n Battle of La Hogue
h Battle of Steenkerke .
1693 Battle of Neerwinden .
1 694 Bank of England founded
,1 Triennial Act
11 Death of Queen Mary .
1 695 Bank of Scotland established
11 Capture of Namur
„ Irish Penal Code initiated
1696 Establishment of the Board of
Trade and Plantations . 592"594
1697-1718 Charles XII. king of Sweden
613, 652, 666-669
1 697 A ugustus of Saxony elected king
of Poland . - 666, 668, 674
i, Treaty of Ryswick . . . 600
1698 Peter the Great in England . -666
i, The New East India Company . 627
1698-1700 Scottish Expeditions to Darien . 582
1698 First Partition Treaty (Oct.) 601-603
1699 Peace of Carlowitz . 523, 665
„ Second Partition Treaty (June) . 603
„ Export of Irish woollen goods
prohibited . ¦ 589
„ The Northern League against
Sweden . - 667
1700-46 Philip of Anjou king of Spain 604, 615, 670
1701 Elector of Brandenburg crowned
king of Prussia . . . 6x6, 712
„ Act of Settlement 577, 583,605,638, 694
„ The Grand AUiance formed . 605-608
Anne . 605, 608, 634, 635, 638, 639
War of the Spanish Succession 606-615, 634
Methuen treaties between Eng
land and Portugal 610, 626, 636
„ Scottish Act of Security • 584
1704 English forces sent to Portugal . 6ix

1702
1702-13

1703

DATE 1704

1705 1706 1111
1707

1711

1711-40 17121713

1714-19 1714

1715-74 1715-18 1716 1717
1717-21 1717

1718 11
1719

1720

PAGE
Stanislas Lesczinski king of
Poland . . ^666-668, 674-676
Capture of Gibraltar(^4tt^.) 611, 672
Battles of Blenheim and Malaga
(Aug.) . . . 606, 611
Catalonia and Valencia won for
the Allies ... . 612
Battle of Ramillies (May) . . 612
Allied troops enter Madrid (June) 612
Battle of Turin (5^*.) . . .6x2
Battle of Almanza . . 6x3
Union of England and Scotland 583-586, 649
The Place Act . . 578, 694
Union of the East India Com
panies  628
Battle of Oudenarde . . 614
Capture of Minorca and Lille 613,614
Battles of Pultawa and Mal-
plaquet . . 614, 668
Trial of SachevereU . . 635
The Baltic Provinces seized by
Russia ..... 668
British and Colonials seize Acadia 616
Ministry of Harley and St. John
615, 635-639
South Sea Company founded 636, 678
Swift's Conduct of the Allies 615, 631
Occasional Conformity Act . 634, 637
Charles VI. Emperor . . 676, 713
Creation of Tory Peers 630, 636, 655
Treaty of Utrecht 615-617, 636, 669- 671
The ' Asiento ' Treaty 617, 637, 681
Hanoverian -Swedish dispute over
Bremen and Verden . . . 668
The Schism Act . . 637, 638
Bolingbroke in power (July) . 638
Death of Queen Anne (Aug.) . 639
George I. 639, 648, 653, 668, 687, 688
Whig Parliament (March) 640, 653
Oxford and Bolingbroke im
peached (June) . . . 640
Jacobite Rebellion : battles of
Preston and Sheriffmuir 649-651, 653
Louis XV. king of France 671, 725
Turkish attacks on Hungary . 665
The Septennial Act . -653
The Triple Alliance . 67X-675, 688
Ministry of Stanhope . . . 688
Law's ' Compagnie de 1'Occident ' :
Louisiana founded . 530, 677, 684
Grant of » Firman to the East
India Company . . . 679
Treaty of Passarowitz . 665, 672
Battle of Cape Passaro . . 672
Repeal of the Occasional Con
formity and Schism Acts . . 691
Treaty of Stockholm . 668
Declaratory Act : the English
Parliament legislates for Ireland 692
Rejection of the Peerage Bill . 655
The Pragmatic Sanction . 676, 713
The South Sea Bubble . 679, 688

824 SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

DATE PAGE
1720 Erection of Fort Louisbourg . 685
1721-42 Walpole's Ministry . 674,688-697
1721 Treaty of Nystadt . . 669
1722 Ostend Company founded . 672, 677
11 Workhouses Act .... 787
1723-24 Issue of Wood's Halfpence: the
Drapier's Letters . . . 691
1725 Treaty of Vienna (April) . 672,677
,, Treaty of Hanover (Sept.) . . 673
1725-35 Bolingbroke in Opposition . 640, 697
1726 First issue of the Craftsman . 697
1727 Siege of Gibraltar . .673
„ George II. . . . 687, 688, 738
1729 The Methodist Society founded
at Oxford . . . 707
11 Treaty of Seville . . 673
1732 Foundation of Georgia. 677, 705, 811
1733 Excise Bill and Molasses Act 680,695
1733-35 War of the Polish Succession 674-676
1733 Treaty of the Escorial (First
Family Compact) . 675, 677, 712
1735 Griffith Jones and the religious
revival in Wales . 706
1735-48 Labourdonnais in Mauritius . 769
1735-38 The Wesleys in Georgia . 707
1736 The Porteous Riots . . 691
1738 Treaty of Vienna . . . 675
1 7 39 John Wesley begins his travelling
. missionary life . . . 707, 796
,, Nadir Shah sacks Delhi . . 765
„ 'Jenkins' Ear' War 682,710-712
1740-86 Frederick the Great king of
Prussia 7x2-714, 724-727, 740, 741,
743, 753, 757
1740-80 Maria Theiesa queen of Hungary
713, 7M, 7t6, 724
1740-48 War of the Austrian Succession 699,
713-718
1741-54 Dupleix" rule in Pondicherry 769-772
1742 Fall of Walpole . . 688
1743 Battle of Dettingen . .715
1, Treaty of Fontainebleau (Second
Family Compact) . 714^ 725
1743-54 Pelham's Administration 689, 69,8, 728
1744 Naval battle off Toulon (Feb.) 716
1 744-48 England and France at war
(March) . . . 714-718, 769
1745 Battle of Fontenoy . 715
„ New Englanders capture Louis
bourg . . . 717-719
,1 Charles Edward's Jacobite Rising:
battle of Prestonpans 659-663, 716
1 746 Battles' of Falkirk and Culloden 661
1746-55 Pitt Paymaster of the Forces 728, 730
1746 The French take Madras 717, 719, 769
1747 Scottish ' Heritable Jurisdictions '
abolished . . . 662, 799, 800
1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 718,724,770
1749 British fort at Halifax . . . 720
1750 Colonial Manufactures Prohibi
tion Bill  696
1761 Clive attacks and defends Arcot . 771

date 1762
1754-66 1754

1755

1756

1757-61

1757

1758

1759

1759-88 1759

1760

1761

1762

1763

Relief of Trichinopoly - - .772
Newcastle's Ministry 689, 726-729, 736
Congress of Albany . . - 722
Washington defeated at Great
Meadows  723
Dupleix recalled . 725, 772
The Northern Sarkars ceded to
the French .... 773
Braddock's defeat . 723, 733
Deportation of Acadians . . 721
Convention of Westminster (Jan.) 726
French-Austrian Treaty of Ver
sailles (May) . . 727
England declares war on France
(May)  724
France gains Minorca (June) 735,756
Black Hole of Calcutta (June) 736, 774
Pitt's first Ministry (Dec.) . 736-738
Clive regained Calcutta(/an.) 742, 774
Pitt dismissed (April) . . .738
Battle of Kolin (May) . . 740, 741
Battle of Plassey (June) . 742, 775
The Pitt and Newcastle Coali
tion . 738-747, 749, 753-755t 778
Expedition to Rochefort . . 740
Convention of Klosterzeven . 740, 741
Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen 741
Capture of Senegal (April) . . 744
Lally takes Fort St. David (June) 776
Battle of Crefeld (June) . . 743
Capture of Louisbourg (July) . 745
Battles of Zorndorf (Aug.) and
Hochkirch (Oct.) . .743
French plans for invading Eng
land  746-748
Masulipatam taken from French . 776
Capture of Guadeloupe and Marie
Galante . . . 749, 752, 756
Fort Niagara and Ticonderoga
occupied .... 750, 752
Charles III. king of Spain . . 754
Battle of Minden and Action of
Lagos (Aug.) . . 748,750
Wolfe takes Quebec (Sept.) . 750-752
Battle of Quiberon "Bay (Nov.) 748, 777
Battle of Wandewash (Jan.) 753, 777
Battle of Liegnitz .... 753
George III. 654, 698, 753, 754
Battle of Torgau .... 753
Pondicherry captured . 756, 777
Battle of Panipat . . . 766,767
Seizure of Belleisle . . .753
Third Family Compact (Aug.) . 754
Pitt resigns : Lord Bute Prime
Minister (Oct.) , . 755,758
War with Spain : conquest of the
Windward Islands . 755, 756( 806
Capture of Havana and the Philip-
Pines • ¦ . 755, 756
Spanish forces driven out of Por-
tu8al • • • .756
Treaty of Paris . 756.756

Printed by George Philip Si Son, Ltd., London,

1978