6 9 w '©•A V .^.jitt.JV ^.jtffc:.^ ^,!a%\ ^ I © • A %*$ "W :is. He was a good-natured, brave, and gallant gentleman, but lacked the sternness and force necessary to hold the haughty barons in check. Stephen, 1135-1154. The Reign of Stephen taught the people of England how to value the rule of a stern king like Henry the First. All the evils of the feudal system were felt in Stephen's time. "Soon did the land fall into trouble," the Chronicle says, " and every man began to rob his neighbor as he might." The barons, secure in their great stone castles, set the king's authority at defiance. " When the traitors saw that he was a mild man, and a soft and a good, and that he did not enforce -justice, they broke their oaths of allegiance to him, and built castles throughout the land. They greatly op- pressed the wretched people, making them work at these cas- tles, which, when finished, they filled with devils and evil men." Some of them did not take the trouble to build for themselves. They seized upon the nearest church or mon- astery and converted it Into a castle. The robber barons went out at night and seized men and women whom they suspected of concealing property, and tortured them until they gave it up. " They hung some up by their feet and smoked them with foul smoke, and some by the thumbs, and some by the head, and they hung burning things on their feet. And they put knotted cords about their heads and twisted them until they went into the brain. And some they put into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put sharp stones in it and crushed the 72 ENGLAND UNDER NORMAN KINGS [1135 man therein, so that they broke all his limbs. And this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse." The land about these castles was soon deserted, and the barons themselves frequently were reduced to starvation and were obliged to ride many miles before they could obtain food. " Then was corn dear, and flesh and cheese and butter, for there was none in the land ; wretched men starved ; some lived on alms, who had before been rich. Some fled from the country. Never was there more misery, and never acted heathen worse than these." Before the Battle of the Standard. The Wars of Stephen and Matilda added to this horrible state of lawlessness. Some of the nobles had attached them- selves to the cause of Matilda, some to that of Stephen. But a large number held aloof from both. They wanted no sovereign at all, in order that they might be free to continue their robbery and murder. David, King of Scotland, took up the cause of his niece, Matilda, and three times invaded England. The third time he was defeated by a brave priest, Thurstan, the old Arch- 1153] STEPHEN 73 bishop of York, in the " Battle of the Standard." A tall cross mounted on a cart and surrounded by the banners of Yorkshire saints was taken into the field. At the foot of the cross the archbishop read prayers, and the English archers and Norman knights pledged themselves to conquer or die. A furious attack of the Scots was repulsed, and David re- tired, leaving twelve thousand men dead upon the field. Next, Matilda, won a fierce battle at Lincoln. Stephen was made prisoner. She then marched to London and was acknowledged as queen. She enjoyed but a brief reign. London had been first to accept Stephen, and, to punish the city, Matilda levied a heavy tax upon the people and revoked the laws of King Edward, which had been sanctioned by Stephen. At this crisis, the followers of the captured Stephen appeared before the city. The bells were rung and the peo- ple at once joined his party. They attacked Matilda's army, drove them out of the city, and in the pursuit captured many of her followers, including Eobert, Earl of Gloucester, the leading spirit of her cause. To save his life, he was forced to release Stephen, for whom he was exchanged. The war was now renewed, and Matilda was driven out of the country. Henry Plantagenet, Matilda's son, had been growing in prosperity and power. First he was made Duke of Nor- mandy, and then from his father he inherited the province of Anjou. In 1152, Henry married Eleanor, the former wife of the King of France, and with her came the two provinces of Aquitaine and Poitou. Henry now had more territory in France than the French king himself. He took the field against Stephen in support of his mother's claim. Stephen became alarmed and disheartened, and made peace by adopt- ing Henry as his successor. The barons on both sides were compelled to take oath to carry out the agreement and to give hostages to Henry. Stephen and Henry then visited the chief cities of England, and were joyfully received by NlVER 5. 74 ENGLAND UNDER NORMAN KINGS [1154 the people, who felt now that the period of lawlessness was at an end. Henry now retired to France. But in the follow- ing year (1154) Stephen died, and Henry returned to Eng- land to become the first of the Plantagenet kings. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How were the people affected by Henry's charter? 2. In what ways was each of the Conqueror's sons unlike him? 3. Was Henry right or wrong in regard to the church appointments? Give reasons. 4. What does Stephen's reign teach us of the people of England? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Normandy. Green, Short History, pp. 71-74; Jewett, Story of the Normans. 2. The White Ship. C. W. Colby, Sources of English History, pp. 49-52; Mrs. Hemans's poem, He Never Smiled Again; D. G. Rossetti, The White Ship. 3. The Robber Barons. Green, Short History, pp. 101-103 ; Ken- dall, Source Book, pp. 51-55. 4. Robin Hood. Lang, Book of Romance, pp. 323-355 ; Pyle, Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. IV. THE EAELY PLANTAGENET KINGS. 1 A. The Days of Chivalry. Henry II., 1154-1189. The Extent of Henry's Possessions made him the most powerful king in Europe. His dominions extended from the Pyrenees to Scotland, and included more than half of Erance. So far as his French lands were concerned, he was the vassal of the French king, but he was more powerful than his lord. The King of Scotland became his man, and during his reign parts of Wales and Ireland were joined to his dominions. The Name Plantagenet reminds us of the beginning of the custom of having surnames. They were introduced by the Normans. Count Geoffrey, Henry's father, wore on his helmet a sprig of the broom plant (in Latin, planta genistce). This gave rise to his surname, Plantagenet. Henry's Character and Rule. Henry II. was a tall, strong man. He was always at work, and could not sit still, even when at church. In the early part of his reign he man- aged his own affairs, and, as he had a very large realm, was always busy. More than half his time was spent in France looking after -his possessions there, and arranging marriages for his children and keeping them in order. This last grew 1 THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS. Henry II. (1154-1189) (o. 56) I I i i I Henry Geoffrey Richard I. Coeur de Lion John, Lackland | (1189-1199) I (1199-1216) Arthur Henry III. ^___ I (1216-1272) Edward I. (p. 102) Edmund, Earl of Lancaster (p. 133) 75 =160 Longitude West 5° from Greenwich 0° Longitude East 76 1154] HENRY II. 77 to be a very difficult business, on account of his queen, Eleanor, who brought them up to be willful and disobedient. Reforms of Henry. Many castles that had been built in England during the civil war were still dens of robbery and murder, and one of the first acts of Henry's reign was to demolish several hundred of them. Henry declared that there should be peace and justice in the land, that the ancient laws should be restored, and that he would " spare neither friend nor foe who resisted." Accordingly those nobles who would not surrender their castles were besieged and com- pelled to yield. Henry also made reforms in the courts. The Circuit Courts. A court is a means of securing to every man what rightfully belongs to him, and of fixing the punishment of those who break the laws. In the time of the Norman kings the county or shire court became the most important. The judges were the chief lords of the county, assisted by the king's sheriff, whose duty it was to see that justice was meted out to the offender. The sheriff was also the collector of the king's revenue, which came from a tax on the land, from the aids and reliefs of the feudal system, and from the fines imposed by the courts. In the troubled times of the preceding reign, the barons had driven out the king's sheriffs and conducted the courts for their own benefit. The unfortunate people who fell into their hands were sure to be fined, whether guilty or innocent, and the fine went to the lord instead of to the king. Henry put a stop to these evils by carrying out more fully a practice that his grandfather, Henry L, had begun. He divided the kingdom into circuits and appointed men, called "the king's judges," who were to go through the country holding court in each hundred and county, hearing the suits of the people and punishing criminals. These judges did not fear to enter the estates and castles of the proudest nobles in the land. They also assisted the sheriff in the collection of 78 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1154 taxes. The people soon came to have the greatest respect for the king's court. The feudal courts held by the barons were abolished. Jury Trials. Besides the ordeals of fire and water, and the Norman custom of wager of battle whereby contestants settled their dispute by a combat, Henry revived or established an agency for determining a man's guilt or innocence which we still use, — the grand jury. Wherever the king's judges held court, the sheriff would summon twelve men to form a jury. It was their duty to bring before the judges every per- son in their hundred who in their opinion had committed a crime. In Henry's time, if the accused pleaded not guilty and the jury could not prove his guilt, he was sent to the ordeal by cold water; this consisted in throwing the accused into a pond; if he floated without swimming, he was held innocent. In later times it became and still is the duty of a jury to pronounce an accused person guilty or innocent according to the evidence brought before them. Such a jury we call a trial jury. Taking Shield Money was another way in which Henry crushed the power of the ba'rons. Every tenant of the king was bound to keep for the king's use a certain number of trained knights armed and mounted. But in the last reign the barons had used these soldiers to fight their own battles, and not the king's. In time of peace, these knights, who despised any employment except war, would enter the service of some foreign king, or go on a crusade to fight the infidels, or, if they remained at home, they would prey upon the defenseless people. Two measures adopted by Henry put a stop to these evils. Instead of asking a soldier of his tenant, he taxed him " shield money," that is, enough money to pay a soldier. A baron who was bound to furnish ten knights now paid the king a tax sufficient to hire ten knights. When the king 11G4] HENRY II. 79 wanted soldiers, he hired them where he pleased. If he did not want them, he put the money into his treasury. As the barons were unable to support their knights and pay the tax too, they had to disband them; and so large numbers of knights were obliged to make homes for themselves and en- gage in some useful occupation. The second measure consisted in arming the people. Every freeman must be provided with spear and bow, or with sword and armor, according to his station. This was the old Anglo- Saxon system, which enabled Harold II. to raise a large army in six days. The people were quick to see the benefit of this reform, while the barons regarded it as a humiliation. Relations of Church and State. In order to understand the quarrel of Henry with the church and the Archbishop of Canterbury, we must see how the church was related to the government. Christianity was established in England by the mission- aries sent by the Pope. Augustine, the first missionary, be- came the first Archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the church in England. When there were several Saxon king- doms, constantly engaged in war, there was always one church, peaceful and united. The union in the church helped to bring about unity in the state, and to preserve it. Feudal relations among the Saxons did not extend to the clergy; but with the coming of the Normans, the holders of the estates belonging to the church were obliged to take the oath of allegiance to the king, to render military service, and to perform other feudal obligations. The bishops and arch- bishops in England were always active in political affairs. We find Dunstan the leading statesman in the time of the later Saxon kings, and after that time nearly every wise statesman was a churchman. William I. had kept the church in subjection to the state, but about the time he came to the throne the Pope began to 80 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1164 make the church everywhere independent of the state and superior to it. We have seen what compromises Henry I. made with the church in regard to the appointment of bishops. The control of the bishops had become especially important because of a change in the manner of trying ac- cused clericals, — ■ priests, deacons, and monks of all ranks, — including nearly all the educated men in the kingdom. In the Saxon times, the bishop and sheriff presided over the same court, in which all classes of criminals were tried. But in the reign of William I. the bishop's court for the trial of clerical offenders was separated from that of the sheriff. Moreover, the penalties imposed in the bishop's court were much milder than those used in the other courts. No clerical, for instance, was sentenced to death, even for murder. The Constitutions of Clarendon were drawn up at a meeting of the lords and bishops of the realm at Clarendon in Wiltshire. They were intended to secure equal punish- ment for clericals and laymen guilty of the same offense, and to increase the king's power. A clerk charged with a secular offense was to be tried in a secular court. But if he was charged with an offense against the church, the church might try him. The constitutions forbade church appoint- ments or appeals to the Pope without the consent of the king, and in other ways tended to reduce the power of the clergy. These laws, as affecting the church, must be agreed to by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was the representative of the Pope in England. If he should refuse, it would make no end of trouble for Henry. Thomas a Becket was the son of a returned crusader and a Saracen lady. There is a very pretty romance told of Thomas's father and mother, which you will find in the story books. Thomas received a careful education in an English abbey, and in Paris. Returning to England, he became an archdeacon in the church. His brilliant qualities 1170] HENRY II. 81 brought him at once into favor with the young king. Tn a short time he became chancellor, or chief minister. He wrote the king's letters, kept his accounts, and was his confidential adviser. Presently the king had him elected Archbishop of Canterbury. He chose Becket for the primate of the Eng- lish church, supposing that his long-time friend and chancellor would do anything that he desired. But as soon as Becket entered his high office, he thought more of preserving the privileges of his order than of helping on the reforms of the king, and he refused to approve the Consti- tutions of Clarendon. The king, however, put these laws into op- eration without the archbishop's consent, and priests and dea- cons who had com- mitted murder, - rob- bery, or other crimes were " carried in carts before the judges just as though they were ordinary men." The Murder of Becket. In order to insure a peaceful suc- cession to the throne, Henry adopted a cus- tom in use generally among the kingdoms of Europe, of having his eldest son crowned during his own reign. As Archbishop Becket had left England, the Archbishop of York and two other bishops acted in his place at the coronation ceremonies. Mukdek of Becket ; from an Illuminated Manuscript. 82 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1170 When Becket returned to England, he excommunicated these clergymen, that is, declared them out of the church. When the news of this was brought to Henry, in Normandy, he leaped up in passion and cried out in the presence of his court, "Among all the cowards here who eat my bread, is there not one who will rid me of this insolent priest ? " Four of his knights immediately crossed the Channel and set out for Canterbury. They forced their way into the palace of the archbishop and demanded that he recall the excommunica- tion. When he refused to do so they followed him into the church and slew him before the altar. The Result of the Murder was to arouse much popular sympathy for the cause of the clergy. When the news of his death, or martyrdom, spread through the land, there was a general outcry of horror against the king and the murderers. The Pope declared him to be a saint, and for three hundred and fifty years no shrine received the veneration of more numerous or devoted pilgrims than that of St. Thomas a Becket. The murderers fled the country never to return, and en- tered service against the infidel. Henry, when he heard the news of the murder, foresaw the storm and prepared to meet it. He immediately sent envoys to the Pope, promising to. grant whatever terms might be required for absolution, — that is, for the forgiveness of his sin, — and insisting that he never meant by his hasty words that Becket should be slain. After withdrawing to Ireland for a time, he went barefoot to the shrine of Becket, and asked forgiveness on his knees at the grave of the dead man. The monks of the abbey scourged him with rods, and he then received absolution. The Invasion of Ireland was made by Henry with the intention of making his youngest son, John, king of that island. He allowed Kicharcl de Clare, who was surnamed " Strongbow," to enlist English soldiers for this adventure. 1189] HENRY II. 83 A feud among the native Irish kings had compelled Dermot, the King of Leinster, to fly from the island. He now re- turned, and joined his native forces to those of Strongbow. They subdued the eastern part of the island, and acknowl- edged Henry as their king; but in time most of the English- ISForman barons in Ireland became thoroughly Irish. The English part of the island, known as "the Pale," was soon reduced to a small area around Dublin. It was not until the close of Elizabeth's reign, more than four hundred years later, that the whole island was subdued. Henry's Troubles with his Sons made his later years heavy with sorrow. He had crowned his eldest son, Henry, as his successor, but this young man was impatient to come into possession of power, and wished his father to give him Normandy or England at once. Being refused, he joined his brothers Eichard and Geoffrey, and King Louis of France, in an attempt to take away from King Henry his French provinces. Queen Eleanor also joined her sons against her husband, and the king was obliged to shut her up in a strong castle, where he kept her the rest of his life. He also subdued his sons and defeated King Louis in this war. Prince Henry sickened and died a few years later, during another rebellion, and it is said that no one shed a tear at his death. His treachery to his father, who was only too kind and forgiving, to him, brought upon him the dislike of even those who pretended to be his friends. Eichard and the new king of France, Philip II., made war on King Henry in 1188 and drove him out of his father's old province of Anjou. The poor king was ill, broken in spirit, and tired of life. His only desire was to leave the kingdom to John, the only one of his sons who had been faithful to him. But he had no heart to fight against Eich- ard. He surrendered to Philip and among other things prom- ised to forgive all the rebels. On opening the list given him, 84 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1189 he saw among the first names that of John, who had secretly joined his enemies. This broke the old king's heart, and turning his face to the wall he said, " I have nothing left to care for now. Let all things go their way." A few days after this, he died. Richard I., 1189-1199. Richard came to the throne without opposition, although his elder brother Geoffrey had left an infant son, and although his father had intended to leave the kingdom to John. Eich- ard was crowned with great pomp at Westminster. The ceremonies attending his coronation have been followed in the case of every English sovereign since his time. The Third Crusade. About two years before this, news came that Jerusalem, where the Christians had set up a Crusaders. kingdom in 1099, had been taken by the great Mohammedan leader Saladin. Both Eichard and his father took the cross, that is, agreed to go on the crusade to deliver the holy city; and now all Europe was aflame with enthusiasm. Eichard's friend Philip, King of France, was going, and Frederick, the greatest of the German Emperors, was on the way with a large army. 1191] RICHARD I. 85 Two months after receiving his crown, Richard began his preparations. He needed vast sums of money, and his king- dom was of value to him only as a means of raising it. For he was really a foreigner; he had been brought up in Nor- mandy and could not speak a sentence in English. During his reign of ten years, he spent only a few months in England, and he governed his kingdom through a minister. In order to raise part of the needed money, he sold offices; the sheriffs, judges, and bishops purchased appoint- ments. Those who held office paid in order to keep it. The Scottish king purchased his independence for a huge sum. Many of the larger towns purchased charters and the privi- lege of governing themselves. The king, as well as many of the nobles, compelled the Jews to lend vast amounts of money, and then massacred them by the hundred to be re- lieved of the necessity of paying it back. The estates belong- ing to the king were sold to the highest bidder. On his enemies, he imposed fines; from his friends he exacted pres- ents, and everybody was taxed. The same processes were repeated when Eichard passed over to Normandy on his way to the East. His final preparations were made in France, in connection with Philip. A hundred thousand men were marshaled beneath their banners, and marched southward to Marseilles, whence vast fleets transported them to Palestine. Meanwhile the German army had gone on by land; but Emperor Frederick was drowned in crossing a river, and only a few of 'his men succeeded in fighting their w T ay to Acre. This was a Moslem stronghold on the coast of Palestine, blocking the way to Jerusalem. The combined crusaders captured it, but only after the loss of many men. Richard was so domineering and jealous that King Philip quarreled with him and went home; and before long Richard also in- sulted Duke Leopold, the leader of the Germans. Weakened by dissensions, the crusaders accomplished little more. Jaffa 86 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1191 was taken, and Kichard led his army almost to Jerusalem; but it was now much weaker than Saladin's, and Kichard had to give up the struggle. Before turning back he ascended the Mount of Olives, whence he was told he could see within the walls of Jerusalem. But refusing to look, he covered his face and turned away, saying that he was not worthy to look upon the Holy City, if he could not deliver it from the enemies of the cross. In the next hundred years there were several more crusades ; but excepting a few years Jerusalem remained in Moham- medan hands. The chief effect of the crusades was to make western Europe acquainted with two higher civilizations — the Arabic and the Greek — and to give an impulse to trade. Richard's Return to England. In returning overland through Austria Kichard fell into the hands of his enemy Duke Leopold. In those days it was a piece of rare good fortune to get hold of a king. Leopold turned his prisoner over to his superior lord, the German Emperor, who locked him up in a strong castle until his mother and friends in England paid a heavy ransom for him. During Richard's absence there had grown up serious trouble between his minister and the nobles. The King of France had conspired with John and several great barons to keep Kichard a prisoner and place John upon the throne. Civil war had broken out, when Kichard landed in England in 1194. The mere report of Richard's arrival scattered John's followers at once, so great was the dread of his prowess as a warrior. He regarded the rebellion with such contempt that he scarcely deigned to punish the leaders, and he for- gave his brother for his treason. After a two months' stay in his kingdom, he gathered his soldiers together and sailed away to France. Wars with Philip and Death. After Philip's return from the Holy Land, he had prepared to attack Richard's posses- 1199] RICHARD I. 87 sions in France, and the rest of this reign is a tedious account of treaties, truces, and alliances which were broken as soon as made. Eichard, however, held all his provinces and left them to be lost by his brother a few years later. In 1199 word came to Eichard that one of his vassals, the Viscount of Limoges, had found upon his estate a buried treasure of silver and gold. Eichard asserted his royal right to all the treasure. The viscount would not give all, although he sur- rendered the larger part of it. Eichard accordingly besieged his castle at Chaluz, and swore he would take it by storm and hang every man within. The garrison offered to yield if he would promise safety, but were refused, and prepared to defend the castle to the last extremity. Before the castle was taken Eichard was wounded by an arrow shot from the battlements. After twelve clays of suffering he died. Knighthood and Chivalry. Eichard stands out in his- tory as the ideal knight of the days of chivalry. His bravery in battle gained him the surname of Cceur de Lion, or " Lion-Heart," He fought more for the love of fighting than for vic- tory, and treated his con- quered enemy with gen- erosity. He even pardoned the archer who from the walls of his own castle shot the arrow that caused his death. '■ What harm have „ T , Conferring Knighthood on the Field 1 done you, that you have op battle ; from an illuminated killed me \" asked Eichard. Manuscript. The archer replied, " You slew with your own hand my father and brothers." "I forgive you my death," returned the king, and ordered him to be released. 88 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1189 The Normans introduced into England the form of military education which ended in knighthood. The boys of noble parentage who were poor were put under the care of some distinguished noble, at whose castle they grew up and re- ceived their training. They first served as pages, their duties being to carry messages, to attend the ladies, and to learn the details of feudal service, and the duties and exercises of knighthood. At fourteen, the page became a squire. He now had to attend his lord in battle, carry his lance, assist him in putting on his armor, and rescue or defend him if he was wounded. At the age of twenty-one the squire became a knight and a member of the " chivalry/' as the order of knights was called. He was initiated into knighthood usually with a great deal of ceremony. He first had to fast and watch a long time ; then a discourse was made to him on the various duties and qual- ities which belonged to a knight. He then knelt before his lord and promised to be faithful to him "with life and limb." Finally he received his armor and weapons, his golden spurs were buckled on, and the lord, striking him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, said, " In the name of God, of St. Michael, and of St. George, I dub thee Knight ; be brave, bold, and loyal." It was the duty of the knight not only to fight bravely, but to be gentle and merciful; to be kind to the weak, to treat women with courtesy and respect — in one word, to be chivalrous. The Tournament was made by Eichard of great impor- tance in England to give the young men practice in the use of arms. This was a mock battle fought by mounted knights in full armor, but with blunted weapons. A large field was leveled and fenced in, called the " lists." Two companies of knights would then, be chosen, taking their places at opposite ends of the lists. At a given signal they charged, meeting in the center with a terrible shock, the object of each knight 1199] RICHARD I. 89 being to unhorse his adversary. If all the knights were un- horsed, they fought on foot with swords until one side yielded. The victors' names were then proclaimed by a herald, and the victors received prizes from the hands of the lady who had been chosen queen of the tournament. Sometimes two cham- pions would joust by themselves, and then the victor would fight any one who chose to dispute his championship. The People, during KicharcPs long absence from England, had made great progress in the art of carrying on their own government. Under the rule of Hubert Walter, the king's minister, or " justiciar," as he was then called, they were en- couraged and trained in this respect. He taught them to choose assessors to levy and collect taxes; to elect juries for the courts and representatives to transact any business that needed to be done. He thus prepared the people to take a more active part in the government of England. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Who were benefited by Henry II. 's reforms? In what way? 2. Why did the church object to the Clarendon Constitutions? 3. Compare the jury of Henry's time with the compurgators of the Saxons. 4. How did Richard's reign affect the cities? The people? 5. Why were the king's courts better than those of the shire? 6. What does the story of Becket teach about the power of the church? 7. What led to the Crusades? How did they affect Europe? 8. How did the training of a knight fit him for life? Describe the tournament ; its value ; good and bad results. TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Thomas a Becket. DeVere, St. Thomas of Canterbury ; Green, Short History, pp. 106-112. 2. The Crusade of Richaed I. Archer, Crusade of Richard I.; Scott, The Talisman, Ch. XXVII. 3. Knighthood and Chivalry. Green, Short History, pp. 182-3 ; Blaisdell, Stories of English History, 96-100. 4. Richard's Imprisonment and Escape. Morris, English Histor- ical Tales, pp. 87-100. 90 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [H99 B. The Winning of the Charter. John, 1 199-12 16. King John had all the bad qualities of the Norman house,, and none of the good ones. He was avaricious, cruel, and desperately wicked. When fortune smiled upon him. he was haughty and contemptuous; when in difficulties, abject and cowardly. It was said of him that " he neither feared God nor regarded man." His coronation oath required him "to defend the church, to maintain justice, to make good laws and abolish evil customs." He did none of these things. His very meanness and cruelty, however, had good results; it drove his subjects to revolt and put a check upon his power in the form of the Magna Charta, or Great Charter, which has ever since been the safeguard of the people's liberties. Loss of the French Provinces. The lawful heir to the throne was not John, but Arthur, Duke of Brittany, the son of his elder brother Geoffrey. Eichard had wished Arthur to succeed him, but he was only a boy, and the old Saxon custom of electing from the royal family a man who could lead in battle, prevailed. John was so thoroughly hated in France that the people refused to acknowledge him, and sup- ported the claim of Arthur. As a vassal of the King of France, Arthur called upon his lord to protect his rights in the French provinces, and King Philip put an army at Ar- thur's disposal. In the war which followed, Arthur laid siege to a castle in Poitou where Queen Eleanor was living. Though she had been John's strongest supporter, Arthur hoped by taking her prisoner to secure her aid for himself. But John suddenly appeared and raised the siege, taking Arthur prisoner. He shut the boy up in Eouen and, it is said, commanded the jailer to put out his eyes, but Arthur's pleadings were so pitiful that he was spared. A short time after this, Arthur disap- 1214] JOHN &1 peared and was never seen again. The tradition is that his uncle came to see him one night, accompanied by his squire, and that they took the boy out in a boat on the Seine, and there murdered him and sank his body in the river. Whether John committed the murder or not, Philip accused him of it, and summoned him to Paris to answer for the death of his vassal. According to the feudal law, as John and Arthur were both his vassals, so far as their French provinces were concerned, Philip had a right to try John in his own court. As John refused to appear, Philip declared his estates forfeited and immediately took possession of Anjou, Normandy, and the other provinces north of the Loire which had belonged to the English king. When the news was brought to John that Philip was tak- ing one castle after another, and that the people were accept- ing his rule, he said, u Let them go ; by and by I will recover in a day what they have taken in a year." By and by he tried, but ' his army was terribly defeated in the battle of Bouvines in Flanders. By that battle England and Nor- mandy became separated. Since the Norman conquest, there had been two races in England, Normans and English ; henceforth there was to be but one. There had been two languages, but from this time they gradually blend. The proud Norman could no longer point to the despised English as a conquered race, for his own country had now been con- quered, and he must call himself an Englishman. " Thus the two races, so long hostile, found at last that they had common interests and common enemies." Stephen Langton. John's second quarrel concerned the appointment of an Archbishop of Canterbury. We have seen that when this important place became vacant, the king usu- ally selected some one to fill it. When John ordered the monks of Canterbury to elect his treasurer, the Bishop of Nor- wich, they secretly chose one of their own number, their sub- NlVER 6. 92 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1205 prior Reginald, and sent him off to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope. He began to chatter about his new dignity, how- ever, as soon as he had crossed the Channel, and the action of the monks came to the ears of John. In a great rage he compelled them to elect his own candidate. It happened that the papal throne was occupied at this time by one of the wisest and greatest of the Popes, Innocent III. He sent for some of the monks, and by his advice they elected a learned and pious Englishman, then at Rome, Stephen Langton. But John refused to allow Langton to land in England, and began to plunder the monks. He drove them out of the convent with armed men and compelled them to leave the country. Innocent then laid England under an interdict; that is to say, he forbade the clergy to perform any. church service. When the appointed day came the churches were instantly closed. No marriage service could be performed, and the dead had to be buried without a prayer in unhallowed ground. The sudden cutting off of all forms of religion filled the people with horror. Deprivation of the forgive- ness of their sins and of consecrated burial meant shutting against them the gate of heaven. John, however, was ap- parently content to stay out of heaven anyway, and he took especial pleasure in confiscating the property of all the clergy who obeyed the interdict. When the interdict had lasted a year the Pope excommuni- cated the king. This deprived him of all connection with the church and forbade all pious persons to associate with him. As John treated the excommunication with as much con- tempt as the interdict, Innocent threatened to declare his throne vacant, to absolve his subjects from the oath of al- legiance, and to give his kingdom to Philip the King of France. Philip quickly gathered an army to make good his claim. 05 1214] JOHN 93 The situation threw John into a panic of fear. He knelt at the feet of the Pope's legate and took the crown from his head. By this act he gave his kingdom to the Pope. He then took the same oath to the Pope that vassals took to their lords, and received his crown again, on condition that he pay to the Pope annually the sum of one thousand marks. He was no longer a sovereign, but a vassal. Langton was received as archbishop, the property of the monks was re- stored, and Philip, who had already met defeat off the coast of Flanders, gave up his idea of invasion. The Great Charter. It was just after these events that John tried to regain his French provinces north of the Loire, and lost the battle of Bouvines (1214). After this failure he brought to England soldiers hired in France, determined to master the barons who had refused to fight for him, and who were making plans, under the direction of Stephen Lang- ton, to protect the English people against the king. For John not only took away the property of his subjects by force, but got rid of his opponents by poison and secret assassina- tion. No man's life was safe. Many were thrown into dun- geons and left to starve, never being brought to trial for their pretended offenses. Once he sent to demand the children of a Sussex baron, William of Braose, as hostages. But the baron's wife said, " He did not take such good care of his nephew that I should want to entrust my children to him." For this, she and her children were put in prison and left to die of hunger. He once demanded a large sum of money from a rich Jew, and when refused, he locked up the Jew and ordered one of his teeth to be pulled out each day. After losing seven, the Jew paid the money. In 1213 Langton proposed to the barons that John be asked to reissue the charter given by Henry I. The next year the barons met in the church at Bury St. Edmunds, in, 94 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1214 Suffolk, and one by one they swore at the altar that if the king did not grant the charter they would begin war against him. When the charter was presented to the king by a large number of barons, he turned pale and trembled as he looked into the stern and resolute faces before him. " Give me till Easter to think about this," he said. The barons understood him, and when they presented the charter again, at Oxford, they had two thousand armed knights at their back. Langton read aloud the demands of the people, which ended with the The Barons Taking Oath against John. sentence: "And if these claims are not immediately. granted, our arms shall do us justice." John angrily refused the charter. The barons at once levied war against the king, calling themselves " the army 1215] JOHN • 95 of God and of the Holy Church." Eobert EitzWalter was elected commander, and London opened her gates to the army. When John saw that further delay meant the loss of his crown, he asked the leaders to name a day and place where he could meet them. " Let the day," they replied, " be the 15th of June and the place Kunnymede." And there on the Thames near London the nobility of England and the representatives of the peo- ple met the king with a few followers, and compelled him to sign the Great Charter, or Magna Charta, which became the foundation stone of English liberty. Besides the provisions of Henry's charter it contained many new ones, for the pro- tection of life, liberty, and property. It has been confirmed by more than thirty kings and parliaments since that time, and is still considered the most important document in the history of the English people. Provisions of the Charter. In the charter the king agrees to levy no tax without the consent of a general council of the kingdom. " ~No freeman," it declares, " shall be taken or imprisoned or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we pass upon him or send upon him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, nor will we deny to any man either justice or right." These two are the most famous sentences in the Great Charter, and their meaning is this : The King of England was henceforth not to take the people's money, nor put them in prison and punish them as John had done. Such things could be done only after a fair trial before a jury of their fellow-countrymen. The king was bound to obey the law as much as the humblest subject. Final Troubles and Death of John. The king had no mind to live up to such principles as these. The Pope now took his part and issued an order declaring the charter of 96 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1215 no effect. He also pronounced the curse of the church against the barons and suspended Langton from his office for taking part in the matter. The charter said that John should dismiss his hired troops, but as soon as he got away from Bunnymede he hired more and set out into the north of England to punish the barons who had led the movement against him. And the barons did not suffer alone. Never since the days of the Conqueror were such horrors known in England. The people were murdered, tortured, and plun- dered. Castles, cities, and even the humble homes of the poor were burned. In the morning, John himself applied the torch to the home where he had slept at night. The barons had in the mean time invited the King of France to come to their help with an army, promising in re- turn the crown of England to his son Louis. Louis came and laid siege to some castles held by the retainers of John, when suddenly matters were brought to a standstill by the death of the king. As his army, in its career of murder and plunder, was crossing the Wash, the tide suddenly rose and carried away his baggage, including a large amount of money. His rage at this misfortune made him ill, and a few days later he died. Henry III., 1216-1272. The People and the Barons fought together against King John. Under the early Norman kings we have seen the people fighting against the barons. But now that the king had grown strong enough to oppress both the barons and the people, we find the last two combining their powers against a wicked king. The situation must have been desperate in- deed when they were willing to accept a French king. But when they saw that it was the purpose of Louis to take away their estates and give them to his French followers, they gave the crown to Henry, the nine-year-old son of John. 1233] HENRY III. 97 Henry's Guardians. As Henry III. was under age the kingdom was put under the care of a guardian chosen by the Great Council. The French were driven from the coun- try, and the charter was reissued in a form which left out the provision that the king could levy a general tax only by the consent of the council. After the first guardian's death, Hubert de Burgh became the chief power in England. His great work was in driving out the foreign soldiers that John had brought in from France, and to whom he had given large estates. Hu- bert's motto was " England for the English." Henry, who became of age about this time, favored the French, and had Hu- bert put in prison. Henry's Government. Henry reminds us of Edward the Confessor in his liking for foreigners. His wife was a French lady, and as his mother also was French, it took a large number of estates, castles, and lordships to supply all their relatives that came swarming over to England. Only a few leavings remained for the Englishmen themselves. To add to the troubles, the Pope levied heavy taxes upon the king and the clergy to carry on his Italian wars and to support a new crusade against the infidel. As soon as Henry was freed from the restraints of his guardians, he began the old practice of taxing the people without consulting their willingness in the matter. Unlike the kings who came before him, he lived at peace with the church. He rebuilt Westminster Abbey as it is to-day. He Westminster Abbey. 98 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [1258 built the cathedral at Salisbury and one hundred and forty- seven other churches and convents in various places through- out England. His extravagance at home and his lavish ex- penditures on foreigners, however, at last drove his people to revolt. Provisions of Oxford. In 1258 there was a failure of crops in the land, owing to continued heavy rains. Many thousands of people died of starvation. In the midst of the general distress, Henry demanded for the Pope a third of the entire revenues of England. When the king entered the Great Council, or Parliament, which had been called to West- minster to consider the condition of the realm, there was an ominous clatter of swords. He looked timidly around and asked, "Am I a prisoner ? " " No, sir," said Eoger Bigod, " but your extravagance and your foreign favorites have brought misery upon the country, and we demand reform." This Parliament drew up a series of resolutions which were known as the Provisions of Oxford. The chief feature of these was the appointment of a committee of the barons to supervise the actions of the king. The Pope complicated matters by declaring the Provisions null and void, and releas- ing the king from his oath to observe them. The whole dis- pute was then referred to Louis IX. of France, who decided in favor of the king. The barons, however, refused to accept the decision, and both sides prepared to settle the dispute by open war. At Lewes the king's army was surprised by the barons. Though Prince Echvard defeated a section of the barons' army, the barons carried the day, and captured both the king and the prince. Simon de Montfort was the leader in this Barons' War. He was a Frenchman by birth, but had inherited an earldom in England through his mother, and had become the most 12G5] HENRY III. 99 English of Englishmen. He was a soldier and statesman of the highest order, and was popularly known, on account of his strict justice and moral worth, as " Sir Simon the Kight- eous." Henry stood in mortal terror of Earl Simon. Once when he was rowing on the Thames in his pleasure barge, a thunderstorm came on. The king, who was dreadfully afraid, took refuge in a garden along the river, where he was met by de Montfort. " Why do you fear ? " asked the earl of the trembling king. " The storm has passed over." The king replied, " I fear thunder and lightning beyond measure, but I am more afraid of you than of anything else in the world." Some of the barons had fought against the king for self- ish reasons, but Simon insisted that all the people should be represented in the government, so that whatever was done in Parliament would receive the support of the whole nation. De Montfort's Parliament was called in 1265, the year after the battle of Lewes. Writs were issued to certain cities and boroughs, asking each of them to send two representatives, and two knights were sent from each shire. These, together with the bishops and barons, made the English Parliament complete. This Parliament did no work of importance, but the people had been taught by Simon the manner in which they might exercise their power, an important matter in time of need. Evesham. But the king's supporters had not laid down their arms. Many barons were afraid that Simon was getting too much power. What they wanted was a forceful and patriotic king who could rule by himself, and not a king ruled by Sir Simon, be he ever so righteous. Prince Edward had been held as a hostage after the battle of Lewes, but he escaped from his guardians. Joining his forces to those of the dissatisfied barons, he attacked Simon's party at a dis- 100 THE EARLY PLANTAGENET KINGS [12(35 advantage at Evesham and utterly defeated it. When the earl saw the great array led by the prince, he said, " They are approaching with wisdom ; let us therefore commend our souls to God, for our bodies are Edward's." He asked no quarter, but died with his son, sword in hand, in a little valley where the carnage was thickest. General Progress in the Time of Henry III. Henry's taste for the fine arts led to a great improvement in English architecture. The heavy, massive style of the Norman castle with its round arches and prison-like exterior gave place to the Gothic style, characterized by the pointed arch, tapering spires, and stained glass windows, giving to the whole struc- ture a graceful and lofty appearance. The century in which Henry lived was famous throughout Europe as an age of architecture. The building trades were organized into guilds, or societies, which gave the greatest attention to training their apprentices into finished workmen. The Friars and their Charitable Work. It was in Henry's reign that Begging Friars, followers of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, made their way into England. Most of the earlier monks had shut themselves up in convents, where they devoted themselves to learning and to the salvation of their own souls; but these new brothers went among the humblest people, tending the sick, teaching the ignorant, and reforming the vile. They did a splendid work in spreading intelligence among the lowest classes. Language and Literature. For a century and a half after the Norman conquest, the English tongue was a despised language and was not used in writing. But in the thirteenth century it began to come into use again, and a number of short songs and ballads and two longer poems were written. The first of the longer poems was a history of England called the " Brut," from Brutus, the supposed founder of Britain, written by Layamon, a priest. The second was the " Ormu- 1278] HENRY III. 101 lum," an arrangement in verse of parts of the New Testament. The following are the first two lines of the " Ormulum" : " Thiss boc iss nemmned Orrmulum Forrthi that Orrm itt wrohhte." (This book is named Ormulum, for the reason that Orm wrote it.) Roger Bacon was a Franciscan monk who lived at Oxford, devoting his time to the study of science. He discovered gun- powder and predicted steamboats, locomotives, airships, tele- scopes, and suspension bridges. His experiments and discov- eries were so wonderful that he was accused of receiving the aid of the devil, and was imprisoned in a dungeon for ten years. People were not allowed to read his writings until long afterwards. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What three quarrels make up the story of John's reign? How did each end? 2. How did the loss of the French provinces affect the people of England? 3. Why did the people gain power in the reigns of John and Henry III.? 4. What did Hubert de Burgh and Simon de Montfort do for the people? What rights did the Great Charter secure to them? 5. Describe the effects of interdict and of excommunication. 6. Name some good and some bad features of Henry III.'s reign. 7. Compare the usefulness of the Friars with that of the older orders of monks. TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Great Charter. Green, Short History, pp. 122-132. 2. Prince Arthur. Shakspeare, King John. 3. Sir Simon the Righteous. Green, Short History (see index). 4. The Black and Gray Friars. Green, Short History, pp. 147- 152 ; Guest and Underwood, Handbook of English History, pp. 212-215. V. THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS. 1 A. The Wars with Scotland. Edward I., 1272-1307. The Greatest of the Plantagenets, Edward I., born in 1239, was a grown-up man when he became king. He was tall and commanding in appearance, a superb horseman, and accomplished in the use of weapons. But more than this, he was wise and prudent in his actions, seldom lost control of his temper, and was faithful to his family, his friends, and his people. His wife, Eleanor, the daughter of the King of Castile, accompanied him on a crusade to the Holy Land. Edward became such a terror to the Saracens that an attempt was made to get rid of him by assassination. A Moslem fanatic gained access to his tent, and suddenly stabbed him in the arm with a poisoned dagger. The prince struck the would-be murderer dead, and Eleanor sucked the poison from the wound until a surgeon could be found to dress it. 2 THE LATER PLANTAGENETS. Edward I. (1272-1307) (p. 75) Edward II. (1307-1327) Edward III. (1327-1377) ! Edward, Lionel, John of Gaunt, Edmund, the Black Duke of Duke of Lancaster Duke of Prince Clarence I York Richard II. Philippa Henry IV. John Beaufort ? id J"4 (1377-1399) | ( p . 133) | Roger Mortimer, John Beaufort | Earl of March I I 1 Margaret Beaufort Edmund, Earl of March Anne Mortimer (P* 156 ) (p. 146) 102 1279] EDWARD I. 103 Edward and Eleanor were greatly beloved by their people. When the queen died, her body was brought to Westminster for burial. At every halting place of the funeral procession Edward caused to be set up a richly ornamented cross, that those of after times might cherish her memory. Three of these crosses, one of which is Charing Cross in London, are still preserved. Edward's Policy. Edward had slain Earl Simon at Eves- ham, but continued his policy in keeping foreigners out of the country and in giving all classes of the people a share in the government. When he wanted to make a law that af- fected the barons, he called them to consult about it. And so with the farmers, the townsmen, and the merchants. In this way he secured many excellent laws to which the people gave a willing, obedience. Order Restored. The civil wars in the time of Henry III. had left the land infested by bands of robbers. A man's life was not safe if he traveled alone, and even the walled towns had to be carefully guarded. Once, at the time of a great fair in Boston, a company of robbers disguised them- selves as priests and gained entrance to the town. In the middle of the night they attacked and murdered all who resisted them, and got away with an immense amount of plunder. Edward ordered that every man from fifteen to sixty years of age should provide himself with arms, and all were bound to pursue and capture lawbreakers. The trees and bushes were cleared away from the sides of the roads, in order that travelers might not be waylaid by robbers, and the evils left by the former reign soon passed away. With the consent of Parliament, a higher export duty was levied on wool and leather. Another law, called the Statute of Mortmain, forbade the giving of any land to the church without the king's consent. Lands belonging to the church escaped certain feudal dues to the king, such as reliefs and 10-i THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1270 wardship. The clmrcli now owned a large part of England; besides, it had become the custom for some landholders to give their land to the church and then receive it back again as tenants on easy terms, simply to escape these dues. The Rulers of Wales' had, since the time of Athelstan and Edgar, acknowledged the English king as overlord. But when Edward summoned Llewellyn, the Prince of Wales, to attend his coronation, he refused. A fleet and an army soon obliged Llew- ellyn to submit. Six years later, news sud- denly came that large bands of Welsh had attacked the western counties and were murdering the people and carrying away their property. War began again and was pressed vigorous- ly. Llewellyn was defeated and slain, his brother David was put to death as a traitor, and Wales was annexed to England. The Welsh had an old tradition that none but a native-born prince should ever rule over them. While Edward and his queen were living at the castle of Carnarvon, which he had built, a son was born to them. The king showed the child to the people as their prince ; and they were satisfied to accept him, for he was born in the land according to the old prophecy. The prince afterward became King Edward II. ; and from that time on the title of Prince of Wales has usually been borne by the heir to the English throne. Expulsion of the Jews. Shortly after the conquest of Wales, the king by a royal edict expelled all the Jews from England. They were the money lenders of the country and Castle of Carnarvon. 1296] EDWARD I. 105 were useful to the king when money was needed quickly. The Jews had been shamefully treated in England. They were under the special protection of the king, but the kings "protected" them as men protect cattle which they fatten for slaughter. The people demanded their expulsion on the ground that they were usurers and extortioners. About six- teen thousand of them left the country, and very few dared to return. Until Cromwell's time, several hundred years later, we hear no more about Jews in England. Scottish Wars Begun. The year after the conquest of Wales, the King of Scotland was killed, leaving as nearest heir to the throne a granddaughter whose father was the King of Norway. Edward now proposed to marry his son, Prince Edward, to the Maid of Norway, hoping in this way to unite England and Scotland. The Scots agreed to this marriage ; but it was prevented by the death of the little maid (she was only seven years old) on the voyage to Scotland. So many claimants to the throne of Scotland now appeared, that the Scottish nobles agreed to let Edward select from among them the rightful heir. They also admitted Edward's claim that the Scottish king should do homage to him, as Scottish kings had unwillingly done a few times to the Saxon and Norman kings of England. Edward chose John Baliol to be King of Scotland, and received his oath of fealty. It was the right of any man who had lost a case at law in a vassal's court to appeal to the court of the lord to review the suit. The right of hearing appeals from Scottish courts had never been insisted on by the English kings; but Ed- ward now demanded this right. The Scots were so angry that they compelled their king to resist at the cost of war. Edward invaded Scotland with a strong force, defeated and captured Baliol at Dunbar (map, p. 106), declared the king- dom forfeited, and placed it under the control of English governors. 106 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [129G Scotland. The Stone of Destiny. At Scone was kept a wonderful block of stone on which the kings of Scotland always sat when they were crowned. This stone was said to be the very one on which Jacob rested his head when, in his dream, he 1297] EDWARD I. 107 saw the angels ascending and descending a ladder let down from heaven. Edward now took it away to Westminster and placed it under the coronation chair of the kings of England, where you may see it to-day. The Model Parliament of 1295. Two years before the beginning of the Scottish war, trouble broke out between Ed- ward's province of Gascony in the south of France and the king of that country. Having two serious wars in prospect, Edward called together a full Parliament of the realm. As he said, " Any measure that concerns the whole nation should be agreed to by the whole nation." This Parliament was at- tended by all the bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, besides two knights from each shire and two burgesses, or citizens, from every important borough, or town. The clergy of each cathedral and parish also sent a delegate. This was called the "Model Parliament," and is important because it did serve as a model for later Parliaments. This Parliament voted taxes to carry on the war. The war was so expensive that two years later Edward called for more money, this time without the Parliament voting it. Confirmation of the Charters. Edward's arbitrary taxes alarmed the people. The barons were especially offended, and refused to go with Edward to fight in France. When the king told the Earl of Norfolk with an oath that "he would either go or hang," the earl replied with the same oath, "he would neither go nor hang." The clergy and nobles now joined hands and compelled the king to grant a " confirma- tion " of the previous charters, by which he also agreed never NlVER 7. Coronation Chair. 108 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1297 to take any tax from the whole realm without the consent of Parliament. William Wallace. Among the Scots who quarreled with their English governors was Sir William Wallace. He re- treated to the mountains and gathered there a band of out- laws, which soon grew into an army. The English governors advanced to attack him at the end of a, bridge crossing the river Forth near Stirling. Wallace waited till the English were half across the bridge, and then fell upon them and defeated them. In a few days Wallace was master of Scotland g-r f»mM l nrAv 1 , ; iTi7 , mi , r. i MV [ T i' i M , - ' f ' " Sir William Wallace's Sword. and had begun to ravage the northern English counties, treat- ing the people with shocking cruelty. Falkirk. Edward, having concluded a peace with France, returned and speedily marched against Wallace, coming up with him at Falkirk. The Scottish army consisted of foot- men armed with long pikes or spears. They were drawn up in circles to oppose the cavalry and archers of the English. The English "long bow" and "cloth-yard shaft" were at this time famous throughout Europe. Every village green was the scene of archery contests on festival days. The English aim was true, and, with "bowstring drawn to the ear," the effect was deadly. The king ordered the archers to concentrate their fire upon one point in the Scottish ranks. A great gap soon appeared. Into this charged the armored knights with lance and sword. Many brave Scots refused to fly and grimly died where they stood. Others kept up the struggle for independence, and it was seven years before Ed- ward was able to join Scotland to England. Wallace was betrayed to the English and hanged as a traitor. 1307] EDWARD II. 109 Robert Bruce. The Scotch did not want the rule of Edward, however good it might be, and they determined to manage their affairs in their own way. A new leader was soon found in Eobert Bruce, grandson of John Ballot's chief rival in the contest for the Scottish throne. When King Edward heard of the new revolt, he vowed to take vengeance upon the traitors. But though many of the Scotch leaders were seized and executed, Bruce himself es- caped, hiding in the caves among the mountains. Here he .remained; and though hunted with bloodhounds, and often in danger of capture, he waited patiently until a fitting time should come for renewing the struggle. Before the year had passed, he reappeared in Carrick, his home, and the whole population rose at once to join him. In 1307 Edward again set out for Scotland. But he was now nearly seventy years old, and, worn out with toil and strife, he fell sick and died before reaching the border. Edward II., 1307-1327. The Reign of Edward II. showed how necessary it was to the peace and safety of England to have a strong king. Edward's wise and good mother had died when he was six years old, leaving him to be brought up by servants. He grew up in idleness, caring only for pleasure. He was a vigorous young man and liked to ride in the tournament and the chase, but as for the work of governing England, Edward would have none of it. As you have noticed in the history of England so far, a strong king has often been followed by a weak one. In one way this was an advantage, because the people had to keep sharp watch of the king and his govern- ment, and were gradually educated to take entire charge of it. Piers Gaveston, Edward's most intimate friend, was the son of a favorite old Gascon servant of his father. Piers was a clever, witty knight, but conceited, insolent, and greedy of 110 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1307 money. Edward I. had seen the bad influence of this man on his son and had banished him from the country. But Ed- ward II., as soon as his father died, recalled Gaveston and made him Earl of Cornwall. When Edward went to France to marry, Gaveston was left in charge of the kingdom; and on Edward's return he kept Gaveston in power. The barons, smarting under their humiliation, insisted on his banishment ; but Edward soon recalled him. Bannockburn ; Scotland Independent. The old king's dy- ing injunction to his son was to finish the Scotch war himself, Field of Bannockburn. but Edward II. appointed a new governor of Scotland, and went away to his court in the south. Eobert Bruce improved his opportunity. Within a few years he got back everything that Edward I. had taken from him, and laid siege to Stirling, the last stronghold of the English across the border. The garrison there agreed to surrender if not relieved by midsum- mer, 1314. This news at last roused the king, and he led an army against the Scots. 1314] EDWARD 11. Ill At Bannockburn, Bruce made preparation for the recep- tion of the English by digging great pits in front of his army, in which he placed sharpened stakes, concealing them with a covering of turf. The English archers as usual began the battle, but they were poorly supported, and were driven off by the Scottish cavalry. Then an English charge over the pit- falls threw the whole English army into confusion. While the knights and the horses were floundering about, wounded by the sharp stakes, a body of Scotch servants and camp-followers appeared over the brow of a hill. The English, taking this for a reenforcement, fled in haste, pursued by the Scots, who overtook and slew hundreds in their flight. After this Bruce had everything his own way, and a few years later Edward gave up the attempt to reconquer Scotland. The Scots honor the battle of Bannockburn as the greatest event in their history, and Bruce as the savior of his country. Bobert Burns, the chief of Scottish poets, wrote " Bruce' s Ad- dress to his Army " : " Scots, wha hae wi* Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to glorious victorie. " Now's the day, and now's the hour ; See the front of battle lower ; See approach proud Edward's power — Edward ! chains and slaverie ! " Lay the proud usurpers low ! Tyrants fall in every foe ! Liberty's in every blow ! Forward ! let us do, or die ! " The Lords Ordainers were a committee of twenty-one barons chosen by Parliament in 1310 to oversee the realm and to watch the actions of the king. Thomas, Earl of Lancas- ter, the king's cousin, was the chief man among them. It need scarcely be said that these nobles were disliked by Ed- 112 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1310 ward, who was greatly amused by the rude names that Graves- ton bestowed upon them. The Earl of Warwick was "the Black Dog/' and Lancaster " the Old Hog. 7 ' Warwick vowed that Gaveston should " some day feel the Black Dog's teeth." When Edward refused to allow his favorite to remain out of England, the nobles carried him, a prisoner, to Warwick's castle, where he was put to death. For twenty years after the battle of Bannockburn, the his- tory of England consists of little more than the contests among these lords for power. The king, who had adopted two new favorites, named Despenser, father and son, got some of the barons on his side, attacked the Lancaster party, cap- tured the earl, and had him executed. Deposition and Death of the King. Shortly after this, the queen, Isabella, went to France. While there, she fell in love with one Eoger Mortimer, an exiled English lord, and formed a plot to depose her husband. Gathering a small army in France, she landed on the coast of Suffolk. The strongest of the barons of England joined her, while King Edward, almost deserted, fled with the Despensers and a few followers towards Wales. Being captured, the Despensers were executed, and Edward was compelled to resign the crown in favor of his son. He was imprisoned in Berkeley castle, near the river Severn, where he was cruelly murdered by the command of Mortimer and Isabella. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How can you account for the lawlessness at the beginning of Edward I.'s reign? 2. Why was Edward asked to confirm the charters? 3. What led to the conquest of Scotland? Was it a just war? How was Scotland lost? 4. Compare the government of Edward II. with that of Edward I. 5. What king did Edward II. resemble in character? 6. With whom may Bruce be compared? Why? 7. Compare the Parliaments of 1265 and 1295. 1333] EDWARD III. 113 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Robert Bruce. Porter, Scottish Chiefs; Henty, In Freedom's Cause. 2. Bannockburn. Porter, Scottish Chiefs; Lausdale, Scotland, Historic and Romantic, Vols. I., II. 3. Edward II. and Piers Gaveston. Dickens, Child's History of England, Ch. XVII. 5. The Heart of Bruce. Rolfe, Tales from English History. B. Beginning of the Hundred Years' War. Edward III., 1327-1377. A Regency was Appointed to govern the kingdom, as Edward III. was only fourteen years old at the death of his father ; but Mortimer and Queen Isabella had the real power. England had never fully acknowledged the independence of Scotland, and Bruce now invaded and plundered the northern counties in order to compel her to do so. Mortimer and Ed- ward led an army against the Scotch, but the latter had learned the folly of risking everything in a great battle, and were so rapid in their movements that the English could not come up with them. At the same time they were doing a vast amount of damage. Mortimer and the queen made peace by giving up all claim to the crown of Scotland. This defeat made Mortimer and the regency very unpopular. Ed- ward resolved to take control of the government. Though only eighteen years old, he was already married to Philippa of Hainault, a Flemish lady, and had a son. He gathered a company of Mortimer's enemies and captured him and Isa- bella at Nottingham, by entering the castle through a secret passage cut through the rock on which it was built. Mor- timer was hanged, and the queen was placed in a .private castle and allowed no further part in the government. War with Scotland. Edward refused to keep Mortimer's treaty with Eobert Bruce. He invaded Scotland, defeated the king, David Bruce, at Halidon Hill, and placed his vassal. 114 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1333 France in the Hundred Years' War. Edward Baliol, upon the throne. Bruce fled to France, but was soon restored by the Scots. The Hundred Years' War now began (1337). There were several causes for this long and bitter struggle. 1340] EDWARD 111. 115 Eng- part con- open In the first place, it had become the settled policy of the French kings to get full control of all the provinces of France, and the English king's territories in the south were con- tinually being stirred up to rebellion. Second, the French king, Philip VI., made an alliance with the Scots against England. A third cause was the relation of Flanders to England. The Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges were the great cen- ters of cloth manufac- turing in those days. There was little man- ufacturing in land. A large of the country sisted of great tracts, where herds of sheep and cattle were pastured. The wool was sent to Flanders and made into cloth, much of which was bought back by England. Edward's marriage with Philippa was intended to strengthen the friendly relations between England and Flanders. These provinces the French king was anxious to control. If he succeded, their trade relations with England would be broken off, and English farmers and merchants would suffer. Edward's Claim to the French Crown was another cause of this long war. His mother, Isabella, was the sister of the last king, while Philip VI. was only a cousin. The French claimed that, according to the Salic law, no woman could either rule in France or transmit the crown to her son. The Flemish people joined King Edward, for they hated the idea of French rule. But he soon found that they were ready to take an active part in 'the war only when well paid for it. Some of them had scruples in fighting against their Flemish Loom. 116 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1340 feudal lord, the King of France, and it was to satisfy them that Edward took that title himself, and placed the lilies of France in his coat of arms. Edward having returned to England to gather supplies for his army, Philip collected a large fleet to prevent the return of the English ships. Edward found the French fleet at Sluys, and defeated it so terribly that 30,000 Frenchmen were slain or drowned (1340) . The disaster was made known to Philip by the court jester, who said, " What cowards those English are; they had not the courage to jump overboard as our French did ! " Crecy. The next important campaign was in 1346. Ed- ward ravaged Normandy, and then began a inarch across France to join his allies in Flanders. Philip pursued, and the English army awaited attack at Crecy, where was fought one of the famous battles of English history. The French army consisted mainly of mounted knights, clad in armor, who fought with sword and lance. They had also 15,000 Genoese, who fought with the crossbow, an awkward weapon, which had to be wound up with wheel and ratchet to set the string every time it was discharged. The English archers, who formed the main body of Edward's army, had long ago discarded the Genoese weapon for the long bow and heavy arrows tipped with barbs of steel. Long practice enabled them to use this weapon with fatal effect at 300 yards, while at close range the knights' armor was no protection against its deadly force. The English army was drawn up in three divisions. Two divisions formed the line, of battle, and the third was kept in the rear as a reserve. Edward dismounted his knights and placed them among the archers with leveled spears. Battle of Crecy. 1347] EDWARD III. 117 Philip sent the Genoese crossbowmen forward to open the battle, but a heavy rain had just wet their bowstrings and made their weapons useless. The English, who had leather cases for their bows, drove them back with a flight of arrows. " Kill me those scoundrels ! " cried Philip, who took their forced retreat for cowardice. The French knights charged upon the poor Genoese and cut them down in order to clear the way for their attack upon the English. On they came in a furious assault, each trying to outride the others, in order to be in the van, the place of honor. But they went down by thousands before the archers and spearmen, while the Welsh with their long knives went over the field and dispatched those who were wounded or entangled by their armor or horses. King Edward's eldest son, the Black Prince, commanded the right wing. In the thick of the fight a messenger came to Edward for assistance. " Is the prince dead or wounded ? " asked the king. . " No, sire ; but he is hard pressed and needs your help." " Then," said the king, " return and tell those who sent you not to send again while my son lives. Command them to let the boy win his spurs ! " When the day of Crecy was over, the English army of about 30,000 had completely defeated the French army of 100,000, of whom nearly a third were left dead on the field. Calais. The Scotch, according to their agreement with Philip, now invaded England. They were defeated at Nev- ille's Cross, and their king, David, was carried off to London a prisoner. Meanwhile, Edward had laid siege to Calais. This place had been a harbor for pirates and could expect no mercy. The town was stubbornly defended, and yielded only when compelled by famine. Edward ordered six of the leading citizens to come to him with ropes about their necks, intending to hang them. But Queen Philippa begged so earnestly for their lives that the king released them. He now 118 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1347 drove the Frenchmen out of Calais and made it an English colony. It became an important port for trade between Eng- land and the continent and remained in the hands of the English for more than two hundred years. The Black Death, in 1348, brought about a long truce. This terrible pestilence swept over Europe, killing more than half of the population. England, on the victorious return of the king, had given itself up to festivities and re- joicing. Edward had established the " Order of the Gar- ter," imitating King Arthur's Knights of the Bound Table. Gor- geous tournaments were held, attended by the victorious chivalry of Eng- land and gay ladies in luxurious attire. In the midst of this gayety, the plague appeared. Both man and beast were attacked. In some districts the earth was strewn with the dead bodies of Admission into the Order of the Garter. cattl ^ l 10rses ^ s l ieep ^ and human beings. Toward the end of 1349, the plague subsided, but it appeared twice again within twenty years; 1349] EDWARD III. .119 and it was two centuries before the population increased again to what it had been. Effects of the Plague on Labor. Under the Saxon kings there had been few slaves and many freemen ; but the Norman conquerors had forced both classes alike into a state of bond- age, which, while higher than that of the Saxon thrall, was far below that of the Saxon churl. This form of servitude was later called "villenage," and the bondmen, "villeins." Thus actual slavery died out soon after the conquest, and the word slave, in the sense of a person who could be bought and sold at the pleasure of the master, ceased to be used. The Saxon " vill " became the Norman " manor." The lord of the manor, after reserving one third of the land for his own use, divided the rest among his villeins, who lived, each in his own cottage, on his own plot of ground. The villein was obliged to work for his lord several days each week, and to furnish supplies of grain, meat, and poultry for his lord's use. He could not acquire any property of his own, and, if the land changed hands in any way, the villeins went with it. They were not allowed to leave the manor, and their children remained in the same condition as them- selves. But after the time of Henry III., the manorial system and villenage underwent a change. The lord found it more profitable to pay his villeins wages and charge them a rent for the land. Many villeins escaped to the towns, where, if they remained unclaimed for a year and a day, they became free. When the black death had swept away about half the labor- ing population, the remaining half naturally demanded more money for their work. The landlords would not pay any more. As the villeins, or laboring class, as we must now call them, had no power in Parliament, the landholders passed a law called the " Statute of Laborers." This law forbade any laborer to ask for more wages than he had received before 120 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS. [1349 the plague. When the peasants refused to work, the lords attempted to restore the old condition of villenage, which had not entirely died out. Where this was attempted the villeins ran away, and looked for work in other places where they could receive wages like free men. Many of them be- came mechanics and tradesmen in the neighboring towns. The War with France was Renewed (1355). Edward offered to make peace if King John, who had succeeded Philip, would give him the full sovereignty of Aquitaine; but John refused to do this. In 1355, the Black Prince led a plunder- ing expedition through southern France. The next year he started out again from Bordeaux, swept through central France, and started to return with 8,000 men guarding his load of plunder. When near Poitiers, south of the Loire, he was overtaken by King John with 50,000 Frenchmen. With the exception that John dismounted the greater part of his knights, the tactics of Crecy were repeated, with results more disastrous to the French. The English were drawn up on both sides of a long lane, behind hedges which protected them. As the battle of Poitiers. French came charging down the lane, both men and horses were shot down until the remainder stopped and fled in terror. The English charged upon the fugitives, and attacked the French reserve force both in front and in flank. King John was taken prisoner, and the battle was won. France was mercilessly plundered by the French nobles in order to ransom their king and relatives, whom the Black Prince had carried off to England. When Edward invaded the land again he found no men to defend it, nor food to feed his troops. Once his army was overtaken on the march by a terrific thunderstorm. The king, who was conscience- 1375] EDWARD 111. 121 stricken at the ruin lie had wrought, thought he heard, the voice of God telling him to desist. In 1360 the Peace of Bretigny was made, by which Ed- ward gave up his claim to the French crown, and received full sovereignty over Gascony, Guienne, Aquitaine, and Calais. King John was to pay a huge sum for his ransom. Three years before this Edward had acknowledged the independence of Scotland, and released King David (p. 117) on the promise to pay a ransom of £60,000. Edward's Last War with France was caused by the refusal of Charles V., who had succeeded his chivalrous father, John, to stand by the treaty of Bretigny. He summoned the Black Prince, who was now Duke of Aquitaine, to Paris to answer for his misconduct in overtaxing his subjects. " Cer- tainly I will go," said the prince, "with helmet on head and 60,000 men behind me." But in the war which followed, Charles was wiser than his father. He would fight no battles, but hung upon the rear of the enemy, cut off stragglers, and made waste the country through which the army of the prince had to pass. The baffled prince, who had treated the captive King John with gentle courtesy, ordered the massacre of 3,000 men, women, and children who had surrendered at Li- moges. Yet three knights, who had fought to the last, he spared. The prince's brother, John of Gaunt, led another army into France from Calais; but winter came on, food failed, and cold and famine did the work that the French king declined to attempt. A rabble of hungry fugitives was all that remained of the fine army when Bordeaux was reached. In the truce made in 1375, the English were forced to give up all their French provinces except a few cities along the coast. A Dispute about the Clergy grew up in the latter part of Edward's reign. A party arose which favored taking away from the clergy all share in political affairs, and depriving 122 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS. [1362 them of a part of their property. This movement, which began among the people, was aided by the barons, especially by John of Gaunt, who had become Duke of Lancaster on marrying the wealthy heiress of that duchy. The poem called " The Vision of Piers the Plowman," written by William Langland (1362), complains of the con- dition of the church; that bishops are busy with politics; that monks are wicked; that the friars are greedy; and that all people are open to bribery. John Wyclif also, at this time, attacked the power of the clergy and the evil customs that had grown up in the church. He made the first translation of the Bible into English, and was the forerunner of the Eeformation, that great struggle which resulted in the separation of Protestants from the Catholic Church. Wyclif was a famous scholar of Oxford, and had argued against the Pope's claim to the annual tribute of 1,000 marks that had been levied on King John (p. 93). He also set forth a theory that all men held their possessions direct from God, on condition of leading a righteous life ; and that when they became wicked God would take away their estates. The Duke of Lancaster thought Wyclif s idea a good one and as, in his opinion, some of the clergy were wicked, he persuaded the Parliament to put certain of the wealthier clergy out of office and rob them of their estates. These he intended to keep for himself and his fellow-barons. But the Black Prince headed a party which soon restored the clergy to power and drove Lancaster out of the king's council for a time. Division of Parliament into Lords and Commons. It had come about that the knights and burgesses had separated themselves from the lords and bishops and were called the Commons. They tried to keep for themselves the right to vote taxes, while the lords had more to do with managing the affairs of government. In the dispute over the clergy, the 1377] EDWARD III. 123 Commons sided with the Black Prince, because they were disgusted with the corrupt rule of the barons. Deaths of King Edward and the Black Prince. The prince had long been in ill health, brought on by his wars in France. His defense of the clergy (1376) was his last public act, and he died the same year. His son Eichard was now considered heir to the throne. For several years the king had been suffering from a disease which weakened his mind, and he was unable to take part in war or government. A woman named Alice Perrers had ob- tained great influence over him, and had persuaded him to give his consent to all the evil plans of Lancaster and his followers. She was banished from court by the same Par- liament that restored the clergy to power ; but after the death of the prince, both she and Lancaster returned. The next year the poor old king died also, deserted by every one. >, 5S''« 113 Wt w L-» HaiMv \ ' r &U %M lkr~ jjjH E-^bJkp"'' H a ' ",*■"*?,; l£j wmtA r : / 4 . V w^$ H Bp\j vB ^H|^ i^3 Vs3*T W ju w^&bLiiLfi^Jfr % ~^m»'3r^S r / ,* -'- t ^ ■■ ' r^fe~- "Tj^ > -• ' i/'m^-m r-.., : __ ., S=Se==SS??p*?%--' ' " lj ^y^^as^a®? 5 * "~ ■ £MligHk_ Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims. The " Father of English Poetry." During the reign of Edward III. there grew up at his court a young squire, named Geoffrey Chaucer, who became the first great poet to write in the English tongue. Chaucer was a soldier, courtier, diplo- mat, and man of business. He was as well acquainted with the life of the people as he was with that of the court. His great poem is a collection of stories called " The Canterbury Tales." He tells us that he once made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. On the way he fell in NlVER — 8. 124 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1327 with a large company of pilgrims, and they all set out together from the Tabard Inn in Southwark (southern London). To while away the time, it was agreed that each one should tell two tales on the way out and two on the return. In all twenty-four tales were told. Among the story-tellers were a knight, a squire, a yeoman, a monk, a nun, a merchant, a doctor, and others, representing every class of society and em- ployment in the land. The writings of Chaucer and Wyclif show us that the peo- ple of England had come to use one language, the English. A great many French words were mixed with it, but the main part is made up of the same language that Alfred used. The schools, which had formerly given instruction only in Latin and French, had now begun to teach in English. And in 1362 Parliament made a law that all cases in the law courts must "hereafter be pleaded, defended, and debated in the English tongue." Cloth Manufacture in Edward III.'s Time. In this reign the manufacture of good cloth was begun in England. The people had long made coarse cloth, but the finer woolens could be obtained only in the Flemish provinces. Edward, through the influence of his wife Philippa, brought over a company of Flemish spinners and weavers, who taught the English how to spin fine thread and make it into cloth. All work was done by hand. Every workman had his own wheel and loom, and belonged to the guild of his craft, or trade. Young apprentices had to serve under master workmen until they became skilled in the trade. The Merchant Guild; Staples; the Steelyard. In the Middle Ages, when robber knights abounded on land and pi- rates at sea, many dangers beset traveling merchants. They naturally joined in leagues and guilds for protection. The peace-guilds of the towns and villages, formed for the com- mon protection of their members, the social and religious 1377] EDWARD 111. 125 guilds, and the trade guilds served as the models for the merchant guilds. The most noted merchant guild was formed in Germany in 1241 and was known as the Hansa, or the Hanseatic League. This league came to control all the trade of northern Europe, and included eighty-five leading cities, among them Liibeck, Cologne, Bruges, and London (map, p. 164). The roads leading from city to city were carefully guarded, so that the merchant caravans could travel safely. The league kept in its employ a large army and a strong navy. In each city it kept a fortress and storehouse, where the merchant guild of the city could meet and where goods could be safely stored or exchanged. In London this build- ing stood on the bank of the Thames and was known as the Steelyard, from a Dutch word, stael- liof, which meant the place where cloth was marked as being properly dyed and of standard quality. Goods were disposed of at great fairs, which were held in important towns. After a time these fairs were kept up in a few towns during the whole year, and such places became known as " staples." The chief productions of Eng- land, as wool, sheepskins, and leather, were allowed to be sold only in the staple towns, and hence the goods themselves were called " staples." Calais, from its convenient situation, became the chief English staple. Only merchants having a royal license were allowed to trade at the fairs and staples. We shall find the peasants, in the reign of Eichard II., de- manding the privilege to buy and sell freely at the fairs, in- stead of being compelled to pay a good round sum for the privilege. The Steelyard. 1^6 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1327 Eastern Trade Routes. In the south of Europe trade was chiefly controlled by the great Italian cities Venice and Genoa. Their ships sailed to every part of the Mediterranean. They commanded the trade routes to the East (p. 164). The crusades had made the people of Europe acquainted with the luxuries of the East. Erom the countries of Asia, costly fabrics, metal and glass ware, and gems and pearls found their way to European courts through the gates of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of these towns traded with the mer- chants of the Hansa, and so goods that had been made in far away China 'and India were offered for sale in York and London. Self-Government in the Towns. The guilds, which were the wealthy corporations of the Middle Ages, taking advan- tage of the king's need of money, bought from him charters, privileges, and power to raise their own taxes and to make their own laws. London in this way purchased its liberty of the Conqueror. Other towns followed until all the larger cities in England became self-governing communities. This practice in the art of governing was of great advantage to the burgesses who became members of Parliament. The growth and organization of the Commons was largely due to the expe- rience of the burgesses in the management of the affairs of their guilds and boroughs. Richard II., 1377-1399. The Uprising of the Peasants. When Eichard II., at the age of ten, came to the throne, a variety of troubles were threatening the kingdom. The French attacked the coast. The Scots, as usual, acting with France, plundered the bor- ders. The clergy and the barons stopped quarreling long enough to provide against the common danger, and under the lead of the Duke of Lancaster made an unsuccessful attempt to carry the war into France. 1381] RICHARD II. 127 But more serious trouble was brewing within the country. The Statute of Laborers, passed in the last reign, and the at- tempts of the landlords to keep the peasants in a state of villenage, had provoked a spirit of discontent everywhere. This feeling was especially strong among the Lollards, the followers of Wyclif. Their leaders went abroad preaching against the vices and negligence of the clergy, and encoura- ging the peasants in their revolt against the landlords. A priest named John Ball also preached in the same way, taking for his text the following lines : " When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? " He would say to the peasants : " My friends, things will never go well in England till there shall no longer be lord and vassal, when we shall be our own masters as much as they. What right have they to keep us in bondage? And how ill they use us ! Are we not all descended from Adam and Eve? And they are clothed in velvets and ermine, while we must wear the poorest cloth. They have wines and spices and fine bread and handsome houses, while we have only rye and water for food and drink, and must brave the wind and rain in the field. Let us go to the king, who is young, and tell him of our servitude, and that we must have it otherwise or we will find a remedy for ourselves/-' To meet the war expenses, the Parliament had levied a poll tax, according to each man's rank. Every peasant was to pay three groats for each grown-up member of his family. One of the tax collectors behaved in an offensive manner in the home of a certain Wat Tyler in Kent, who struck him dead with a hammer. Tyler's neighbors rose to protect him. Jack Straw roused the peasants in the neighboring county of Essex. In a short time the movement spread from one end of England to the other. 128 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1381 The lords were the first to feel the vengeance of the rebels. Their manor honses were torn down, their parks stripped of game, and their property carried away. An immense mob, said to number 100,000, streamed into London. The king and a few attendants rode out to meet them, and offered to grant all that they asked. They de- manded four things: that villenage, or work without pay, be abolished, so that they should be forever free men; that the rent of land be fourpence an acre; that they be free to buy and sell in all the fairs and markets; and that there should be a general pardon for past offenses. Charters agree- ing to all their demands were made out and given to the peas- ants of each parish, most of whom then returned to their homes. About 30,000, however, remained under the lead of Tyler. As the king and his attendants were riding through the streets, Tyler came up and spoke to him, laying his hand on the king's bridle. Upon this he was immediately cut down by the Mayor of London and one of Eichard's attendants. The followers of Tyler bent their bows and would have slain the king and his followers, but Eichard with rare bravery and presence of mind rode among them and cried, " I will be your leader. I am your king." And the mob followed after him, through the streets, till a force of soldiers fell upon them and drove them from the city. The poor peasants were now mercilessly punished. They were slaughtered by thousands throughout the country and thrust back into bondage worse than before. But in spite of their defeat they had accomplished their main object. They had shown their power. The landlord found that slave labor was neither profitable nor safe, and villenage from this time gradually died out. Richard's Uncles, the Duke of Lancaster and the Duke of Gloucester, made him a vast amount of trouble. The rest 1389] RICHARD II. 129 of his reign was largely taken up with his contests with them for control of affairs. The Duke of Lancaster at first had his own way, but was unsuccessful and extravagant. He was suspected of having designs upon the throne, and was hated by the common people. He soon sailed away to Spain to claim the throne of Castile in right of his wife, and left Richard to himself. Richard invaded Scotland with some success, and costly preparation was made to resist a French invasion that did not come. A strong party gathered under the Duke of Glouces- ter; but he was as unsuccessful, and as much disliked, as Lancaster had been. It was during his rule that the battle of Otterburn was fought between the Percys of Northum- berland and Earl Douglas, described in the famous " Ballad of Chevy Chase." In the ballad Earl Douglas thus challenges Percy to a personal combat : " But trust me, Percy, pity 't were And great offense to kill Any of these our guiltlesse men, For they have done no ill. " Let thou and I the battell trye And set our men aside." " Accurst bee he," Erie Percy sayd, " By whome this is denyed." They fought untill they both did sweat, With swords of tempered Steele, Untill the blood, like drops of rain, They trickling down did feel. Richard Assumes Control. One day in the council Rich- ard turned to his uncle and quietly asked his own age. " Your Majesty," said Gloucester, " is in your twenty- second year." " Then/' said Richard, " I am surely old enough to manage my own affairs, as other men attain their majority at twenty- 130 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1389 one. I thank yon, my lords, for yonr past services, bnt I want them no longer." For seven years after this, Eichard ruled moderately and well. He tried to be friendly with those who had been his enemies. He made a long truce with France and married the daughter of the French king. His Despotism. There was dissatisfaction with the king's alliance with France. Fearing that his uncle Gloucester and his friends would take advantage of it to deprive him of power again, Richard suddenly caused three of them to be seized. Gloucester was imprisoned at Calais and secretly murdered. The king now began to gather soldiers about him, to rob the people of their money, and to illtreat them in other ways, just as some of the barons were in the habit of doing. The people, seeing that he was no longer their protector and champion, were ready to give their allegiance to a new leader. Henry Bolingbroke was the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. He had been unjustly banished for ten years, and when his father died, the estates which should have gone to him were seized by Eichard. People began to think that under such a king no man's property was safe. Henry suddenly landed in Yorkshire with a small force. He said he had come to claim his inheritance, and to set right the wrongs which prevailed in England. Armed men flocked to his banner. Eichard, who was in Ireland fighting against some chiefs who had invaded the English Pale, was on his return betrayed into Henry's hands by the Earl of Northum- berland. The new Duke of Lancaster came into his pres- ence. " Fair cousin of Lancaster," said Eichard, " you are right welcome." " My Lord," replied Henry, " I am come before my time. But I will show you the reason. Your people complain that 1399] RICHARD II. 131 for twenty-two years you have ruled them rigorously, and now, if it please God, I shall help you to govern better." Eichard was taken to the famous Tower of London and was compelled to resign the throne. Henry claimed the The Present Tower of London. throne, although the rightful heir was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who was descended from Lionel, the third son of Edward III., while John of Gaunt was the fourth. But the Parliament elected Henry, exercising its ancient right in choosing a king. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What reasons, if any, justified Edward III. in beginning the Hun- dred Years' War? 2. Give reasons for the Scotch alliance with France. 3. How could the French have avoided the disaster at Crecy? 4. What led to villenage in England, and what caused it to die out? 5. Who was Wyclif? Chaucer? Langland? 6. Describe the routes by which the products of the East were brought to England. 132 THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS [1399 7. How was domestic commerce carried on in Edward III.'s time? How did this method affect the people? The merchants? The king? 8. What advantages came from the merchant and trade guilds? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Black Death. Kendall, Source Booh, pp. 102-106; Green, Short History, p. 248. 2. The Black Prince. Scott, Tales of a Grandfather ; Stoddard, With the Black Prince. 3. The Merchant Guilds. Green, Short History, pp. 193-199 ; Gardiner, Student's History, p. 169. 4. The Peasants' Revolt. Yonge, Cameos from English History, Vol. IV. ; Lanier, The Boy's Froissart, pp. 278-294. 5. Battles of Crecy and Poitiers. Kendall, Source Booh, pp. 93- 97; Lanier, The Boy's Froissart, pp. 226-253. VI. THE HOUSES OE LANCASTER AND YORK. 1 A. Success at Home and Abroad. Henry IV. 1399-1413. " Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown" are words put into the mouth of Henry IV. by Shakespeare, and they could not be more appropriately said of any other king. During the first nine years of his reign, his energies were directed toward keeping the crown which he had so easily obtained. Although he was not the heir to the throne, the people accepted him, because they loved peace and thought that he would be a strong ruler, and prevent such insurrection and bloodshed as had disgraced the reign of Richard. The Burning of Heretics. In order to secure the sup- port of the clergy, Henry gave them his assistance in sup- pressing heresy. By a heretic was meant any one who refused to believe the teaching of the established church. The clergy said they could not stop heresy unless they had full power to punish heretics. Wyclif had been the first to doubt the teach- ing of the church, and his followers were constantly increas- ing. So a law was passed, providing that a heretic might be TOOUSE OF LANCASTER. Edmund, younger son of Henry III. (p. 75) > Henry, Earl of Lancaster Henry, Duke of Lancaster John of Gaunt (p. 102) m. Blanche. Duke of Lancaster | Henry IV. (1399-1413) Henry V. (1413-1422) Henry VI. (1422-1461) 133 134 HOUSE OF LANCASTER [1401 burned if he persisted in his unbelief . This was the first law passed in England to suppress religious freedom, though there were many such laws in other countries. William Sawtre was the first victim. He was burned to death because he refused to believe the miracle of the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper. The First Attempt to Dethrone Henry was made within two months of his accession, by some nobles who favored Eichard and wished to restore him. Their plot was discov- ered and they fled, but were seized and put to death. Eichard died soon after this, and his body was shown to the people that all might know he was really dead. But the report went out that the dead body shown was not that of Eichard, and rumors of his appearance in different places were a source of trouble to King Henry for several years. Owen Glendower was a Welshman whose estate had been seized by an English noble. As the king failed to restore the land, Owen declared himself Prince of Wales and began war. He defeated several forces sent against him and cap- tured Lord Grey, who had taken his estate, and many other prisoners. The king found it impossible to subdue Owen, and the terrible storms that arose when the English invaded his mountain fastnesses gave rise to the belief that the Welsh leader was a wizard and could bring storms at will to confuse his enemies. The Battle of Shrewsbury (1403). The Earl of Nor- thumberland bore the family name of Percy. His house had strongly supported Henry's claim to the throne. As it was the duty of the Percys to guard England against Scotch in- vasion, they kept a vast number of " retainers/' or hired sol- diers, such as were maintained by some barons after the de- cline of the feudal system. They met a Scotch force return- ing from a raid on the English border and totally defeated it at Homildon Hill. A number of Scotch nobles fell into their hands, for whom they expected large ransoms. But 1407] HENRY IV. 135 Henry demanded the ransoms for himself. Northumberland's son, Harry Percy, called " Hotspur " from his vigor and dar- ing in battle, had also another grievance because Henry did not ransom Hotspur's brother-in-law, the uncle of the Earl of March who was the true heir to the throne, when he ran- somed other captives from the hands of Owen Glendower. Disgusted and raging at the king's ingratitude, the Percys joined the Scotch, and their army, under Hotspur, marched south to join Glendower. But it was met by Henry's army at Shrewsbury, where Hotspur was defeated and killed. There were a few more risings against Henry in England, but all were put down. Peace with France and Scotland. Henry had vanquished his enemies at home. Two accidents gave him the upper hand abroad. The King of France was Charles VI., a weak ruler. His relatives the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Burgundy exercised the real power. The Duke of Burgundy held Flanders and was friendly to England for reasons of trade, but Orleans was Henry's bitter enemy. In the year 1407 Orleans was murdered in the streets of Paris, and the French opposition to England was soon afterwards withdrawn. Shortly before this, the King of Scotland sent his son, Prince James, away to France to learn French and to finish his education. But an English ship captured the vessel in which he sailed, and brought him a prisoner to King Henry. The king rejoiced at his good fortune, for it secured him against any further inroads on the part of the Scotch, and he said he could "teach the prince French as well as the French king." For seventeen years the prince was detained. After this he was released and became King James I. of Scot- land. Henry provided for his education, and the prince in his captivity became the most famous poet of the time. His chief work, a poetical account of the incidents of his life, 136 HOUSE OF LANCASTER [1407 is called " The King's Quhair." One morning, looking from his prison window, he saw, " walkyng under the Toure," " The fairest or the freschest younge floure That ever I sawe, methought, before that houre." This fair " young flower " was Lady Jane Beaufort, whom the prince afterwards married. The House of Commons. Henry's need of strong sup- port from the people led to a great increase in the power of their representatives in the House of Commons. The Com- mons secured the sole right to levy taxes, and before granting money to the king insisted on having evil practices remedied. They reserved for themselves the right of deciding disputed elections. They also secured for their members freedom of speech and' freedom from arrest while in discharge of their duties. They had an accurate journal of their proceedings kept, so that there could no longer be any dispute concerning what they had done. Henry IY. was so careful to rule ac- cording to law that he has been called the first constitutional monarch in the history of Europe. Prince " Hal." The victory over the Percys at Shrews- bury was due largely to the bravery of the Prince of Wales. Shakespeare, in his play " King Henry IV.," has described the prince as a wild and dissolute young man. But if so, Prince Henry laid aside his folly promptly when serious work was to be done. At the age of eighteen he became a member of his father's council, and during the later years of the reign the prince became the real head of the government. The king, who had suffered long from a troublesome disease, died in 1413 in the room of Westminster Abbey called the Jerusalem Chamber. " It hath been prophesied to me many years, I should not die but in Jerusalem ; Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land. — But bear me to that chamber ; there I'll lie ; In that Jerusalem shall Harry die." 1415] HENRY V. 137 Henry V., 1413-1422. Suppression of the Lollards. Henry Y. was sternly re- ligions and followed his father's policy in suppressing heresy. The leader of the Lollards was now a knight named Old- castle. He was tried and condemned to the stake. But be- fore the sentence could be carried out, he escaped. His fol- lowers formed a plot to kill the king and his brothers. Their plans were found out, and thirty-nine of them were captured and put to death. A few years later Oldcastle also was taken and burned. After this the Lollards were driven out of the towns ; their books and writings were burned, and we hear no more of them in England. The War with France was now Resumed. Henry, re- viving the claim of Edward III., resolved to seize the throne of France. He thought that if he occupied the attention of the nobles with a foreign war, they would be less disposed to rebel against him. Erance was at this time weakened by the deadly strife of the Burgundy and Armagnac factions. In 1415 he landed with a large army at Harneur, near the mouth of the Seine, and took that town after a terrible siege. Though he had lost half his army by famine and sickness, he now started to march overland to the English town of Calais. An army of 40,- 000 Erench blocked his way at Agincourt. The battle was fought on a freshly plowed field, where the Erench knights, clad in heavy armor, sank knee- deep in the mud and stuck fast when they attempted to charge the English. The battles of Crecy and Poitiers had taught the Erench nothing, and they were merely targets for the English archers. Ten thousand French were killed and several thousand more made prisoners by the little English To Calais Agincourt^ .v. r \Wpbfis . ' Vs&£\fl| G soncelles Battle of Agincouet. 138 HOUSE OF LANCASTER [1415 The Morning of the Battle of Agincourt. army of 6,000 men. Before the battle, Shakespeare puts into the month of the Earl of Westmoreland words addressed to the king: " O, that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day ! " The king replies : " No, my fair cousin : If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss ; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God's will ! I pray thee, wish not one man more." Henry now retired to England to recruit his army. Two years later he came back to France and took town after town. The leading men in every place were hanged as traitors. But Bouen held out bravely against Henry's siege. 1422] HENRY V. 139 Thousands of the peasants had gathered in the town for protection. The magistrates drove them out of the gates in order that food might be saved for the soldiers. Henry re- fused to allow them to pass his lines and held them penned up outside the walls of Kouen, where old men, helpless women and children starved and died. After six months the city itself was starved into surrender. Treaty of Troyes and Death of Henry. The English successes and a threatened attack on Paris drove the French to attempt to reconcile the warring parties of Burgundy and Armagnac. But when the Duke of Burgundy was murdered the Burgundian party joined Henry, and they took possession of Paris. A treaty of peace was made at Troyes in 1420. Henry married Catherine, the daughter of the French king, Charles VI. ; became Regent of France ; and, on the death of the king, was to succeed to the throne. While making prep- arations for subduing the south of France, which held out for the son of Charles VI., Henry suddenly died near Paris in 1422. Henry V. had become the hero of the English nation. The glory he had won in the wars at home was increased a hundred fold by his success in France. His early death brought deeper sorrow to the nation than it had ever before felt for the loss of a king. The right of the House of Lancaster to the throne was firmly established. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How did Richard II. lose his throne? Why was Henry IV. put in his place? 2. Why was it good policy for Henry IV. to favor the church? Why was the law concerning heresy passed? 3. Why did the House of Commons get more power during this reign? Did the king favor this? Why? 4. Did the French war accomplish the purpose for which it was begun ? Niver — 9. 140 HOUSE OF LANCASTER [1422 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Lollards. Davis, The Lollard; Green, Short History, pp. 242-273. 2. Prince Hal. Kingsford, Henry V., pp. 1-93 ; Yonge, Cameos from English History, Vol. II., pp. 247-56. 3. Battle of Agincourt, Shakespeare, King Henry V.; Yonge, Cameos from English History, II., pp. 274-284. 4. Prince James of Scotland. Yonge, The Caged Lion; Mackin- tosh, History of Scotland. B. The Wars of the Eoses. Henry VI., 1422-1461. The English in France. The infant son of Henry V. was crowned in England and, after the death of Charles VI., in France also. The war against Charles VII., the son of Charles VI., went on under the command of a brave and able man, the Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V. The French were discouraged and made little resistance as the English army marched south from Paris, capturing town after town. Finally the English came to the great city of Orleans on the Loire. If this city should fall, the cause of France would be lost, and Charles VII. was already preparing to flee to Scot- land with his court. Joan of Arc. But help came from an unexpected source. The French had given up all hope of being able to drive out the English ; while the English, confident that they would soon have everything their own way, were not so careful as they had been in times of danger. If the French soldiers could only be inspired with confidence in themselves they might yet win. The inspiration came to them through a little peasant girl of Lorraine. When she heard the horrible tales of the murder and devastation wrought by the Eng- lish, and that no one was able to lead the French against them, it seemed to Joan of Arc (or Jeanne d'Arc) that she was chosen by God to be their leader. As she thought about it 1429] HENRY VI. 141 more and more, she fancied angels came to her, saying, " Go, Joan, and save the king ! Lead him to Eeims to be crowned and anointed ! " There was an old prophecy of which Joan had heard — that a woman should destroy the kingdom, and that a maiden of Lorraine should save it. And she believed that she was the maiden. At last her own village of Domremi was destroyed by a troop of Burgunclians. Joan made her way to the French kingfs court. Soon the news spread among the French soldiers that a vir- gin had come from heaven to save France. Clad in armor and mounted on a white horse, she was placed at the head of an army to relieve Orleans. With shouts of tri- umph, the French assaulted the tow- ers built by the English besiegers before the city, and carried them. The bravest English commanders, Suf- folk and Talbot, gave up in despair, and the next day re- treated. The maid urged a hot pursuit and inflicted another severe defeat on the enemy. She led the king to Eeims, the old coronation city of France, and there in the great cathedral, July 17, 1429, she saw with joy the crown placed upon his Joan's Entry into Orleans. 142 HOUSE OF LANCASTER - [1429 head. She had now done all that the angels had told her to do, and wished to return to her home. But Charles insisted on her remaining with the army, thinking they conld not con- quer without her. Capture and Death of Joan. In the following spring, the Burgundians took Joan prisoner and sold her to the English. If the French thought her to be an angel from heaven, to the English she was a witch and in league with the devil. To the everlasting shame of the English com- mander, she was tried and condemned to be burned. She died declaring to the last that the voices which urged her to go against the English came from God, and the last word she uttered before the smoke and name stopped her voice forever was "Jesus." An English soldier standing by cried out in terror, " We are lost ! We have burned a saint ! " The Final Defeat of the English was at hand, for the French spirit of patriotism had been aroused. Public busi- ness compelled Bedford to return to England, and during his absence the French gained rapidly. After his death the Burgundians and French united against the English, and Paris was soon won back. A truce was made, and the young English king, Henry VI., married Margaret, a princess of Anjou. But before long the French reconquered Normandy and some coast towns, and England, out of all the possessions that Edward III. had won in France, was allowed to retain only the little town of Calais. The Hundred Years' War was at an end (1453). The ambition of two warlike kings, Ed- ward III. and Henry V., had cost the country untold blood and treasure, and brought in the end only loss and shame. Weak Rule of Henry VI. During the war Henry VI. had grown to manhood. Gentle and pious enough, he lacked the energy and strength of character to rule in such rough times. Grasping nobles and dissolute soldiers returning from France kept England in a state of confusion. Jus- 1450] HENRY VI. 143 tice was not enforced, and the strong robbed the weak at pleasure. The soil, owing to bad methods of farming, had become poor, and large tracts which had been the homes of the poor were fenced in and turned into sheep pastures. Wool brought a good price and less labor was required to look after the flocks than to cultivate the soil. Murder of Suffolk. A king too weak either to win battles or to establish order was certain to be unpopular. The first to feel the public displeasure was the king's chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, who had brought about the French mar- riage. The Parliament impeached him; that is, brought charges of misconduct against him. He fled from the country. But on the voyage he was captured by a company of rough sailors and killed. Houses of Lancaster and York. The Duke of Somerset, who succeeded Suffolk as the king's chief adviser, was, like the king, descended from John of Gaunt (fourth son of Ed- ward III.) and belonged to the House of Lancaster. Eichard, the Duke of York, now became the popular leader against the weak rule of the king. He was descended through his mother (sister of Edmund Mortimer, p. 131) from the third son of Edward III., and hence claimed to have a better right to the .throne than Henry VI. The birth of a son to Henry VI. took away Eichard's chance of a peaceable succession to the throne, and he resolved to maintain his rights by war. Thus arose a few years later a series of wars between the two rival houses of Lancaster and York for the kingship; they lasted, with brief intermissions, for thirty years and are called the Wars of the Eoses, because the badge of Lancaster was the red rose, and that of York the white rose. The nobles, particularly those of the north, were on the side of Lancaster, while those of the south and especially the people of London and the larger towns favored the House of York. The House of Lancaster also supported 144 HOUSE OF LANCASTER [1450 the power of the church, while the Yorkists wanted the church to have less power and favored certain reforms. A Rebellion in Kent (1450) was the first rising in favor of Eichard. Thirty thousand men gathered under the leadership of Jack Cade, an Irishman who took the name of ^ISLE OF MAN v' ^..Lancaster m England in the Wars of the Roses. Mortimer. The London people opened their gates to him, but soon had occasion to regret it, for his lawless followers began a career of murder and robbery, which ended in the death of Cade and the expulsion of his rabble from the city. The Wars of the Roses began with the battle of St. Al- bans (1455). The royal army attacked Richard's forces and was defeated. Somerset was killed, and the king wounded 1461] HENRY VI. 145 and taken. Kichard professed loyalty to him, accompanied him to London, and became protector dnring the king's illness. But Henry, soon recovering, dismissed him. Blore Heath and Northampton. Both sides again took up arms. The York party was defeated at Blore Heath, but inflicted a terrible defeat on the king at Northampton. Many of the nobles were killed, and the king was found alone in his tent. It was now arranged that Bichard should suc- ceed to the throne on the death of Henry, thus passing over the rights of Henry's son, Edward. Wakefield and Second St. Albans. Queen Margaret had- no intention of submitting to this slight to her son. In the north she easily enlisted a large army of rough border war- riors, and, promising them the plunder of the south, she attacked the Yorkists at Wakefield and completely routed them (1460). Bichard was slain, and his head, crowned in mockery with a paper crown, was placed over the gates of York. His eldest son, Edward, who was gathering troops in the west, won a victory at Mortimer's Cross on the Welsh border. But Margaret won another decisive victory at St. Albans and pushed on toward London. Her lawless follow- ers, scattering in search of plunder, could not be held together for the final struggle. The people of the capital rallied about Edward, and pursued Margaret northwards. At Towton, near York, the armies met (1461). It was to be a fierce and final struggle, and no quarter was expected, or given. The battle began at night with a heavy snowstorm blowing in the faces of the Lancastrians, and a swollen river blocking their retreat. By noon on the following day the side of York had won. Thirty thousand Englishmen lay dead upon the field. Among them were the chief nobles of the realm. Henry and Margaret escaped with their son and a few followers to Scotland, and Edward IV. became the first Yorkist king. 146 HOUSE OF YORK [1461 Edward IV., 1 1461-1483. Continuation of the War. Edward had been crowned at Westminster after the second battle of St. Albans. After the victory of Towton, he rode in triumph through the gates of his ancestral city of York, where the head of his murdered father was still shown. But Edward did not in- dulge his feelings of revenge, and no punishment was visited upon the city that had received his enemies, though his forgiveness did not extend to the leaders. The charge of treason was brought against all of them, and their property came into the possession of the crown. Edward returned to London, leaving the Earl of Warwick to conduct the war in the north. Margaret succeeded in obtaining help from the King of France, and advanced from Scotland with an army. But she was again defeated, and the deposed King Henry was captured and confined in the famous Tower of London. The King Maker is a title given by historians to Eichard Neville, Earl of Warwick. He appears first as the powerful noble to whose aid Edward was chiefly indebted for his crown. Several hundred manors, scattered throughout England, owned him as master. His seat was at Kenilworth Castle, where he entertained his followers with royal munificence. In his kitchen a huge caldron was always kept filled with boiling meat, and any one was at liberty to take away as many pieces as he could carry on a long dagger. In his 1 HOUSE OF YORK. Richard, son of the Duke of York (p. 102) m. Anne Mortimer (p. 102) Richard, Duke of York Edward IV. Duke of Clarence Richard III. 1 (1461-1 483) I (1483-1485) I i I Edward, Edward V. Richard Elizabeth of York Ear l oi Warwick (1483) (p. 156) 1470] EDWARD IV. 147 home in London six oxen were required to furnish a breakfast to his followers. He rode about the country attended by five hundred re- $m tainers dressed in _ |H livery, on which was embroidered the bear « and ragged staff, the emblems of his house. His generous hospitality, his brav- ery, and his con- Ruins of Kenilworth Castle. sideration for those below him in rank made him a great favorite, and in whatever part of England he appeared, he never lacked followers. Edward's Mistakes. Warwick, having raised Edward to the throne, naturally expected to have control of the gov- ernment, and when the king took the matter of marriages and offices into his own hands, the earl was gravely offended. Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, a widow of no rank, and bestowed vast estates and titles upon her numerous relatives. Not only Warwick, but other great Yorkist nobles were deeply offended at seeing members of this family receiving greater honors than the first lords of the country. Finally, Edward married his sister to Charles, the Duke of Burgundy, while Warwick was away arranging a marriage between her and the son of the French king. This so incensed the earl that before long he met Margaret in France, and with her and the Duke of Clarence, Edward's brother, planned to in- vade England. Edward had been a disappointment to his subjects. They had looked for a king who would maintain order and secure justice to the humblest citizen. But as soon as he felt secure on his throne, he gave himself up to selfish and wicked pleas- ures, while his people were robbed of their property by the 148 HOUSE OF YORK [1470 lords, who compelled judges and juries to decide every dis- pute in their favor. Henry VI. Restored. Edward was rudely aroused from his indolence when Warwick landed in England in 1470. As he was about to sit down to dinner, an attendant whispered to him that armed men were surrounding the house. They were tossing up their hats and crying, " God save King Henry ! " He had just time to slip away with a few follow- ers to the coast and get aboard a ship bound for Flanders. Warwick now brought poor old King Henry out of the Tower and recrowned him with a great deal of ceremony. This time the change of kings was made without bloodshed. Barnet and Tewkesbury. With the help of his brother- in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, Edward raised an army of 2,000 men. Landing at Eavenspur in Yorkshire, he marched to London. Clarence, "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," forsook Warwick and joined his brother. Warwick found out too late that he had been betrayed; in the battle of Barnet he was defeated and killed. The same day Queen Margaret landed with a fresh army at Weymouth. Hearing news of Barnet, she started on a rapid march to the north. But Ed- ward cut off her army at Tewkesbury, defeated it, and put the Lancastrian leaders to death, including Margaret's son, the young Prince Edward. Margaret was made prisoner, and Henry VI. was again confined in the Tower, where he was shortly afterwards murdered. Edward IV. again King. Edward's throne was now safe, for not one descendant of Henry IV. was left alive. More- over, Edward had greater power in the government than the Lancastrian kings had possessed. So many of the nobility had been killed in the Wars of the Boses that the barons were not much to be feared. And the people cared more for order and a chance to go on quietly about their business, than they did for sharing in the work of government. Edward revived 1478] EDWARD IV. 149 the old practice of taking money from his people as forced gifts, or " benevolences." His good looks and sociable ways made him highly popular, and the people submitted to this form of arbitrary taxation without resistance. One old lady of whom he asked ten pounds said he was such a good-looking Caxton and the First Printing Press in England. young man that she would give him twenty. When Edward kissed her in accepting the gift she gave him forty. Edward planned a war with France to regain the provinces lost by Henry VI., and invaded that country in 1475. But the shrewd French king bribed him to go back to England without fighting. Shortly after this, he brought a charge of treason against 150 HOUSE OF YORK [1478 his brother the Duke of Clarence, who wished to marry the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, a match not approved by Edward. Clarence was also accused of conspiring with a sorceress to put Edward off the throne. He was confined in the Tower, where he was put to death, it is said, by drowning in a butt of Malmsey wine. Edward's dissolute life made him old before his time. He became sad and morose. He knew the nobles hated him; there were few whose relatives he had not in some way de- stroyed. He became weary of life, and died, worn out in body and mind, leaving two young sons and several daughters. The Introduction of Printing was, perhaps, the most im- portant event of Edward IV/s reign. William Caxton set up a press at Westminster a few years before Edward's death. He was a native of Kent and had traveled in Germany and Flan- ders, where he became a printer. Printing from movable type was invented in Germany about thirty years before it was introduced into England. The people of that time looked upon the printing press as a curious toy, little dreaming of the wonderful changes that it was destined to make in the his- tory of England before the next century should close. Edward V., 1483. Richard of Gloucester. During the Wars of the Eoses, the idea had grown up that the only way for a king to rule in safety was to put to death all those who could possibly have any interest in opposing him. This method had been pursued in some other countries, but was rather new in Eng- land. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the late king's brother, was a prudent and far-seeing man, but like most men of his time in high position, he thought as little of killing another man who stood in his way, as a cat would think of killing a mouse. He was slightly deformed in one shoulder, and his left arm had been palsied from birth. But otherwise he was 1483] EDWARD V. 151 a fine-looking man and had the same good-natured qualities that had made his brother so well liked by the people. He had been a stanch supporter of Edward, and had fought bravely for him during the late wars. But there is no doubt that he kept steadily before himself the design of securing the crown. Murder of the Queen's Relatives. He now had good reason to believe that Earl Eivers, the Marquis of Dorset, and Sir Eichard Grey, near relatives of the queen, who had once been plain Elizabeth Woodville, had formed a plot to kill him and assume the government. Lord Hastings, a mem- ber of the council, had turned against him and joined the queen's party. Eichard at once made his plans, but concealed them until the time for action came. He took the oath of allegiance to Edward V., his young nephew, and put on an appearance of loyalty. Grey and Eivers, who had charge of Edward's education, decided to bring him to London to be crowned. On the road Eichard and the Duke of Buckingham overtook them with a strong force, seized Edward, and sent Eivers and Grey to prison, where they were soon afterwards beheaded without a trial. One morning the council met to make plans for crowning the young king. Eichard, now protector of the kingdom, came in late, but appeared to be in the greatest good humor. After a time, he left the room with Buckingham. When he returned his face was changed. With a threatening look he asked Hastings, "What have they deserved who have plotted my death ?" Hastings replied that such persons deserved to die. " That sorceress, my brother's wife, and others with her !" Eichard exclaimed. " See how they have bewitched me ! Be- hold my arm, how it is withered up ! " And he showed them his palsied arm, which they knew had always been so, but they did not dare to speak, not knowing what he was coming at. 152 HOUSE OF YORK [148c Finally Hastings said, " Certainly, my Lord Protector, if they have done this thing and — " Here Eichard, in a fine pretense of rage, cried out, " You talk to me of ifs and ands. I tell you they have done it. Thou art a traitor." He struck his fist upon the table, and instantly the room was filled with armed men. By his orders Hastings was hurried out and his head was chopped off at once upon a log which happened to lie outside the house. Richard's Suc- cess. Richard then persuaded the queen to give up her young- est son, and confined both his nephews in the Tower. In or- der to make people believe that he had a right to the throne, he circulated a re- port that Edward IV. was not the son of Eichard of York, and that anyway he had never been legally married to Elizabeth Woodville, and that therefore his sons could not inherit the crown. He caused a minister to preach this story at a prom- inent church, and his friend the Duke of Buckingham made a speech to the citizens in Guildhall, telling them the same thing. The Princes in the Tower. 1483] RICHARD III. 153 The next day Buckingham, with the Lord Mayor and others, waited upon Kichard at his palace and offered him the crown. Kichard pretended to be greatly surprised and offended. He said he was not ambitious and did not wish to be king, but would guard the crown for his nephew. Then Buckingham told him that the people of England would never consent to be ruled by a man whose parents were not properly married, for that would be contrary to law. Kich- ard pretended to be greatly affected by this, but he recovered soon, and said that as it was his duty to obey the voice of the people, he would consent to take the " kingdoms of England and France, the one to rule, and the other, by God's grace, to take again and subdue." Richard III., 1483-1485. Death of the Princes. So far Richard had gone without opposition, but his treachery and cold-blooded murders alarmed his followers among the nobles for their own safety. Any man who crossed his path might be killed. Buckingham, who was descended from Edward III. and was a near heir to the throne, was the first to withdraw. He had gone far with Kichard in his career of ambition and murder, but now foresaw trouble. There had been made some attempts to rouse the people to release the princes. Such attempts were certain to be made when they grew older, so Richard had them murdered. Sir Thomas More tells us that two men were sent to their chamber at night and smothered them in their bed. Richard then gave out a report that they had mysteriously disappeared. But no one was deceived, and people were horri- fied that innocent children should be murdered. Long years afterwards some workmen dug up the skeletons of two children at the foot of a staircase in the Tower. Henry Tudor. There was one Lancastrian claimant to the throne whom neither Edward IY. nor Richard III. was able 154 HOUSE OF YORK [1483 to reach. This was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, whose mother was descended from John of Gaunt. He had long been living in exile, but Buckingham now planned to have him return and head an army to depose Eichard. Richard's Defeat and Death at Bosworth. Henry Tu- dor's first attempt to enter England ended in failure. His fleet was scattered by a storm, and Buckingham was cap- tured and beheaded. But in the summer of 1485 he came again, landing at Milford Haven on the coast of Wales. As Henry's father was a Welshman, the people readily joined him. Eichard mustered an army twice the size of Henry's. But when the two armies met on Bosworth field, Eichard saw that he was betrayed; for part of his forces went over to the enemy and another part refused to fight. Eichard and a few faithful men charged the enemy. His quick eye caught sight of his rival's standard, and with a shout of " trea- son ! " he put spurs to his horse and dashed on, hoping to kill Henry in a hand-to-hand fight. The standard-bearer fell beneath his sword, but Eichard was unhorsed. In Shakespeare's play, at this point a friend urges Eichard to retreat, but he replies, " Slave ! I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die. I think there be six Richmonds in the field ; Five have I slain to-day instead of him. A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! " After fighting bravely on foot, Eichard fell, bleeding from a dozen wounds. His battered crown was found near by, and was placed upon his rival's head while the army (there was now but one) echoed the shout of " Long live King Henry ! " QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How can you explain the defeat of the English in France? 2. What led to the Wars of the Roses? What important results did they have? 1485] RICHARD III. 155 3. Compare Jack Cade and Wat Tyler. 4. What led to the uprising against Edward IV.? Compare his government with that of Henry VI. 5. Compare Queen Margaret and Warwick as leaders. Which had the better cause? Why? 6. How did the Wars of the Roses show the need of a strong king? 7. Why did Warwick restore Henry VI.? Was this wise? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Joan of Arc. Catherwood, Days of Jeanne d'Arc; Green, Short History, pp. 274-279. 2. Warwick, the King Maker. Creighton, Stories of English His- tory, Ch. XXVII. ; Lytton, Last of the Barons. 3. The Printing Press. Green, Short History, pp. 295-298. 4. The Two Roses. Church, Stories of English History, Ch. VI.; E. S. Holt, Red and White. NlVER 10. VII. THE HOUSE OF TUDOK. 1 A. The Beginning of New Things. Henry VII., 1485-1509. The Union of York and Lancaster was accomplished by the accession of Henry VII. to the throne and his marriage with Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. There was, however, still living a son of the Duke of Clarence, who had been made Earl of Warwick. And there were still rumors afloat that Eichard of York, the younger of the two murdered princes, was still alive. To prevent any plot of the Yorkists to place the Earl of Warwick on the throne, Henry confined him in the Tower. Increase of the King's Power. In the time of Henry VIL, the king obtained far greater power than ever before, chiefly through the weakening of the nobility. It was the nobles who forced John to sign the Great Charter and who, with the people, compelled later kings to recognize the power of Parliament. But in the reigns of weak kings the nobles and their retainers had oppressed the people, and now the 1 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR Owen Tudor, m. Catherine, widow of Henry V. Margaret Beaufort (p. 102) m. Edmund Tudor. Henry VIL, m. Elizabeth of York (p. 146) (1485-1509) 1 r — ' i Z i Henry VIII. (1509-1547) Margaret, m. Mary, m. James IV. of Scotland Charles, Duke I : — i | of Suffolk Edward VI. Mary Elizabeth James V. of Scotland | (1547-1553) (1553-1558) (1558-1603) I rt jj" ry c ^ | Duke of Suffolk James VI. of Scotland | and I. of England (p. 203) Lady Jane Grey 156 1485] HENRY VII. 157 people were again ready to help the king against the nobles, as in the days of Henry II. There were also several other reasons for the weakening of the nobles. One has been already men- tioned, namely, the destruction of many nobles by the Wars of the Eoses. Another cause was a change in the mode of fighting. Dur- ing the Norman period, the charge of a body of armor-clad knights was irresistible; but English archers had now learned to shoot an arrow so Hand Cannon — Fourteenth iar and so swiit that they Century. could pierce the knight's armor and kill him before he could do them any damage. Then the power of the nobles was chiefly due to their strong castles, which it was very difficult to take by any ma- chinery then known. But the invention of gunpowder and the use of cannon had changed this. We can not say where gun- powder was first used in battle. It is said that the English used it at the battle of Crecy to frighten the horses of the French. We know that the Turks used cannon to batter down the walls of Constantinople in 1453. From the time of Ed- ward III. we hear considerable about the use of gunpowder in England. The smaller fire-arms were crude and did not at once take the place of the bow and lance. But cannon were made of sufficient power to batter down stone walls, thus enabling the king to destroy the castles of the nobles. As cannon were very expensive, none but the king could afford to keep them. 158 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1485 The Law against Maintenance and Livery forbade the lords to maintain bands of men wearing their uniform. This had been a great evil in the land since the time of Eichard II., when the lords began to hire retainers. Henry VII. took care that the law was strictly enforced. Any one who broke it was fined or imprisoned. Henry once paid a visit to his friend the Earl of Oxford, a man who had helped him to defeat Eichard at Bosworth. In honor of the king, the earl had drawn up a large body of his retainers wearing his arms upon their breasts. "And who are these, my lord ?" asked Henry, as he surveyed the men. " They are my retainers, and are here to see and honor your Majesty," answered the earl. " I thank you for your good cheer," said the king, " but I can not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. My attorney will see you." The earl was afterwards brought before the king's court and fined 10,000 pounds. The Star Chamber Court was established to bring power- ful offenders to justice. In this court they could not bully the judges and juries as in their own neighborhoods. It took its name from the decorations on the ceiling of the room where it met. The king's own judges and officers conducted its business. Any nobleman who broke the laws or took part in rebellions or plots against the king was tried and pun- ished with as little fear as though he had been a peasant. In later times this court had to be abolished because the kings of that period made it a means of injustice and oppression. How the King Raised Money. The Parliament had kept down the power of the king by refusing to grant him any money until he had redressed the grievances from which they suffered. But Henry adopted methods of raising money which made him independent of Parliament, and which also kept those men in subjection who were likely to become 1491] HENRY VII. 159 dangerous. The Earl of Oxford was not the only one who paid an enormous fine for keeping retainers. The king had his agents keeping sharp watch all through the country for other offenders, and many a noble had to give up a large part of his fortune for breaking this law. Benevolences; Morton's Fork. Henry thought it bet- ter to offend a few people by a heavy tax than to offend the whole people by laying a general tax, so he developed a sys- tem of benevolences. The king's chief minister, Cardinal Morton, had a way of forcing these gifts that gave rise to the expression " Morton's fork." If he saw that a man lived in good style and spent money freely, he would say, " Surely this man is rich and can afford to make a large gift to the king." On the other hand, if he saw that a citizen was economical, he would say, " This man is very saving, and surely has laid up a great deal of money and can well afford to pay." And so a man was pretty certain to be caught on one prong of the Cardinal's fork. Henry was a lover of peace as well as of money, and took part in no wars of any consequence. The money granted by Parliament for wars was carefully stored away in the royal treasury. Several Attempts were made to Dethrone Henry. The -first serious attempt came from the direction of Ireland (1487). The Yorkists had trained a certain Lambert Sim- nel, the son of a baker at Oxford, to act the part of the Earl of Warwick, pretending that he had escaped from the Tower, where Henry had placed him. Simnel was crowned at Dub- lin, in the English part of Ireland, where the people strongly favored the House of York. One of the ministers of Eichard III., named Lovel, had secured for him also the help of 2,000 German troops. The Irish and German forces entered Lan- cashire, where they expected to recruit an army. But not an Englishman rose, and the invaders were defeated. Henry, to 160 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1487 show his contempt for his rival, made him a turnspit in his kitchen. Lovel escaped and could not be found. Nearly two hundred years afterwards some workmen accidentally found in an underground chamber at Minster Lovel in Oxfordshire, the skeleton of a man seated in a chair with his head resting on a table. It is supposed Lovel had been hidden there and deserted by some servant who was to provide for him. In 1492 another pretender appeared, named Perkin War- beck, who was claimed by his followers to be Eichard, the younger son of Edward IV. So carefully had he been pre- pared for the part he played, that he deceived many. The King of Scotland once took up arms in his behalf. Then the Cornishmen, who had been offended by a tax-levy, joined him, but were defeated. Warbeck was captured and confined in prison. Transferred to the Tower, he planned to escape with the Earl of Warwick. Henry, anxious to have them out of the way, consented to the execution of both, although he declared Warbeck was "not worth a rope." Henry's throne being secure, his children were sought in marriage by other royal families. His eldest son, Arthur, married Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the King of Spain. Arthur dying the next year, negotiations were begun for marrying the young widow to Henry, the second son of Henry VII. The king's eldest daughter, Margaret, was mar- ried to James IV., the King of Scotland. Commerce and Explorations. There was no English navy in the fifteenth century for the protection of trade, and piracy was common. Merchant vessels went armed. Pur trading was now begun with the coasts of the Baltic, and in the west of England companies were formed to engage in the fisheries around Iceland. Domestic trade was protected and flourished. It was during this reign that Columbus made for Spain his wonderful westward voyage to what he supposed was 1509] HENRY VII. 161 eastern Asia. A few years later, John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, was authorized by Henry VII. to make two voy- ages (1497 and 1498), and on his and his son Sebastian's discoveries along the eastern coast of North America England later based her claim to the continent. A New Era begins with the rule of the Tudors. The period called the "Middle Ages" was now to end, and the great events which mark the beginning of modern history had already occurred at the end of Henry VII.'s reign. The New World was found. G-unpowder, the mariner's compass, and printing were in use. The age of feudalism had passed away, and the period of absolute monarchy had begun in Spain and France as well as in England. Besides these events, the learning aJ of ancient Greece and Eome was finding its way into England. The Turks, by the capture of Constanti- nople in 1453, had driven the Greek scholars into Italy, where they had estab- lished universities and schools. From Italy the influence of the new learning spread to England and the other countries of Europe. Learned men began to translate books into English, and the printing press made it possible for the people to read them. An age of thought, of enlightenment, and of progress, undreamed of by the people of those days, was soon to come. Henry's Tomb. Henry built a splendid chapel on the east of Westminster Abbey for his burial place. His mag- nificent tomb, cut out of black marble by a noted Italian sculptor, may still be seen. He died in 1509, and his son, Tomb of Henry VIII. 162 TITE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1509 Henry VIII., succeeded to the throne of a peaceful and pros- perous kingdom. Henry VIII., 1509-1547. Henry VIII. was a talented and athletic young man, " as handsome as nature could make him." He had frank, win- ning manners, enjoyed hunting and bowling, and in the use of the lance and bow he could outshoot and outthrow any man in England. He knew Latin, Spanish, and French, and had considerable musical ability. He retained the same council, or body of advisers, that his father had. But there were two men, Empson and Dudley, that were hated by the people because they had been employed by the late king to collect illegal taxes. Although they had merely carried out the king's orders, they were ac- cused and convicted of treason and put to death. The trial of a prominent man by judge and jury had become a mere farce, and continued so throughout Henry's reign, inasmuch as they always decided disputes according to the king's will without considering whether the defendant was guilty or inno- cent. Henry now married the Princess Catherine of Aragon, his brother's widow, a marriage to which the Pope had given his consent. By these measures the king's popularity was made com- plete. Leaving the cares of the government to his ministers, he now set to work to enjoy the well-filled treasury that his father had left him. For two years, music, festivals, shoot- Henry viii. 1519] HENRY VIII. 163 ing matches, tournaments, and the society of gay ladies and gentlemen occupied his time. The Holy League. But Henry soon became ambitious to have a hand in affairs outside of England, although the wisest of his councilors had learned that it was best to avoid being mixed up with foreign wars. At this time Italy was not one nation, like England, or France, or Spain, but was divided into a number of petty states. Venice and Flor- ence were independent republics. Spain, France, and the Pope ruled over parts of Italy. In 1511 the Pope formed the Holy League to drive the French out of Italy, and Henry joined with Spain and Germany to help him. Henry's allies obtained what they were seeking, but he himself spent a great deal of money and gained nothing of importance. He did help Maximilian, the German Emperor, to win one battle against the French in Flanders, " a greater victory than which/' he wrote to Catherine, "was never won anywhere." The French humorously called it the " Battle of the Spurs," because their own men ran away so fast. Battle of Flodden Field. The attack on France stirred up her old ally, Scotland, and James IV., who was the brother-in-law of Henry, led an army into England. It was terribly defeated through the skill of the English general, the Earl of Surrey. The Scotch king, the chief of his no- bility, and ten thousand men were left dead upon the field. Henry was shrewd enough to see that his European allies were making a cafs-paw of him, and he made peace with France for a large sum of money. Soon afterwards the old French king died, and Francis I. became King of France. In Spain, Charles V., the nephew of Queen Catherine, suc- ceeded to the throne; he was the ruler of the Netherlands also, and was elected Emperor of the German states. These three young -and ambitious sovereigns were now leaders in the affairs of Europe. >J w i. fe 2 05 ¥ u s tf_* s .J p 01 o s OS 164 1527] HENRY VIII. 165 Wolsey and his Plans. At this time Thomas Wolsey was the chief minister of King Henry. He had risen to high position through the church, which was at that time the only way a man of humble birth could rise in public life. He had been a chaplain of Henry VII., and was well thought of by that king. Henry VIII. soon found that Wolsey had great ability, so he made him Archbishop of York and then chan- cellor. Francis I. and Charles V. were about to wage war for the control of Italy, and each wished to enlist the services of Henry. Francis invited Henry to a conference which was held near the boundary between Calais and France; there they entertained each other with such lavish magnificence that the place was named the " Field of the Cloth of Gold." But Wolsey, who was ambitious to be chosen Pope, persuaded Henry to ally himself with Charles, for he knew that the Emperor could give him more help than the French king, in getting that office. Again Henry's allies were successful, while Henry gained nothing. And Wolsey was not elected Pope. So great did the power of Charles V. now become that Henry and Wolsey made a new alliance with France. Their policy was to main- tain the "balance of power," a plan which has often been followed since, and which consists in the union of weak nations against one that is too powerful. The New Learning; More; Colet. During Henry's time the study of Greek was introduced into the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. John Colet, a clergyman, had stud- ied this language in Paris and Italy. Eeturning to London, he founded the school at St. Paul's. He began the practice of reading the Bible to the people and explaining its mean- ing. Sir Thomas More, a famous lawyer of London, was also a patron of study; he was a great favorite of the king. More and Colet invited a noted Dutch scholar, Erasmus, to 166 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1514 England, and he spent some time at Cambridge, where he prepared a scholarly edition of the New Testament, the first ever printed in both Greek and Latin. What was sneeringly called at the time "the new learn- ing" meant a great deal more than the study of the ancient Greek and Latin authors. These languages were very im- portant then because they contained all that had been learned in the past. But men now began to have a desire to search out things for themselves, and did not wish to accept everything as truth because somebody said so. Erasmus tells a story that illustrates the situation. On being shown a relic at one of the convents, he inquired of the abbot how he knew that that particular toe had been part of St. Paul's foot. The indig- nant abbot gave him a scornful look and said : " Do you not see that it is so labeled ? " People were expected to believe and accept as true anything and everything that the king and the church told them. The new learning demanded that things should be proved. The Protestant Reformation. Wyclif and the Lollards had refused to believe certain doctrines of the church. Al- though compelled to be silent, the movement begun by him did not die out. It spread to Bohemia, Germany, and Italy. In Germany, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a movement was begun by a monk, Martin Luther, that led to more serious consequences. Luther declared that the Catholic Church and the Pope did not teach the religion taught by Christ in the New Testament. A general revolt against the Catholic Church was stirred up in Germany, which led to bloody wars between the Catholic princes and those who fa- vored the ideas of Luther. The last of these wars, called the "Thirty Years' War" (1618-1648), ended in establish- ing the right of the German states to the religion of their choice. During the century from the time of Luther's first protest 1529] HENRY VIII. 167 in 1517 to the time of the Thirty Years' War, the " Keforma- tion," as 1 this revolt against the Catholic Church was called, had spread to France, Sweden, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland. It was attended by wars, massacres, and perse- cution. People were hanged, tortured, and burned by thousands for their religious opinions, until the world grew tired of it. But out of all the strife have come our religious liberty and our free government. The trouble all arose be- cause kings and governments in those days insisted on telling people what they must accept in church matters. How Henry Regarded Church Matters. Henry was at first sternly opposed to this movement against the authority of the church. He wrote a reply to one of Luther's books, and sent a copy of it to the Pope. Pope Clement was so pleased with it that he gave Henry the title " Defender of the Faith." Later on, as we shall see, Henry maintained his right to this title, only it was not the faith of the church, but the faith of Henry that he defended. The Question of the King's Divorce. After the king had been married to Catherine some fifteen years, he grew tired of her and wished that he might marry a beautiful young lady of his court, Anne Boleyn. At that time the question of marriages was entirely under the authority of the church, and no divorce was granted to persons who had been lawfully married. Henry now came to the conclusion that it had been unlawful for him to marry his brother's widow. The Pope had given him permission to do so, but he held that the per- mission had been improperly granted, and that his marriage with Catherine was no marriage at all. He therefore em- ployed Wolsey to obtain from the Pope the desired declara- tion that the marriage was invalid. Wolsey's mission was a failure; after long delay a papal court tried the case in England, but it did not have power to make the declaration, and the Pope himself decided not to make it. 168 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1530 1 I ':- sJl^^iBKlT^. " ^^S&i H-wiri" &.f; C? '"Si -;;7: ::_.V/ . Trial of Queen Catherine. The king was so angry at this failure that he dismissed Wolsey, took from him all his property, and finally ordered him to prison on a charge of treason. But on the way to London Wolsey fell ill and died at a convent at Leicester. Only his death saved him from execution. His fall from power and the king's ingratitude had broken his heart, and, as Shakespeare puts it in the play " King Henry VIIL," he cried out to his secretary: " Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by it? * * * O, Cromwell, Cromwell ! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." Henry next, at the suggestion of Dr. Thomas Cranmer of Cambridge, decided to inquire of the universities of Europe 1536] HENRY VIII. 169 what they thought about his marriage with Catherine. Some of them gave an answer favorable to Henry. The king now resolved to set the Pope at defiance. He assembled the clergy and compelled them to address him as " Supreme Head of the English Church and clergy." Next, he got from Par- liament a law forbidding appeals from an English court to any authority outside of England. Cranmer was made Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and in his court declared the marriage of Catherine void. Henry had already married Anne Boleyn, and a few days after Cranmer's decision she was publicly crowned. The Pope now sent his decision to England, de- claring that Catherine was the king's lawful wife. Separation of the Church from Rome. At the next ses- sion of Parliament, in 1534, laws were passed forbidding all appeals and the payment of money in any way to the Pope. Another law, called the Act of Succession, declared Henry's marriage with Catherine unlawful, that with Anne lawful, and provided that the children of Henry and Anne should succeed to the throne. Another law, the Act of Supremacy, declared Henry the Supreme Head of the Church in England, and that any one who questioned it, or refused to acknowledge it when questioned, was guilty of high treason. The great Sir Thomas More, who had been made Henry's chancellor, and John Eisher, Bishop of Eochester, refused to support these laws and were beheaded. More told the king he was willing to acknowledge Anne's children to be the lawful suc- cessors to the throne, because Parliament had made them so, but he could not admit that she was the king's lawful wife. All Europe was shocked at his execution. Charles V. said he would rather have lost the choicest city in his empire than such a friend as More. The King's Later Marriages. Anne was soon accused of unfaithfulness to her lord. Henry lost no time in seek- ing a new divorce, but ordered her and five gentlemen of the 170 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1536 court, her accomplices, to execution. No sooner had their heads rolled into the dust than the king married Jane Sey- mour, Anne's maid of honor, who died in the following year. The king now commissioned his new minister, Thomas Crom- well, to find him another wife. Cromwell thought it would be a good thing for Henry to marry Anne of Cleves, a German princess, to strengthen the friendship of England with the German Protestants. He showed the king her picture, which represented her as a very beautiful woman. But when Anne reached England, Henry discovered that she was plain. Six months afterwards he divorced her, and before long he had Cromwell's head cut off. In the same year, the king married a beautiful young girl of his own court, Catherine Howard, but before another year had ended, the jealous tyrant sent her to the block. His sixth and last wife was Catherine Parr, who lived in peace with her despotic husband. The King Suppresses the Monasteries. When Henry began his reign, perhaps one third of the kingdom was in the possession of the church. The cathedrals, monasteries, chap- els, and abbeys held estates, by the income of which they were maintained. Wolsey and More had turned some of the smaller monastic institutions into schools and colleges. Now the idea occurred to Henry that he might close the monasteries and take their estates for himself. Henry said that these places were in the possession of vicious and ignorant monks who had entered monastic life on account of laziness or poverty. He said that their charities supported a multitude of vagabonds who ought to be made to do honest labor. And more than this, he called them mere nests of treason, since they opposed the laws passed by Parlia- ment making the king the head of the church. The fact that they held to the Pope rather than to Henry was enough to destroy them. Henry's agent Cromwell undertook the work of " reform," 1536] HENRY VIII. 171 as the suppression of the monasteries was called. The first act of Parliament closed the smaller ones, but a few years later the others also were swept away. The king's agents vis- ited and inspected these institutions and were supposed to find some irregularity in their management as a just ground for closing them. The monks and nuns were then turned adrift; but some were pen- sioned. The estates A Ruined Abbey. not retained for the king's own use were given to his friends. Many a noble family in England dates the beginning of its fortune from a gift of monastery lands. The splendid build- ings were stripped of everything of value, the images were thrown down, windows of beautiful stained glass were shat- tered, and only the ruined, moss-grown walls now remain to tell the story of the past. Insurrection in the North. The lower classes in Eng- land had fallen into worse condition during Henry's reign than before. The practice of changing farms into sheep pastures still went on, leaving many of the farming and laboring class homeless. Many had lived on the charities of the monasteries; and the closing of these not only deprived them of that relief, but added to their numbers many vagrant monks. A host of 30,000 discontented men assembled in Yorkshire and petitioned the king to restore the religious houses and remit the last tax levied. The king replied: "How presumptuous are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, to take upon you, contrary to God's law and man's law, to rule your prince, whom ye are bound to obey and serve!" This insurrection, sometimes called the 172 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1536 " Pilgrimage of Grace/' was put down with a strong hand and about a hundred of the leaders were executed. The Ten Articles and the Six Articles. In 1536 the king informed his subjects what they 'might believe in mat- ters of religion. He issued a creed of ten articles, and every man at the peril of his head must accept and obey them. Certain articles in this creed favored the reformers. Three years later, the king and Parliament issued a new creed of six articles, supporting the chief doctrines of the Catholic Church. With this " whip of six strings " he persecuted his people until the end of his reign. Any one who disagreed with him, was to lose his property for the first offense; for the second he lost his life. In two weeks, five hundred people were arrested, and during the rest of Henry's life, which stretched out eight years longer, twenty-eight were put to death. Last Years of the King. Henry now had three children : Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Spain; Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Anne Boleyn ; and his only son, the child of Jane Sey- mour, who succeeded him as Edward VI. The king had grown, in his later years, to an unwieldy size, and suffered constantly from some painful disease. He died in 1547. His reign is chiefly to be remembered for the change he made in the government of the church. & QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How do you explain the increase of royal power in the time of Henry VII.? 2. Compare Henry VII. 's methods of raising money with those of Edward I. 3. With what king may Henry YItl. be compared? Why did he persecute both Catholics and Protestants? 4. How do you account for the great poverty of Henry VIII.'s time? 5. Why did Henry VIII. set up an independent church? 6. Why do we date modern history from Henry VII.? 7. What was the New Learning? The Reformation? !547] EDWARD VI. 173 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Sir Thomas More. Kendall, Source Book, pp. 132-144 ; Goninie The Kings' Story Book, Ch. XXI. 2. Wolsey. Green, Short History, pp. 325-331. 3. The Field of the Cloth of Gold. Morris, Historical Tales Ena- lish, pp. 201-215. 4. Perkin Warbeck. Mary W. Shelley, Perkin Warbeck. B. Religious Strife. Edward VI., i547"i553- Edward VI., a delicate, studious lad, became king at the age of nine years. He had been carefully trained in the new learning and in the ideas of Protestantism. As soon as he could write, he was taught to keep a journal of everything that interested him. This journal is still pre- served and shows that he was very studious. Here is one of the questions given him to study: "Whether it be better for the commonwealth that the power be in the nobility or in the people ? " Edward Seymour, Earl of Somerset. Henry VIII. had, in his will, appointed a council of sixteen men, who were to rule until the young king reached the age of eighteen. As it would not be possible for so many to agree upon a plan of government, they placed the power in the hands of one of their number, the Earl of Somerset, brother of Jane Seymour, the king's mother. There were some very difficult questions to settle, and Somerset soon had his hands full. Battle of Pinkie. Henry VIII. had made an agreement with some of the Scotch that Mary Stuart, their infant queen, should marry his son, Edward, and thus peacefully unite the two kingdoms. But when Somerset tried to have them carry out the agreement, the Catholic party in Scot- land prevented it. Somerset led an army into Scotland to enforce the marriage, and by the aid of his cannon and mus- kets defeated the Scotch with terrible loss at Pinkie. This NlVER II. 174 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1547 only made the Scotch more stubborn in their refusal to sur- render the little five-year-old queen. As one old Scotchman said : " They misliked not the match, but the manner of the wooing." Mary was taken to France and was soon mar- ried to the French prince. Internal Troubles. Henry had established an independ- ent church by putting himself in the place of the Pope, and had destroyed the monastic system. But the doctrines and teachings of the Catholic Church he had left unchanged. The six articles provided for the mass and the confessional, and forbade the marriage of priests. The people of England were now divided on this question of doctrine. In the north- ern and western counties they wanted to keep the Catholic faith entire, while in the east and south the reformers would do away with it all and have a simple service of song, prayers, and preaching, in English. Besides the quarrel over church reform, there were in- creasing difficulties between the farmers and the wealthy land- holders about the inclosing of lands and the rise in rents. And most serious of all, the decline of farming had made food scarce, and many of the poorer classes were in distress. Prices were high on this account, and also because the late king, to enrich himself, had made the coin of inferior quality. Four shillings would not buy so much as one would in the time of Henry VII. So many laborers were out of work that wages were low even when paid in this debased coin. The Vagrant Act was passed in the first year of Edward's reign. It provided that any able-bodied man who was per- sistently idle should be branded with the letter V, and made a slave for two years; if he then refused to work, he should be made a slave for life. But in spite of the law the va- grants and paupers increased. Besides the farmers and la- borers thrown out of work by the inclosing of lands, thou- sands of retainers whom the lords had been obliged to dismiss 1553] EDWARD VI. 175 were thrown upon the country; and, finally, the monks and laborers who had formerly been supported on the estates of the church were, by the closing of the monasteries, left homeless and idle. The vagrant law could not make men work when there was no work to be done. An Increase in Criminals came with this lack of work. Many of the vagrants became thieves and robbers. The roads were beset with highwaymen. " In London," a traveler writes, " people are taken up every day by dozens, yet for all this they never cease to rob and murder in the streets." The severest laws did not check them. It was said that " a man who would in France be whipped, would in England be hanged. In truth there were two sorts of punishment, to be hanged and to be beheaded, and evil-doers gained as much by doing little evil as great." These evils continued to trou- ble England for many years. Progress of the English Reformation. Somerset, who was thoroughly in sympathy with the Protestant party, or- dered the churches stripped of images and pictures. The stained glass windows were replaced with plain ones, the altars were pulled down, the walls were whitewashed, and the Ten Commandments written on them. The vestments of the priests and the furniture of the altars were destroyed. Cram- mer and a committee of clergymen compiled the prayer book, which took the place of the Latin service. A law, called the Act of Uniformity, compelled the use of the prayer book in all the churches in England. The clergy were allowed to marry. In the last year of E dwarfs reign, the doctrines and teachings of the church were expressed in forty-two ar- ticles, which were some years later reduced to thirty-nine; these thirty-nine articles of belief are still the creed and prac- tice of the English, or Anglican, Church, known also* as the Episcopal Church. King Edward's Schools. The monasteries did much 176 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1549 good in providing instruction for the poor, and their loss left the children without means of education. To take their place, a part of the money that came to the crown through their suppression was used in establishing forty grammar schools and a number of hospitals in different parts of Eng- land. As the young king favored this project, these schools have since been known as King Edward's Schools. Insurrections. A revolt in Cornwall and Devonshire was caused by forcing the English prayer book upon the Catho- lic people. One Sunday in the church of a little village, when the English service was read for the first time, the people compelled the priest to put on his robes and conduct the mass in Latin. The revolt spread fast, but the insur- gents were quickly put down. In Norfolk 16,000 men gathered under the lead of Eobert Ket, a tanner. They proceeded to break down the hated fences and to kill the fat sheep and deer within. This revolt seems to have been provoked by the general poverty and dis- tress of the poorer classes. In the suppression of these two insurrections, more than 6,000 people were slain or hanged. Somerset and Northumberland. Somerset sympathized with the people and was slow in taking 'severe measures to put down the Norfolk revolt. His rival in the council was John Dudley, afterwards created Duke of Northumberland, who now succeeded in driving him out of office. Later Somerset was executed on a charge of trying to regain his power. Attempt to Change the Succession. Northumberland was even more determined than Somerset to wipe out the Catholic power in England. The king's health was feeble, and under an act of Parliament both his sisters had been placed in the line of succession, so that on his death the crown would go to the Princess Mary, the daughter of Catherine, a determined Catholic, The council had tried in vain to 1553] MARY I. 177 make her give up her religion and become Protestant, but she steadfastly refused. When Cranmer urged her to ac- cept the " Word of God," she replied, " I know not what you mean by the Word of God, since what is the Word of God now was not so in my father's time." After Northumberland came into power he formed a plan to pass over the king's half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and give the crown to Lady Jane Grey, who had married his own son, Guildford Dudley. Lady Jane was the granddaughter of the Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII. Northumber- land persuaded Edward to make a will bequeathing the crown to Jane, although he must have known that only the Parlia- ment could declare the succession. One day in 1553 Lady Jane was informed that Edward was dead and that she was to be queen. She was only six- teen years of age, beautiful, and remarkable for her learning and accomplishments. She cared only for her books and her husband, and begged to be left with them. But her father- in-law was determined to sacrifice her to his ambitious plans, which never had any chance of success. Protestants and Catholics united to defeat him, and he had scarcely a dozen supporters. The Parliament declared in favor of Mary, and the people of London at once gave her their allegiance. Nor- thumberland and two others were executed, and Lady Jane Grey and her husband were sent to the Tower, there to wait until the same fate should overtake them. Mary I., 1553-1558. The First Woman to Rule England was Mary Tudor. She was a plain, sickly woman, somewhat dull, and came to the throne at the mature age of thirty-seven. Her youth had been blighted and unhappy on account of her mother's unjust divorce and consequent disgrace. She was a devout and faith- ful Catholic, and believed that her one duty as sovereign 178 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1553 was to restore the Catholic form of worship and the rule of the Pope, Beyond this she saw little and understood little of the needs of her people. She had the Tudor determina- tion., but none of the Tudor statesmanship that Henry had exhibited. It was a time when it was very difficult to act wisely. The people were about evenly divided on the question of religion, and the idea that they could be trusted to select a religious belief for themselves was then undreamed of. The great kings of England, those who had governed most successfully, had consulted the wishes of the people; but under the Tudors it had become the custom to refer every- thing to the will of the sovereign. Mary's first care, there- fore, was to have Parliament repeal the laws that gave coun- tenance to Protestantism, and to restore the Catholic form of worship. Most of the people received it back gladly, and, except in some of the larger towns, no complaints were heard. Next the married clergymen were made to resign their places, and the foreign reformers were banished from England. But the monastery lands were left in the hands of their new owners. Spanish Influence. The Protestant princes of Germany had made an alliance with France against Charles Y. and the Catholic princes. Both parties now sought the alliance of England. The French and Spanish ambassadors were at the English court, each striving to gain favor with the new queen. Charles's minister proposed that Mary marry Philip, the heir to the throne of Spain. The queen saw his portrait and fell in love with him, and from that moment she was under the influence of the Spanish power. Wyatt's Rebellion. But the English had no liking for Spain, and still less did they like Philip personally. The Commons petitioned the queen to choose some other husband, but they received a sharp reproof. Immediately afterwards, in the central and southern counties where the Protestants 1554] MARY I. 179 were strong, an insurrection gathered for the purpose of de- posing Mary and putting her sister, Elizabeth, on the throne. Sir Thomas Wyatt was to rouse the men of Kent, while his confederates were to join him with troops from other coun- ties. But they failed to appear and Wyatt was left alone. Queen Mary Signing Death Warrant of Lady Jane Grey. For a time it looked as though he would succeed. The Lon- don troops sent against him changed sides, and with prompt- ness and prudence he might have gained the city. But Mary- was roused. She appealed to the London people in a stirring speech and threw herself upon their protection. She prom- 180 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1554 ised not to marry without the consent of Parliament, The next day 25,000 men enlisted, and Wyatt, though he entered London and fought till almost deserted, was taken. Lady Jane Grey and her husband were now executed, along with Wyatt and about one hundred others. An effort was made to connect Elizabeth with the plot, but no proof could be found against her and she was acquitted. The next Parliament consented to Mary's marriage with Philip, but did not give him any power in the government. The marriage took place in July, 1554. It assured Charles that England would not join France against him. But Philip did not love his wife, who was much older than himself. After a few months' stay in England, he went away, leaving her to rule alone. Restoration of the Catholic Church. Mary had attained one of the great desires of her heart — Philip for a husband. She was now to attempt to gain the other — the restoration of all England to the rule and religion of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Pole, who had been outlawed by Henry VIII. for refusing to acknowledge him as the head of the church, now returned to England as the Pope's legate. The Pope was again recognized as the Supreme Head of the Church. This was an age when one's religion was considered part of one's politics. Those who opposed the state religion were generally the enemies of the government and were treated as enemies. So Mary and the Parliament revived the old laws of Henry IV. and Henry V. against heretics. The penalty for refusing to accept the established religion was death, usually by burning. In all nearly three hundred persons were put to death. Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury and author of the prayer book; Eidley, Bishop of London; and Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, were the most distinguished victims. The persecution of Mary's time was due largely to Philip, 1558] MARY I. 181 who was narrow and cruel by nature. " Better not rule at all than rule over heretics," was his motto. Close of Mary's Reign. In 1557, to please her husband, now King Philip II., Mary joined Spain in a war against France. The French replied by seizing Calais, the only pos- session left to England on the continent. Mary's English patriotism was deeply wounded. " When I die/' said she, " you will find Calais written on my heart." In Mary's eagerness to free England from heresy, she had neglected other things. Pirates swarmed along the coasts. Fortresses were unrepaired. There was no money in the treasury. Commerce had almost ceased on account of wars and pirates. The people began to detest Mary and her rule. Her husband had deserted her, and the poor queen, long troubled by disease, and now prostrated by the loss of Calais, died within the year. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Enumerate the good and the bad effects of the suppression of the monasteries. 2. How were the people disposed toward the changes in the church made in Edward VI. 's time? 3. Why did the people oppose the marriage of Mary and Philip? 4. Why was England badly governed in Edward VI. 's time? In Mary's time? 5. Why were the radical reformers unwise? What proves their folly? 0. What causes led to the Vagrant Act? Why was it unjust? 7. In what way did the poor suffer during this period? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Lady Jane Grey. Yonge, Cameos from English History, IV. (see index) ; Froude, History of England, Vol. VI., pp. 16-43, 180- 184. 2. Edward, the Boy Kjng. Yonge, Cameos from English History, IV. (see index) ; Clemens, The Prince and the Pauper. 3. Persecution under Tudor Sovereigns. E. S. Holt, All for the Best. 4. Philip and Mary, Yonge, Cameos from English History, IV, * / '**; 182 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [155S C. Growth of English Power. Elizabeth, 15 58- 1603. How Elizabeth Ruled England. When Elizabeth came to the throne, the Protestant exiles returned, and those who were in prison on account of that religion were set free. Mary had ruled in order to make the English people Catholic. Eliz- abeth, who cared little for re- ligion, ruled to make the Eng- lish nation strong. For this reason she has received the name of " Good Queen Bess." Under her rule schools and colleges were encouraged, dis- covery and exploration extend- ed, manufactures and commerce built up, and a naval power es- tablished which, before the close of her reign, became the strongest in the world. Comfortable homes took the place of hovels with floors of dirt and beds of straw, and people began to live and think like human beings and free men. There is much truth in the flattering prophecy made of her by Archbishop Cranmer in Shakespeare's play " King Henry VIII." : Elizabeth. " She shall be loved and feared ; her own shall bless her ; Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, And hang their heads with sorrow ; good grows with her. In her days every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine what he plants ; and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors." Like Henry VII., Elizabeth had gained wisdom from her misfortunes. She had quietly watched the troubles of Mary's 1559] , ELIZABETH 183 reign, and- had been too prudent to connect herself with them. She thought it better to keep her head on her shoulders than to take sides in a quarrel that was sure to turn out badly, whichever side triumphed. No one knew what her policy would be in church matters, although it was known she leaned toward the side of the reformers. Coronation. " It is the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes," she said, when the death of her sister made her Queen of England. London was gorgeous with decoration and pageant on the coronation day. As the procession moved from the Tower to Westminster, a little child, representing Truth, let down a Bible by a silken cord into her carriage. The queen kissed the book and thanked the city for the gift, saying, " I shall be a most diligent reader thereof." An English prayer book, afterwards presented to . her, she laid aside with anger. Evidently she did not mean to offend either Protestant or Catholic. Her Laws Concerning the Church. About half the people would have liked to continue to worship as their fathers did. A small number wanted to worship as they did in Ed- ward's time. A much larger number, who were afterwards called Puritans, wanted the government to leave them free to worship in their own way. It would not have been safe to follow the ideas of any of these parties. So the Parliament decided that the queen must be the " Supreme Governor of the Kealm" in church matters as well as in other things. They changed Cranmer's prayer book so that it was more pleasing to the Catholics and less pleasing to the Puritans, but on the whole pleased all the people of England fairly well. This book had to be used in the service of all the churches, and with very slight change is still used in the English Church. Those clergymen who would not obey the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were dismissed, and oth- ers appointed. Though both Catholics and Protestants de- 559 184 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR , [1559 clared that the queen was going straight to destruction, this moderate policy proved the salvation of the country. Before long, however, severe laws were made against Catho- lics and other dissenters from the established religion. His- torians have called Elizabeth's predecessor " Bloody Mary " because she persecuted heretics. But Elizabeth's own hands were not spotless. As we shall see, nearly two hundred Catholics were put to death in England during her reign. Under her, also, the torture was frequently used to force con- fessions from the accused, whereas under Mary it had scarcely ever been resorted to. How the Queen Kept Peace with Foreign Nations. Elizabeth, aided by her able ministers, Cecil, Bacon, and Walsingham, was skillful in diplomacy; — that is, she could get what the nation wanted without fighting for it. She was able and energetic like her father, and. could decide promptly and act boldly in time of danger. But she put off mak- ing up her mind as long as possible, and was ready to change it as soon as made up. If a measure she adopted turned out badly, she would declare she had never authorized it. She would make promises that she never intended to per- form, would forsake her friends, lie when it served her pur- pose, and could even strike her courtiers and swear if she felt so inclined. Her plan was to keep her enemies divided. In Scotland and France there was the same division into religious factions as there had been in England. When the Protestant party in those countries was in danger of being subdued, Elizabeth would furnish it just enough help to enable it to keep the Catholic party busy. At first Spain was friendly, and Eliza- beth did not interfere when King Philip II. tried to force the Catholic religion upon his Protestant subjects in the Netherlands; but later she sent help to them also. As her enemies were thus occupied with troubles at home, they were 1581] ELIZABETH 185 unable to attack England until the country had grown united and strong. The Queen's Proposed Marriage. At the beginning of her reign, the Parliament petitioned the queen to choose a husband, and she promised to clo so when it should be for the advantage of the country. But she never could make up her mind which suitor to choose. Philip II. proposed first, hop- ing by marrying Elizabeth to keep England on the side of Spain. His offer was de- clined, but she considered other candidates that he pro- posed. In 1581, she gave the people to understand that she would marry the Duke of An- jou in order to unite France, England, and the Nether- lands against Spain. It is not likely she intended to marry the duke, but perhaps she wanted to find out what her people thought about a French marriage. A young lawyer, named Stubbs, wrote a pamphlet ridiculing the marriage in a manner more insolent than polite. His book was destroyed and his right hand cut off. But he waved his hat with his left, and cried, " God save Queen Elizabeth ! " Her great desire was to keep England at peace. When her councilors talked in a warlike way, she would bring her fist down on the table, exclaiming, " No war ! my Lords, no war ! " If her marriage had been necessary to the peace and safety of England, Elizabeth might have married, but as long as it was not, she preferred many suitors to one husband, and delighted in hearing their flattery, and in keeping them in suspense. Philip II. 186 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1547 In order to understand the events of Elizabeth's reign we must know something of the struggle over religion that was going on in the neighboring countries. John Knox in Scotland. A struggle between Scottish Catholics and reformers had been in progress during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary. Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Stuart, ruled the country as regent, and tried to keep the peo- ple faithful to the Catholic Church. But in Scotland the kings never had so much power as in England, and she was unable to restrain the reformers. The burning of Protestant preach- ers brought on an insurrection. The most noted of the Scotch reformers was John Knox, a native of Glasgow. For his part in the insurrection he was sent to the French galleys, but he escaped and became a pupil of a great French reformer, John Calvin, at Geneva. In 1559 he returned to Scotland. He was a man of ready speech, terribly in earnest, and the Scotch people listened to him as they had never listened to any man before. He preached a fierce sermon at Perth on idolatry, and the people broke into the churches and cathedrals and stripped them of the beautiful pictures, images, and altars with which they were furnished. The movement spread through the country, and the people rose in arms. They besieged the regent and deposed her. When French soldiers were brought in to subdue them, they called on Elizabeth for help. Thus they were found asking their old enemy, England, to help drive out their old friend, France. Elizabeth helped them drive out the French, on the condition that they should be obedient to their queen, Mary Stuart. Mary Queen of Scots. Mary's husband, King Francis II. of France, had died soon after his coronation, and she was now to return to Scotland to rule as queen. She felt very sad to leave the gay and beautiful Paris, where she had grown up and married. " Farewell ! dear France ! " she cried, 47 1567] ELIZABETH 187 as the ship sailed out into the mists of the North Sea, " I shall never see thee more." It was indeed her last farewell to France. To Elizabeth, her coming brought no end of trou- ble, for Mary and the Catholic party claimed that the mar- riage of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn was not lawful, and that Elizabeth had no right to her throne. Mary, being the granddaughter of Henry VIII/s sister Margaret, was, ac- cording to this claim, the lawful Queen of England. Eliza- beth did not intend to allow Mary to reach Scotland till she should sign the treaty which had been made with the Scotch reformers, acknowledging Elizabeth's right to the English throne; but Mary refused to sign, and succeeded in reaching Scotland in safety. Mary began her reign well, and made many of the rough Scots her friends. It was her plan, after getting firm control of affairs at home, to call upon Spain and France to join her in a war on England. But she soon got into difficulties. She married her cousin, Lord Darnley, who was such a foolish and contemptible man that she soon came to despise him. Her friendship for her foreign secretary, Eizzio, made Darnley angry, and one day he and some friends of his burst into Mary's presence, and stabbed Eizzio to death before her eyes. After this a rough Scotch lord, named Bothwell, became her chief adviser. One night the house in which Darnley was sleeping was blown into the air by a blast of gunpowder. He was not hurt by the explosion, but while running away was met by armed men and murdered. Bothwell and Mary were afterwards married. The Scotch people would have her queen no longer. They captured her and shut her up in Loch Leven Castle. They made her young son, James VI., king, and chose her half- brother, Murray, to rule until he grew up. But Mary soon escaped from her prison and fled to England, begging Eliza- beth to help her get back her throne. But some people ac- 188 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1567 Capture of Mary Stuart by the Scots. cused her, as well as Bothwell, of Darnley's murder. Eliza- beth therefore refused to help her, and gave her to an English noble to keep as a prisoner. After being moved from one place to another, she was at last confined in Fotheringay Castle. The Enmity of Spain. Philip II. ruled over the Nether- lands, Spain, Italy, and many American colonies. He was determined to make all men think alike on matters of religion. From the mines of South America, he received great treasures of gold and silver, which he thought would enable him to carry out his plan of subduing the Protestants in Europe. He 1586] ELIZABETH 189 would first conquer the Netherlands, then France, and finally England. He began with the Netherlands. These provinces had long been the richest in Europe. They were inhabited by manu- facturers and merchants, and had long been in the habit of governing themselves. The attempt to force them back into the old faith provoked a fierce and determined resistance which all Philip's power could not crush. Their heroic leader, William of Orange, was killed by a paid assassin of Philip, but the cause went on many years till the Dutch provinces became a free republic. In France the two sects had been waging a bloody civil war. Philip had joined the Catholic party there to keep the French Protestants, or Huguenots, as they were called, from helping the Dutch. This forced Elizabeth to send aid to Holland; for if Philip should conquer the Dutch, he would join France in attacking England, and attempt to put Mary on the throne. An army was sent under the Earl of Leices- ter. He was a vain and haughty man, with no- ability, and accomplished little. In the attack on Zutphen, his gallant nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, fell, the noblest gentleman of England. He was author, statesman, and scholar. His noble character is exhibited in the last action of his life. When he was lying wounded upon the battlefield, a cup of water was offered him; but seeing another suffering soldier near him, he said, " Take it ; thy necessity is greater than mine." Rise of the English Navy. But England had begun an attack on Philip which threatened to ruin his nearly exhausted treasury. English sailors were beginning to cruise in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico and seize the Spanish treasure ships from America. Captain John Hawkins began the African slave trade in 1562. He carried the slaves to the West Indies, where he ex- changed them for sugar, ginger, pearls, and hides, which found NlVER 12, 190 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1564 a ready sale in Europe. The queen herself invested in his second voyage and shared the profits. Francis Drake took a shorter road to wealth. With five ships he set sail for South America in 1577. He coasted southward, and passed through the Strait of Magellan. Off Chile, he took a Spanish treasure ship, and further north he overhauled the great treasure galleon which was sent annually to Spain. Three cannon shot brought down her mast, and Knighting Drake. " Golden Hind." her cargo was taken aboard the " Golden Hind." Thirteen chests of plate, eighty pounds of gold, and twenty-six tons of silver were the booty of the victor. Sailing northward, he landed on the California coast, nam- ing it " New Albion." To avoid the Spanish fleet waiting for him at the strait, he struck westward across the Pacific, re- turning to England in 1580 by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He was thus the first Englishman to make the cir- 15S7] ELIZABETH 191 cuit of the globe. England went wild with delight. Drake was knighted. A banquet was served to the queen on board his ship, and it became a sort of club-home for naval men. Years afterwards, when it was broken up, a chair was made from some of the timber and given to Oxford Uni- versity. During the next few years Drake was busy plundering the Spanish colonies. In 1587 he entered the harbor of Cadiz and scuttled fifty of Philip's ships which were being fitted out to attack England. The town was plundered and burned, chaik mIde from Dbake's He hurried back to England, saying Ship - he had " singed Philip's beard/' as he had vowed to do when he set out. Execution of Mary. Philip had been preparing to invade England, at first in behalf of Mary, but now in his own behalf. Mary had been a continual source of trouble. The Duke of Norfolk and other nobles had attempted to release her and put her on the English throne. The rising had been put down with great severity ; Norfolk was put in the Tower, and later was sent to the block. The Society of Jesus, founded in 1534 for the exten- sion of the Catholic faith, now began to send its priests into England. But severe laws were made against the Jesuits. It was made high treason to receive any one into the Catholic Church or to absolve the queen's subjects from their oath of allegiance. A fine of twenty pounds a month was laid on any one who would not attend the established church. As many as two hundred of the Jesuits were imprisoned or put to death. 192 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [158(3 The severe laws against the Catholics had driven them to desperation. Anthony Babington and several young men who were connected with Elizabeth's own court agreed to assas- sinate her. The Duke of Parma, Philip's chief general, was to invade England, marry the Queen of Scots, and rule the country as the vassal of Spain. Walsingham's spies managed to get the confidence of the conspirators and made copies of the letters passing between Mary and them. When Walsing- ham had obtained evidence that she was a party to the plot, the conspirators were all seized and put to death. Mary was saved for a time, but it was believed that Elizabeth's life would never be safe while Mary was alive. She was therefore tried and beheaded in Fotheringay Castle, February 8, 1587. The Great Armada. Drake's attack on the Spanish at Cadiz delayed Philip's preparation for a year; but in May, 1588, he was ready to put to sea. His fleet, "the most fortunate and invincible Armada," as he called it, consisted of 132 ships, manned by 10,000 sailors and slaves, and carrying 22,000 soldiers. The Duke of Parma was to join him with 17,000 soldiers from the Netherlands. Elizabeth could not believe that England was seriously threatened, and delayed preparations till the last moment, hoping yet to make peace. But the English people of both creeds united heartily in the defense of the country, for they disliked Philip, who now claimed to be the lawful heir to the throne of England, since he was descended from John of Gaunt. The English navy contained only thirty-four ships and six thousand men, but by the efforts of the merchants and the seaport towns, it was immensely increased. London was asked to furnish fifteen ships, but sent word to the queen to please " accept thirty." The whole land responded with equal generosity, and a formidable fleet, under Admiral Lord How- ard, was ready to attack the Armada when it came up the Channel in July, 1588. The Spanish vessels were larger 158S] ELIZABETH 193 than the English, but the English had more cannon. The English could therefore inflict much damage while themselves keeping out of range of the Spanish musketry. When one of the galleons was crippled and left behind the fleet, the Eng- lish ships would surround and capture it — " plucking off the feathers/' they called it. The Spanish vessels, on account of their clumsy build, could not readily assist one another, while the light and swift English ships could destroy an enemy and escape without damage. Drake Receiving the Surrender of a Spanish Ship. The Armada came to anchor off Calais to await the Duke of Parma and his veterans. Elizabeth had assembled her troops at Tilbury. Clad in armor and mounted on a white horse, she rode among them and made a speech which stirred their loyalty. ec Let tyrants fear ; " she said, " my strength and safety are in the loyal hearts of my people. I know I am a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a King of England." 194 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1588 But the soldiers were not needed. Parma was blockaded by a Dutch fleet and could not embark. The English sent fire ships among the Spanish vessels which lay at anchor off Calais. In an effort to escape, they cut their cables and put to sea in confusion. The English fleet then attacked, and sank or cap- tured sixteen ships. A tempest began to blow from the south- east. The Spanish ships were driven away from the Nether- lands and hopelessly scattered, while the English rode out the storm without the loss of a ship. Some of the Spanish vessels were wrecked on the coast of Norway, others on the islands around Scotland, till finally out of the "Invincible Armada" only fifty-three ships and 10,000 men returned to Spain. The Spanish king had done his worst and had failed. The sea power of Spain steadily declined, and she sank from the first rank of nations, while England rose to the first place as a naval, commercial, and colonizing nation. Church Troubles. During the rest of the reign the Catholic dissenters were treated with the greatest severity. Priests and laymen who would not recant were banished, and about fifty, including two women, suffered death. The Court of High Commission was established to settle questions re- lating to the church. It tried and punished the Puritans harshly. By this time the most of the Catholics had entered the established church; and, as they wanted to make it con- form as nearly as possible to their old form of worship, the High Church party grew up, which Elizabeth herself favored, and which afterwards, by its severity, drove the Puritans into rebellion. The severe measures of the High Commission court were caused by the rise of new sects. Besides the Puritans, who wished, as they said, to " purify " the church of Catholic ceremonies, another sect arose, called Brownists, from the name of their leader, and afterwards known as Separatists. This denomination held that each church congregation ought to have the right to govern itself without interference of any 1596] ELIZABETH 195 kind. They were especially hateful to Elizabeth, and six were put to death. The sect of Presbyterians, or Calvinists, established by John Knox in Scotland, soon spread to England. They wished to govern the church by sending representatives from each congregation to an assembly which should have nothing to do with the political government. These ideas of church government were too new and strange to receive much favor in the time of Elizabeth. War against Spain Continued. England now turned invader, and for the rest of Elizabeth's reign Spain was mercilessly plundered. Her colonies were raided, towns sacked, and countless wealth carried away to England. Drake died in 1596 while on one of his cruises against the Span- iards, and Hawkins, who was over sixty, died about the same time. Sir Richard Grenville. In these wars many a valiant deed was done. One of the most noted is that of Richard Grenville. He and Lord Howard were with a fleet looking for Spanish treasure ships near the Azores, when they were surprised by a fleet of fifty-three Spanish ships of war. All escaped but Grenville, who refused to fly, but with one ship proceeded to fight his way through the enemy's fleet. For fifteen hours he held out, until his ship was barely afloat, his powder gone, forty men killed, and himself desperately wounded. He then ordered his men to sink the ship so that it should not fall into the enemy's hands. Tennyson tells the story in his ballad " The Eevenge " : " And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the sum- mer sea, But never for a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty- three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame ; 196 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1591 Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. For some were sunk, and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more ; God of battles! was ever a battle like this in the world before? " Grenville was carried on board one of the enemy's ships to die, and the Spaniards did honor to his valor. His last words were fitting to the manner of his death : " Here die I, Eichard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind; for I have ended my life as a good soldier ought, who has fought for his country and his queen, for his honor and his re- ligion." ' These wars were brought to a close in 1596 by an attack on Cadiz. Lord Howard with one hundred and fifty ships and Essex with a land force joined in an assault on the town. The shipping in the harbor was completely destroyed and the city plundered, but no one was needlessly slaugh- tered. The dread of Spain was over. Conquest of Ireland. The English had never been able to subdue permanently more than a small strip of the Irish coast around Dublin. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, the young Earl of Essex, a favorite of the queen, was sent to Ireland to put down a rising in Ulster begun by the Irish Earl of Tyrone, who had invited in the Spanish to aid him. Essex wasted his time, his army melted away, and nothing was done against Tyrone. He behaved as though he intended to join the rebels against England. On his return, being coldly received, he attempted to stir up a rebellion and get control of the queen's council. Eor this he was tried and be- headed. Elizabeth, who loved him as though he were a son, never recovered from the sorrow she felt at his fall. Lord Mountj oy succeeded him in the Irish command and reduced the island to English rule ; but by such severe methods that the queen said they "left nothing but ashes and corpses to rule over." 1G01] ELIZABETH 197 The Repeal of Monopolies. Elizabeth, as much as pos- sible, avoided taxing the people. One way she had of raising money was by the sale of monopolies. For example, the Earl of Essex was the only man in England allowed to sell sweet wines. For this privilege he paid a certain sum to the queen. But people who wanted to buy sweet wine, or any other article protected by a monopoly, had to pay more for it. So many monopolies were granted that they became a great burden, and in 1601 the last parliament called by Elizabeth petitioned her to make an end of them. She abolished the worst ones at once, when she saw the peo|)le de- sired it. In doing so she made her last speech to the English people, closing with these words : " Though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor will have any that will be more careful and loving." Manufactures. We have seen how cloth manufacturing was begun in the time of Edward III., by inviting Flemish spinners and weavers to come to England to teach their trades to English apprentices. During the bloody wars of Philip II. in the Netherlands many more came. In one year alone the number was 30,000. Elizabeth welcomed them, because skillful workmen make a country rich. She gave them lands in Sandwich and Norwich (p. 7), on the con- dition that every one of them should employ at least one English apprentice. It soon came about that instead of England sending wool to Flanders and buying it back in the form of cloth, the cloth was made in England and sold to the merchants in Flanders, who again sold it to merchants in the rest of Europe. Twice a year the English merchants fitted out a fleet of fifty or sixty ships, and as much as 100,000 pieces of woolen and silk were sold every year. The Coinage. In order to carry on trade it is necessary 198 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1562 to have good money, that is, coin that is worth the amount stamped upon it, so that people will take it freely in exchange for goods. Much of the coin had been debased by melting cheaper metals with the gold and silver, so that a coin that said one shilling on its face was worth only one third of a shilling. Elizabeth caused all this poor money to be recoined to make it worth its face value. The Royal Exchange. At first the merchants of Lon- don were obliged to do their buying and selling on the side- walks, where they were exposed to all kinds of weather. The Hansa merchants had long before built a special place, the Steelyard, where they conducted their business. In 1560 Sir Thomas G-resham, a wealthy English merchant, who had lived in' Flanders and had seen the fine stores of the traders there, built on Lombard Street, the main business thorough- fare, a fine brick structure surrounding a square. Around this square shops were arranged with vaults for safely storing merchandise. Elizabeth was so pleased with Gresham's build- ing that she named it " The Eoyal Exchange." Trade with Russia. In 1553 Eichard Chancellor had tried to find a passage to India by sailing eastward through the Arctic Ocean. He went as far as Archangel, and from there journeyed overland in a sledge, 1,500 miles, to Moscow, the capital of Eussia, or Muscovy, as that country was then called. Here he was gladly received by the emperor, who gave him letters to Queen Mary. These Chancellor de- livered to her, along with an account of the country, which was very productive of grain, hemp, furs, and ivory. Four years later the emperor sent an ambassador to England to see about opening trade. The merchants dressed themselves in their finest silks and velvets, and hung chains of gold about their necks, when they went in procession to receive him. This they did to show their elegance and wealth and so make the Eussians eager to trade with them. They also gave the 1G00] TRADE AND TRAVEL 199 ambassador a fine horse richly caparisoned, with a splendid saddle, and cloths of velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and took him fox hunting with three hundred knights and gen- tlemen. When he returned the merchants sent with him four " good and well-trimmed ships." And thus trade with Eussia began. Other Voyages were made in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth along the coast of Africa, and trade was begun with the Portuguese settlements there. India was first seen by Englishmen when Drake made his famous voyage around the world. Thomas Cavendish followed him in 1586, in the second English ship to sail around the globe. As early as 1576 Martin Frobisher had tried to reach India by "the northwest passage," north of North America. In two later voyages he repeated the attempt, but could make his way only little further than Hudson Strait (map, p. 400). The first English colony planted in America was founded on Roanoke Island by Sir Walter Ealeigh, one of the courtiers of Elizabeth; though it failed, the interest it aroused led to later successes, as we shall see in the next reign. English Travelers had found the way eastward to India as well as westward to America. Ealph Fitch traveled over- land as far as Bengal, and returning in 1591, after an absence of eight years, wrote a full account of his experiences. Eaymond and Lancaster in 1591 doubled the Cape of Good Hope, visited Ceylon, Malacca, China, and Japan, and re- turning by a southwestern course saw many of the East Indies. In 1600, the East India Company was chartered for trade with that part of the world. Anthony Jenkinson was a London trader who journeyed through Eussia, visited the regions about the Black and Cas- pian seas, and traveled into parts of Siberia, Persia, and Asia Minor. In 1580 the English obtained from the Turks a "charter 200 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1580 of liberties," granting them the privilege to trade in the east- ern Mediterranean, or the " Levant," as it is called. Thus we see English commerce and exploration branching out in every direction: northeast to Eussia;. westward to America; southeast to the continent of Europe and the Levant ; eastward to India, China, and Japan ; and south along the coast of Africa. In the next century, the seventeenth, colonies are planted and the foundation of the British Empire begun. English Literature of the Time of Elizabeth. The greatest name among the many authors of Elizabeth's time is William Shakespeare. He wrote dramas which have never been equaled, and are still played in our theaters. He was himself an actor and wrote his plays for his own theater in London, the " Globe." The greatest poet after Shakespeare was Edmund Spenser. His great poem, the " Faery Queen," is com- Shakespeake. posed of twelve tales of knightly adventure. The hero is Prince Arthur, and in the beautiful lady for whose hand the knights are striving we may see the poet's flattery of Elizabeth. Sir Philip Sidney, the "warbler of poetic prose," as Cowper calls him, wrote a romance called "Arcadia." Ealeigh, in the next reign, wrote a history of the world. More than a hundred good writers who lived in Elizabeth's time might be men- tioned. In no other period shall we find such a brilliant com- pany of dramatists and poets. Francis Bacon was the most distinguished prose writer. 1603] LITERATURE 201 He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, one of the queen's officers. Once the queen asked him his age. " I am two years younger than your Majesty's happy reign/' he replied. His " Essays " are famous. He was the first man to try careful experiments to find out the truth of things. He was the founder of what we call " experimental science." He wrote a series of important books, to which he gave the long name, "The Great Institution of True Philosophy." All these writings were in Latin, which was still the language of learned men. The queen herself was a famous scholar and could make speeches in both Latin and Greek. Bacon died (1G26) as the result of one of his experiments. Once when he was riding in his carriage during a snowstorm, it occurred to him that snow might be used instead of salt in preserving flesh. He stopped at a farmhouse and bought a fowl to try an experiment. He caught cold from the exposure and died from the fever which followed it. Life of the People. The people of England lived in better houses, wore better clothing, and ate better food in Eliz- abeth's reign than at any previous time in English history. The houses were floored and wainscoted. Glass windows took the place of open latticework. Spoons and knives were used, and, finally, forks, as one writer says, " to the great saving of napkins." The small farmer, or yeoman, was protected by law, and thus the evil of " inclosing " land was diminished. Books on farming and gardening were written, and the people learned how to raise vegetables and fruits. Hunting, hawking, and bull and bear baiting were favorite amusements. There were many holidays, when the country people gathered in the nearest village for shooting, wrestling, football, and quoits. Then there was dancing, masquerading, pantomimes, games, cockfights, and feasts. On May Day, a pole was " set up and dancing followed." Whitsunday was 202 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR [1603 celebrated with much merriment and games. Christenings, betrothals, weddings, and even funerals were made the occa- sion of much feasting. It was certainly a " merrie England " in the times of Queen " Bess." In 1603, in the seventieth year of her age, and the forty-fifth of her reign, the good queen passed away. On her deathbed she expressed her wish that her " cousin of Scotland," James VI., should be her successor. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Show the wisdom of Elizabeth's moderate policy in religious matters. Describe her foreign policy. 2. What led to the voyages and commercial enterprise of Elizabeth's reign? What important results followed? 3. How did Mary Stuart hope to obtain the English crown? What was her claim to it? 4. Why did the great empire of Spain yield before the power of England? Compare the navies of the two countries at the time of the Armada. 5. Why did the English people consider the reign of Elizabeth the most glorious in their history? Is it still so considered? 0. Compare Elizabeth with Philip II. of Spain as a ruler. 7. To what important results has Bacon's philosophy led? 8. What can you say of the literature of Elizabeth's time? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Great Armada. Gomme, Kings' Story Book, Ch. IV. ; Creighton, Age of Elizaoeth, Ch. II. ; Macaulay's poem, The Armada. 2. Drake's Great Voyage. Henty, Under Drake's Flag; Frothing- ham, Sea Fighters. 3. Elizabeth at Kenilworth. Scott, Kenilworth, pp. 339-346. 4. Captivity and Death of Mary Stuart. Kendall, Source Book, pp. 164-178; Rolfe, Tales from Scottish History, pp. 92-120. 5. The Revenge. Tennyson's poem, The Revenge; Colby, Source Book, pp. 174-177. VIII. THE STUAKT KINGS 1 AND CROMWELL. A. The First King by "Divine Right." James I., 1603-1625. The First Stuart King of England was summoned by a swift messenger, who took the news of Elizabeth's death to Edinburgh. A few days later, James VI. of Scotland re- ceived a formal letter from the council announcing that he had been proclaimed King James I. of England. There was no one who could safely dispute his claim. The people wished to end the wars between the two countries, and as James was a Presbyterian, he was welcome to the growing number of Puritans. The king consumed thirty-two days in traveling to Lon- don. He stopped frequently to hunt and feast with his new subjects, and to make their acquaintance. His majesty was very awkward on his feet, and still more so in the saddle. In spite of the efforts of his attendants, he once rolled off his horse, but Robert Cecil, his chancellor, courteous- iTHE HOUSE OF STUART. James I. (1603-1625) (p. 156) Charles I. (1625-1649) Elizabeth, m. Frederick Elector of the Palatinate Charles II. Mary, m. James II. Sophia, m. the Elector (1660-1685) William II. I (1685-1688) | of Hanover of Orange I George I. (p. 284) William III. of Orange, m. Mary Anne James Edward, afterward (1689-1694) (1702-1714) the Old Pretender William III. of England I (1689-170 9 ) Charles, the Young Pretender 203 204 THE STUART KINGS [1603 ly remarked that " any great and extreme rider " like his Majesty was liable to such an accident. To accustom the kingly arm to the use of his new power, he knighted some- thing over two hundred gentlemen during his " progress," and condemned a pickpocket to death. " I hear our new king," a f anious Englishman wrote to a friend, " hath hanged one man without a trial. If the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he hath offended ? " The Stuart Notion of the Rights of Kings. James I. brought into England a new idea as to the power of a king. The English people held that a king could not act contrary to the laws of the country; but James believed that he was above the law and could do anything he pleased. " Do I not make the judges and the bishops ? " he said. i£ Then I may make what I like law and gospel." His favorite expres- sion was, " God makes the king, the king makes the law." This theory that a king derives his power directly from God is sometimes called " the divine right of kings." It was a new idea in England, where the Parliament was thought to " make the king," and, with the king, to make the law ; and it was an unfortunate idea for the Stuart house, for in the end it cost one of them his head, and another one his throne. In Scotland the Presbyterians and the powerful nobles had given James little power and little money. Indeed, Cecil had to send him enough to pay his expenses to London. In England, however, he expected to have the same nearly abso- lute power that Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had had. During the reign of these two able sovereigns, the power of the people had slumbered. They had their way, but with the approval of the people. When James attempted to have his way without the approval of the people, trouble began. The Appearance and Character of James were in pitiful contrast with the stern command of Henry, or the stately dignity of Elizabeth. The people were disgusted with his 1604] JAMES I. 205 undignified appearance and behavior. He rolled and strad- dled in his gait, as though his legs were too weak to carry his body; and his expressionless eyes rolled about and stared va- cantly at nothing. He seldom washed himself, his clothing was neglected and dirty, and his whole appearance ungainly and slovenly. He was in constant fear of assassination, and wore a thickly wadded, dagger-proof coat. He lurked cau- tiously behind his courtiers when any strange visitors were about. The king had been carefully educated and was fond of displaying his learning. In his councils, he loved to do the talking, especially concerning church matters, when he would speak in Latin or Greek to show off his learning. But though he knew many things, he was lacking in good sense. The French ambassador at the English court called him the " wisest fool in Europe." James and the English Church. While James was on his way .to London, a petition signed by a thousand Puritan clergymen was given to him, begging that the laws against dissenters might be repealed. They did not want to wear a robe when they conducted the church service, and they wished to be allowed to preach sermons of their own. They did not like to make the sign of the cross when children were baptized, or to use a ring -in the marriage ceremony. So James called a great conference of Puritans and bishops at Hampton Court, to consider what should be done. He may have had an honest desire to hear their complaints ; but he became impatient and angry when the Puritans differed with him on any point. He made a long speech telling them his views in regard to the church. He used big words and talked Latin. The English bishops fell on their knees and thanked God for giving them such a wise king, and declared that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. James was delighted with their praise, and did not see that they were flattering NlVER 13. 206 THE STUART KINGS [1604 him for their own purposes. Their conduct was quite dif- ferent from that of the followers of Knox in Scotland, one of whom had called him a " witless fool " to his face. Deserting the Presbyterians, he gave his support to the bishops, and he announced afterward that if the dissenters did not conform to the established church he would "harry them out of the kingdom." He broke up the conference and imprisoned ten of those who had signed the petition. He first suspended and then revived a law of Elizabeth fin- ing Catholics 20 pounds a month if they did not attend the English Church. The fine was so heavy that many were ruined. The Gunpowder Plot. Eobert Catesby, a Catholic, formed a plan to blow up the house of Parliament and get rid of King, Lords, and Commons at one blow. With Guy Fawkes and others he hired a coal cellar under the Parliament house and placed in it thirty-four barrels of gunpowder, which were covered with fuel to conceal them. Horses were ready, and a ship to take the conspirators out of the country in case of need. But just before Parliament was to meet, one of the conspirators wrote to warn his brother-in-law to stay away from the meeting, for, he said, " this Parliament shall receive a terrible blow, and shall not see who hurt them." The let- ter was put into the hands of Cecil and the king, and its meaning was unraveled. Soldiers searched the Guy Fawkes's Lantern. ce U ar an a seized Fawkes. Other plotters took arms, but were pursued and killed or captured. The prisoners were executed. Eawkes was first examined by the king, who asked how he could have the heart 1G21 1 JAMES I. 207 to kill the king and other innocent people. " Desperate dis- eases require desperate remedies," was the reply. To a little Scotch favorite who asked why he had got so much powder together, Pawkes answered that he wanted to blow all Scotch- men as far as Scotland. Though racked and tortured, he re- fused to tell the names of his fellow-plotters. Trouble with Parliament. When the King of England wishes to consult the people, he orders an election. The people of each city and county then elect representatives. If there is a disputed election, the House of Commons has the right to decide which man is legally chosen. King James tried to take away this privilege and decide the election him- self, but the House insisted on its rights. He also quarreled with Parliament about other things, and Parliament did not grant him the new taxes he asked for. In a later Parliament (1621), when he asked for a grant of money, the Commons refused until the king should remove certain grievances. He had been collecting a large amount of duties on the imports and exports of the country without the consent of Parliament. He had been trying law cases in his Court of High Commission, which ought to have been tried in the ordinary courts. His judges, too, were receiving bribes for deciding cases. The Commons, however, com- plained especially that the king had granted many monop- olies (p. 197). The king abolished the monopolies, and Parliament impeached Lord Francis Bacon, the chancellor, for bribery, fined him, and put him out of office. James wanted Parliament to think that the power they had was a gift from the crown; but they informed him that " their privileges were theirs by right of birth as English- men, and that all matters of public interest were their busi- ness." He was so angry at their boldness that he dissolved Parliament at once, and had six of them put into prison. Since he could not get them to grant money without giving 208 THE STUART KINGS [1612 up his " divine right," he continued to get it by unlawful means. The King's Favorites. Eobert Cecil, the chief adviser of the king, died in 1612„ The king then chose for his ad- viser a handsome young man named Eobert Carr. He made him an earl, and a Knight of the Garter. But Carr was soon accused of a murder and condemned to death; though James pardoned him, he was banished from court. George Villiers, another adventurer, who had begun as the king's cupbearer, now took Carr's place. James heaped wealth and honors upon him, and made him the chief man in the kingdom. If these favorites had been worthy and able men, no one would have complained, but the only claim they had to consideration was their good looks. Elizabeth had chosen the wisest in England for her council, but James chose worthless men. Relations with Spain. At the beginning of his reign James made peace with Spain. He thought that by keeping on good terms with both Catholic and Protestant countries he could prevent the religious wars that were threatening to break out. But in spite of his notion of his own impor- tance, the king really counted for little in the affairs of Europe. Contrary to the wish of his people, he wanted his son Charles to marry the Infanta, or Spanish princess, Maria, and thus strengthen his friendship with Spain. His daughter Elizabeth had already been married to Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate, one of the Protestant princes of Germany. When Frederick became engaged in war, the Spanish ambas- sador to England encouraged James in the idea, of marrying Charles to the Infanta Maria. James feared to help his son- in-law Frederick, lest he should lose the large dowry which would come with the Spanish princess. But the marriage did not take place. The shrewd Spanish minister was leading James on just to keep him out of affairs in Germany. 1623] JAMES I. • 209 Prince diaries and George Villiers, who was soon made Duke of Buckingham, disguised themselves and went to Spain to hurry along the wooing. But the coarse familiarity of the prince and his followers gave a great shock to the dignified Spanish courtiers. Buckingham, especially, gave great of- fense by his rude conduct and vulgar language. Charles was not allowed to see the princess alone, so one day he jumped over a high wall into a garden where she was. But the lady only screamed and ran away into the house. An old noble who attended her fell on his knees before Charles, and begged him to leave the place at once, as the king would surely cut off his head if he suffered any man to speak to the princess. After a long stay " Steenie " and " Baby Charles," as James called his favorite and his son, returned home, and the flurry over the " Spanish match " came to an end (1623) . Sir Walter Raleigh had been imprisoned by James on the charge of plotting against the king. As a matter of fact, nothing was proved against Sir Walter, and his imprisonment was due to the jealousy of Cecil. A very famous lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, whose books are still studied, managed to get Ealeigh convicted of treason. James was in great need of money ; and as Ealeigh assured him he could find plenty of gold along the Orinoco Eiver, he was released and put in command of several ships to go in search of it. The king gave strict orders not to molest the Spaniards in any way. But as they claimed all of South America, a conflict with them would be unavoidable, and Ealeigh supposed the orders were not meant to be obeyed. A company sent out in search of gold was attacked by Spaniards, and in return Ealeigh captured a Spanish town. But his search for gold was in vain. When he returned to England, the Spanish ambassador urged his execution, and James, to please him, put Ealeigh to death on the old charge of treason, though Ealeigh had helped to defend his country against the THE STUART KINGS Sir Walter Raleigh Parting with his Wife. Armada., and was loved by all England. On the night before his execution (1618), Ealeigh wrote the following lines: " Even such is Time, that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with age and dust ; Who, in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days ; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust." The American Colonies. In Elizabeth's reign Ealeigh had spent a large fortune on American colonization and had 1620] JAMES I. 211 failed. King James authorized the London and Plymouth companies to open trade and plant colonies in America. The Plymouth Company was unsuccessful ; but under the London Company the first permanent English colony in America was founded at Jamestown in Virginia in 1607. The charter drawn up by the king for the government of the new colony gave the settlers no power in the management of affairs. It was speedily changed, and the Virginia colony became flourishing. Tobacco culture became profitable, for smoking, which was introduced by Sir Walter Ealeigh, was the fashion in England. This habit was very distasteful to James, who wrote a book against it, called " A Counterblast to Tobacco." But the English people went on puffing at their pipes, thinking, perhaps, that James's habit of making himself tipsy every day was quite as bad as smoking. The next important colony was founded in 1620, at Plym- outh in New England, by the " Pilgrim Fathers " under the leadership of William Brewster and William Bradford. John Carver became their first governor. Most of these col- onists had once been part of a congregation of Separatists in the village of Scrooby, near the southern border of York- shire. Eefusing to conform to the English Church, they went to Holland and later to their new home in America. The king would not give them a charter, but he made no objection to their going and said no one should molest them if they behaved themselves. Progress of the East India Company. During the reign of Elizabeth, English merchants established themselves at Agra (p. 298), the capital of the Mogul empire in India, and in 1612 an English " factory," or trading station, was built at Surat. The splendor and wealth of the Mogul emperor ex- cited the astonishment of English travelers. Thomas Cory at visited Agra in 1612, and rode upon one of the imperial elephants, animals which were then one of the 212 THE STUART KINGS [1612 wonders of the world. In his address to the emperor, he said, " I am a poor traveler come hither from a far conn- try, England, to look npon the face of yonr blessed Majesty, and to see yonr Majesty's elephants, which kind of beast I have not seen in any other country." Voyages to India were then tedious and dangerous, and many ships and sailors were lost. Yet cloth was exported to the annual value of 14,000 pounds, and 70,000 pounds a year was saved by buying spices direct from that country. Irish Colonization. The plans which Elizabeth had made for colonizing Ireland were carried on by James and by his successor Charles I. They granted the greater part of the province of Ulster to Scotch and English colonists. Preparation for War and Death of James. On the return of " Steenie " and " Baby Charles " from Madrid, the king grew cold toward Spain. A proposal was now made to marry Charles to Princess Henrietta Maria of France. The Parliament rejoiced at the change of the king's mind, for the people hated Spain as much as ever. Taxes were voted, and 12,000 troops were raised to assist the Protestants of Germany and Holland, and to restore the Elector Frederick to his possessions. These troops were sent off without money or supplies, and in a few weeks most of them were dead or dying from disease and exposure. Shortly after this, King James died (1625). QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Why was James supported by the English people? 2. In what way was his notion of his " divine right " opposed to the English idea of government? 3. Was the "Gunpowder Plot" justifiable? Give your reasons. 4. What mistakes did James make in the management of foreign affairs? Why did he make them? 5. What progress was made in colonization and trade under James? 6. What were the chief points in dispute between James and the Parliament? 1625] CHARLES I. 213 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Sir Walter Raleigh. Towle, Raleigh: his Exploits and Voyages; Goinme, Princesses' Story Book, pp. 201-235 ; Edgar, Sea Kings, etc., pp. 151-185. 2. King James and the Witches. C. M. Tonge, Cameos from English History, Vol. VI. ; Colby, Sources of English History, pp. 177-181 ; Ainsworth, The Lancashire Witches. 3. Prince Charles at the Spanish Court. Yonge, Cameos from English History, VI., pp. 151-165. 4. Character of James I. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, Chs. XXVL- XXXVII. ; Dickens, Child's History of England. B. Arbitrary Taxation and Civil War. Charles I., 1625-1649. How the Reign Began. The new king was very differ- ent from his father in his personal appearance and moral character, but like him in his idea of his own importance and dignity. He married the French princess, and agreed to give English Catholics freedom of worship, a thing which nowadays would seem to us only just and right, but which then seemed to the Parliament treacherous and wrong, espe- cially so because he had promised them not to do this very thing. Charles now took up the fight his father began, to show that the king was superior to Parliament. The House was com- posed largely of wealthy gentlemen and able lawyers, for the most part Puritans. They knew well the history of their country and were resolved to maintain the power of the Par- liament. This power rested upon the fact that Parliament had the sole right to tax the people and thus raise money for the government. If the king could manage to raise money by his own methods, he could get along without a Parliament and govern as he pleased. And Parliament could not meet unless the king sent for them. Charles quickly called his first Parliament and asked for money to carry on the war against 214 THE STUART KINGS [1625 Spain. He had kept his worthless friend Buckingham as his chancellor., or chief minister. Buckingham was disliked by the Commons, and they refused to grant money unless it should be spent by men whom they could trust. It had been the custom of the Parliament to grant a new king, for life, a customs duty called "tonnage and poundage." But as James and Charles had increased this duty without asking its consent, the Parliament refused to grant it for more than one year at a time. Under the advice of Buckingham, the king dismissed the Parliament, and, going ahead with the war, sent a fleet and army to attack Cadiz. The attack failed, however, and the English forces then tried to find the Spanish treasure fleet; but the fleet escaped them and got safely to port. The expe- dition, thinned by disease, returned without accomplishing anything. The Second Parliament. In 1626, after the return of the Cadiz expedition, the king called another Parliament. This body prepared a list of grievances, among which we find illegal taxation, mismanagement of the war, and tolera- tion to Catholics. Buckingham was impeached. Charles was angry and sent word that he would not allow any of his servants to be questioned by them, and dissolved the Par- liament before the duke could be brought to trial. During this session, there were several members who were particu- larly outspoken. Sir John Eliot, John Hampden, and John Pym were of this number. Charles arrested Pym and put him in prison, but was obliged to release him to prevent trouble. Eor the next two years the king did not call any Parlia- ment, but resorted to illegal methods of raising taxes. About eighty persons, who refused to pay, were put in prison. He compelled the Catholics to pay the old fines for not at- tending church. Soon France joined Spain in an alliance 1629 1 CHARLES I. 215 against him. The King of France was trying to put down a revolt among his Protestant subjects, a task in which Spain was willing to help him. With money illegally collected Charles sent a fleet under the command of Buckingham to the aid of the French Protestants at La Eochelle, but it was entirely defeated and forced to return. Third Parliament; Petition of Right. Again a Par- liament was called together. Forced loans and arbitrary im- prisonments were chief among the grievances complained of, but there were many others. The Parliament wrote out a long list of them which they embodied in the " Petition of Eight/' the second great document in the history of England. The four leading provisions of the Petition are these: first, that no man be compelled to make any loan to the king against his will, or to pay any tax not laid by Parliament; second, that soldiers and sailors shall not be quartered upon the people without their consent ; third, that no one shall be tried by martial law in time of peace; and, fourth, that no man shall be put in prison without cause being shown. The king for a long time refused to sign the petition, but finally did so. Another Expedition to La Rochelle. Sufficient money had been given by Parliament to equip another fleet to relieve La Eochelle, which was now besieged by the whole power of France. Buckingham was to be put in command again. But while making preparations to embark he was stabbed to the heart by a dissatisfied lieutenant in the former expedition. The fleet sailed under a new commander, but made as bad a failure as before. La Eochelle was taken by France and (( leveled to the ground, so that the soil could be plowed with a plow like tilled land/' Quarrel between King and Commons. Parliament met again in 1629, but the same old quarrel began over supplies 216 THE STUART KINGS [1629 and grievances. Two things, however, were done that are to be remembered. The Puritans had been getting more and more power in England, and the High Church party, to which the king and the bishops belonged, was not strongly supported either by Parliament or by the people at large. Instead of reading the prayer book and book of sermons to their congregations, the Puritan ministers would explain what they understood the prayer book to mean. To prevent this, Bishop William Laud induced Charles to issue an order forbidding ministers to print or preach anything " putting their own sense or com- ment" into the meaning of the articles (p. 175) or prayer book. This order of the king, when brought up for discussion in the House of Commons, enraged it to the last degree. There was one member of the House whose goods had been seized because he refused to pay the illegal taxes that the king had levied. Sir John Eliot moved that the officers who had taken the goods should be punished. But the king in- formed the House that the officers had acted according to his orders and should not be punished, and soon after this ordered the Commons to adjourn. But resolutions were at once proposed declaring that any man was an enemy of the country who should bring in any change in the creed and practices of the church, or who should advise the collection of duties not authorized by Par- liament, or should pay such duties unless forced to do so. The speaker, when he attempted to adjourn the House ac- cording to the king's order, was held in his chair while these resolutions were passed; and the guards were already break- ing down the doors to enforce the order when the Parliament adjourned. Members of Parliament Arrested. Immediately after the adjournment, the king arrested the members who had taken part in the disorderly proceedings attending the passage 1629] CHARLES I. 217 of the resolutions. Eliot was locked up in the Tower and kept there several years, till he died. The others apologized to the king and were pardoned. The king, however, had no right to arrest them for anything done in Parliament, as only that body could arrest and punish its members. Rule without a Parliament. For eleven years Charles ruled without calling another Parliament in England. He was determined to settle the question whether the king or the Parliament was to have the higher authority. In this experiment he was assisted chiefly by two men. William Laud, who was soon made Archbishop of Canterbury, was to main- tain the king's rule in the affairs of the church ; and Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford and the king's chief adviser, tried to make him the absolute ruler of the state. Wentworth had been a member of the Commons, but, fore- seeing the coming struggle between the king and the Parlia- ment, he decided to support the king. "You are going to be undone/' said Pym, as Wentworth related his plans, "but remember, though you leave us, we shall never leave you while your head is on your shoulders." The State of the Country was favorable for the king's plans. He had made peace with both France and Spain, in order to have his hands free at home. The nations of Europe — the German states, France and Spain — were engaged in the Thirty Years' War, in which each had some interest at stake too important to allow it to interfere in England. The people themselves, now numbering about five millions in England and Wales, were prosperous. Indian and Ameri- can trade and colonization had begun to be of interest to mer- chants and adventurers. More important to Charles was the emigration, after 1629, of many thousands of his Puritan enemies to the settlements in Massachusetts, where they gov- erned themselves under a charter obtained by the Massachu- setts Bay Company. 218 THE STUART KINGS [1629 The king could therefore devote his whole attention to two things which he thought concerned most his power and dig- nity as an absolute sovereign: the raising of money without a Parliament, and the establishment of the doctrines and cus- toms of the English Church, including the use of the prayer book, throughout his dominions. How the King Raised Money. As a first measure, many monopolies were granted. The whole business of soap making for the kingdom was given to one company, which paid the king £10,000 for the monopoly and £8 a ton on all soap made. When people complained about its poor quality, a proclama- tion was issued threatening fine and imprisonment to all who spoke against the company. Similar monopolies were granted for the handling of coal, salt, iron, leather, tobacco, beer, but- ter, linen — in fact every industry, from rag-picking up, was made subject to a monopoly. The king reserved for himself the sale of salt to the Irish people. From the sale of monopo- lies he obtained about £200,000. The king next set to work to reclaim the royal forests. Large grants of land had been made from these, and were under cultivation. The original boundaries were now re- stored, and persons occupying land within such boundaries were compelled to give it up, or to pay the king rent for it. Thus the Earl of Southampton suddenly came to owe the king a yearly rent of £2,000. Ship Money. It would take too long to describe all the illegal devices for raising money, such as pulling down houses built without royal license, doubling the duty on imports, and so on, but the tax known as ship money was of special impor- tance. In early times ships had been furnished by the seaport towns to be used by the king in protecting their trade against pirates. About 1634 the pirates of Algiers began to attack English shipping, and the Dutch naval power was becoming 1638] CHARLES I. 219 dangerously strong. Piracy was common among civilized na- tions, even in time of peace, and a larger navy was necessary. Charles first called on the seaports to furnish and equip a certain number of ships, or, if they preferred, to make a money payment (ship money) instead. But soon Charles said that the whole country was interested in protecting commerce, and made all the counties pay ship money. At length a Buckinghamshire squire, John Hampden, re- fused to pay his share of ship money, on the ground that it was a tax not voted by Parliament. The amount was only twenty shillings, but the principle at stake was of great importance. The case was tried before twelve judges (1638), and five decided in favor of Hampden. As the ma- jority favored Charles, he continued the tax, but the argu- ments against it went through the country and set people thinking ; besides, it was understood that the seven judges did not dare to say what they really thought, for fear of the king. The Work of Laud in the Church. Meanwhile Laud was busy in making the Puritan churches use the prayer book and conduct service according to the Act of Uniformity. In 1604 the clergy of the estab- lished church had adopted a body of canons, or rules, saying how the ministers should con- duct church service. Laud undertook now to enforce these. The canon law said that the communion table should be in the east end of the church, but the Puritans wanted it in the middle. The minister was required to wear a white robe when he conducted service, and the prayer book was to be accurately followed, scotch not read here and there as the minister saw fit. Covenantee. The attempt by Scottish bishops, on Laud's advice, to in- troduce a prayer book in Scotland led to trouble at once, for most of the Scots were Presbyterians. When the minister 220 THE STUART KINGS [1637 tried to read the new service to the congregation in St. Giles Church at Edinburgh, they rose up and drove him from the pulpit. Eiots began wherever the new service was intro- duced, and the people signed a " Covenant/' pledging them- selves to resist all attempts to change their religion. Star Chamber Court. To enforce the collection of the new taxes and the use of the prescribed church service, and to punish all who spoke or wrote anything against the govern- ment, the old courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were again set up. The judges in these courts were the king's own officers, and as there was no jury every offender was con- victed and punished as the king pleased. When Wentworth was made Lord of the Northern Counties and Lord Deputy of Ireland, he set up courts of his own, like the ones at Westminster. Throughout the country, the usual courts were set aside, and the same man became both law- maker and judge. Though Wentworth robbed and bullied the Irish, he greatly improved the condition of the country during his six years of rule. The manufacture of linen was begun, and agriculture and trade increased. But he took from the people a large part of their land and compelled them to grant taxes to the king besides. He then wrote to Laud, " The king is now as absolute here as any prince in the world can be," and advised him to adopt in England the policy that he was using in Ireland, to which he gave the name of " thor- ough." The Bishops' Wars. The English people had so far patiently endured the tyranny of the king. But the hot- tempered Scotch Covenanters had taken up arms at once, and when Charles led his army against them to enforce the use of the prayer book, they met him with a better army than his own, and he dared not fight. In 1640 he again called a Parliament, but it advised him not to fight Scotland, and brought up the old tale about 1641] CHARLES I. 221 grievances, which he did not want to hear. What he wanted was money, and as he saw he could not get it without giving up his idea of ruling by " divine right/' he sent them home within three weeks. Charles mustered another army against the Scots. He raised money to pay them by buying a cargo of pepper on credit, and selling it at once for cash. But his soldiers on the march showed their sympathy with the Scots by breaking into the churches and moving the communion tables into the middle of the building. They allowed themselves to be de- feated at Newburn (p. 6), and the Scots passed on and cap- tured Newcastle. The king made a truce with the Covenant- ers, and was forced to summon a Parliament for the fifth time, the most famous Parliament that ever made laws for England. The Long Parliament continued in session for thirteen years. The former Parliaments of Charles had been content to lay before him a list of grievances, but now, as Pym, its chief leader, expressed it, "they must pull up the causes of grievances by the roots." They pulled up the chief " root " by accusing the Earl of Strafford (Went worth) of high treason, because he had planned to bring an Irish army to overawe Parliament. As it was impossible to prove that he had conspired to the death or dethronement of the king or his heirs, the legal definition of high treason, he was executed under an act of attainder; that is, an act of Parliament which condemned him to death without a trial. Charles had promised Strafford that he would not allow him to suffer "in life, honor, or fortune," but he was so overawed by the hatred of the people that he assented to the act against his friend and faithful servant. " Put not your trust in princes," said the earl when told that he must die. But Strafford was a brave man, and as he went upon the scaffold he said, " I thank God that I am not afraid NlVER 14. 222 THE STUART KINGS [1641 of death, but do as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to bed." Archbishop Laud was also impeached and put in prison, but was not tried and executed until four years afterwards. The general hatred of the king, and the danger that the Scottish army might march against him, forced the king to give assent to some laws which made Parliament stronger than ever. They required that a Parliament must meet at least once in three years, whether the king called it or not; provided that the present Parliament could not be dissolved by the king without its consent ; abolished the Star Chamber and High Commission courts; declared ship money illegal; and limited the king's claims on forests. Bishops and Presbyters. So far the Parliament had acted harmoniously. But when they took up matters of re- ligion, they divided into parties. There were many who wished to keep the existing system of church government by bishops, and the use of the prayer book in all the churches. The Puritans who were opposed to these were themselves divided into Presbyterians and Independents, or Separatists (pp. 194-5) . Many people were afraid that a " new presbyter " might be quite as tyrannical as an " old priest." A bill to abolish the office of bishop caused fierce discussion but did not pass. Before long, however, the bishops were excluded from their seats in the House of Lords. The King's Plans. Charles had, unwillingly, consented to all the measures of Parliament, but secretly he was trying to get help in Scotland and England to put them down. In order to make friends with the Scotch, he went to Edinburgh in 1641, agreed to all the demands of the Scotch Parliament, and secretly tried to get them to send him an army. The Catholic lords in Ireland had as little liking for the Puritan Parliament as they did for the Puritan colonists that had settled among them. Impatient at the king's delay in 1642] CHARLES I. 223 Ieishman op the Time. calling them to arms, the native Irish fell upon the English settlers in Ulster, and massacred thousands. The king was responsible for this insurrection; for while he did not order it, he had refused to disband the army there, which he could not control. It was recognized that an army should be sent to Ireland to put down the rebellion ; but as the Parliament did not dare entrust the command to the king, for fear he would use it against them, none was sent. The Grand Remonstrance. The promises that the king made in both England and Scotland, to reign according to the laws, deceived many who did not understand his treacherous nature. When he returned to London, he was given a splendid reception, and the people gave signs of returning loyalty. But Pym and other Parliamentary leaders were not deceived. In order to keep the king's evil conduct fresh before the people, they had drawn up the " Grand Eemon- strance." This was a review of his whole reign, describing all the tyrannical acts of which he had been guilty. Many members, who thought that the king had given up his high notions of " divine right," were very unwilling that the docu- ment should be printed. There was a fierce strife when the question was voted upon, and members nearly came to blows. But the Eemonstrance passed, was presented to the king, and was published to the country. Attempt to Arrest the Five Members*. The king had been gathering followers about him at Whitehall — adven- turers, discharged officers, and others — until he had a force of several hundred. These frequently came into con- flict with the London crowd, which was Puritan in sym- 224: THE STUART KINGS [1642 pathy. Some of the Puritans cut their hair short, and this gave rise to the name "roundheads." The followers of Charles were called " cavaliers." The Parliament were afraid that these disturbances would become dangerous to them, and demanded a guard of the king. It was refused, but Charles gave his word, " on the honor of a king, for the security of every one of them from violence." Just at this point, the king might have recovered his power. There was a party in Parliament that favored him, Charles Demands the Five Members. while his opponents were divided into religious factions; his agreement to the demands of the Scotch Parliament had made him friends ; and his assent to the measures of the Com- mons had won him support in London. He now took a step which showed the treachery he had planned, and which de- stroyed his influence. The queen urged him to seize five members of Parliament who had been leaders in passing the 1642] CHARLES I. £25 Kemonstrance. Her only idea of a king was that he should be absolute, as the King of France was. She advised him to go and pull " those rogues out by the ears." The king went to the House with several hundred armed men. He left them at the door, advanced to the speaker's desk, and inquired for Pym, Hampden, and three other mem- bers, whom he had accused of treasonable correspondence with the Scotch Covenanters. The speaker replied : " Sir, I have neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear, except as the House shall direct me." The five members, warned of their danger, had been safely concealed in the city, and the king was forced to retire without them. He had forcibly and unlawfully in- vaded the rights of the House and had failed. The citi- zens were roused; an armed force was raised, and the five members were escorted back to Westminster. King and Parliament Prepare for War. Soon after this, the king left the city with a considerable force, and tried to seize the arms stored at Hull. But the commandant was faithful to the Parliament, and refused to admit him. The queen, taking the crown jewels, hurried to the continent to raise money and troops. On August 22, 1642, Charles un- furled his flag at Nottingham and prepared for war. The Parliament called out the militia, appointed the Earl of Essex general, and the army moved northward to meet the king. Civil War. The whole country entered vigorously into the war; for political, religious, and business interests were bound up in it. The merchants, small farmers, and those of the nobility who were Puritans, were on the side of the Par- liament; while the large landholders, the clergy, and the greater part of the nobility sided with the king. In general it was the northern and western counties that favored the royalist party. The commanders of the king's army were the Earl of Lindsay and Prince Rupert, the nephew of Charles, 226 THE STUART KINGS [1642 a dashing cavalry leader, but lacking in judgment. The royal army marched southward from Nottingham and met the enemy at Edgehill. Here Eupert defeated the parliamentary cavalry, but their infantry held the ground. The parliamen- tary forces, however, retreated toward London, and victory lay with the king. It was his hope to cut off London from the sea and by a bold move to cap- ture that city and end the war at a blow. He waited till the opportuni- ty passed, for the militia rallied to the defense of the city, reenf orce- ments came in, and the king was forced to retire to Oxford, which be- came his head- quarters for the rest of the war. The fighting went on all over England. During the first year of the war the king was victorious nearly everywhere. In one skirmish the great leader Hampden fell. But a few garrisons of the parliamentary army held strongholds which the royal forces could not take; and the king was therefore unable to gather all his troops for an attack on London. In the second year of the war a " Solemn League and England in the Civil War. 1644] CHARLES I. 227 Covenant " was entered into by the Scotch and the English Parliament, by which the latter bound themselves to reform the Church of England according to> the Presbyterian system and the Word of God. In the beginning of 1644, a Scotch army crossed the border to fight on the side of the Parliament. About the same time, an army from Ireland entered Wales to fight for the king; but it was crushed at Nantwich by the parliamentary general Fairfax. Among the prisoners was George Monk, who, after two years' imprisonment in the Tower, entered the parliamentary army and in time rose to high command. Oliver Cromwell. So far only one leader had never met defeat. Oliver Cromwell had united the eastern counties into an association, with the ob- ject of keeping the war beyond their borders. He had defeated a royalist army, and had enabled Fairfax to hold his ground in Yorkshire. Cromwell had said to Hampden after the battle of Edgehill, "We can never win with such men as you have; old tapsters and servants, low-born and mean-spirited fellows, can never win against gentlemen, who have honor, courage, and resolu- tion." He then went among the Puritans in the eastern coun- ties and enlisted men after his own heart, stern, God-fearing, determined men, who prayed before they fought, and fought for the love of the cause, believing that God would give them victory. In a few months he had trained and equipped a cavalry regiment which had no equal on either side. Prince Eupert with 20,000 men met the Scotch and Crom- well's new troops at Marston Moor. The stern, religious Ckomwell. 228 THE STUART KINGS [1644 Puritan met the gentleman of honor. Cromwell's charge on Eupert's ca.valry crumbled them to pieces and scattered them, as he said, "like a little dust/' But he did not pursue. Wheeling about, he promptly charged the royalist infantry with the same result. The north of England was conquered. Elsewhere Charles was winning victories. The New Model. Cromwell, as a member of Parlia- ment, now attacked the weak spot in the parliamentary army. The officers were nearly all of the Presbyterian party. They feared the growing strength of the Independents, to which party Cromwell belonged. This party wished to do away with the kingship and the House of Lords and make the churches independent of the government. While the Presby- terians wished to defeat the king, they did not wish to beat him too badly, for fear that the Independents would become masters. A " Self-denying Ordinance " was introduced, pro- viding that members of Parliament should resign their offices in the army; and soon Parliament reorganized its troops as the New Model Army, largely with new officers. Fairfax was made general and Cromwell lieutenant general. Battle of Naseby, June 14, 1645. The New Model Army, after a year of training, met the king at Naseby. Eu- pert commanded the right wing of the royalists, Cromwell the right wing of the parliamentarians. Both were victorious, but Cromwell, returning from the charge, attacked Eupert's horse in flank and routed them. The king was hopelessly defeated. The small armies that remained to him in different parts of the country were soon scattered, and the war was over. Negotiations with the King. And now came a time of tedious attempts to make peace. The king might still have made an honorable arrangement with the Parliament and saved his life and his throne, but he continued plotting, hoping that the rival parties in Parliament would destroy each 1649] CHARLES I. 229 other, or that the Scots would come to his assistance. The king had surrendered to the Scottish army, who turned him over to the English Parliament. The army then took charge of him, and offered to make peace with him and to allow the Church of England to be set up again, if he would agree that no one should be compelled to attend, and that Protestants should have full religious liberty. He refused these terms and escaped to the Isle of Wight, where he met commission- ers from Scotland and made an agreement with them by which they were to renew the war. But the Scotch army was badly defeated by Cromwell at Preston. Charles was again captured and confined safely in Hurst Castle, where no help could reach him. Pride's Purge. The Presbyterian party in the Parliament still wanted to make terms with the king. But the army, now entirely under the control of the Independents, had lost all patience with him, and determined to have a Parlia- ment that would obey its will. One clay Colonel Pride ap- peared with a body of troopers sent by the Independents, and expelled more than a hundred of the members who favored the king. The remaining sixty were called by their enemies the "Eump." Trial and Execution of the King. The "Kump" ap- pointed a special High Court to try Charles for his past misdeeds. He refused to plead, on the ground that they had no power to try him. But they accused and convicted him of high treason against the nation. The conclusion of the death- warrant read, " For all of which treasons and crimes this court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by severing his head from his body." His execution took place, in front of his own palace of Whitehall, on the 30th of January, 1649. He behaved with great dignity and calmness, and said that he 230 THE STUART KINGS [1649 Charles's Farewell to his Family. died an enemy to arbitrary rule, and a martyr to the people. But the executioner, as he held up the head before the multi- tude, cried out, " This is the head of a traitor ! " QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. In what ways did Charles infringe upon the rights of Parliament? 2. What was the significance of the Petition of Right? Name its chief provisions. 3- Explain the working and effect of the king's monopolies. 4. What actions of Charles brought on the war? How could he have saved his crown? 5. Which two battles of the war were most important? Why? 6. What questions were settled by the Civil War? 7. Why did the people object to paying ship money? 8. Name the chief laws of the Long Parliament and tell why each was made. 9. Was it just to execute Strafford and Laud? The king? Give rea- sons. How could the king's execution have been avoided? 1G49] CROMWELL 231 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. John Hampden. Mowry, First Stej)s in the History of England, Ch. XIV. ; Green, Short History, pp. 500, 550. 2. The Earl of Strafford. Kendall, Source Book, pp. 232-237 ; Traill, Lord Strafford. 3. Trial and Execution of Charles I. Yonge, Cameos from English History, VII., pp. 110-128 ; Lee, Source Book, pp. 364-372. 4. Cromwell's "Ironsides." Mowry, First StejJs in the History of England, Ch. XX.; Firth, Cromwell, Ch. VI. C. Cromwell and the Commonwealth. The Establishment of the Commonwealth followed the death of the king. There remained in the House of Com- mons about sixty members, who declared that England was a commonwealth, without any king or House of Lords. In this action the Rump, which now called itself the Parliament, was supported by the army, but not by the majority of the people. So instead of calling for the election of a new House it kept the power in its own hands. Forty-one men were selected by the House as a Council of State, who were to have charge of the executive part of the government. John Brad- shaw was chosen president of the Council. War in Ireland. On the death of the king, Ireland and Scotland had acknowledged his eldest son as King Charles II. Prince Rupert was on the Irish coast with a fleet. The new king had already been crowned in Scotland, and Scotch and Irish armies would soon be on the way to London to crush the new republic. Cromwell, as the ablest soldier, was put in command of the army. After subduing a mutiny among the soldiers, he led them into Ireland. This country had been in a fearful condition of disorder for eight years. After the king's execution the Irish united strongly for Charles II. Only Dublin and Londonderry held out (p. 232). Landing at Dublin, Cromwell marched northward and besieged Drogheda with its garrison of 2,000 men. Their Longitude West 8 SCALE OF MILES 20 10 60 80 100 from Greenwich 1651] CROMWELL 233 commander was asked to surrender in a note ending in these words: "If, upon refusing this offer, that which you like not befalls you, you will know whom to blame." The officer would not surrender, and Cromwell stormed the fort and put the entire garrison to the sword. In defense of his se- verity he wrote, " I believe this bitterness will save much effusion of blood, through the goodness of God." Wexford, a strong fort in the south, was treated in a similar manner. After that the other posts surrendered. Within the year, Ire- land was under the control of the Parliament, and the sup- porters of the House of Stuart fled to the continent. War with the Scots. Charles II., having signed the Covenant agreeing to establish the Presbyterian Church, was supported by the Scots with a strong army. Cromwell met them (1650) with 16,000 men. The Scots cut off his retreat and posted themselves on a hill near the sea, where it was difficult to attack them. Cromwell waited till they began a change of position, and then succeeded in utterly routing them in the battle of Dunbar. A year later the Scots invaded Eng- land but were again defeated at Worcester. Charles rode away alone, and after many narrow escapes from capture, reached France. Long after, a tree, called the "royal oak," was pointed out where the prince had concealed himself among the branches while his pursuers searched the woods for him in vain. Cromwell called this battle his " crowning mercy." He never had occasion to draw his sword again. The Dutch War. Cromwell and the army were now su- preme. But they had fought for the liberty and honor of England, and not for themselves alone. During the war, the Dutch had devoted themselves steadily to trade, and their merchant vessels were larger and swifter than those of Eng- land. Goods that were once brought to England by her own merchantmen were now carried by the Dutch. Cromwell determined to stop this, and to make England supreme again. 234 THE COMMONWEALTH [1651 A Navigation Act was passed, which ordered that all goods landed in the ports of England must be brought in English ships, or in the ships of the country from which the goods came. He demanded that all ships sailing the Channel should salute the English flag. As the Dutch refused to acknowledge his extravagant claim, war began. Robert Blake, who had fought successfully in the last war, was made " general of the sea." He destroyed the fleet of Prince Eupert, and fought four noted engagements with the Butch. The first two were victories. In 1652, with forty ships, he met Van Tromp with eighty. The Dutchman was victorious and sailed through the Channel with a great Dutch broom at the masthead, signifying by this that he had swept the English from the seas. But Blake was ready again in a few months, and they met off Calais, this time with equal forces, and Van Tromp was defeated. Blake next took an English fleet into the Mediterranean (1654), to chastise the pirates who had long preyed on mer- chant vessels. Tunis was attacked, a Turkish fleet of nine ships destroyed, and an army of 3,000 slain and captured. Al- giers and Tripoli were taken, and many Englishmen who had been made slaves were set free. The following year, he de- feated the Spanish, closing the war with the most daring exploit in his history. He sailed into the harbor of Santa Cruz, in the Canaries, which was strongly defended by forts and ships of war, and destroyed and rifled a Spanish treasure fleet returning from South America, escaping with a loss of only one ship. He died on his return to England, and Crom- well buried him with the highest honors in Westminster Abbey. The deeds of Blake secured for the new republic the respect of foreign nations, that had before refused to recognize it. Cromwell was honored, and his friendship sought, by the greatest kings of Europe. As the price of his aid to France 1658] CROMWELL 235 against Spanish Flanders, Dunkirk (map, p. 274) was added to the English possessions. Cromwell and the Parliament. In the mean time the Bump had come to be very much disliked. In the first place, it did not represent the people, as it was only a fraction of a Parliament elected thirteen years before. Then it had be- come corrupt and selfish. Cromwell was anxious to have a new Parliament chosen that should represent the nation more Cromwell Dissolves the Rump. fully. And yet he did not dare give the people full freedom of election, for fear that the Puritans and all their work would be overturned, and Charles II. invited to take his throne. At last the Eump agreed upon a law providing for a new Parliament, but also providing that they should retain their seats as members of it. Cromwell was angry at this, for he believed it to be selfish and dishonest. He could prevent the passing of the bill only by breaking up the Parliament. So 236 THE PROTECTORATE [1653 he took a company of soldiers to the House at the next meet- ing, and, after listening a while, he stepped out on the floor and began to scold various members for their bad personal habits and worse public actions. Being interrupted, he cried out angrily, " Come, we have had enough of this, you must get out and make way for honest men. You are not fit to sit here any longer." He called his soldiers and cleared the room. He then locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The country was glad to be rid of the Eump. As Cromwell expressed it, " Not even a dog barked at their going." Barebone's Parliament. Cromwell and his officers now selected a Parliament themselves. Only men who were known to be religious and honorable were allowed to sit in it. Cromwell told them the country ought to be ruled by godly men, and that he had chosen them because they were known to be such. As it consisted of only one hundred and fifty men, it was called the Little Parliament; but the royalists nicknamed it Barebone's Parliament from the curious name of a London leather merchant, Praise-God Barebone, who was a member. The members of this Parliament proved to be very poor statesmen. They wanted to abolish church rates, without providing any other means of supporting the clergy ; and they announced that the reign of the Saints had come, they being the Saints. Some of the more sensible among them got up early one morning (Dec. 11, 1653) and stole a march on the other " Saints " by passing a measure putting all power into the hands of Cromwell and a council of twenty-one men. They then adjourned. Cromwell Lord Protector. An " Instrument of Govern- ment " was now drawn up by Cromwell's friends, telling how he was to govern. Parliament was to make the laws allowed by the Instrument, and a Council of State was to assist the Lord Protector, who could not act without its approval. The 1658] CROMWELL 237 object of the Instrument was to prevent either the Parliament or the Protector from getting too much power. Of course Cromwell was the first Protector. CromwelPs Second Parliament was elected in 1654. No royalists or Catholics were allowed to vote. This Parlia- ment began by trying to break down the form of government which had been established, although they were pledged not to alter it. The explanation is that the whole country was tired of the strict Puritan rule, tired of the rule of the army headed by Cromwell, and was ready to sweep it all away at the first chance. Cromwell dismissed this Parliament after a few months, and got along without another for two years. To prevent a revolt of the royalists and to enforce the payment of taxes which the Instrument had allowed him to raise, he divided the country into ten military districts, and placed over each a major general, who was to keep order and enforce the law; but as soon as the country became quiet, he withdrew them, and allowed things to go on in the usual way. He would not tolerate revolt or disorder, and those who stirred up rebellion against him soon found their way to the scaffold. Cromwell's Third Parliament met in 1656, just after one of Blake's Spanish victories. When a train of thirty-eight wagons, loaded with silver, passed through the streets of London, the people applauded him as they never had before. The Parliament voted him money, and offered to make him king, a title which he would not accept. An Upper House of Parliament was again established, and an effort was made to get back as nearly as possible to the old form of government. The Parliament embodied these changes in a law called " The Humble Petition and Advice." Things went well for a time, and then the two Houses began to quarrel. Some conspired with the royalists, others took measures to have Cromwell's office abolished. An invasion was threatened from Ireland, 238 THE PROTECTORATE [1658 another one from Spain, and the two Houses could agree on nothing. Finally, in February, 1658, he appeared before the Parliament and said, " I do dissolve this Parliament, and may God judge between you and me ! " " If it had continued a few days longer," he wrote afterwards, " all had been blood on Charles Stuart's account." Cromwell had tried to make a settled government and had failed. He had been tolerant of all the Protestant sects, except when they wanted to disturb the government. He was a friend to the Quakers, sent missionaries to the Indians, and allowed the Jews to return to England, after an exclusion of three and a half centuries. But the people could no longer endure the severity of the Puritan, who prohibited every form of amusement, even to dancing around the May pole and " eating pie at Christmas." The old sports of Elizabeth's time were all unholy to the Puritan. His spare time was given to preaching, singing psalms, and talk- ing in sorrowful tones about religion. Death of Cromwell. Cromwell died September 3, 1658. He was worn out and saddened by his toil for England, and by its A Puritan j ° J Gentleman, result. The day of his death was the anni- versary of his victories of Dunbar and Worcester. His last prayer was for the people of England. " Lord, pardon thy foolish people, forgive them their sins, and do not forsake them ; love and bless them and give them rest ! " Richard Cromwell was made Lord Protector partly be- cause it was thought that Oliver had desired his son to succeed him; but this is doubtful. Eichard cared little for public affairs, and offended the Puritans by his disregard for religion. He once appointed a certain royalist to a command in the army, to whom the objection was made that he was not a godly 1660] CROMWELL 239 man. Bichard asked whether he was expected to have none but godly people about him. "Why, here is Dick In- goldsby," he said, "who can neither preach nor pray, and I would trust him before any of you/' The army would not countenance a man like that, and soon recalled the old Bump Parliament to Westminster. The Bump and the army divided the power between them, and Bichard retired to pri- vate life. The Bump passed a resolution to conduct the government without any " single person, king, protector, or House of Peers." General Monk, who had command of the army in Scot- land, had been a quiet observer of these unending strifes. He decided to act for the country, and marched with his part of the army to London. He began by calling the entire Long Parliament together, including the Presbyterians ex- pelled by Pride (p. 229). By his advice the Parliament then formally dissolved itself after ordering a new election. Charles was already in communication with Monk and now made a written promise, called the " Declaration at Breda," to pardon all offenders, save those who might be excepted by Parliament, and to sign the bills that Parliament should pass for giving liberty of religion and paying the army. The army threatened to make trouble. So great was the danger that General Monk raised a force of militia to oppose it. But the new Parliament promptly accepted Charles's offer and voted that the government should be as in former days, by King, Lords, and Commons. Charles Landed at Dover May 25, 1660. Amidst the cheering crowds he entered London, and passed through the army to Whitehall. The people made his reception eloquent with peals of bells, waving of flags, and blazing of bonfires. " It must have been my own fault," said he, " that I did not come before, for I find no one but declares he is glad to see me." NlVER 15. 240 THE STUART KINGS AND CROMWELL [1630 Emigration to America was greatly increased by the troubles in England during the thirty years preceding 1660. Archbishop Laud's policy in church affairs hurried thou- sands of Puritan emigrants to America., forming a Puritan "exodus" that continued till 1640. John Winthrop, a wealthy gentleman of Suffolk, was one of the Massachusetts Bay Company that secured a charter for governing a colony in New England. He sold his estates, and led the great Puritan migration of 1630. He became the first governor of Massachusetts and continued to be reelected - (except three years) until his death (1649). Not only did the Massachu- setts colony become for the time the largest in America (26,000 in 1640), but it furnished many of the settlers who founded the other New England colonies, — Ehode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. Persecution under Cromwell's rule was quite as vigorous as under the rule of the Stuarts ; but this persecution was chief- ly against the royalists, or cavaliers. As a result of this persecution the ancestors of the " first families of Virginia " emigrated. Between 1650 and 1670 the population of Vir- ginia increased from 15,000 to 40,000. The Catholics were persecuted alike by all parties, and some of them also found a refuge in America. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, obtained from Charles I. the grant of some land north of the Potomac River. His son Cecil planted the first Catholic colony in Maryland in 1634 (map, p. 303) . Thus we see how largely American colonization was due to religious persecution in England. It took most of the colonists a long time to learn from their own persecution to give freedom to others. But they finally learned that lesson, and we may say that our free churches to-day grew out of the religious persecution in England. Besides the colonies on the North American mainland, Barbados and several other islands of the West Indies re- 16G0] COLONIES 241 ceived many English settlers during this period of civil strife. They became important through the production of sugar. Barbados was unclaimed before England took possession in the reign of James I. Jamaica was taken from, Spain by one of Cromwell's fleets. English Progress in the Indies, which had begun in the time of Elizabeth, was cut short by the rise of the Dutch East India Company during the civil war. The English East India Company was a monopoly in the hands of a few, while that of Holland represented the whole nation, since any merchant could join it. The result was that nearly all the East India trade was secured by the Dutch merchants, whose superior navy captured or drove out the English merchants. The monopoly, which fettered the progress of England in the Indies, was not done away with till 1833. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What changes did Cromwell make in the government of England? 2. Compare his foreign policy with that of James I. 3. How did his rule affect American colonization? 4. How did Cromwell's government fail? Why? 5. What led to the Restoration? 6. What led to Cromwell's Dutch wars? 7. When was the Long Parliament finally dissolved? What were its most important acts? 8. How long did the Protectorate last? In what did it succeed; in what fail? Why? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Montrose. Rolfe, Tales from Scottish History, pp. 121-129. 2. Robert Blake. Edgar, Sea Kings, pp. 200-26; Firth, Cromwell, pp. 308-315. 3. Cromwell in Ireland. Lawless, Story of Ireland, Chaps. XXIX., XL. 4. Naval War with the Dutch. F. M. Peard, Scapegrace Dick. 5. .The Battles of Dunbar and Worcester. Firth, Cromwell, Ch. XIV. IX. THE STUART KINGS AND ORANGE. A. The Restoration". Charles II., 1660-1685. The Restoration is the name usually given to that period when the third Stuart king began to reign; although Charles II. claimed that he had been reigning for eleven years, but had been kept out of his kingdom by that " base mechanic fellow," Cromwell. But the Restoration meant more than the coming back of the king. It meant the coming back of the Parliament, for we must remember that the people had not been fairly represented in Cromwell's time. It meant also the coming back of the old church, with its bishops and prayer book, and the coming back of the old amusements and social life. The theaters were again opened, the village holidays were again celebrated with the old bear baiting, horse racing, cockfighting, dancing, and buffoonery. It was more than a restoration of the old customs. The English people, so long deprived of innocent amusements by the strict Puritan rule, now went to the other extreme. Lying, cheating, gambling, and fighting were the least of their vices. These things were part of the life of a gentleman of that day, and it was thought no disgrace to brawl and fight in the street or to become hopelessly drunk and spend the night in the gutter. " The King shall Enjoy his Own Again," was the re- frain of an old royalist song; and if ever king tried to make such a prediction good, Charles was that king. He had no 242 1662] CHARLES II. 243 sense of duty to his people, and spent enormous sums of the government money on his pleasures. He had not enjoyed life very much dur- ing his twelve years of exile, and now with his courtiers in- dulged in all kinds of excess, vice, and depravity. " Shaftesbury," said he one day to a fa- vorite courtier, "I be- lieve you are the wickedest dog in my dominions." " Yes, your Ma- jesty," replied the courtier, " I think that among your subjects, I probably am." The king was discreet, however, in spite of his wickedness. He was determined, as he said, not " to set out on his travels again." He did not repeat the errors of his father. When he saw that the people were bound to have a certain measure, he gave way and let them have it. The king soon married a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, a marriage which brought with it Bombay, the first English possession in India. Though he outwardly conformed to the English Church, he was at heart a Catholic, and would have been glad to secure from Parliament fair treatment for English Catholics if it had been possible. The Parliament of 1660 was known as the Convention Parliament to distinguish it from those regularly summoned Gat Court Life of Charles II. 244 THE STUART KINGS [1660 by the king. It restored the lands that had been taken from the royalists and the church; and it granted pardon for past political acts to all except the judges and executioners who had put Charles I. to death. Thirteen of these " regicides " were executed, and nineteen imprisoned for life. Nineteen others fled to foreign countries. The dead bodies of Cromwell and other regicides were taken from their graves and hanged. Even the body of the heroic Blake was taken from its tomb in the Abbey. The king held that all who had fought with Cromwell were guilty of high treason and deserved death, and he urged the Parliament to mean and disgusting acts of vengeance. The New Parliament which met in 1661 was almost en- tirely composed of friends of the king, and hence was called the Cavalier Parliament, They set to work at once to restore the Anglican Church, and to drive out the Puri- tans and other dissenters. All ministers who would not use the prayer book were turned out of their livings. By a later act religious meetings of dissenters were prohibited. Any gathering of dissenters for religious worship was called a " conventicle," and the royalists held that conventicles en- couraged rebellion. By other laws dissenters were disquali- fied from holding office in a corporation, that is, a village or city; and non-conformist ministers were forbidden to come within five miles of any corporation where they had preached since 1660. John Bunyan of Bedfordshire was one of the dissenting preachers imprisoned under these laws. He was a poor la- borer, a tinker by trade. He had been very wicked in his youth, but was converted to the Puritan faith and became a traveling preacher. For " devilishly and perniciously " keeping away from the established church, he was put in Bedford jail, where he remained twelve years. While there he wrote several books, the most wonderful of which is " The 1G64] CHARLES II. 245 Pilgrim's Progress/' a tale of a " pilgrimage from this world to the next/' John Milton, who had been Cromwell's Latin secretary, now grown old and blind, wrote "Paradise Lost/' the most wonderful poem in all English literature. He is called the " Poet of Puritanism/' because his poems express all that was best in the Puritan government and religion. His arrest was ordered by the Cavalier Parliament, but he was finally pardoned and allowed to complete his great work. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, was the chief adviser of the king. He had been the minister of Charles I., had lived in exile with the prince, and returned to England with him at the Restoration. Both Charles and Hyde were friends of the great French king Louis XIV., who paid them well for their friendship. Louis was desirous of obtaining free- dom for the English Catholics, and of keeping peace with England, so that it would not interfere with his • plans on the continent. He was ambitious to conquer the Netherlands and add them to France, and hoped in time to get control of Spain also through the claims of his wife, who was a Spanish princess. Dunkirk was sold to Louis by Charles II. and Clarendon. This town stood on the northern border of France, and was the last English possession on the continent. The nation looked upon it with pride as the fruit of the last war with Spain (p. 235), and its sale was regarded as an act of infamy and disgrace. About this time Charles declared in favor of giving free- dom of worship to those non-conformists who did not inter- fere with the peace of the state. But Parliament saw in this an attempt to give freedom to Catholics, and refused to sup- port the king in it. Another War with the Dutch broke out in 1664, caused by the reenactment of the Navigation Law, and by the 246 THE STUART KINGS [1664 rivalry of the two nations in the Indian trade. The war went on in India, along the coast of Africa, and in America, where an English fleet seized the Dutch colony of New Netherlands thereupon renamed New York in honor of the Duke of York, the king's brother. A series of bloody battles took place off the eastern coast of England in which the Dutch were finally victorious. The enormous amount of £2,500,000 had been voted Charles to carry on the war. But this money, which should have been spent in keeping the navy in repair and in sup- plying men and guns, was squandered by the king on his friends and favorites. The result was that in the third year of the war the Dutch sailed up the Thames and blockaded London for several days, and the English could not muster ships enough to drive them out. Peace was made in 1667, by which England had to give up her claims to the Spice Islands in the East Indies, but she was allowed to retain the colony of New York. The Great Plague broke out in London during the Dutch war. The streets of those days were narrow and dirty, and without pavements or sewers. The houses were built with the upper stories projecting over the lower ones, thus shut- ting out the sunlight and air. The disease, once started, spread with frightful rapidity, and 100,000 people died within six months in the city of London alone. Every house where the disease appeared was at once marked with a red cross and the words, " Lord, have mercy on us," written below. The dead were brought out and flung into carts that were sent through the streets every night, and they were buried without coffins, a hundred or more in one com- mon grave. As many people left the city as were able, and grass grew in the deserted streets. The Great Fire (1666). As cold weather came on, the plague slowly died out. But people had scarcely become set- 1667] CHARLES II. 247 Wf%T%& 1J^I2P&* iflSm- fllPiiSIli tied again in their homes and occupations, when a great fire occurred, which burned out the whole heart of the city, leav- ing only a mere fringe of houses on the out- skirts. Nearly all the public buildings, in- cluding St. Paul's Cathedral and eighty- nine churches, were burned. The Tower and Westminster Ab- bey were saved through the efforts of the king by blowing up the neighboring streets with gunpowder. For many years a monument built on the spot where the fire began, bore an inscription which accused the Catholics of setting fire to the city. This unjust charge was afterwards erased. The poet Alexander Pope wrote of it the following : " Where London's column pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies." In spite of the great loss of property, the fire was a good thing for London. A new city was laid out by the great architect Sir Christopher Wren, with straight, wide streets, thus preventing a return of the old disease and filth. He also built the new cathedral of St. Paul's with its wonderful dome, after which the dome of the Capitol at Washington was modeled. He was buried in the cathedral, and the in- scription on the tomb reads, " If you seek his monument, reader, look around you." " The Cabal " was the name given to the king's chief ad- The New St. Paul's Cathedral. 248 THE STUART KINGS [1667 visers after the Earl of Clarendon was driven into exile be- cause of his French preferences and his failure in the Dutch war. The word meant a body of secret advisers, and besides it happened that the five letters of the word were the initial letters of the names of the men : Clifford, Ashley, Buck- ingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. A change of policy toward France now began. England made an alliance with Holland and Sweden, to resist the attack of Louis on the Netherlands. But while Charles open- ly professed himself on the side of the Dutch, he did so only to secure more money from the French king. At the same time, because he showed himself firm against Louis and com- pelled him to make peace with the Netherlands, his Parlia- ment made him a large grant of money. Secret Treaty of Dover. The king now made a secret treaty with Louis, at Dover, by which he agreed to join him in another war on the Dutch, with an army of 6,000 men, and to acknowledge himself a Catholic when he saw fit to do so. In case his English subjects should rise against him, Louis was to assist him in putting them down with an army of 6,000 men, thirty ships, and a large sum of money. Charles was to receive also during the proposed war an annual pension of £230,000, for which he agreed to give his Catholic subjects liberty of worship. The New Dutch War was begun in 1672. But the Dutch successfully defended themselves against the English attacks at sea, and when Louis invaded the Netherlands the people cut the dikes and let the ocean flood the country till the French had to retreat. The Declaration of Indulgence (1672) was made by Charles in order to keep his agreement with Louis. This was a proclamation by the king suspending all laws interfering with any peaceable form of worship. But the Parliament began now to understand the treacherous nature of the king, 1G78] CHARLES II. 249 and declared that the Declaration broke forty laws, and that the laws could not be suspended except by an act of Parlia- ment. When Charles saw that further resistance would mean "to resume his travels" he yielded. The Test Act was now passed by Parliament, requiring every man appointed to any office in the army, navy, or in the government, to be a communicant of the Church of England, and to say that he did not believe that the bread and wine of the sacrament became the actual body and blood of Christ when blessed by the priest. This was considered proof that he was not a Catholic. This act drove all honest Catholics and some Protestant dissenters out of office ; among them the Duke of York ceased to be admiral of the navy, and Clifford, one of the Cabal, ceased to be the king's treasurer. Alliance with Holland. The secret treaty of Dover became generally known about this time, and made people more determined than ever to avoid any agreement with Catholic countries which should threaten the absolute su- premacy of the English Church. An important marriage was now arranged. As no children had been born to the king and queen, Charles's brother, the Catholic Duke of York, would succeed to the throne. But his only children were two daughters, Mary and Anne, both Protestants. Mary was now married to her cousin Wil- liam III. of Orange, the Stadtholder, or chief magistrate, of Holland. He was the leader of the Protestants of Europe against Erance. This marriage secured the alliance of Hol- land and made it probable that a Protestant line would suc- ceed the Duke of York on the English throne. The So-called Popish Plot. A certain Titus Oates, who had been a rascal from his youth, asserted that he knew of a plot to murder the king. He said that after the murder of Charles, James was to be put on the throne, and an army brought over from Erance to suppress Protestantism by force. 250 THE STUART KINGS [1678 Oates's story seemed to be supported by the fact that the magistrate who examined him was soon afterwards murdered. The tale soon spread, and was magnified a thousand times in the telling. From being merely a plot to kill the king, which would not have caused much regret, it came to include the burning of London, the complete destruction of the Eng- lish Church, and the massacre of thousands of innocent people. There was really no truth in Oates's story; but every Protes- tant of note now considered himself marked for slaughter, and went armed. Oates, seeing his story credited, now began to accuse large numbers of innocent people, especially Catholics. As many as two thousand were imprisoned, and seventeen put to death, before judges and juries came to their senses and began to look closely into the evidence given against the accused, to see whether it was not false. A New Parliament, chosen in the midst of the excite- ment, was found to contain only thirty members who favored the king. This Parliament, led by Ashley, the Earl of Shaftesbury, passed the Habeas Corpus Act which put an end to keeping people in prison without trial. Any man who was arrested after this might be brought at once before a judge, who would examine into the case and set him free if he were not rightfully held for trial. A law was now proposed to exclude James, the Duke of York, from the succession to the throne, because it was held that no Catholic king could peacefully rule a Protestant people. The effect of such a law would have been to make James's daughter Mary the next heir to the crown. To pre- vent the bill from passing, Charles dissolved the Parliament. The next two Parliaments were dissolved for the same reason. The Names Whig and Tory now began to be applied to the two parties, the one favoring and the other opposing the Exclusion Bill. The word " Whig " was a Scotch name given 1683] CHARLES II. 251 to the Covenanting rebels in the west of Scotland. The name " Tory " was originally applied to Irish brigands. Therefore when the Duke's friends called Shaftesbury and his followers Whigs, it was like saying that they were on a level with Scotch rebels. And when the Whigs called the Duke's friends Tories it was like saying that they were, no better than Irish thieves. These names, first used in contempt, are still some- times applied to the two great political parties in England. The extreme Whigs, passing over the rights of James's daughters, Mary and Anne, favored the succession of the Duke of Monmouth, a popular Protestant noble, who had no lawful claim to the crown. They had come armed to Parlia- ment, and many people now feared that the Whigs were in- tending to set up Monmouth by force. But the people dis- liked civil war more than a Catholic king, and by the end of the year 1681 the country had become as strongly Tory as it had been strongly Whig two years before. Leading Whigs were now accused of treason, and Shaftesbury, to save his life, fled to Holland, where he died. The Rye House Plot. Charles revoked the charters of London and of the other large towns, and issued different ones, giving power to the Tories. The Eye House plot grew out of this attack on the liberties of the people. It was a desperate plan of some of the Whigs to murder the king and the Duke of York at a place known as the Eye House. The plot was discovered, and several of those concerned in it were executed. The king refused to call any more Parliaments, for fear the Whigs would bring up more measures to exclude his brother from the throne. An association was formed among the Whigs to compel the king in some way to call a Par- liament. Just how they intended to do this is not known. The king, when he heard of it, made it a pretense for arresting some of the leading Whigs and accusing them of 252 THE STUART KINGS [1660 having had a share in the Eye House plot. Algernon Sidney and Lord William Eussell were tried and executed, and the Earl of Essex committed suicide in prison. Against Sidney there was no proof of anything, except that he believed that an unworthy king could be deposed by his people. Eussell was held to believe that with a Catholic on the throne the people would not be secure, as no doubt he did. He made an eloquent defense, but of no avail. The king insisted on his death, and even the offer of a. hundred thousand pounds did not move him. Scotland and Ireland, like England, had accepted Charles in 1660. In Scotland, during his reign, many of the people accepted the Church of England. The strict " Covenanters," as the steadfast Presbyterians were called, were cruelly perse- cuted. Lauderdale, one of the Cabal, was first sent to bring them into subjection. The Covenanters were routed at Both- well Bridge by the Duke of Monmouth. The Duke of York was at last sent to govern Scotland. He hanged, shot, im- prisoned, and tortured them into either silence or outlawry. The Quakers are first heard of in England in the time of Cromwell. They did not believe in any forms and ceremonies whatever. They were like the Puritans in their desire to do away with the feasts, sports, and shows of the time, and in rejecting the government of the church by the king and bishops. They agreed with the Independents in wishing self- government for each congregation. But they were unlike all other sects in refusing to bear arms, to pay toward the sup- port of any church, or to observe the Sabbath by formal sermons and prayers. They refused to take oaths or to observe any forms of respect to superiors. They would not take off their hats in the presence of the king and of the judges in the courts. They believed in the "inner light," meaning by this that God tells every man, through his con- science, what is right and what he ought to do. 1681] CHARLES II. 253 The Puritans persecuted the Quakers severely. When Charles II. became king there were 4,000 of them in the jails. It was common to slit their noses, cut their ears, bore through their tongues with a hot iron, and whip them through the streets at the cart's tail. Their numbers increased rapidly in spite of this treatment, and in 1675 there were more than 60,000 of them in England. Charles was disposed to favor them. He saw that they were quiet, industrious, and loyal people. Several New Colonies were founded in America during this reign. In 1663 the king gave the vast region of the Carolinas to a company of his friends. The Carolina settlers included Presbyterians harried out of the western counties of Scot- land; French Huguenots, or Protestants, driven out by the tyranny of Louis XIV.; Quakers from England; Irish from the West Indies, who had been exiled by Cromwell ; and other settlers who had been compelled to leave the older colonies. They resisted the strict rule that the proprietors tried to impose upon them, and in the end the proprietors gave up the struggle. We have seen (p. 246) that the Dutch possessions in America were seized by the English (1664). This territory was granted by Charles to the Duke of York, and the greater part of it became the colony of New York. New Jersey was granted by the Duke of York, the same year, to two of his friends, who divided it between them. Before long, however, both parts were bought by William Penn and other Quakers, who "put the power in the hands of the people." Owing to the excellent government and the religious freedom given by the Quakers, the colony filled up rapidly. Pennsylvania was given to William Penn in 1681, in pay- ment of a debt owed by Charles II. The next year Penn 254 THE STUART KINGS [1681 came over with three shiploads of colonists, and laid out the regular streets of Philadelphia. He also purchased from the Duke of York the " three lower counties on the Delaware," which became afterwards a separate colony. Death of Charles II. The king died of apoplexy in 1685. In his last moments he confessed his sins and received ex- treme unction as a Catholic. The queen sent to ask his par- don, but Charles replied that it was he who ought to ask hers. He lingered some time and apologized to the watchers about him, saying that he hoped they would excuse him for taking such a long time to die. The people expressed great sorrow at his death, and well they might, for though Charles was a bad king, his brother James, Duke of York, proved to be a worse one. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Why is this period called the Restoration? Compare it with Crom- well's time. Describe the reaction against Puritanism. 2. How do you account for the severe laws passed by the Cavalier Parliament? Which of them do you think unwise? Why? 3. How do you account for Charles's dealings with the King of France? Why were they bad policy? 4. Which country do you think was right in the Dutch war? Why? 5. What use did the king make of his power in the Declaration of Indulgence? Why was this power dangerous? 6. How did the Covenanters originate? Why were they persecuted by the Stuarts? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Plague and the Pike. Church, Stories from English His- tory, pp. 483-503 ; Manning, Cherry and Violet. 2. John Bunyan. Green, Short History (see index) ; Bunyan, The Pilgrim' 's Progress; Wright, Stories of English Literature, Vol. II., chap. IV. 3. Return of Charles II. Scott, Woodstock. 4. The Seizure of New Amsterdam. Gardiner, Student's History of England, p. 589 ; Bennett, Barnaby Lee. 5. The So-called Popish Plot. Yonge, Cameos from English His- tory, VIII., pp. 10-24; Macaulay, History of England, I., pp. 217 et seq. 1685] JAMES II. 255 B. The Revolution oe 1688. James II., 1685-1688. The New King had all the belief of his father and grand- father in his divine right to rule England according to his own will. The chief aim of his reign was to secure religious liberty for Catholics, and to rule independently of Parliament. His words and his actions had as little connection as those of Charles I. In his first speech to his council, he declared that he would rule according to the English law and support the English Church ; but the first act of his reign was to col- lect a customs duty not voted by Parliament, thus breaking the fundamental law of the kingdom, and before the crown was placed upon his head he had the service of the Catholic Church celebrated at Whitehall, for the first time in one hundred and twenty-seven years. Titus Oates, who had sworn away the lives of so many innocent men, now received his deserts. He was taken through the streets at the tail of a cart, and flogged with knotted cords till the "blood flowed in rivulets." He was then im- prisoned for life, and was made to stand in the pillory five times a year. The Persecution of the Covenanters was kept up with vigor in western Scotland, under the direction of Claver- house. Those who refused to forsake the Covenant were shot, hanged, or drowned. One girl of eighteen, Margaret Wilson, was fastened to a stake at low water in the Solway Firth, to be drowned by the rising tide. As the water rose to her head, she was taken out and asked if she would give up the Cove- nant and attend the Episcopal Church. " Never," she re- plied. " I am Christ's, let me go ! 9i She was put back, and the waves closed over her. The Parliament called in 1685 was strongly Tory, and voted the king the usual revenues for life. But a resolution NlVER 16. 256 THE STUART KINGS [1685 passed by it to sustain the Church of England, and to enforce the laws against non-conformists, angered James and seemed to indicate a coming storm. The Argyle and Monmouth Rebellion grew out of the fight between the Whigs and the Tories about the Exclusion Bill. The Earl of Argyle was the leader of the clan of the Campbells, who upheld the Covenant, He was living in exile in Holland when James became king. He now came to Monmouth and King James. Scotland with a small army, hoping that the Scotch would join him in seizing the government. He then intended to join the Duke of Monmouth in England, and dethrone James. But the Scotch did not rise, and Argyle was captured and executed by the royal troops. In the mean time Monmouth had landed at Lyme Eegis on the Dorsetshire coast and was soon joined by five or six thousand of the country people. He boldly claimed the title 1685] JAMES II. 257 of king; but the nobility and gentlemen kept away from him. At Sedgemoor he attacked the royal army and was badly defeated. Many of his men were caught and hanged at once, and he himself was made prisoner. He was taken into the presence of James, and pleaded hard for mercy. But it appears that the king had admitted him only to induce him to disclose the names of others who had promised him assist- ance. When he found that Monmouth had nothing of im- portance to tell, he ordered him to execution. The " Bloody Assizes " of Jeffreys followed immediately upon this rebellion. Jeffreys was one of the king's judges, noted for wickedness and brutality. He had helped Charles II. take away the charters of the cities, and having no prin- ciples or religion of his own to support, was a servile creature of the king. He was now sent into the western counties to visit the " assize," or court, towns, and try the persons ac- cused of aiding Monmouth. The case of Alice Lisle shows the fearful brutality and cruelty of these trials. This lady, seventy years of age, was accused of concealing in her house two fugitives from Mon- mouth's army. It was not proved that she knew them to be rebels, nor that they ivere rebels. Three times the jury re- fused to bring in a verdict of guilty, but they were finally bullied by Jeffreys into submission, and Alice Lisle was put to death. Three hundred and twenty persons were executed, and their mutilated and dismembered bodies were fixed up along the highways and over the doors of town halls and churches, in the different villages where trials were held. Eight hundred and forty-one were sold into slavery under the broiling sun of the English West Indian possessions, there to labor until they died. When Jeffreys returned after his bloody work, James congratulated him on his great success and made him chancellor. 258 THE STUART KINGS [1685 The King and Parliament had agreed in putting down rebellion and in punishing the rebels. But James now thought himself strong enough to carry out his plans in regard to the Catholics. As he increased the army, he appointed officers belonging to that faith, and excused them from the requirements of the Test Act. The House of Commons be- came alarmed. King Louis XIV. of France had just revoked the Edict of Nantes, a law which protected French Prot- estants, and followed it up with a cruel persecution, which drove thousands into Germany, America, England, and Hol- land. If James were allowed to disobey the Test Act, it was thought, he might choose Catholics for all the offices, and finally treat Protestants as badly as the French king, whom he regarded as a model. James told the Parliament that he wanted money for a standing army, and would not change his appointments. The House of Commons passed a petition that he obey the Test Act, and to show that they did not approve his conduct, voted only half the money he asked. The Dispensing Power was now claimed by James to sup- port his actions. This was really the power to break the laws whenever he saw fit. When the judges declared that the king had no such power, he turned them out and appointed others, who decided that he did have it. This decision of course made him absolute, for if the king could set aside the laws as he pleased, there was no way to check him but by force of arms. The Declaration of Indulgence was next issued by the king, announcing that all people, Catholics and Protestant dissenters included, were free to worship as they pleased, and to hold office. Before publishing his Declaration, he tried to have the Test Act abolished legally by Parliament. But when he found, by talking with one member after another, that they would not do it, he dissolved Parliament. He thought that the dissenters would be so grateful to him that 1688] JAMES II. 259 they would support him against the established church. But the most of them feared that the Indulgence was only a trick to put Catholics in power, and declined, for patriotic reasons, to support the king in a measure that gave freedom of worship to themselves. The Church of England and the Colleges were now openly attacked by the king. He created an Ecclesiastical Commission court, and removed some of the clergy by bring- ing charges of misconduct against them, and put Catholics in their places. The universities at Oxford and Cambridge were under the control of the Church of England, and only members of that church could be teachers in the colleges there. James began to make these institutions into Eoman Catholic seminaries, by forcing the appointment of Catholics wherever possible. A Second Declaration of Indulgence was announced in April, 1688, and all the ministers were commanded to read it in their churches on two successive Sundays. In London only four clergymen obeyed, and their congregations got up and left the house as soon as the reading began. Seven bishops met and drew up a. petition to the king, asking him not to enforce his order. The king declared that the petition was rank rebellion, and the bishops were arrested and con- fined in the Tower. He brought a charge of seditious libel against them; that is, he accused them of publishing false statements which tended to stir up rebellion against the king. The Trial of the Bishops took place on June 29. The judges had been chosen by the king with the object of secur- ing a conviction. But would the jury bring in a verdict of guilty? At first three jurymen declared for the king, but before morning all had agreed on a verdict of not guilty. The crowds waiting in Westminster set up a shout, and the crowd in the street echoed it. James was that morning to review 260 THE STUART KINGS [1688 the army assembled near London. As he approached he heard a tremendous cheering and shouting. " What is that noise ? " he asked. " It is nothing," answered Lord Feversham, " only the soldiers shouting for the acquittal of the bishops." " Do you call that nothing ? " said he. " So much the worse for them." But it was the worse for James. He had succeeded in losing the friendship of nine tenths of his people, and even of his own children and relatives. They waited patiently, however, thinking that it could not be many years before his daughter Mary would succeed him. James's first wife having died, he had married again, and two days after the acquittal of the bishops it was announced that a son was born to him. This boy would of course be brought up in the Catholic faith, and when he grew up he would probably do exactly as his father had clone. Besides, a story was noised abroad that the child was not the king's at all, but a baby that had been procured somewhere and smuggled into the palace. The English Revolution. William of Orange (p. 249), the nephew and son-in-law of James, was now invited by many English nobles to become king, and to save the liberties and rights of the people. There would be no trouble about this, they said, for the whole nation was ready to give him a hearty welcome. So William collected a fleet and army m Holland, and on the 5th of November he landed on the English coast. James started with his army to attack the invaders; but his soldiers began to desert him ; the bishops he had appointed would not help him ; and when he reached his house he found that his daughter Anne and her husband had fled. " Now, God help me ! " cried the king. " My own children have for- saken me." Deserted by everybody, he tried to escape to France, but was caught by some fishermen and brought back. 1689] JAMES II. 261 William really wanted him to run away. James did not know this, and requested to be allowed to go to Kochester. Permission was gladly granted. On the 18th of December he rose in the middle of the night and rode to the coast, where he found a ship bound for France. He finally reached the French court, where the great Louis received him with the highest respect and kindness. He never again set foot on the soil of England. With the general approval of the nation, William called for an election and a meeting of Parliament. The Throne was Declared Vacant by the House of Com- mons on account of the misgovernment and flight of the king. To this the Lords agreed, and William and Mary were elected joint sovereigns of England. The idea that the king received his power directly from God, and could there- fore defy the will of the people, was overthrown with James ; and the other notion, that the people are the source of power, was established by the election of William and Mary. The American Colonies had been left largely to them- selves until the time of James II. As Edmund Burke said of them, "they flourished through the neglect of England." But James was jealous of their growth and prosperity, and considered them a nursery for rebels. He sent Sir Edmund Andros over in 1686 to take away the charters of the New England colonies and unite them under one government. Andros was ordered also to establish the Episcopal Church, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, to levy taxes without asking the people, to take charge of the printing presses, to abolish all the colonial legislatures, and to take possession of all unoccupied lands for himself and his friends. But James did not rule long enough -to provoke a revolution in the colonies. The revolution that he provoked at home relieved them of Andros, and under William and Mary they got their liberties back without fighting. 262 ORANGE [1689 QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How did James lose the confidence of his people? 2. Explain the attempts made to dethrone him. How did they result? 3. What was the dispensing power? On what ground did James claim it? 4. How did the Revolution of 1688 affect the government of England? The church? 5. Why was the case of the seven bishops important? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Judge Jeffreys. Macaulay, History of England, I., pp. 590-611 ; Yonge, Cameos from English History, VIII. 2. The Seven Bishops. Creighton, Stories from English History, Ch. XLIII. ; Macaulay, History of England, II., pp. 317-357; Green, Short History, p. 672. 3. Alice Lisle. Yonge, Cameos from English History, VIII., pp. 82-83 ; Macaulay, History of England, I., pp. 591-596. 4. The Covenanters. Green, Short History, 531-532, 551, 621, 632 ; Yonge, Cameos from English History, VII., VIII. 5. Monmouth's Rebellion. Macaulay, Histdry of England, I., 541-579 ; Besant, For Faith and Freedom. C. The New Order of Things. William III., 1689-1702, and Mary II., 1689-1694. A Declaration of the Rights and liberties of the people was drawn up by the Parliament, and agreed to by William and Mary before they were crowned. James had broken down many of the old liberties, and his judges had said that he had a right to do so. Then, a revolution had taken place; that is, one royal house had been driven out, and a new one set up. It was necessary that the new rulers should agree to abide by the old laws and customs of England. The new Declaration provided that the king should never set aside the laws without the consent of Parliament; that a standing army should not be kept ; that the election of mem- bers of Parliament should be free from interference, and that Parliament should be frequently assembled ; that Wil- 1689] WILLIAM HI. 263 liam and Mary should reign as joint sovereigns, with the practical care of the government in the hands of William; that if either William or Mary died the other should con- tinue to reign ; that if they left no children, the crown should descend to Anne, the sister of Mary, and to her heirs; and Coronation of William and Mary. that no Roman Catholic, or person marrying a Roman Cath- olic, should be capable of receiving the crown of England. These provisions were afterwards made into the " Bill of Rights." This bill is the third great document that goes to make up the English constitution. Magna Charta, the Pe- tition of Right, and the Bill of Rights form what Lord 264 ORANGE [1689 Chatham called the "Bible of the English Constitution." And according to these three charters England is now gov- erned. A Toleration Act was passed which allowed all sects, except Catholics and Unitarians, to worship in their own churches. The oath of allegiance and supremacy (p. 169) was required of all clergy holding places in the Established Church. There were many among them who held that James was still king. Accordingly, about four hundred refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. For a long time afterwards they were known as "non-jurors." Those among the laymen who still held to James were known as Jacobites, a word derived from Jacobus, the Latin word for James. There were many who disliked the grave and simple manners of the new king, who was also a little too fond of Dutchmen to please many. But William tried to rule both Holland and England fairly; he would not take the side of any party, but did his best to create good feeling and patriotic harmony among all classes. The Mutiny Act was a law which gave the king power to enforce discipline in the army for only six months or one year at a time. The act has been renewed from year to year ever since ; but if it were not renewed, a soldier could desert or disobey the king's officers without much danger of punishment. A few years later Parliament adopted the plan of voting the king a revenue for only one year at a time. This, with the plan of the Mutiny Acts, has compelled the king to call the Parliament together often, and so enabled them to keep a close oversight of his conduct and of the condition of the country. In fact, it has made Parliament supreme. The War of the Palatinate. Before William was fairly settled in his new kingdom, the French king had begun war against him. The Protestants of Europe, headed by William, 1689] WILLIAM III. 265 had formed an alliance against France after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Louis began war by plunder- ing the Palatinate and murdering thousands of Protestants there. He also sent an army to Ireland to help the deposed King James in regaining his throne. There was also some fighting in Scotland. Killiecrankie. In Scotland most of the people favored William and Mary, and the Scottish Parliament elected them to the throne in place of James. The Scotch Highlanders were the- chief adherents of the deposed king. Claverhouse, now Viscount Dundee, who had been a hunter of Covenanters English Musket. in the former reign, now gathered a. large army of the High- land clans in support of James. William's army, under General Mackay, met them in the steep mountain pass of Killiecrankie. The Scotch were stationed at the top of the hill. As the English troops struggled up to attack them the Highlanders fired one volley, and then, throwing down their muskets, rushed upon the English with their broadswords. The musket in use among the English at that time was changed into a pike by fixing a dagger in the end of the barrel. It was an awkward contrivance, and before the dag- ger could be adjusted the Scotch were upon them with wild yells and flashing weapons. Mackay was defeated, but drew off his army without severe loss. Dundee was killed in this battle, and the clans, having no capable leader, soon returned to their homes. Afterwards the Highland chiefs were offered pardon and a sum of money if they would take the oath of allegiance to King William, and agree to live peaceably in the future. 266 ORANGE £1692 As James had by this time been defeated and driven out of Ireland, they were willing to do this; but to show their in- dependence they put off taking the oath as long as possible. Maclan of Glencoe was an old man, chief of the clan of MacDonald. A proclamation had been issued that all who did not appear before a certain day would be regarded as public enemies. Maclan was by mistake a few days late. He might still have been pardoned, had not the affairs of Scotland been in the hands of men who were his enemies. They sent such a report of the case to William that he con- sented to the order for rooting out "that set of thieves at Glencoe." Glencoe was a picturesque little valley in the western Highlands. Here lived the clan of MacDonald, numbering perhaps five hundred people. A company of soldiers was sent among them to ask for quarters, pretending that there was not room for them at their fort near by. For twelve days they lived with the clan, having food, drink, and shelter with- out payment. Their commander, whose niece was married to the chiefs son, lived in the most friendly way with the family of Maclan, though at the time he had in his pocket a letter which ordered him "to cut off the clan, root and branch." At five o'clock one morning, while it was yet dark, the sol- diers surrounded the cabins in which they had feasted and made merry the night before. The unfortunate people were dragged out and murdered; many who tried to escape were shot down. It had been planned to have a strong force come from the fort and cut off the fugitives, but it arrived too late, and three fourths of the clan escaped in the darkness. But their huts were burned and their cattle driven off. It was in the middle of winter and many of the fugitives were starved and frozen. Some returned to their ruined village and again built up homes in the little valley. They told the story of Glencoe to their children, and it has come down to us as the 1689] WILLIAM III. 267 one blot on the reign of William, and as the most terrible tale in the tribal wars of Scotland. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, had been sent by James II. to rule Ireland. He had been ordered to recruit a Catholic army and be ready to assist the king. So now, in Ireland, the supporters of James were stronger than their opponents. Those who favored William were called " Orange- men," a name which still clings to the Irish Protestants. James landed in Ireland with some French troops in the spring of 1689. War broke out, and Tyrconnel repeated the terrible scenes of 1641. The Protestant settlements were de- stroyed and the people massacred. Fifty thousand cattle and 400,000 sheep were killed, and much land was made desert. Much property was taken from the Protestants by the Irish Parliament and given to Catholics. A great act of attainder was passed against two thousand Englishmen. All of these that did not surrender themselves to James at Dublin within a certain length of time were to be executed without a trial; provided, of course, James could catch them, which at one time seemed more than possible. The Protestant refugees had gathered in Londonderry and another town in Ulster. The forces of James besieged Lon- donderry and cut off all supplies of food. For one hundred and five days the siege lasted. All wholesome food was gone. Horses, rats, and dogs were eaten. There seemed to be noth- ing to do but surrender or starve. The town was approached from the sea. only by a river, which the Irish had blocked with a heavy raft. For days and days the ships sent by William lay outside the raft, not daring to break it. At last they received positive orders to relieve the town. One ship was headed straight toward the raft and broke it; the ship was wrecked, but the other vessels sailed through and brought food to the starving inhabitants. The Quarrels of Parties in Parliament had prevented 268 ORANGE [1690 William from taking prompt action against James; and it was not until he threatened to resign the throne and return to Holland that the wrangling Whigs and Tories came to their senses. A new Parliament was called, and provision was made for war. The Battle of the Boyne (1690). William led an army of 30,000 men into Ireland. James had drawn up his army on rising ground south of the river Boyne (map, p. 232), across which the English had to advance to attack him. The two armies were about evenly matched. The river was skill- fully crossed and the battle bravely won by William's army. William crossed at the head of his troops, receiving a wound in the arm; but the Irish were disgusted at the cowardly conduct of James, who ran away before the battle began. The Irish army was badly defeated, but the French covered their retreat and only 1,500 men were lost. The war was continued until the next year, when the Irish were finally routed with terrible loss at Aghrim, 1,000 men being mas- sacred in the retreat. The rest took refuge in Limerick, where they were forced to surrender. All who wished were allowed to retire to France, and about 10,000 officers and men did so. Two Naval Battles were fought during this struggle in Ireland. The first one at Beachy Head was lost to the French through the treacherous retreat of the English ad- miral Torrington, a Jacobite. Two years later occurred the battle of La Hogue, off the northern coast of France. Here a fleet of forty-four French ships met a combined Dutch and English fleet of ninety. But it was not thought by the French that the English would fight, as Admiral Eussell was known to sympathize with King James. But the con- duct of that fallen monarch in Ireland, and the threatened in- vasion of England by France, had displeased his best friends, and they decided to abandon him. The English did fight, 1695] WILLIAM III. 269 and out of the French fleet only twelve ships escaped; these were pursued under the very walls of the fort and burned before the eyes of James himself, who saw in their destruc- tion the end of his hope for a successful invasion of England. He passed the rest of his life in France, dying there shortly before the close of William's reign. The French defeat on the sea, however, was offset by several victories which Louis won over the Protestant allies on the continent. For years it had been the boast of the French that they had not lost a battle or a city. But in 1695 William took from the French the city of Namur with its garrison of 12,000, though an army of 80,000 Frenchmen came to raise the siege. Queen Mary Died of smallpox in 1694. She was of a gentle nature and was greatly beloved by all. " I was the happiest man on earth," said William, " and now I am the most miserable." The Greenwich Hospital, on the banks of the Thames, is her memorial. This structure had been begun by Charles II. as a palace, but left unfinished. After the naval battles with France, Mary wished to complete the building as a hospital for wounded sailors. This was done after her death, and it still stands the most fitting monument of a queen who loved to comfort the unfortunate. The Freedom of the Press was established during the period of this French war. Before that, Parliament had from time to time forbidden the printing of any book or newspaper in England without a royal license; but now Parliament refused to renew the licensing act, so men became free to print as well as speak their thoughts freely — a priv- ilege which continues to be the safeguard of, liberty and a check upon wrongdoing. The Bank of England. The wars led to a large debt to the money lenders and bankers. Those who lent money to the government were now formed into a banking company, 270 ORANGE [1694 which grew into the Bank of England, the most famous financial institution in the world. The Money was Recoined during this reign. Much of it was worn out and mutilated by clipping. The coins had been made with smooth edges, so that with a sharp knife one could cut a strip of metal from a coin and it would not be noticed. But the new coins were made with milled edges, in order The Present Bank of England. that no metal Could be cut off without showing. The public sent in their old money to the government, and received in exchange fresh new coins of full weight. A Plot to Assassinate the King was discovered in 1696. Forty of the Jacobites were concerned in it. If it succeeded a French army was to land in England and attempt to restore King James. The conspirators had planned to con- ceal themselves along a road by which William would return from a hunt. At a signal they were to spring out and shoot him, before any one could help him. The detection of this plot alarmed the English, and they took careful measures to protect the king. Some of the conspirators were taken and executed. The Peace of Ryswick, made with Louis in 1697, con- cluded the French war. William was acknowledged to be the rightful King of England, and the cause of James was given up. The new Cathedral of St. Paul's had just been completed by Sir Christopher Wren, and William at the head of a great triumphal procession entered the church, where a solemn thanksgiving was rendered for the return of peace. 1701] WILLIAM III. 271 The army was now partly disbanded, and the Dutch guards, who had served faithfully, were, much against the king's will, sent back to Holland. In America this war was called King William's War. It consisted in a border war between the English settlers of New York, and New England, and the French and Indians. Schenectady in New York and several other outlying towns were taken and burned by the French, and the Indians were allowed to scalp and murder the inhabitants. The New Eng- enders captured Port Eoyal in Acadia, but were obliged to give it back by the treaty of Eyswick. A Dispute about the Spanish Succession soon led to fresh trouble with France. The old King of Spain was childless. As his eldest sister was the wife of Louis of France, their son was, according to the French claim, heir to the throne of Spain. But William and the other kings of Europe were not disposed to allow Louis to become so powerful, and they threatened war unless he would give up the claim. Louis was not yet ready for another war, so he yielded, and signed a treaty by which a part of Spain's terri- tory was to go to France, and the rest of it, with the crown, to the Archduke Charles of Austria. This treaty Louis re- fused to carry out when the news came that the king of Spain was dead, and that he had left his throne to the grand- son of Louis. " There are no longer any Pyrenees !" he ex- claimed triumphantly, meaning that now France and Spain were one nation. The Spanish Netherlands, which he had so long fought for, would become his, and the union of the French and Spanish power would make him able to defy all the rest of Europe. It was not long before Louis showed his defiance of Eng- land. He had acknowledged William as the rightful King of England in the Treaty of Eyswick. But in 1701, when James II. died in Paris, Louis immediately declared that NlVER 17. 272 ORANGE [1701 James's son, James Edward, was the rightful king, and prom- ised to help him in getting the throne. Act of Settlement. The Bill of Eights had provided for the disposition of the crown, but as Anne's children all died, an Act of Settlement was passed in 1701 providing that at her death the crown should go to the Electress Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I., and her heirs. The object of this act was to secure a Protestant succession. It was just after this that news came of James II.'s death and the declaration of Louis. The haughty insolence of the French, in presuming to appoint a king of England, was more than the English people could endure. Though they were half disposed to allow Louis to have his own way in Spain, a general demand for war was aroused by his support of another Stuart in claiming the throne of England. A Grand Alliance was made by William against France. Holland, Denmark, Sweden, England, and Austria combined to keep Louis out of the Netherlands, and to compel an agreement that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united. The object of the alliance was to preserve the balance of power. A new Parliament, called in 1701, began preparation for war, in the midst of which William's horse stumbled one day over a molehill and fell with him. The king's collar bone was broken, and from this and other injuries he died. The nation, which had learned to respect alid love him, mourned at his death. A statue of the king in one of the corridors of the Bank of England bears this inscription : " To the memory of the best of princes, William of Orange, founder of the Bank of England." Louis XIV. rejoiced, for he thought now that his worst enemy was gone. And the Jacobites, in their secret meetings, drank many a toast to the "little gentlemen in black velvet" whose earthwork had caused King William's death. 1702] ANNE 273 QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What circumstances gave rise to each of the three great docu- ments of the English constitution? 2. What was the object of the Act of Settlement? 3. What interest did the Irish and Scotch have in supporting James? Why did the French king support him? 4. Compare Tyrconnel's massacres in Ireland with those of Cromwell. 5. What caused the rise of the Jacobites and Non-jurors? 6. Why did the French king break the treaty of Ryswick? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Story of Glencoe. Colby, Sources of English History, pp. 220-222 ; Scott, Tales of a Grandfather, Ch. LVIII. 2. The Battle of the Boyne. Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, pp. 181- 186 ; Yonge, Cameos from English History, VIII., pp. 135-148. 3. Battle of La Hogue. Gardiner, Student's History, p. 658 ; Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 4. Killieceankie. Rolfe, Tales from Scottish History, pp. 130-134; Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, pp. 165-168. D. The War Against French Domination. Anne, 1702-17 14. The Accession of the New Queen made no change in the conduct of the affairs of government. Anne was well liked by the English people, and the title of " Good Queen Anne " was given her. She stood up for the rule of the Eng- lish Church and disliked all dissenters. The Tory party wanted to keep dissenters out of public offices, while the Whigs were willing to admit them if they would come oc- casionally to the established church. This was called " occa- sional conformity." Though Anne had a kindly disposition, she stupidly be- lieved in the old Stuart idea of the " divine right of kings," and in the superstition that the sovereign could cure people of scrofula, or " king's evil," by touching them. This practice began with Edward the Confessor, whose great piety, it is 274 THE HOUSE OF STUART [1702 said, enabled him to effect miraculous cures. But Charles II. also, who was not noted for piety, "touched for the king's evil." The practice was to bring the sick, one at a time, before the king, who laid his hands upon them while the bishop repeated the words, "And he laid his hands upon them and healed them." Queen Anne was the last sovereign to observe this custom. The War of the Spanish Succession filled most of Queen Anne's reign. The armies of the Grand Alliance were under Spanish Netheklands about 1700. the command of John Churchill, Earl and later Duke of Marlborough, who had been recommended by William as the ablest man for the work. Churchill had been a friend of James II., and held a command in the army when William landed in England. Like many of James's friends, he de- serted him for the Protestant prince. He had fought in Ireland and the Netherlands for King William, but when things were going badly on the continent he had thought of going over to James again, and treacherously informed the French of an intended attack on Brest (map, p. 164). The 1704] ANNE 275 commander made such good preparation that the whole Eng- lish force of 700 men was killed or captured. In spite of this treason, William took Marlborough again into confidence, and left to him the conduct of the war, already begun when Anne became queen. Prince Eugene of Savoy was his able assistant, and commanded the troops of Portugal, Savoy, and Austria, while Marlborough was at the head of the English, Dutch, and some Germans. Just before the beginning of the war, Louis had seized many forts and towns in the Spanish Netherlands and forti- fied them. This threatened Hol- land with invasion. The first two years of the war were spent in recapturing enough of these towns to secure Holland. Mean- while Bavaria joined France, and in 1704 a French army gathered there along the Danube, preparing for the conquest of Austria. Blenheim. Marlborough now led his army to Bavaria, and met the enemy at the village of Blenheim, on the Danube. Keep- ing the French busy with an attack on the fortified village, he led in person a tremendous cavalry charge against the center. Their army was cut in two and terribly defeated, losing more than half their number in killed, wounded, and captured. It was the first time the armies of Louis had met defeat. For half a century he had broken treaties and oaths, and lorded it over weaker nations at his pleasure. He had tried to force two kings on the English people, and a third one had been his paid servant. No wonder that the English rejoiced over his downfall, and rewarded his conqueror. A large estate was given to Marlborough by Parliament, and Battle of Blenheim. 276 THE HOUSE OF STUART [1704 a great palace was built for him, appropriately named Blen- heim, which still remains in the possession of his descendants. Blenheim. The battle of Blenheim drove the French across the Ehine and out of Germany. They now gathered their armies in the Spanish Netherlands for the defense of their garrisons there. The Year of Victories (1706) began with the battle of Eamillies. The cavalry again won the day, and the French lost 15,000 men. Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, and other towns were taken in quick succession, and the power of France in the Netherlands was broken. In 1708 and 1709 the French made attempts to regain what they had lost. Marlborough beat them again at Oudenarde and Malplaquet ; and, defeated and disheartened, they abandoned the Netherlands and were ready to make peace. English Success in Spain had kept pace with their vie- 1710] ANNE 277 tories elsewhere. The Spanish fort at Gibraltar was cap- tured in 1704. The high rock on which the fort stood, is connected with the mainland by a narrow neck of land. While the Spanish were celebrating a religious festival, the English clambered up the rock and found only 150 men on guard, who were easily conquered. Gibraltar was held, and still remains a British stronghold, guarding the strait and the highway to the Indian empire. An Act of Union between England and Scotland was arranged in 1707. When James I. became King of England, each country kept its own parliament and its own church. There were separate laws for each kingdom. The Scotch were not allowed to sell goods in England without paying a heavy duty. It was now agreed that Scotland should be rep- resented in the English Parliament by sixteen peers and forty-five commoners, that the name of the united countries should be Great Britain, and that the cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland, should be placed upon the flag with that of St. George, the patron saint of England. Free trade was established between the two countries. Government by Political Parties began in England in the reign of Queen Anne. James IJ. was the last king who tried to rule without consulting the wishes of the people. After his time, the people gradually attached themselves to the two parties which had arisen out of the dispute over the Exclusion Bill (p. 250). The Tories were the High Church party. They believed in the rule of bishops, in strengthening the power of the king, and in keeping dissenters out of office. The Whigs we may call the Low Church party. They favored dissenters, and wished to strengthen the power of Parliament and weaken that of the king. They favored the Grand Alliance against France, and wished to unite with the Prot- estants on the continent against the Catholic powers. But as the war dragged on from year to year, the Tories grew 278 THE HOUSE OF STUART [1710 more and more eager to stop it. They did not care whether a French prince or an Austrian prince sat on the throne of Spain. They were content that Louis had been curbed in his attack on the Netherlands. Marlborough was in favor of continuing the war, because it had brought him honors, fame, and wealth. The queen, although a Tory, was under the influence of the wife of Marlborough, who was her most intimate friend. It is said that this lady, whose name was Sarah Jennings before her marriage, ruled in all court matters, from the trimming on the queen's dress to the management of wars and alliances. So presuming did she become that Anne dismissed her from court and found another lady, one Mrs. Masham, to take her place (1710). Cabinet Government by the ruling party in Parliament grew up at this time. Both William and Anne had tried to select ministers from both parties, but they found that men of different ways of thinking could not work well to- gether. They were therefore obliged to select a ministry entirely from the strongest party. The chief ministers at that time were the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Chancellor (the presiding officer of the House of Lords and the legal adviser of the Cabinet), the First Lord of the Admiralty, and various secretaries. Government by a ministry took on its complete form and received the name of u Cabinet government " in the next reign (p. 284). The Case of Dr. Sacheverell strengthened the power of the Tories. This man was a preacher whom nowadays one would call a " crank." He preached sermons advocating the old idea that it was unlawful and unchristian to resist the king or queen of the country. He also called the Whigs hard names and accused them of wishing to overfhrow the English Church. The Whigs were very angry at this, and 1714] ANNE 279 impeached him before the House of Lords, had him suspended from office, and had his sermons burned by the common hangman. The people thought that Sacheverell had been punished unjustly, and the Whigs lost favor everywhere. The Election of 1710 resulted in a strong Tory Parlia- ment, which forced the selection of a strong Tory ministry. This ministry sent a man to Louis to ask if he wanted to make peace. " It was," said Louis's prime minister, " like asking a dying man if he wished to be cured." Queen Anne's War, as the war of the Spanish Succes- sion was called in America, was accompanied by much the same sort of fighting as the previous war (p. 271). An English expedition against Quebec resulted in total failure, with shipwreck and loss of life; but New England soldiers captured and held Acadia (Nova Scotia). The Peace of Utrecht was signed by France and the allies in 1713. Louis's grandson, Philip, was allowed to keep the throne of Spain, but with the agreement that he should never be made King of France. The Spanish parts of Italy and of the Netherlands were given to Austria. England kept Gibraltar and Acadia. Louis agreed to acknowledge the Protestant succession in England, and to drive James Edward, the " Pretender," as he was called, out of France. Anne Died in 1714, the last Stuart sovereign to reign in England. Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, had died several years before. He was a coarse, stupid man, unfit for public office, and never had anything to do with the government. Their children all died young. There were still many Tories who would have been glad to have the son of James II. for the next king. If he had consented to be- come a Protestant, he might have had the throne; but this he refused to do, and the Act of Settlement was carried out. The Electress of Hanover being now dead, her son became George I. of England. 280 THE STUART KINGS [1603 The Chief Characteristic of the Stuart and Orange- Stuart periods is the growing importance of the people. The in- crease of wealth, due to the growth of trade and manufactur- ing, brought the middle classes into prominence. Woolen Cloths were still the leading manufacture; nearly twenty different kinds were made. But silk, linen, and cotton became important in the reign of James I. The French Huguenots were skillful silk weavers. So many of them came to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (p. 258), that within ten years no more silk was im- ported, while before the edict was revoked £200,000 was spent annually for French silks. Mining became an important industry; coal, iron, tin, copper, and salt were produced and sold abroad. The great need of the time was suitable machinery for carrying on the operations of manufacturing and mining. All work was done by hand. England had to wait another century for the steam engine. Trade. This extract from the " Spectator" (p. 281) refers to the extensive trade which had grown up in England. " Our Ships are laden with the Harvest of every Climate ; our Tables are stored with Spices and Oils and Wine; our Eooms are filled with Pyramids of China, and adorned with the Workmanship of Japan; our Morning's Draught comes to us from the remotest Corners of the Earth; we repair our Bodies by the Drugs of America, and repose ourselves under Indian Canopies. My Friend, Sir Andrew, calls the Vineyards of France our Gardens; the Spice Islands our Hot-beds; the Persians our Silk-weavers; and the Chinese our Potters." Trade, discovery, and an acquaintance with many foreign countries had greatly contributed to the intelligence of the people. Newspapers and books were cheap and plentiful enough to come within the reach of the majority. 1714] INDUSTRY, LITERATURE 281 The Desire for News was first provided for by the issue of pamphlets by the printers and stationers. In 1622 a weekly issue of news was begun in London by Nathaniel Butter and Thomas Archer. In 1641 " The Grand Eemonstrance " was published and hawked about the streets by newsboys. It was the first "extra" on record. Later the papers were called " Mercuries." The first daily newspaper, the " Daily Courant," appeared in Queen Anne's time. The most fa- mous paper, however, was the " Spectator," edited by Eichard Steele and Joseph Addison. It was not a newspaper, but a kind of society journal, criticising the follies and vices of the time. The coffeehouses were favorite places of meeting for the exchange of news and gossip. They were the clubs of that time. In 1671 they were closed as "seditious places," but were reopened shortly afterward on the promise of the keepers not to allow their guests to talk too much about the govern- ment. The Literature of Anne's Time is next in importance to that of the Elizabethan Age. Addison was the finest writer of prose, and Alexander Pope the most exact writer of poetry. The authors of the time prided themselves on being very elegant and exact in their speaking and writing. Jonathan Swift wrote " Gulliver's Travels," a tale of a voy- age to the lands of the Giants and of the Lilliputians, holding up to ridicule the politics of the time. De Foe's " Eobinson Crusoe " was printed a few years after the death of Anne. " Gulliver's Travels " and " Eobinson Crusoe " are the be- ginning of the kind of literature called fiction, meaning accounts of things imagined to have happened. Encouragement to Artists was given by Charles II., the first King of England who understood and appreciated pic- tures. Eubens and Yan Dyck, two great Flemish artists, lived for a time at his court. Eubens decorated the king's 282 THE STUART KINGS [1603 palace of Whitehall, and Van Dyck painted portraits of the king and queen and their children, as well as of the nobles and ladies of the court. Great Progress in Science was made during the rule of the Stuart kings. Bacon's methods of observation and ex- periment (p. 201) were vigor- ously followed up. The Koyal Society was incorporated by Charles II. in 1662. Its object was to advance experimental science. The king himself did experiments, and was consid- ered a good chemist. Eobert Boyle improved the air pump, and made the important dis- covery that gases, like the air, expand and contract according to the pressure put upon them. Great achievements were also made in astronomy. Ed- mund Halley first calculated the path of a comet which appeared in 1682. He said the comet would come again in 1759 and 1835; sure enough it did. Isaac Newton, however, is the greatest name of this period. Galileo and Copernicus had said that the planets revolve about the sun. Tycho Brahe and Kepler discovered the laws of motion governing the planets. But Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation, the force that holds the planets in their places and keeps our bodies and other objects on the surface of the earth. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How was England connected with the War of the Spanish Suc- cession? How did the war result in America? How did it affect the balance of power? Sir Isaac Newton. 1714] SCIENCE 283 2. What were the terms of the Act of Union between England and Scotland? How did it benefit both countries? 3. Compare the literature of Anne's time with that of the Elizabethan age. 4. Discuss the career and character of Marlborough. TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Battle of Blenheim. Henty, The Cornet of Horse; Fitch- ett, Fights for the Flag, pp. 16-32. 2. Whigs and Tories. Macaulay, History of England, I., 240; Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, pp. 31-34. 3. Queen Anne's Favorites. Strickland, Queens of England (abridged edition). 4. Scientific Progress. Green, Short History, pp. 610-611. X. THE HOUSE OF HANOVEB. 1 A. Forty Years op Progress. George L, 1714-1727. The New King was in no hurry to leave his German province of Hanover, where he had lived happily for fifty- four years. He was an honest, well-meaning man, but coarse and lacking in intelligence. He could not speak English, and the government of England by a king and a Parliament was a complete mystery to him. He had no choice, therefore, but to intrust the management of affairs to his cabinet, which was made up entirely of Whigs. The Rule of the Cabinet. It had always been the cus- tom of the English kings to choose from the Parliament a select body of men known as the " privy council." In this council there would always be a few men especially trusted, and William III. made a practice of calling these favored iTHE HOUSE OF HANOVER. George I. (1714-1727) (p. 203) George II. (1727-1760) Frederick, Prince of Wales, .George III. (1760-1820) J George IV. William IV. Edward, Duke of Kent Ernest Augustus, (1820-1830) (1830-1837) | Duke of Cumberland, Victoria (1837-1901) and later King of Hanover Edward VII. (1901 — ) I George Frederick I Edward Albert Albert Frederick Henry William George Edward 284 1716] GEORGE I. 285 few, including the chief ministers, into the king's " cabinet/' or private room, to discuss matters that they did not wish to talk about before the whole council. These came to be called the " cabinet council," or the Cabinet. The rule of the Cabinet had been growing more and more independent of the sovereign. It became entirely so in the time of George I., who preferred spending his time in social amusements to at- tending the meetings of his Cabinet. Some one had to be chosen to take the king's place in pre- siding over the Cabinet meetings. To this man the title of premier, or prime minister, was afterwards given. The first man to bear this title was Sir Eobert Walpole, who became the head of the Cabinet in 1721 (p. 288). The Jacobites had allowed the new king to be crowned without making any trouble. But the exclusion of Tories from office, and the belief that the Whigs would repeal the laws against dissenters, made the English High Church party angry. In Scotland the Stuarts could always find sup,- port, and the Earl of Mar raised a strong force in the interest of the " Pretender," James Edward, who caused himself to be proclaimed king. Mar sent 1,500 men into England, while he himself headed about 10,000 against the Whig leader, Argyle, in Scotland (1715). But the 1,500 men, together with some English Jacobites, were compelled to surrender at Preston, in Lancashire; and Argyle attacked and scattered the army of Mar at Sheriffmuir (p. 106). The Highlanders, however, claimed half a victory, as the old ballad runs : " There's some say that we won, and some say that they won, And some say that none won at a', man ; But one thing is sure, that at Sheriffmuir, A battle there was, which I saw, man." The Pretender, unaware of these battles, now landed in Scotland. He had expected to bring a strong French force with him, but his friend Louis XIV. died, and the new French 286 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1716 ruler would give no aid. Stupid, selfish, and slow, James Edward failed to arouse any enthusiasm for his cause, and soon returned to the continent. The Septennial Act. The first Triennial Act, passed by the Long Parliament (p. 222), had been repealed at the Eestoration. In William's reign a second one had been passed, which said that a new House of Commons must be chosen at least every three years. Now, in the disturbed con- dition of the country, it was thought dangerous and incon- venient to have elections so often; so a Septennial Act was now passed, extending the term during which a Parliament may serve, to seven years. This law is still in force. The South Sea Company was founded in Anne's reign by Lord Treasurer Harley. Its members were men to whom the government owed money. Harley induced them to take interest-bearing bonds in payment, and gave them a monopoly of the South American trade. This consisted of the privilege of selling slaves to the Spanish colonies there, and of sending one shipload of goods each year. Spain had given these privileges to England by the treaty of Utrecht. The com- pany made various other plans for extending trade, and pro- posed a scheme to pay up the national debt by inducing the creditors of the government to exchange their claims for stock in the company (1720). It was given out that the govern- ment had invested large sums in the enterprise, and that the profits of the stockholders would be enormous. And so those who had lent money to the government were eager to get the company's stock. Thousands of others who had saved up money invested it in this way. So great was the craze that the price went up from $500 to $5,000 a share. So remarkable was the success in selling the stock of this company that dozens of other similar companies were begun. So many people crowded the offices on Change Alley in Lon- don, buying and selling stock, that some of the business was 1721] GEORGE I. 287 done in the street. As people became more credulous, com- panies were formed even for such objects as making salt water fresh, making a perpetual-motion wheel, and telling fortunes by the stars ; and finally one man sold $10,000 worth of stock in an enterprise so wonderful that he refused to tell it at once. After a time it dawned on the investors that they had been cheated. But when they tried to sell their Change Alley at the Time of the South Sea Bubble. stock, no one would buy it. Every one had stock to sell, but there being no purchasers the stock was worthless. When the story came out that the South Sea Company had bribed the ministers to support its schemes, there was an out- cry against the government for having encouraged the tre- mendous fraud by which thousands of poor people had lost their savings. One of the Cabinet was expelled from Parlia- ment; the cashier of the company fled to Holland; others were arrested and punished. NlVER 1 8. 288 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1721 A New Cabinet was formed (1721) with Walpole as prime minister. He had, from the first, condemned the South Sea scheme and was now the only man that had the popular confidence. The private property of the officers of the company was seized and distributed among those who had been the chief losers. But as for thousands who had in- vested their money in some other enterprises, the only re- turn they ever got was their experience. The Wealth of the Country was shown by the large amounts invested in these companies. The government had not dreamed that the people were so rich. It thus learned a way of raising money in future emergencies — borrowing it of the people. Walpole's Ministry was the first one formed according to the method which is followed to-day. That is, the king gave him power to choose the other members of the Cabinet. They were chosen from the Whig party, as the Whigs then had the majority in the House of Commons. Walpole was an excellent financier and man of business. He said it was always good policy to "let sleeping dogs lie." He gave the country rest from wars for about 'twenty years. He was careful not to stir up opposition among the people. He did not dare repeal the laws excluding dissenters from office, but he evaded them by making good the losses suffered on account of the laws. Political Corruption was commonly practiced in Walpole's time. He got men to vote for his measures in Parliament, and at the elections, by paying them money. He said that " every man has his price." In those times it was hard to find a man who would not sell his vote. He said that all men were naturally bad, and that they would remain so. He had nothing but contempt for reformers and did not believe it possible to bring about a purer and better state of things. At that time, the meetings of Parliament were secret. No 1727] GEORGE II. 289 visitors were allowed, and no newspapers might publish the speeches made, or the way in which any man voted. A mem- ber could, therefore, sell his vote without fear that the people would ever know anything about it. Most of those who had a right to vote for members of the House of Commons were sure to vote for the candidate who gave them plenty to drink and the most money. England now has very strict laws pre- venting such bribery; but they were not made till after many years of corruption. Drunkenness and Immorality were as common as cor- ruption. People of all classes drank to excess, from the vagrant in the street to the First Lord of the Treasury. Duel- ing and gambling were the everyday amusements of the accom- plished gentleman, while many of the lower classes plied the baser professions of the cutthroat, the pickpocket, and the highwayman. The Death of George I. took place in 1727. On the road to Hanover, he was stricken in his carriage with apoplexy and died in a few minutes. George II., 1727-1760. The Second George was in some respects an improvement on his father. He could speak broken English, and could understand the language well enough to take part in public affairs. He had little ability, but had a high regard for justice. He would not knowingly allow any one to be wronged. He was a brave soldier, too; he had fought under Marlborough in the battles in the Netherlands, and in his own reign he commanded an army in another European war. Ideas of Trade and Commerce were very different then from what they are now. No nation would then allow its colonies to trade with other nations, even though the articles bought by the colony were not to be had in the mother coun- try, It was not understood that, when two countries made 290 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1727 an exchange of goods, both might be made richer. When Spain, England, and Holland forbade their colonies to trade with other countries, they did not see that by making their colonies poorer they were making them less able to buy goods of the mother country. England, for example, tried to prevent the New England colonists from trading with the Erench islands in the West Indies, where they exchanged fish for sugar. Part of the sugar was sold at home, while much of it was made into rum and exchanged in Africa for slaves, which found a ready sale for cash in the West Indies and southern colonies. Having the cash they were ready to buy more English goods. In this way England profited by the trade which she was trying to stop. Spain, in like manner, forbade all nations to trade with her colonies in America. England had obtained a small share in this trade by the treaty of Utrecht, but twenty years later Spain and Erance entered into an agreement to cut off England's trade as much as possible in all parts of the world. English Smuggling had been extensively carried on with all the Spanish colonies, with profit to both the colonies and the English merchants. Spain now tried to stop this, and many a tale of the cruelty of Spanish coast guards came to England. Finally one Captain Jenkins came before the House of Commons and exhibited an ear which he claimed had been cut off by Spanish officials in the West Indies and given to him with the words, " Go, take that to your king I" " The War of Jenkins's Ear " was the name given to the short war following this incident. There had been a popular cry for a war with Spain, and this tale roused a storm which Walpole could not resist, though he believed that Jenkins's story was a lie from beginning to end. Walpole knew that the war was unjust, because the English were break- ing a treaty by which they agreed not to send more than one 1742] GEORGE II. 291 ship of 600 tons each year. But, right or wrong, the mer- chants were bound to trade. There was another point in dispute between Spain and England at this time, the Florida boundary. Georgia, the Thirteenth Colony in America., was founded in 1733. James Oglethorpe, a kind army officer, seeing the terrible condition of the debtor class in England, formed a company for settling poor debtors on the land south of the Carolinas. It was the law in England that a man who was in debt, even for only a few shillings, might be thrown into jail, to remain there until the debt was paid. Unless he had friends to help him, he might remain there till he died. Ogle- thorpe obtained permission to take imprisoned debtors over to his colony and give them a chance to begin over again. But the land on which they settled was claimed by Spain as part of Florida. End of Walpole's Ministry. When the announcement was made in London that Walpole had consented to declare war the people went wild with delight, lighting bonfires and ringing bells. " They are ringing their bells now/' said Sir Eobert, "but they will soon be wringing their hands/' A fleet sent against the South American towns succeeded in taking Porto Bello, but was defeated with loss at Cartagena. Later in the war, another fleet inflicted great loss on the Spanish colonies and brought home a large amount of treasure. There was some fighting between Georgia and Florida. Walpole, accused of conducting the war in a half-hearted, inefficient way, was obliged to resign in 1742. The next great prime minister was Henry Pelham (1744-1754), who was aided by his elder brother, the Duke of Newcastle. His policy was to give offices to the members of Parliament who had influence and could make others vote their way. Money was used as freely as in Walpole's time. The two brothers, by buying elections with the state funds, and by judiciously dis- 292 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1743 posing of favors, kept every one in good humor and secured the votes necessary to carry out their measures. The War of the Austrian Succession is interesting for the reason that King George took part in it, and was the last reigning English king who ever commanded an army in a battle. It grew out of the attempt of the powers of Europe to deprive Maria Theresa, the ruler of Austria, of part of her territory. Hanover took the side of Austria, and George led a German army against the French. His army, cut off from its supplies, attempted to pass through the valley of Dettingen, in central Germany, but was met by a French army nearly twice its size (1743). George dismounted from his horse, drew his sword, and putting himself at the right of his men, cried out, " Now boys, for the honor of our country, fire and fight bravely, and the French will soon run." The French did run, and George led his army to safety. The next year, England was dragged into the war, which continued till 1748 ; it was then ended by the Treaty of Aix- la-Chapelle, by which England and France each restored the conquests it had made. In America the war was called King George's War, and the chief event was the cap- ture of the great French fortress Louisburg by the English colonists. The " Young Pretender," Charles, eldest son of James Edward, made an attempt to stir up rebellion in 1745. He came with seven followers to the northern coast, and soon gathered several thousand Highlanders about him. He de- feated an army slightly smaller than his own at Prestonpans so badly that only a few hundred escaped death or capture. He then advanced into England, but could gather few fol- lowers, and was obliged to retire. The next year he was defeated at Culloden by the Duke of Cumberland. The massacre of the prisoners and wounded was an everlasting disgrace to the conqueror. 1746] GEORGE II. 293 Charles wandered a fugitive for months among the hills of Scotland. He was at last assisted to escape by a young lady named Flora Mac- Donald. Her stepfather was an officer in the king's army. From him she obtained a pass for herself and a female serv- ant. Charles, dressed in woman's clothes, was the servant. She took him to the island of Skye, from which he escaped to France. Charles never appeared in Scotland or England again, and the House of Stuart no longer played any part in history. The faithfulness of the Scotch to the Stuarts is worthy of admiration. Though a large reward was offered for Charles's arrest, not one would betray him. His story is to this day Monument on Battlefield of Culloden. remembered and sung in Scotland. One of the songs runs : "Over the water and over the sea, And over the water to Charlie ; Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, And live or die with Charlie." Laxity in Morals. Since the beginning of the Eestora- tion in 1660, people had been growing more and more wicked, and neither the church nor the laws had done much to make them better. The ministers themselves were indolent and careless, spending their time in card playing, fox hunting, and low amusements. Some of them did not even live in the parishes where their churches were. The few people who attended church gossiped or fell asleep while the minister "mumbled" the prayers. 294 HOUSE OF HANOVER [173G The Severe Laws seemed only to make more criminals. More than two hundred offenses were punished by hanging. Stealing above the amount of five shillings, whether food, goods, or money, was punished by death. It was a common sight to find twenty or more bodies dangling in front of Newgate prison on a Monday morning, while the foul and dismal jails were crowded with victims awaiting slower death through fever and starvation. Lesser crimes were punished by the stocks, the pillory, and flogging. The punishment of the criminals was considered an interesting and amusing performance, not only by the rabble, but by fine ladies and gentlemen, who gathered to witness it much as one would go to the circus or the theater. Drunkenness increased, owing to the introduction of cheap gin and rum. The officers of the government were no better than others. Walpole was guilty, not only of bribery and corruption in politics, but also of drunkenness and foul lan- guage in his private life. It was the ambition of even Eng- lish statesmen to drink in public until they rolled off their chairs. The Number of Schools had not increased since the time of Edward VI., and children grew up in ignorance, learning only the vice and depravity of the streets. The churches paid little attention to the children. There was little religious teaching either in the church or in the home. Hannah More tells us that in one parish she found only " one Bible, and that was used as a prop for a flower-pot/ 7 A Great Religious Revival began with some young men who were students in the Oxford colleges. The leaders among them were George Whitefield, and the brothers John and Charles Wesley. Their regular habits of work and wor- ship, and the orderly and careful way in which they lived, soon gave them the name of "Methodist," and this name was kept for the new church which grew out of their preaching. 1744] GEORGE II. 295 In order to reach the people who did not go to church, the Methodists preached in the open air under the oak trees, riding on horseback from place to place. The people came by thousands to hear them. Near Bristol, Whitefield preached to twenty thousand miners, and so powerfully did he speak to them about their sins and evil lives, and the certainty that punishment would come upon them, that the tears flowed, " making white channels down their blackened cheeks." The Methodist preachers visited the foul slums of London, where the people seldom had a chance to hear of anything good. On the wharfs and the street corners, wher- ever listeners could be found, they would preach to the people, urging them to give up their drunkenness and gambling and to lead better, purer lives. Whitefield and the Wesleys did not confine their work to England, but visited the American colonies also. Charles Wesley was noted as a hymn writer, and this new form of worship was sung in words so beautiful and strong that his influence for good was not surpassed by the most eloquent of the preachers. Though it was not the intention of these men to separate from the English Church, their manner of work was so dif- ferent from the old ways, that John Wesley organized a new church. Before his death (1791), it numbered 110,000 members. John Wesley's House. £96 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1780 The Effects of this " Wesleyan " Movement, as it is called, were most important. The English Church was stirred up to new life and energy, and its eyes were opened to the great evils of the times. Towards the close of the century Kobert Kaikes of Gloucester established Sunday schools for the religious education of the children, a movement which has spread through the whole Christian world. Next, day schools appeared and increased until finally, before the middle of the next century, a system of public schools was begun. John Howard, a sheriff of Bedfordshire, began in 1774 to tell people about the evil condition of the prisons under his care. The prisoners were confined in dark and filthy cells and were treated with the greatest cruelty by their keepers, who lived on the money which they could compel them to pay. Sometimes a man who had served his sentence could not go free because he could not pay the jailer for the food which had been furnished him. Howard went through many of the prisons in England, as well as in France and Germany. He had himself put in prison so he could know by actual experi- ence just what the prisoners had to suffer. He wrote a book describing all he had seen, and from that time things began to improve, because' he showed people the terrible conditions which prevailed. An Important Reform in the Calendar was made in 1752. Before that time the year began on the 25th of March, "Lady's Da}r," and was reckoned to be 36514 days in length. This length had been established by Julius Caesar. But it was found that a year is not exactly 36514 days, but about eleven minutes less. In Catholic countries a new style calendar had been adopted, by order of the Pope, which reckoned the year at very nearly its true length. In 1752 English dates were eleven days behind those of the continent, and to set them right the 3d of September was called the 14th, and the new year was made to begin on January 1st. 1744] GEORGE II. 297 QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What was the Privy Council? How did the Cabinet arise? 2. Compare the time of Walpole with the present in regard to political corruption. Why was it allowed then and not now? 3. What determines the length of time that a Parliament may serve? 4. In what way was the accession of the House of Hanover a benefit to the English people? 5. Describe the reforms in religion and morals. What good results followed from them? 6. Why was the commerce of the colonies restricted to Great Britain? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Prince Charlie. Henty, Bonnie Prince Charlie; Scott, Red- gauntlet; Morris, Historic Tales, English, pp. 260-279, 300-319. 2. George Whitefield. Holt, Out in the Forty-five. 3. John Wesley. Kendall, Source Book, pp. 333-335 ; Yonge, Cameos from English History, IV., pp. 1-12. 4. The South Sea Bubble. Wright, Stories of American History. 5. Gibraltar. Church, Stories from English History, III., Ch. XVI. 6. The Cabinet. Moran, English Government, chap. IV-X. B. The Struggle for Empire. A Struggle for Empire was going on all over the world, wherever France and Great Britain had possessions. This struggle really lasted from 1744 till 1763. In order to know what all the trouble was about, we must remember that since the discovery of America by Columbus, five nations of Europe, Portugal, Spain, Holland, England, and France, had sent out ships and colonists into every part of the world to settle and to engage in trade. At first there was room enough for all, but sooner or later jealousy and strife was sure to come. Spain and Portugal were the first to begin a dispute over their respective claims. This was settled by a decision of the Pope, and by a treaty. A line was drawn across the map from north to south, giving to Portugal all new lands from Brazil east to the East Indies, and to Spain all of America except 298 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1579 Brazil. Next Holland, after gaining her independence from Spain about 1579, came into the field and soon became the greatest commercial nation in Europe. She outstripped the Portuguese in the East, seized Sumatra, Java, and other islands of the East Indies, besides parts of the coast of Africa, and came to control the larger part of the East Indian trade. a^sTV ^ India. England and Spain fought long wars over the Western trade ; but the English colonies were located in the north and those of Spain in the south, and did not fight each other very much. The English naval power proved too strong for Hol- land, but these two countries were usually friendly, and the power of the Dutch was too firmly established in the Indies 1748] GEORGE II. 299 to be disturbed. In Africa and India,, however, they were in the end driven out by the English. The wars of France and England, at home and with each other, at first kept these nations from giving much atten- tion to the settlement of new lands. But we have seen how, in the peaceful reign of Elizabeth, English merchants and ex- plorers began to find their way into all parts of the world. France during the time of Louis XIY. had also made great progress in foreign trade and colonization. France and Eng- land were now, in the middle of the eighteenth century, the great rival powers, and the trial of their strength was to be made in India and America. French and English in India. We have seen how the East India Company was founded near the end of Elizabeth's reign (p. 199). It now had trading posts or forts at Surat, Bombay, and Madras, on the eastern and western coasts of India, and at Calcutta, near the mouth of the Ganges. The Dutch, the Portuguese, and the French also held trading posts and were ambitious of power in India. While the first two nations wished only to trade, the French were eager to get control of the country, which as yet was almost entirely under the government of native princes. About the time of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (p. 292), the French governor of Pondicherry, Dupleix, leagued with some of the native princes who were opposed to the English, cap- tured Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, and made his own candidate the nabob, or king, of that province. He drilled the Sepoys, or native soldiers, in the French fashion, and be^ came so powerful that the Mogul emperor at Delhi appointed the Frenchman governor of the whole southwestern coast. It looked as though the French, and not the British, were des- tined to rule India. Robert Clive was a clerk in the offices of the English East India Company at Madras. He was only twenty-one years of 300 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1748 age, but absolutely fearless. He once fought a duel with an officer whom he accused of cheating at cards. His antagonist, unhurt by Clivers bullet, stepped up and, holding a pistol at his head, demanded an apology. " Fire away," said Clive, " I said you cheated, and I still say it." The officer did not fire. Clive soon headed a small band of English against the French headquarters at Pondicherry, but failed to take it. After raising a force of 500 men, natives and English, he attacked Arcot, a city of a hundred thousand people under French control. As he ap- proached the town a terrible thunderstorm came on. The super- stitious natives were afraid to fight during the storm, and the city surrendered with- out striking a blow. Siege of Arcot (1751). The French, however, soon sur- rounded Arcot with an army of ten thou- sand men, and things looked desperate for the two hundred English within the walls. For weeks they held out, until there was little food left. On a great festival day, the natives led by the French made a fierce attack on the walls. Elephants whose heads were covered with iron plates butted against the gates. If they could not take the city on this day, it was certain they would not try again. Clive urged his men to fight. He War Elephant. 1756] GEORGE II. 301 trained a piece of artillery on a raft which was crossing the moat before the town and killed all the men on it. At night the army gave up the siege and fled. They thought the man who could defy thunderstorms and holy days was in league with the devil, or perhaps with God himself. Clive had broken the alliance between the natives and the French, and had saved the English power in the Carnatic. The "Black Hole of Calcutta" (1756). North of the British town of Calcutta, in the city of Murshidabad, lived a cruel and dissolute young prince, Sura j ah Dowlah. He thought that the English had great stores of treasure in their trading station at Calcutta, and led a great army to capture them. After he had bombarded the town for two days, the little company of one hundred and fifty men were forced to surrender. The sura j ah was dissatisfied at finding only fifty thousand rupees, and thought that the English had buried their money in some part of the town. To secure his pris- oners for the night, he drove them at the point of the bayonet into a small dungeon which had but two small windows. In the hot Indian climate of midsummer, it would have been torture for a single prisoner to spend the night in such a place. Eor a hundred and forty-six it meant, for the larger number, death with all the agonies of heat, thirst, and suffo- cation. They struggled to the windows to get the air, and trod to death their companions who had fallen. "As the hours passed," says Macaulay, " the prisoners grew mad with despair ; they trampled upon, and fought one another for the pittance of water which was allowed them ; they raved, prayed, blasphemed, and called upon the guards to fire upon them. At length the tumult died away in low moans and quick gasping for breath. When daylight came and the dungeon was opened, the floor was heaped with the mutilated bodies of the dead. Of the whole number only twenty-three were alive, and those so changed that their own mothers would not 302 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1756 have known them/' The one woman among the prisoners survived. The Battle of Plassey. It was two months before the news of the " Black Hole " came to Madras. Clive, after a visit to England, had now returned to Madras, and to him was given the task of vengeance. He went to Calcutta with three thousand men. The sura j ah had fifty thousand. The battle of Plassey, fought near Murshidabad, the sura jail's capital, in June, 1757, settled the strife. Part of the sura j air's army deserted, and the remainder, 30,000, was totally defeated. The sura j ah was murdered by his own general, whom Clive placed upon the throne of Murshidabacl. English supremacy was thus firmly established in the basin of the Ganges, the richest territory in India. To Eobert Clive, more than any other man, Great Britain owes her Indian empire. French and English in America. French colonies had been established along the St. Lawrence Eiver, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico. They stretched around the English colonies like a great bow of which the string was the Atlantic coast. The vast inland region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi had been entered only by a few bold hunters and traders. Before 1750 it became evident that a struggle must soon come. between the French and the English for the control of this interior region. The Ohio Land Company was formed in 1749, composed of wealthy Virginians, to whom King George had granted a half million acres in the valley of the Ohio. Four years later, some surveyors and soldiers were sent to build a fort there and to survey and mark off the claims of the company. But they were driven off by the French, who completed their fort and named it Fort Duquesne. The Virginians sent Washington with a small force the next year to recapture the fort. He surprised a company 303 304 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1754 of the French in the woods and defeated them, but later was compelled to surrender to superior numbers. General Braddock was sent to America the next spring and again took the road to Fort Duquesne with a force of 1,500 men. A few miles from the fort he was badly defeated by a smaller force of French and Indians. The Seven Years' War began in Europe in 1756, the year following Braddock's defeat. Austria, France, and Eus- sia joined against Frederick the Great of Prussia. George II. made an alliance with Frederick and furnished him money and soldiers. Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, became George's prime minister in 1754. While he could control votes in Par- liament, he could not manage a war. The only way he had of making ap- pointments was to sell them to his friends. At the beginning of the war the French had slipped quietly over and captured the island of Minorca (p. 164). Admiral Byng, whom New- castle had sent to defend it, considered the French too strong for him and with- drew. The people were enraged at the incapacity of Newcastle and at the fail- ures in both Europe and America. To satisfy the popular feeling, Byng was arrested for cowardice and, after trial, was shot on the quarter-deck of his ship. A Frenchman wittily remarked that the " English were accustomed to shoot one admiral to encourage the rest/' Newcastle, fearing that his head might be wanted also, resigned. William Pitt, the greatest Englishman of his time, was now put at the head of affairs. He was one of the young men at whom Robert Walpole had sneered for opposing the buy- ing of votes. He was one man that Walpole could not buy. William Pitt. 1759] GEORGE II. 305 He had become famous in Parliament on account of his power in speaking. His influence was felt throughout the country. " No one ever talked with him," said one man, " who did not feel himself better and braver afterward." Frederick the Great, when he heard of Pitt's appointment, exclaimed, " Eng- land has at last produced a man!" Pitt, however, did not control many votes in the House of Commons. Before long he and Newcastle formed a coali- tion. Pitt was to manage the wars, and Newcastle was to do the bribing and keep the support of Parliament. Pitt had great confidence in Frederick. He sent him 20,000 Eng- lish soldiers and large amounts of money. Frederick was the greatest soldier of the age, and kept the French so busy on his western frontier that they could spare few soldiers for Amer- ica. At Minden, one of the many battles of this war, six English regiments, through some mistake, were ordered to attack ten thousand French cavalry. Though the cavalry charged again and again, they were hurled back defeated, and a victory was won that was entirely unexpected. Said the French commander, ie I have seen what I never thought pos- sible, a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry ranked in order of battle and tumble them to ruin." The French and Indian War in America had been going on at the same time with the wars in India and Europe. In the same year that Sura j ah Dowlah thrust the English prison- ers into the Black Hole of Calcutta, Montcalm, the French commander in Canada, captured Fort Oswego in New York. Two years later (1758), with Pitt in power, the tide turned; the English at last took Fort Duquesne. The year 1759 saw the battle of Minden and the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe. The secret of Pitt's success was his knowing how to choose the right man for the work in hand. When he sent General Wolfe to America, it was not because he wanted to get his NlVER 19. 306 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1759 vote, but because lie knew Wolfe could take Quebec if any one could. The Capture of Quebec decided the war. Wolfe took his army there on a fleet that sailed up the St. Lawrence. But the city stands on a lofty rock and the river is bounded by high, steep cliffs. It was apparently impossible to get an army near enough to the city to begin the battle. Wolfe sailed up and down the river and at last discovered a path begin- ning at the river^s edge and winding upward among the rocks until it reached the Plains of Abraham above. One dark night he placed his soldiers in boats and took them safely down to the place where the path be- gan. A long line of sol- diers began to climb up- ward. All the night they toiled up, and when day broke the French general looked out upon an Eng- lish army before the walls of Quebec. Mont- calm threw open the gates and led his troops against the foe. A desperate battle was fought in which Montcalm and Wolfe were mortally wounded. As the Eng- lish general lay on the ground, he heard some one cry, " They run, they run \" Wolfe Monument at Quebec. 1760] GEORGE II. 307 " Who run ?" said he, lifting his head. " The French/ 5 was the answer. " Then/ 5 said he, " I die happy. 5 ' The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, made this year the most important in the whole history of the British Empire; for it gave her control of India and half of North America, and established her as " Mistress of the Seas. 55 France was compelled to give to England Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi. She agreed also to keep no military force in India, keeping only the right to trade, and lost besides four of her West India islands. George II. Died in the height of England 5 s prosperity (1760), when the news of victories was so constant that Horace Walpole said, " We must ask every morning what new victory has been won, for fear we may miss hearing of one. 55 His eldest son having died before him, the throne descended to his grandson. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What were the causes of the war with France? 2. In what way did these wars grow out of trade? 3. Compare Pitt's rule with that of Newcastle. 4. In what ways did England acquire possessions in India? 5. How do you explain the English victories? How did they affect the position of England as a commercial nation? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Aecot and Plassey. Church, Stories from English History; Henty, With Clive in India. 2. Wolfe at Quebec. Church, Stories from English History, pp. 573-580; Fitchett, Deeds that Won the Empire, pp. 13-26. 3. William Pitt. Mowry, First Steps in the History of England, Ch. XXII. ; Rosebery, Pitt. 4. The Black Hole of Calcutta. Macaulay, Essay on Clive. 5. Robekt Clive. Macaulay, Essay on Clive; Henty, With Clive in India. XL THE HOUSE OE HANOVER (Continued). A. The Loss of the American Colonies. George III., 1 760-1820. The New King had the advantage of not being a for- eigner. " Born and educated in this land," said George in his first speech to Parliament, " I glory in the name of Briton." His tutor, Lord Bute, a Scotchman, had educated him to believe that an English king ought to have far greater power than his grandfather had enjoyed. His mother, too, disliked the party rule that had grown up in England, and would say to him, " George, be king ! " meaning that he should take the direction of affairs himself. Pitt was compelled to resign, because he could not persuade the Cabinet to declare war on Spain in 1761. Newcastle also was soon induced to resign, leaving Bute prime minister. But Bute became so distasteful to the Parliament because he was a Scot, and because he did not believe in the old system of bribery, that he too soon resigned. The King's Plan was to break down the power that the Whigs had had, and to choose his Cabinet from both parties if he saw fit to do so. The Tories had lost their influ- ence because they had favored the Pretender and opposed the House of Hanover ; but now that no Stuart could any longer hope for the throne, they had become as loyal as the Whigs, and were entitled to a share in the government. 308 George III. 1765] GEORGE III. 309 George Grenville became prime minister in 1766. He was the author of the famous Stamp Act, the first at- tempt made by Parliament to raise money by taxing the American colonies. The Growth of the Thirteen Colonies had been steady and rapid. Their population was nearly three millions. They had a flourishing commerce. Tobacco, rice, indigo, and the products of the pine forests, were the exports from the South; iron, fish, rum, lumber, and ships, from the North. Agriculture was profitable. By law they were al- lowed to trade only with Great Britain, but they had a large commerce with Holland and France, carried on through the West Indian possessions of these countries. The governments of the colonies were much alike. In every one there was a body of men elected by the people, called usually the Assembly. This body had the sole power to levy taxes. The governors were elected by the people in two colonies, appointed by the king in eight, and by the proprietor in the three colonies that still had pro- prietors. The colonists had learned to fight during the colonial wars. More than forty thousand of them had become experienced soldiers, and many were ex- cellent leaders. Since the French colonies had been con- quered, they had no longer a dangerous white foe on their borders, and they did not feel the need of England's protec- tion so much as before. The Stamp Act. England had a large public debt. Since William III. founded the Bank of England, the country had British Soldier. 310 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1765 been borrowing money. The last war had been especially expensive, because so much money had been given to Fred- erick. Grenville said that this war had been fought on account of the American colonies, and that they ought to pay for it, or at least ought to support part of the British army. The colonists argued that they had furnished nearly all the soldiers who .fought in America, had paid more than their share of the expense, and did not need the protec- tion of a British army. But Grenville had the Stamp Act passed (1765), which said that all newspapers, and law papers, such as wills, marriage licenses, deeds, and leases, must be written or printed on stamped paper purchased from the British government. The money thus raised was to support British soldiers stationed in the colonies. But the colonists drove away the stamp agents and resisted the tax. They said they sent no members to Parliament and therefore Parliament had no right to tax them. In England the colonists had many friends. For cen- turies the English people had fought kings for the sole right of taxing themselves, and should they now refuse that right to the English in America? Among these friends, William Pitt was the leader. He made an eloquent speech in favor of repealing the Stamp Act. " Taxation and repre- sentation," he said, " go hand in hand." He argued that the country would lose the trade of the Americans, and perhaps the colonies too, if it tried to tax them. Most Englishmen applauded him when he said, i( l rejoice that America has resisted; three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as willingly to submit to be slaves, would be fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." Parliament finally repealed the Stamp Act, and Grenville, having quarreled with the king, resigned. A New Tax was imposed on the colonies in 1767 at the suggestion of Charles Townshend, who had become one 1774] GEORGE III. 311 of the "king's friends," as those men were now called who supported George in his efforts to "be king." This was an import tax on glass, paints, paper, and tea. The colonists had always admitted the right of Parliament to regulate trade in the British Empire by means of such duties on im- ports, but they saw that the object of Townshend's tax was not to regulate trade, but to raise money, and they were already angry over the Stamp Act. They refused, therefore, to buy any British goods till the tax should be repealed. The English merchants then urged Parliament to repeal the tax, and it soon did so, on all the articles except tea. An English company now sent several shiploads of tea to America, but the colonists refused to allow it to be landed, and when there was no other way to keep the tea out of Boston, a party of men went on board the tea ships at night, and threw the tea into the harbor (1773). The Port of Boston was now ordered closed until the people should pay for the tea that they had destroyed. Parlia- ment also took away from Massachusetts some of the rights given to her by her charter, and it sent soldiers to Boston and compelled the people to support them. The English People, it must be remembered, did not want such laws made. The House of Commons at this time did not truly represent the people. There were only one hundred and sixty thousand people, of a. population of eight millions, that had the right to vote. The Tories and the king's friends bought up the elections just as Walpole and the Whigs had done; and if a member got into the House who would not support them they made it very unpleasant for him. The Case of John Wilkes shows the situation. The people of Middlesex had elected him; but, as he had con- demned the policy of the king, the Tories in the House voted that his opponent was elected, although this opponent 312 HOUSE OF HANOVER [17G4 had received only a few votes. This led to riots all over England, The people of London declared that the House of Commons no longer represented the people. Many large towns, like Manchester and Birmingham, had no representa- tives at all, while many small towns, called "rotten boroughs," had two each. When Englishmen told the Americans that they were as well represented in Parliament as many cities in England, James Otis replied, " Don't talk to me about those towns ! If they are not represented, they ought to be." And the Whigs in England applauded. The Arguments on Both Sides were something like this. The king and the Tories held that the colonies belonged to the crown, which had rightfully seized heathen lands and given them to certain individuals and com- panies, with the understanding that they could do nothing contrary to the king's will. The king had the right to make any laws he chose for them. " The only use of colo- nies," said one Englishman, " is to buy our goods and to furnish freight for our ships." The colonies had no rights except those that the king chose to give them. The colonists claimed that America was an expansion of the mother country, and had the same rights; that it was the right of English people to be taxed only by their own representatives. In England, the king had at last got the government entirely into his own hands. Lord North, who became prime minister in 1770, did exactly as the king wished. From this time until the close of the War of the Eevolution, George was really King of England. Beginning of the American Revolution. Preparations for war went on rapidly in the colonies after the port of A MlNUTEMAN. 1.780] GEORGE III. 313 Boston was closed. Companies of " minutemen " were drilled in every town, and stores of ammunition were col- lected. In April, 1775, the British general in Boston sent some soldiers to destroy the military stores at Concord; on their way they fired upon some minutemen at Lexington ; and at Concord and on their way back they were attacked so fierce- ly that they were saved from destruction only by prompt rc- enforcements. The British were now besieged in Boston and in June was fought the battle of Bunker Hill, in which part of the besieging force twice repulsed a British attack, but was finally driven back. The siege continued and the next year the British were compelled to leave the city. Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile a congress of delegates from all the colonies had met in Philadelphia (May, 1775), voted money for war, and elected George Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army. In July, 1776, all the colonies having voted in favor of separation from the British Empire, Congress adopted a formal Declaration of Independence. War in the Middle States began in 177G. The British, under Howe, seized New York in the summer, afte,r defeating Washington in the battle of Brooklyn ; and drove the Ameri- can army beyond the Delaware. The next year it was planned that the British general Burgoyne should come down from Canada, and that Howe should ascend the Hudson to meet him. This river was to be held, and the New England colo- nies thus cut off from the rest. But Howe decided first to capture Philadelphia; and Burgoyne, when he reached Sara- toga, was surrounded and forced to surrender. The War in the South was the last stage of the Eevolu- tion. The British, defeated in New England and in New York, now aimed to regain the Southern colonies, where the Tory party was strong. At first they were successful, and for a time there were again royal governors of Georgia and 314 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1780 South Carolina. In 1780, however, a strong force of British and Tories was destroyed in the battle of Kings Mountain; and after many more fierce fights the British were driven ont again. France Aids the United States. Meanwhile, France had been carefully watching the struggle of the Americans. The Surrender op Cornwallis. When she received the news of Burgoyne's surrender, she decided that the time had come to get revenge for her loss of Canada. In 1778 she made a treaty of alliance with the colonies, and sent fleets, armies, and money to help them. The next year Spain also declared war against England, hoping to get back Gibraltar and Florida, which England had acquired in 1763* War also broke out in India, at Haidarabad and Mysore (map, p. 298) ; in western Africa, and in the West Indies. Thus not only was the alliance 1783] GEORGE III. 315 of France with America directly helpful to the Americans, but England, being obliged to fight everywhere at once, could not send so many men to America as she otherwise might. More than 300,000 British soldiers were on duty in various parts of the world ; but when Washington forced the surrender of the British army under Cornwallis, at Yorktown (1781), though it numbered only 7,000, England could not replace the loss. When Lord North received the news, he threw up his hands and cried, " It is all over," and gave up his office. George III. announced to the House of Lords in December, 1782, that he acknowledged the independence of the United States. Edmund Burke and William Pitt had urged Lord North and the king to repeal the laws against Massachusetts. But Pitt died in the House of Commons in 1778, and Burke made his great " Conciliation Speech " in vain. " It is in- tolerable," said Fox, another distinguished member of Par- liament, referring to Lord North, "that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief." But the mischief was done. The Treaty of Versailles, made in 1783, acknowledged the independence of the United States. Spain got back Florida and Minorca; France the most of her settlements in India, Africa, and the West Indies. England thus lost more than she had gained under the splendid rule of William Pitt, which had resulted in triumph at Quebec and Plassey. George had realized his desire to "be king," but had lost a large part of his dominions. Religious Riots broke out in England near the close of the American war. In the time of William III., when there was fear of a Stuart invasion, many unjust laws were made against Catholics. The celebration of Catholic worship was condemned as high treason. Catholics were not allowed to inherit or to acquire property. These laws were repealed 316 HOUSE OE HANOVER [1780 in England in 1778, but Protestant societies were formed to secure their reenactment. A half -crazy religious fanatic, named George Gordon, led 50,000 men to petition Parliament to restore the laws, but the petitioners soon became a lawless mob. They began to burn Catholic chapels; then they burned other chapels; finally they burned and plundered whatever they pleased. Prisons were broken open, and the prisoners released. Every man who wanted to be safe had to wear the blue Protestant ribbon and chalk " No Popery " on his door. The government foolishly allowed the mob to go on unchecked for eight days. Lord Amherst was then ordered to attack the rioters. A few volleys of musketry and a bayonet charge soon cleared the streets, but five hundred of the mob were killed or wounded. In India, the East India Company partly made good the losses that England suffered in America. In 1772 Warren Hastings was made governor of Bengal, and two years later the first governor-general of British India. He established the rule of the company in Bengal, defeated the Mahrattas, or native Hindus, and conquered the able Mohammedan leader, Hyder Ali, in the Carnatic. To raise money for these wars, Hastings plundered some native princes and committed other acts for which he was impeached and tried before the House of Lords. Some of the greatest English statesmen and lawyers of the time, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, made speeches against him. But the good work he had done towards securing India for Eng- land was an excuse for all his faults, and he was acquitted. A Bill for the Government of India was made a law in 1784. A trading company had accidentally come into pos- session of a part of India, and was ruling over many millions of people. The appointment of the governor-general was now transferred to the Cabinet, but the details of the government were left to the company, subject to the will of a board of 1784] GEORGE III. 317 control composed of the king's ministers. The company was to keep all the rights and privileges of trade. In this way India continued to be governed for many years. When England Lost the Thirteen Colonies, many statesmen thought that she would never be so great a, nation as before; but the separation proved to be an advantage to both countries. England's foolish laws for restricting the trade and manufactures of the colonies were wiped away by their independence. But now that the colonies were free, they began to buy more English goods than ever, because they had more money with which to buy them ; and England found to her great surprise that she made more money out of the new republic than she had made out of the old colonies. Adam Smith, a Scotchman, published in 1776 a book called " The Wealth of Nations." This book had a great influence in reforming English notions about commerce, both with her colonies and with foreign countries. English people had always thought that the more golcL and silver they could keep in the country, the richer they were. But Smith proved that the wealth of a country does not depend so much on money as upon the number of sheep and the bushels of grain produced, and upon the number of useful things manufac- tured. People had always thought that it was a loss for the na- tion to buy goods in France, that the French could make more cheaply than the English. The English government would not allow the Irish to sell linen and woolen goods in England, because the Irish sold them cheaper than the English people could make them. Adam Smith said that the country should make the things that it could make most cheaply; that it should buy linen in Ireland, and silk in France, if these goods were cheaper there than in England. If England could make iron and steel, cotton and woolen goods, at less expense than other countries, she should make 318 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1783 these things. This, he said, would make every country richer. William Pitt the Younger, who became the king's chief minister in 1783, thought there was much truth in what Smith said. He believed that a nation that keeps its cus- tomers poor, as England had done, can not sell them so many goods. He made a new treaty with France, lowering the rates of duty so that there could be trade between the two countries. The duty on French goods had been so high that English merchants could not buy them. This had led to a vast amount of smuggling, which was very hard to stop. When the duty was made low, the smuggling stopped and the government began to get an income, because merchants could now buy the goods and afford to pay the duty. A similar arrangement was made with the other countries of Europe, and with the West Indies. An attempt was made also to take off all the duties on Irish goods, but the English merchants and manufacturers made such a strong opposi- tion that it could not be done. The Irish Parliament had agreed to the plan of free trade between the two countries; but when the British Parliament proposed a half-way measure, the Irish rejected it. Two Great Evils now needed to be cured. The old sys- tem of bribery, by which the king and a few political leaders kept control of the government, ought to be done away with; and more people ought to have the right to vote. As it was, a few people chose the House of Commons. Since it was easier to buy a few men than to buy many, the Cabinet did not wish a change. At one time in Great Britain, thirty- two men had the power to choose seventy-two members. In the Irish Parliament, also, twenty-five men controlled one hundred and sixteen seats, and the British ministers one hundred and eighty-six. In such a state of affairs the people had little power. They 1807] GEORGE III. 319 were beginning now to demand a change. Pitt proposed to take away the representatives from the " rotten boroughs " in Great Britain and give them to the larger towns; but the Parliament would not listen to such a proposal and it was not done until 1832. Prohibition of the Slave Trade. The evils of the slave trade also began to receive attention. The Quakers had pe- titioned against it in 1783. A young man named Thomas Clarkson had written a book describing the horrible treatment that the slaves received. It is estimated that as many as 50,000 were seized in Africa every year, and carried off to be sold in America. They were crowded into ships, chained and packed away on shelves like merchandise. A bill to prohibit the slave trade was passed by the Commons three times, but each time the House of Lords refused to pass it. Finally in 1807 the slave trade was prohibited. Success was largely due to William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament who devoted his whole life to the cause of the slave. The law did not abolish slavery; it only said that the buying of slaves in Africa must stop. These Measures of Reform began with the people, whom Pitt represented. The merchant and trading classes were be- coming rich and powerful in England. The press had be- come a very great power. The doings of Parliament were now printed in the newspapers, and people were free to speak their minds. Wilkes (p. 311) and an unknown author who signed the name u Junius " to his letters, had written harsh criticisms on King George and his "friends." An effort to punish Wilkes failed; the people were determined to sustain the freedom of the press. They wanted to know what their government was doing. The Parliament, knowing that the people were keeping close watch of them, were more careful to do what was desired, and in most cases the voice of the people was right. 320 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1760 Farming, Manufacturing, and Transportation were wonderfully improved during the first half of the reign of George III. It was not her colonies that made England the greatest industrial country in the world, but the genius of the people who knew how to make use of the products of these colonies. During this period, the people also improved their methods of farming and of stock raising. A country can not have a large population unless enough food can be pro- cured to feed them. A large part of the land at the end of the eighteenth century consisted of waste moorlands and swamps, affording only a scanty pasturage. People began to cut ditches through the wet land and drain it, so that it could be plowed, planted, and cultivated. A Yorkshire miner, named James Croft, set a good example to farmers by fencing eight acres of moorland, thought to be worthless. But Croft dug out the stones and filled up the holes with soil ; he brought marl and fertilized it, and found that it was excellent land. A farmer named Eobert Bakewell learned how to breed cattle and sheep so that he could get twice as much beef or mutton from a single animal as before. By keeping only the largest and finest animals, he soon had better flocks and herds than any of his neighbors. His methods were imitated until England came to produce some of the finest breeds of cattle and sheep in the world. But means of transportation, good roads and canals, are necessary if the farmers and others are to find a market for their products. When the United States became independent in 1776, it had better means of getting from place to place than England had. There was no better way to carry goods on land, than in carts and on the backs of horses; and the roads were so bad that even this could be done easily only at certain times. Canal Building in England came about in this way. The 1767] GEORGE III. 321 young Duke of Bridgewater had valuable coal beds on his estate, situated nine miles from the large city of Manchester. If he could get the coal to the city it would find a ready market; but the expense of taking it there in carts over the bad roads was more than the coal was worth. The duke had in his employ a millwright, James Brindley, who thought a canal could be made. The canal would have to go through tunnels, across valleys, and over rivers. Such an undertaking had never been dreamed of. The most famous engineers in England only laughed at Brindley. But he went to work and built the canal. People came from far and near to see the work. They said that Brindley " handled rocks as easily as a boy would' a plum pie at Christmas." It was finished and was a success. Once started, canal building went on, until the chief rivers and cities were connected by three thousand miles of nav- igable canals. The great coal and iron deposits could now be brought together. Iron working had stopped when the wood in the neighborhood of the mines was exhausted. But soon it was found that hard coal could be used, as well as char- coal, for smelting iron ore. ISTow that the canals made it possible to transport the heavy coal and iron, England be- came the greatest iron-manufacturing country in the world. Three Great Inventions connected with cloth making were the beginning of the great factories for which England has long been noted. James Hargreaves was a weaver living near Blackburn. His daughters were the " spinsters " who supplied the woof for his loom. In the old-fashioned wheel then in use only one thread could be spun at a time. A large wheel was turned with the hand, and the thread was spun on a horizontal spindle. One day a wheel in motion was accidentally upset so that the spindle stood perpendicu- larly. Hargreaves noticed that the wheel continued to spin. He then constructed a wheel which he called a " spinning NlVER 20. 322 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1767 jenny/' in which the spindles were vertical and which would spin eight threads at once, thus doing as much work as eight persons could do in the old way. For a time he kept it secret, but at last his jealous fellow-weavers, hearing of his invention, broke into his house and destroyed it. But they could not destroy his idea. He built another and took out a patent; and in a short time every weaver in the county had a " spinning jenny." A similar story could be told of the barber, Eichard Ark- wright, who invented an improved spinning machine in 1769 ; and of Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the "spinning mule." Crompton and his wife worked in secret and had a dark loft to conceal the " mule " in case of trouble. When his neighbors saw that his yarn commanded a higher price than theirs, they wanted to get into his house and learn his secret. When he could keep it no longer, he gave his inven- tion to the public. The manufacturers, to whom he gave it, agreed to pay him for it, but he never received more than $500 for a machine worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Edmund Cartwright's invention of the power loom, near the close of the century, completed the machinery for cloth mak- ing. In 1807 Parliament gave him £10,000 for his inven- tion. There were then 2,000 looms in Great Britain. In 1833 there were 100,000. Twenty years later there were 350,000. These figures show the progress of cloth making. James Watt made the greatest invention of all, for it fur- nished the power to move all the machines we have mentioned. In 1763 he was an instrument maker in the College of Glas- gow. A toy called an " atmospheric engine " was given him to repair, and out of it Watt made the steam engine. The toy that Watt took to repair consisted of a cylinder in which the piston was forced upward by steam. Then a jet of water was turned on, condensing the steam, and the pressure of the atmosphere forced the piston down. But the cold 1785] GEORGE III. 323 water not only condensed the steam, but cooled the cylinder, so that the steam entering the cylinder the second time was partly condensed and wasted. Watt made a cylinder in which the steam was made to enter first above and then be- low the piston, the pipes being opened and closed at the proper moment by an automatic sliding valve. The used steam was pumped out into a tank of cold water to be condensed. He covered the cylinder with felt to keep it hot, and thus pre- vented loss. He inven- ted the governor, a mech- anism for keeping the speed of an engine uni- form. The North of Eng- land was turned, from a rude and barren country, into a very hive of indus- try by the steam engine. Before this, the south had been the place where new ideas sprang up. The north had been the source of rebellion and ignorance. It had been frequently turned into a desert to subdue the restless inhabit- ants. Now, the great coal and iron mines have made it the chief manufacturing part of Britain, and Newcastle, Man- chester, Liverpool, and Sheffield are great and flourishing Watt Discovering the Power of Steam. 324 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1789 cities. .All of this was made possible by the invention of James Watt, who began to study steam when as a boy he watched the vibration of the cover on his mother's teakettle as it simmered and sang on the kitchen hearth. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How did the personal rule of George III. bring on the American Revolution? 2. In what ways did the French alliance help the Americans? 3. How can you explain the " Gordon Riots "? 4. Was the loss of the American colonies an advantage or a loss to England? Explain your answer. 5. What were Adam Smith's ideas about trade? How far were they true? 6. How do the industries of a country depend upon easy transporta- tion? 7. Show the importance of Watt's invention. 8. How did the inventions of this period affect the English people? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Hyder All Bright, History of England, Vol. III. (see index) ; Sarkar, History of India. 2. Warren Hastings. Macaulay, Essay on Hastings; Hume, His- tory of England (Student's Series), pp. 636-642. 3. Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and Cartwright. Smiles, Self-Help. 4. Brindley and Watt. Smiles, Lives of the Engineers. B. From the French Eevolution to the Peace of Amiens, 1789-1802. The French Revolution marks the -uprising of the people against kings. In the days of William the Conqueror, the nobles shared the powers of government with the king. Then the nobles were gradually put down and kings arose, like Louis XIV. and Henry VIII., who had absolute power. Against this power of the king, the people of England rose in 1641-1649, when they put King Charles to death and es- tablished the Commonwealth. Again in 1688 they drove 1795] GEORGE III. 325 James II. out of the country, and established William and Mary on the throne. In 1776, the Americans revolted against George III., who attempted to get back the power that other kings had given up. And now, in 1789, comes a great revo- lution of the French people against their king Louis XVI. This event is important in the study of English history, because it had a great influence on England. The French people had long been taxed heavily and un- fairly, while the French nobles and clergy were untaxed. The people had no share in the government, and were despised by the king and nobles. But French soldiers returning from the American war, filled with the spirit of liberty, helped to rouse them to assert their rights. The government, on account of its lack of money, was forced to call together the States General, including the nobles, the clergy, and representatives of the people; they had not met for more than 200 years before this. The representatives soon took matters into their own hands, put to death the king and his young queen Marie Antoinette, massacred or drove out of the country all those who favored the old form of government, and established a republic. The rule of the republican leaders was marked by a " reign of terror," during which many thousands of people were arrested and put to death. Finally the people rose against these leaders, and a new government of five men, called the " Directory," was set up in 1795. This proved displeasing to the Paris mob, who wanted to return to the old days of "terror," and 40,000 of them advanced to attack the conven- tion that was forming the new government. The task of defending it was entrusted to a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon planted cannon at the cor- ners of the streets leading to the hall where the convention was sitting, and when the mob approached mowed them down with grapeshot. The new government was established. The English People had at first looked upon the revo- 1797] GEORGE III. 327 lution with favor. They thought that the French would establish an orderly parliamentary government like their own. But the French had been for centuries without any share in the government, and they knew only how to destroy, not how to build up. The French republicans not only wanted a free government for themselves, but gave notice that they would establish republics throughout Europe. They began war on the neighboring nations. They boasted that they would send 50,000 men to England to help the republicans there to put down the king. They declared war against Eng- land in 1793, and seized the Austrian Netherlands (formerly Spanish), after defeating an English army there. This broke a treaty which had been made by France and was a reason why England should declare war. Another very important reason was that the spread of French rule interfered with English commerce. The English Plans of War provided for the command of the sea and the defense of the coast against invasion. Napoleon had become commander in chief of the French armies. He defeated the Austrians, drove them out of Italy, and forced them to make a treaty of peace. Prussia also was frightened into making peace. Spain and Holland had joined France, for they saw in the strength of the new French republic an ally against their great rival, England. England therefore stood forth alone against France and her allies. The Battle of St. Vincent prevented the invasion of Eng- land. A Spanish fleet was coming out of the Mediterranean to join the French and Dutch vessels for an attack on the English coast. As it was rounding the southern point of Portugal, it was met by Sir John Jarvis and Commodore Nelson with fifteen vessels. Nine Spanish ships were cut off from the main body. The rest were attacked, and four of them were captured. When Nelson boarded one of them, the 328 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1797 Spanish officers crowded about, and gave up so many swords to him that he had to give them to one of his men to hold, who went away with an armful. Two Serious Mutinies broke out in the English navy at this time (1797). The first began at Spithead near Ports- mouth. The sailors had just cause for complaint. The ra- tions furnished them were very bad, and sometimes they could not get even bad food, because the officers appointed to provision the ships would man- age to keep part of the money. The rate of wages was not enough to support them. Be- sides this, the discipline was brutal; men were flogged for trifling causes and hung up by the heels for serious offenses. The sailors now refused to work until they should receive better food, better wages, and better treat- ment. Lord Howe, a great favorite with the sailors, went among them and told them that their grievances should be remedied. When the sailors were convinced that the Admiralty meant to do what Lord Howe promised, they returned to their duty and there was no more trouble. The Second Mutiny was at the Nore, in the mouth of the Thames. Under the lead of a disorderly man named Parker, the sailors not only demanded all that had been granted to the sailors at Spithead, but wanted to choose their own com- manders and run the ships to suit themselves. The fleet of Admiral Duncan, who was watching the Dutch fleet at the Texel, also mutinied. The Dutch fleet was planning to at- tack the English coast, and it was a time of great danger. All Duncan's ships but one sailed away and joined the mu- tineers; but he managed to make the Dutch think his fleet was still near by running up signals from time to time, pre- 'An English Sailor. 1798] GEORGE III. 329 tending to keep up communication with it. Finally Parker was caught and hanged. The other sailors were treated fairly; their just demands were granted, and only a few of them were punished. The Battle of Camper down was fought as soon as Duncan got his ships together again. Camperdown is on the Dutch coast. The English admiral ran his ships between the Dutch fleet and the shore, to prevent their escape. He then at- tacked them and came off with twelve prizes. There was no more fear of a Dutch invasion. The French fleet was soon to meet the same fate. Napoleon Bonaparte, after winning a great reputation by victories over the Austrians, now formed the plan of attack- ing England through her Indian colonies. In 1798 he took The Battle of the Nile. a large army and fleet to Egypt and made himself master of the country. Egypt commanded the Eed Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. Having possession of it, France could send 330 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1798 ships down the Eed Sea and across the Indian Ocean to India in far less time than England could send ships around the Cape of Good Hope. Bonaparte's fleet had seized the island of Malta on its way to Egypt, and was now at Aboukir Bay, near one of the mouths of the Nile. Nelson had been watching for it, sailing up and down the Mediterranean. At length he sighted it off the Egyptian coast. The Battle of the Nile was a repetition of Admiral Dun- can's stratagem at the Texel. Nelson boldly sailed with half of his fleet between the French ships and the shore. By this means he prevented their escape. He attacked in the evening, and all night the battle raged. When morning came eleven French ships had been taken or destroyed. Only two came off safe. Napoleon himself soon returned to France, and two years later, in 1801, the French army was defeated by the English at the battle of Alexandria, and compelled to leave the country. Thus Napoleon's grand scheme for strik- ing a blow at India by way of Egypt came to nothing. In India, also, during this time, the English had been suc- cessful. Tippoo Sahib, Hyder Ali's son and successor, rely- ing upon French aid, had begun an attack on the English in the Carnatic. But General Harris pursued him to his cap- ital, which he took by assault. Tippoo was killed, and part of the kingdom of Mysore, with an immense amount of silver, gold, and jewels, fell into the hands of the English. From this time on the English power in India increased rapidly. It was only a few years before Arthur Wellesley defeated the Mahrattas in the bloody battle of Assaye (1803), and brought all the Mahratta Country under British control. Napoleon's Return to Paris (November, 1799) found the Directory in confusion. He caused a new government to be formed, consisting of three men called "consuls." Napoleon became the First Consul. He soon conceived the idea of con- 1801] GEORGE III. 331 quering all Europe. He at once crossed the Alps with 40,000 men and defeated the Austrians in the battle of Marengo. The Emperor Francis I. was compelled to make a peace which extended the boundary of France to the Ehine, and made changes in Italy and the Netherlands. The Battle of the Baltic (1801) . During the Eevolution- ary War in America, England claimed the right to stop the vessels of neutral nations on the high seas and search them, to see whether they were carrying any war supplies for Amer- ica. The neutral nations Holland, Eussia, Sweden, and Den- mark joined in a league, called the Armed Neutrality, to resist this search. As England continued to search vessels, Eussia, Sweden, and Denmark, in 1801, refused to allow any English vessels or property to enter or leave their ports. England upon this began war. Sir Hyde Parker and Nelson were sent with a fleet to destroy the ships of the league. , The Danish fleet was assembled at Copenhagen. The ap- proach to the harbor, at the entrance of which the fleet was drawn up, was defended by six hundred guns. The channels leading up to the harbor were narrow and dangerous. Nelson chose the more dangerous one, because it was less strongly defended. Three of the twelve British ships that made the attack went aground, but with the nine remaining ones he sailed close up to the Danish line. Of all his battles Nelson said this was the fiercest. So doubtful was the contest that Admiral Parker hoisted the signal to discontinue action; but Nelson's signal for "close action" was flying. When an officer called his attention to the admiral's signal, he put his telescope to his blind eye and said, " I really can not see the signal." "Leave off action!" he muttered, "FU be hanged if I do!" and turning to the officer, he said, "Foley, mind you keep my signal up !" After four hours, the Danish fire slackened. Half their ships were wrecked; their flagship was on fire and soon blew 332 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1801 up. Nelson sent a messenger on shore, offering a trace, which the Danes were glad to accept. Yon may imagine the joy with which England received the news of this victory. The poet Thomas Campbell has written a stirring ballad abont it. Of Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious clay's renown, When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark's crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone. By each gun the lighted brand In a bold, determined hand, And the Prince of all the land Led them on. Like leviathans afloat Lay their bulwarks on the brine, While the sign of battle flew On the lofty British line : It was ten of April morn by the chime : As they drifted on their path, There was silence deep as death, And the boldest held his breath For a time. * * * Again ! again ! again ! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back ; Their shots along the deep slowly boom, Then cease — and all is wail, As they strike the shattered sail ; Or in conflagration pale Light the gloom. The battle of the Baltic settled the war against the Armed Neutrality. The Swedish fleet declined to fight and sailed away, while Nelson went on to attack the Eussians. But the accession of a new czar, Alexander L, changed the policy of Eussia. He was an enemy of Napoleon, and made peace with England. It was agreed that the right of search should continue, with some restrictions. 1802] GEORGE III. 333 The Treaty of Amiens (1802) put an end to the wars with Napoleon for a time. It had been pretty clearly set- tled, even to the satisfaction of that determined general, that England was supreme on the ocean. He might go on win- ning victories on the continent of Europe, but he never afterwards seriously threatened England by sea. The peace only meant that the two countries were willing to stop fight- ing for a time. As Napoleon was still aiming to rule over all Europe, and as England, in defending her commerce and try- ing to preserve the balance of power, would not admit his right to seize other countries and acid them to France, it was plain that war must soon be resumed. Affairs in Ireland. The Irish Parliament was controlled by Protestants who made laws against the Catholics, for- bidding them to vote, hold office, or keep arms. The Cath- olics had to pay tithes to the English Church. The land on which they lived belonged either to the English Church or to landlords who collected their rents by means of agents who treated the Irish peasants with the greatest cruelty. Irish rebellion broke out soon after the beginning of the French Revolution. Men's minds everywhere were stirred in behalf of liberty. The Irish made an attempt, with the help of the French, to get entire independence of England, and they came very near succeeding. Wolfe Tone, a young lawyer, succeeded in uniting the Irish Catholics and the Irish republicans into one great society, which was called the "United Irishmen." He then ar- ranged with the French Directory to send a strong army to set up a republic in Ireland. A French expedition of thirty- eight ships sailed for Bantry Bay at the end of 1796, but General Hoche, who was to lead it, was delayed, and a hurri- cane compelled the ships to return to Brest. The United Irishmen, however, soon formed a new plot. On May 23, 1798, the branches of this society throughout the 334 HOUSE OF HANOVER [179S country were to fall upon the English and sweep them from the island. Then, in union with a French army, they would be able to bid defiance to England. It was a reasonable scheme; but there were traitors among them who sold infor- mation to the British government. Some of the leaders were arrested, and an English army began to disarm the conspira- tors. In Ulster alone it took from them 50,000 muskets, 70,- 000 pikes, and 72 cannon. Still, on the appointed day, the Irish societies rose in various parts of the country and com- mitted many acts of cruelty, burning, plundering, and mur- dering. The only fights worthy the name of battles were at Arklow and Vinegar Hill (map, p. 232). But the vengeance taken by the English army, the " bloody Orange dogs " as the Irish called them, was frightful. Hundreds were lined up and shot. Fitzgerald, the Irish leader, made a desperate attempt to escape arrest. He killed two men with his dagger before he was shot. Wolfe Tone was condemned to death, but com- mitted suicide in prison. Union With Ireland. Order was again established, but Pitt believed that there was no cure for the troubles in Ire- land except to unite the two Parliaments. In 1800, the Act of Union passed both Parliaments. Ireland was to send thirty-two peers and one hundred commoners to the British Parliament, and to pay two seventeenths of the taxes. Pitt also urged the making of a law to give the Catholics liberty of worship, and the same rights to hold office that the Protestants had ; but the stubborn king declared that any one supporting such a bill would become his personal enemy. Pitt therefore resigned, and his friend, Henry Addington, be- came premier. Addington's plan was to keep peace with France at any sacrifice. When Bonaparte's continued ag- gression again made war unavoidable, he resigned. Pitt was recalled and remained in office until his death, which took place in 1806. 1803] GEORGE III. 335 QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How did the English people regard the French Revolution? Why? 2. What war in England may be compared with the French Revolu- tion? Why? 3. How far was England's claim to the right of search just? 4. Do you favor Pitt's plans in regard to Ireland or those of the king? Why? 5. What were the reasons for the wars between England and France? 6. Show the importance at this time of the geographical situation of England. TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Napoleon in Egypt. Hume (Student's Series), pp. 652-655. 2. Battle of the Baltic. Campbell, Poem, Battle of the Baltic; Russell, Nelson, Chap. XIV. 3. How Nelson lost his Aem. Creighton, Stories of English History. 4. Battle of the Nile. Fitchett, Deeds that won the Empire, pp. 99-112 ; Brooks, Heroic Happenings, pp. 72-83 ; Hemans, Casa- bianca. C. The Defeat of Napoleon. Napoleon and England. The Peace of Amiens gave Napoleon time to think over the strength of England. She had given him some hard blows in Egypt, in the Baltic, and in India. But his victories over the Austrians, and his knowledge that the other countries hated England on account of her colonies and trade, soon led him to provoke a new war. He felt that if he could conquer England he could conquer the world. And " eight millions of people/' he said, " must yield to forty millions/' England, for her part, knew that Napoleon was determined to destroy her colonial empire and to ruin her commerce; and she was ready to fight in their defense. On beginning the war in 1803, Napoleon seized and threw into prison about 10,000 English travelers in France, though he had not warned them to leave the country as is customary when two countries begin war. He soon stirred up another 336 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1805 rebellion in Ireland under Ko-bert Emmet. But Emmet was seized and hanged, and the rising was quickly put down. An Attempted Invasion of England. All the fighting men in England were called out and drilled, to repel an inva- sion for which Napoleon was making great preparations, and Nelson, Colling- wood, Calder, and Cornwallis were sta- tioned with strong fleets off the French coast, to keep watch so that no French ships could cross the Channel. Finally Napoleon thought he had hit upon the right plan. There was a Spanish fleet at Cadiz, and French fleets at Toulon, Brest, and Boulogne. His admiral, Villeneuve, was to sail from Toulon, pick up the Cadiz fleet on the way, and then steer for the West Indies, pretending to attack the English possessions there. This would draw Nelson in pursuit and weaken the blockade at Brest and especially at Boulogne, where Napo- leon's army was mustered. When Nelson was far enough away Villeneuve was to sail back suddenly and take in the French fleet at Brest. This would make him strong enough to brush away the English ships at Boulogne, and to take the French army safely to Ireland and England. Villeneuve succeeded in the first part of the plan, and Nelson followed him to the West Indies. But when he re- turned to France and approached Brest, he was met by an English fleet and took refuge in the safe harbor of Cadiz. Napoleon was at Boulogne, anxiously scanning the horizon seaward to catch a glimpse of Villeneuve. The appointed day came, but no fleet. Napoleon, who was now Emperor of Napoleon. 1805] GEORGE III. 337 the French, wrote to his admiral: "England is ours. Let us avenge six centuries of shame. We are ready. All is em- barked. Come within twenty-four hours and all is finished." Medals were already struck in honor of the expected victory. The future government of England was all planned. But Villeneuve did not come. Ten days the impatient general waited, and then, with curses on the cowardly and inefficient admiral, he broke up his camps and headed his armies toward Battle of Trafalgar ; Death op Nelson. Germany. Before the year was out, he had won the battle of Austerlitz and had again humbled Austria to the dust. The Battle of Trafalgar. Villeneuve, under Napoleon's orders, sailed out of Cadiz with forty ships. Nelson arranged his twenty-seven ships in two columns, which struck the French battle line at right angles, cutting it into three parts. It was a terribly dangerous plan for the vessels leading, but made victory more certain, since fresh ships were all the time coming up. Before the battle, Nelson put up his fa- 338 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1805 mous signal at the mast-head of his flagship, the "Victory": u England experts every man will do ]iis duty." English sailors never did it belter. Out of (he whole fleet of the enemy, only eight ships escaped, and these were afterward burned in the harbor el' Cadiz. But Nelson, who had fought more than a hundred bailies, was shot by a rifleman from the rigging of a French ship, and died in Ihe moment of victory. Na- poleon ;ind Nelson are the greatest names of this period, the one unconquered on Ihe Land, the other unconquered on the ocean. But Napoleon rough! to make other nations his slaves; Nelson fought to protect his own nation against invasion. " Whorovor brave deeds are treasured and told, In the talcs of the deeds of yore, Like jewels of price in a chain of sold Are (lie name and (lie fame he bore. Wherever Hie track of our English ships Lies while on the ocean foam, His name is sweet to our English lips, As Ihe names of the flowers at home." 1 Russia and Prussia had joined against Napoleon. But Prussia, was crushed in two great battles, and Napoleon marched his victorious army into Berlin. The next year tlu! Russians were completely overwhelmed. It seemed that nothing could stand against Napoleon's genius. These wars were ended by the treaty of Tilsit (1807). Napoleon met the czar on a, raft in the river Niemen. "Do you hate the English?" aslant the emperor. "As much as you do," replied the czar. "Then/' said Napoleon, " peace is soon made." All Europe was to be compelled by Russia and France to join in an alliance against; England. Russia was to look after Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, while Spain and Portugal were left to Napoleon to deal with as he pleased. The Neth- 'Imoih tin- poem "Nelson," by 10. Ncsbit. 1807] GEORGE III. 339 erlands and the various states of Italy and Germany were already under Napoleon's influence or control. George Canning was now the English Foreign Secretary, and believed in vigorous war measures against France. Learn- ing through his secret agents that Napoleon was planning to seize the strong fleet of the Danes to use against England, he sent an expedition to demand its surrender, agreeing to return it at the end of the war. As the Danes refused to give it up, Copenhagen was bombarded and burned and the fleet taken. Attacks on Neutral Commerce. The loss of the French navy had compelled Napoleon to allow neutral ships to do the carrying trade in French West Indian products. As England would not allow direct trade between these islands and Europe, United States vessels first took their cargoes to some home port, and then reshipped them to France. But in 1805 Great Britain refused to allow French West Indian goods to be sent from any American port to France, and began to search United States ships and seize them. Also, many sailors found on American ships, including some deserters from the British navy, were impressed into the British service. As Napoleon could no longer attack the English commerce on the ocean, he now attacked it on land. He issued the Berlin Decree after his victory over the Prussians. It for- bade all countries in Europe under French influence to trade with Great Britain. The British replied by their Orders in Council, declaring that all ports of France and her allies were blockaded, and that any vessel going to any of them would be captured unless it had previously touched at a British port. Napoleon then issued his Milan Decree, declaring that all neutral vessels that touched at any British port would be captured. The Americans were the chief sufferers from these laws, as they were the chief neutral nation engaged in trade. In 1807, nearly 400 American ships were captured and sold by England and France. NlVER 21. 340 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1807 Spain and Portugal now attracted the attention of Na- poleon. In August, 1807, he wrote to the Prince Kegent of Portugal, ordering him to seize all English property, and to close the ports of his country to English trade. He also sent a French army to enforce his orders. Instead of obeying, the entire royal family of Portugal emigrated to the Portuguese colony of Brazil. Soon after this Napoleon set up his brother Joseph as King of Spain, but the disgusted Spanish rose in rebellion and sent to England for help. Canning was not slow to help them. Im- mense quantities of military supplies and money were sent at once. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had fought in India., and Sir John Moore, who had fought in Egypt, were sent with 20,000 men. The Peninsular War was a struggle for independence on the part of Spain and Portugal, aided by England, against Napoleon. It began with a series of victories over the French. The Spanish compelled a French army of 17,000 men to surrender at Baylen, and advanced toward Madrid. "King Joseph " fled north of the Ebro. The English under Welles- ley met a French army on the road to Lisbon and defeated it with a loss of 3,000 men at Yimeiro (1808). Napoleon now appeared in Spain with an army of 200,000 men. He entered Madrid in triumph and reestablished Joseph. The Spanish were not good soldiers; when they should have gathered to the aid of the English, now under Sir John Moore, Spain and Portugal. 1810] GEORGE III. 341 they ran away and left their allies to fight alone. The 25,000 English could not fight 200,000 trained soldiers, led by the greatest general of the age. Moore therefore retreated to the coast. At Corunna he beat off the French so that the army could embark safely; but he himself was killed. The poet Wolfe has told the story of his burial : " We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning ; By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning. " Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory ; We carved not a line and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory." * During Napoleon's absence in Spain, Austria had declared war, and he was soon forced to lead away the best of his troops to the Danube. He met the Austrians and defeated them for the fourth time at Wagram (1809). Three weeks later, Wellesley defeated the French army in Spain in the bloody battle of Talavera. The Spaniards were again treacherous, and Wellesley resolved to have nothing more to do with them. He withdrew to Portugal and forti- fied the hills around Lisbon, which he declared no French army could take. For his skillful conduct of the war he was rewarded with the title of Viscount Wellington, and later he became the Duke of Wellington. Massena, Napoleon's best general, was now sent to Portu- gal with 65,000 men. The English and Portuguese laid waste the country, driving all the sheep and cattle with them, and retired within the forts. The French marshal examined the works carefully, and the longer he looked at them, the less he liked them. For a month he remained, and food began to fail. He then retreated into Spain, but so terrible was the 342 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1810 famine that 30,000 of his men starved and died. Portugal was safe. Wellington now advanced and won several victories. At this time Napoleon withdrew part of his forces for the in- vasion of Eussia, and Wellington entered Madrid, driving out King Joseph. In June, 1813, the French were again defeated at Vittoria and driven over the Pyrenees. Spain was at last cleared of the enemy. Napoleon's Russian Campaign. In the summer of 1812 Napoleon led a great army through Eussia to Moscow. He defeated the Eussians in battle, but soon after his arrival Moscow burst into flames in a hundred places. The Eussians had decided to burn their capital and destroy their enemies by famine. The French began a retreat late in October. The severe Eussian winter came on, food was lacking, and the armies of the czar hung upon the rear and cut off small bodies of the French. When Napoleon reached the borders of Ger- many, he had lost 300,000 men. Marshal Ney was the last man to cross the Niemen. Some one asked him who he was. "I am the rear guard of the French army," said he. Na- poleon hurried to Paris and by great efforts raised another army of 200,000 men. But his enemies rose up behind him. Eussia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden put an army into the fields of Germany larger than his own. Leipzig was the battlefield of the nations. In a battle lasting three days, Napoleon was defeated and driven back to France (October, 1813). He was now forced to resign the throne of France, and to retire to the island of Elba, near the western coast of Italy. In September, 1814, delegates from the various countries of Europe met at Vienna to rearrange the map of Europe, which Napoleon had so roughly disturbed. While they were busy at this work, news came that he had escaped from Elba and was in Paris levying soldiers. It is said that the commissioners 1815] GEORGE III. 343 looked at one another in astonishment, and then burst into a shout of laughter. It was the last surprise that he had in store for his enemies. The Battle of Waterloo was the closing event of Na- poleon's career. The French people had rejoiced when they heard that their emperor, who had led them to so many vic- tories, was on the way to Paris. The old soldiers nocked around him with the greatest enthusiasm, and he soon had an army of 250,000 men. But the allies had a million soldiers ready to pour over his frontiers and crush him. This required time, and Napoleon did not mean to let them unite their forces. The English and Prussians had armies in the Netherlands under Wellington and Bliicher. Napoleon suddenly crossed the French frontier and attacked Bliicher at Ligny and drove him back twenty miles. Turning northward he started for Wellington, whose head- quarters were at Brus- sels. The English gen- eral took his position about two miles from the village of Waterloo, drawing his army up in squares along a highway, and defending the ap- proach by two strong Battle of Waterloo. p 0s t s on the right and left of his lines. The two armies were of nearly the same size, — 70,000 men each, — but the French had veteran troops and more guns. All day the French beat upon the English squares, which stubbornly held their ground. Toward night Blucher's Prussian army arrived on the field and struck Napoleon's flank. The French fire weakened, and the whole English army moved forward and drove the French in utter Mont St.Jean ^, ll% »«# * ' Iotfe Sainted %,#* J £ I ■*& Bluchers A r IW ' "'^ < Planchen^jHt y V' ria l Guard 344 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1812 rout from the field. Each army lost about 25,000 men. It was Napoleon's last battle. He was exiled to St. Helena, a lonely island in the south Atlantic, and Louis XVIIL, the brother of that Louis who had been executed during the revo- lution, was restored to his throne. The War of 1812. During England's struggle against Napoleon, a second war was waged with America. In 1812 the United States declared war on Great Britain because of her interference with American commerce (p. 339), her im- pressment of American seamen, and the frontier attacks by Indians under British influence. Most of the battles of this war were fought upon the ocean and along the southern bor- der of Canada. The wonderful thing about the war is the great number of victories that the Americans won against the finest navy in the world. The American aim was better than the British, and besides this, the British made the same mistake that they made in the Eevolution. They regarded the Americans as inferior to them in every respect, and did not take the same care that they did in fighting battles in Europe. The battle of New Orleans (January, 1815) taught them this error in a very emphatic way. An army of British vet- erans tried to storm intrenchments defended by volunteers from Kentucky and Tennessee, and were driven back with the loss of over 2,000 men, as against an American loss of 71. The war was closed by a treaty signed at Ghent in De- cember, 1814, in which nothing was said about the causes of the war. But Great Britain impressed no more American sailors; and the right of search was quietly dropped, and in 1856 was declared unlawful. Results of the Wars. England had been at war with France and other nations nearly all the time from 1789 to 1815. She was now at peace, and the suffering caused by the war began to receive attention. The national debt had in- 1820] GEORGE III. 345 creased from $5,000,000 to $4,500,000,000, that is, it had be- come nine hundred times as great. The yearly interest amounted to $160,000,000. To raise this amount and to meet the expenses of government, taxes were very heavy. Nearly everything that people used in daily life was taxed. Hundreds of men were ruined by the heavy taxes or by the effect of the wars on their business. Banks and factories closed, and thousands of people were out of work. The " Corn Law " passed in 1815 did not aim to produce revenue, but to keep up the price of grain in the interest of the landholding class. By it no grain was allowed to be brought into England till the price reached ten shillings ($2.50) a bushel. The next year there was a bad harvest, the price of grain rose, many people could not get food, and riots broke out all over the country, accompanied by the destruction of property and the stopping of business. Another cause of distress was the rapid introduction of machinery, throwing many out of employment. The people thought that the new machines were a bad thing for them. Night attacks were made upon the factories, and many ma- chines were destroyed. This led to riots, conflicts with the officers of the law, and the stopping of useful work. Demand for Reform. The Parliament was still con- trolled by the nobility and the landholders; the working classes had no representatives, and began to demand reform, thinking that many of their troubles could be cured if they were allowed to have some share in the government. The Criminal Laws were still enforced in the old harsh way. It was seen that these laws did not decrease crime, but no change had been made. Many bills were brought before Parliament by Sir Samuel Eomilly to make the penalties less severe, but the House of Lords voted them down. The " thief- takers" and constables were often ready to let criminals off for a bribe, and in many cases they actually encouraged crim- 346 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1714 inals, in order to get the rewards which the government paid for catching them. The Old King, George III., died in January, 1820, in his eighty-second year. For nine years he had been insane, and his son, who later became George IV., had reigned in his stead as Prince Eegent. Literature, under the Hanoverian kings, is marked by a great change. Men stopped writing about religion and so^ ciety, and revived the old romantic tales of the days of chiv- alry and of the border wars of England and Scotland. Sir Walter Scott was the greatest writer of this period of " romantic revival," as it is called. He collected and pub- lished three volumes of tales and ballads, which he called " The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." The "Ballad of p Chevy Chase" (p. 129) was one of these. He also h wrote poems on the basis of these tales. " The Lady of the Lake," "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," and " Marmion " are three of the best. He then turned Sir Walter Scott. his attention to fiction, and wrote about thirty "Waverley Novels" on historical and legendary subjects. "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman" deal with Eichard's crusade and his return to England. " Kenil- worth " is a story of the reign of Elizabeth. " The Monas- tery " and " The Abbot " tell of the imprisonment and death of Mary Queen of Scots. These tales were the beginning of the kind of literature called " historical fiction," and are use- ful for fixing in the mind the characteristics of the historical periods with which they deal. 1820] LITERATURE 347 Lord Byron became Scott's rival and surpassed him in the field of romantic poetry. " Childe Harold," a poetic account of historic scenes and incidents in Europe, is his best poem. "I awoke one morning," said Byron after its publication, " and found myself famous." William Wordsworth, with Eobert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was the founder of the " Lake School " of poetry. These poets lived at times in the picturesque Lake region of the northwest. It was their aim to write simple poetry about the people and occurrences of everyday life. Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" is his most famous poem; " To the Cuckoo," " The Green Linnet " and " The Daffodils " illustrate Wordsworth's notion of what true poetry should be. Other Writers. Samuel Johnson, in 1755, completed a great dictionary of the English language. Oliver Goldsmith, like Walter Scott, wrote prose and poetry equally well. His " Deserted Village " describes the effects of the factory system on the country towns ; " The Vicar of Wakefield " is his mas- terpiece in prose. David Hume and Edward Gibbon were the great historians of the century. Hume wrote the " History of England." Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire" has never been surpassed in the field of historical literature. William Eobertson ranks with Hume as the author of a " History of Scotland." QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How did the French government influence affairs in Ireland during this period? Illustrate. 2. What was Napoleon's plan for invading England? Why did it fail? 3. How did the French and English wars affect American commerce? Why? Explain the purpose of the Berlin and Milan Decrees and the Orders in Council. 4. Why did England take part in the Peninsular War? 5. Give the causes of the war with America in 1812. What impor- tant question was settled by it? 6. How did the Napoleonic wars affect the English people? 348 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1811 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Nelson at Trafalgar. Russell, Nelson, Chap. XIV. ; Edgar, Heroes of England, pp. 271-318. 2. The Battle of Waterloo. Henty, One of the Twenty-eighth; Fitchett, Deeds that Won the Empire, pp. 223-288. 3. The Berlin Decree. Colby, Sources of English History, pp. 289- 292 ; Green, Short History, pp. '822-3. 4. Reform of the Criminal Laws. Hume, History of England (Student's Series), p. 743; Gardiner, Student's History, p. 885. 5. Sir John Moore. Creighton, Stories from English History, Chap. LI. ; Fitchett, Fights for the Flag, pp. 133-157. 6. Wellington. Edgar, Heroes of England, pp. 336-70. D. The Struggle eor Keeorm. George IV., 1820-1830. George IV. had been in possession of royal power since his father's insanity began in 1811 ; the beginning of his reign was therefore marked by no abrupt changes. He was the worst of the Georges, a selfish, wicked man, always in debt, and caring only for his own pleasure. His father had tried to make him mend his ways, but succeeded only in receiving his hatred. A Conspiracy to murder the members of the Cabinet was discovered early in the first year of the reign. To explain this we shall go back to the last year of George III. The "Manchester massacre" (1819) grew out of the meet- ing of vast numbers of unemployed men in the manufacturing districts, who used to gather together to talk over their troubles. They had a sort of uniform, practiced military drill, and carried banners, very much as political parties do now. Their banners bore such mottoes as these : " Union and Strength," " Liberty and Fraternity," " Annual Parliaments, and Universal Suffrage." A great meeting was held at Manchester, at which a popu- lar reform speaker, named Hunt, was to address the people. A number of soldiers and a regiment of cavalry were at hand 1828] GEORGE IV. 349 to keep order. When Hunt rose to speak, one of the magis- trates got a mistaken notion into his head that the soldiers were being attacked, and called upon the commander of the cavalry to disperse the crowd. That officer understood that he was to lead a cavalry charge against them, and a trumpet sounded the order. His men rode their horses at full speed into the dense throng of men, women, and children, and cut them down with their swords, killing or wounding nearly a hundred. Severe laws were soon passed by Parliament to prevent persons practicing military drill, carrying arms, and using seditious language. The people thought they had been badly used, and their wrongs provoked the " Cato Street conspir- acy." A dozen or more desperate men planned to murder the Cabinet ministers at a certain meeting which was to be held at a private house in London. One of their number informed the government. The police seized some of the plot- ters in a building on Cato Street, and five of them were executed. Changes in Laws. After the excitement over this con- spiracy had died away, Parliament at last changed the criminal laws so that a hundred or more offenses, such as small thefts and misdemeanors, which before had been punished by hang- ing, were now punished by fine or imprisonment. The duties on raw wool and silk were lowered so that the English manufacturers could get material to keep their fac- tories going. Machine smashing, however, was kept up. In 1826 every power loom in the town of Blackburn was broken by a mob of men who ignorantly thought machines the main cause of their misery. Two Great Reforms in Religious Matters were carried in this reign. The first was the repeal of the old Corporation Act and of part of the Test Act, passed in the time of Charles II., which prevented dissenters holding any office in public 350 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1829 or private corporations. The second reform was the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829), which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament and to hold all but a few of the highest offices. The man who secured this last reform was Daniel O'Con- nell, an Irishman of great eloquence and wonderful influence over men. He organized the Catholic Association, which was pledged to elect only Catholics to Parliament, and to continue to do so until they should be admitted. He worked faithfully in this great cause, as did also Eobert Peel, a member of the Cabinet. Finally Wellington, who was then prime minister, favored the measure because he feared that if the bill were defeated there would be another civil war in Ireland. After nearly three centuries of persecution and injustice, the Eng- lish and Irish Catholics at last gained nearly equal rights with the Protestants. Parliamentary Reform also was demanded by the people, and it was plain that the question could not be put off: much longer. The great cities that had sprung up through manu- facturing had no representatives, and people continued to desert the old country villages for the more profitable work in the cities. In Bute County, in Scotland, on one election day, only one man appeared to vote. He voted for himself and became a member of Parliament. Some villages had disappeared entirely; members for these were selected by the stronger party in the Parliament. It did not seem right that a few men should select all the members of the House of Commons, and that several millions should have nothing to say. Lord John Eussell now took up the cause of parliamentary reform. He had tried to take away the representatives from some boroughs where the votes were openly bought; but the very men who bought them were members of the House of Lords, and that body refused to pass his bill. In 1826] GEORGE IV. 351 1821 he managed to have the town of Grampound disfran- chised, that is, he had its right to vote taken away, because it elected for its two members the politicians who would give the most money. Lord Eussell had made a beginning in a great reform. The Great Influence of the French Revolution was seen in the reign of George the Fourth. All over Europe it had stirred up a war between republican government and monarchical government. The people in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the Spanish colonies in America rose against their kings and demanded a share in the government. The kings of Europe were more frightened than at the time of the outbreak in France, for their own people were now against them. The Holy Alliance was a league of Eussia, Austria, Prus- sia, and France, to maintain the power of kings in the coun- tries of Europe and in their colonies. England refused to join it. In the Italian kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia the people drove out their kings, but Austria sent a strong army to put down the people, and made the kings more abso- lute than ever. A revolution in Spain was put down with the aid of French soldiers. But Greece, then a province of Turkey, carried on a struggle for freedom so long that at last England, France, and Eussia interfered to give her independence. Lord Byron and many other Englishmen fought for the Greeks from the beginning. Some of his finest poems are about Greek subjects. In the great battle of Marathon, centuries before, the Greeks had maintained their independence against the Persians ; and Byron wrote : " The mountains look on Marathon — And Marathon looks on the sea ; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might yet be free ; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave." 352 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1823 In Portugal, the people compelled the king to grant a con- stitution, providing for a parliament. Spain and France threatened to restore the absolute power of the king; but England sent a force to protect Portugal in her new govern- ment. The Spanish Colonies in America revolted when Na- poleon made his brother King of Spain, and after a long war they became independent republics. The Holy Alliance in 1823 was considering the question of helping Spain to get back her colonies. Canning, who was then prime minister of England, proposed that the United States should join Eng- land in warning the Holy Alliance to let the Spanish colonies alone. But the United States government preferred to make its declaration alone. President James Monroe in his mes- sage to Congress, December 2, 1823, announced that if the European powers should make any attempt to oppress or control any independent country in America, the United States would consider it an unfriendly act. This meant that the United States would go to war, if necessary, to resist any attack by the Holy Alliance on the Spanish republics. The Holy Alliance decided not to offend both England and the United States, but to let the new republics alone. The Navigation Law was repealed in 1823. This law said that no goods could be brought to England except in English ships. The Americans had made a similar law in regard to England. The result was that English ships might come and carry away American products, but were not al- lowed to bring any goods with them. This made the cost of carrying freight twice as high, and both nations lost money by it. Along with reforms in politics and reforms in commerce came improvements of the greatest importance in the means of transportation. The First Railroads were built, about 1825, by George 1825] GEORGE IV. 353 Stephenson, a poor Northumberland coal miner. He was employed in the coal mines in taking care of the pumping engine. While working at this, he thought of a plan of putting an engine on wheels, and making it turn the wheels; and he succeeded in making such a locomotive. This was able to do the work of drawing the coal cars far more cheaply and easily than it could be done by horses. He next got some rich men to help him, and built a short railroad between Stockton and Darlington. Later, the merchants of Liverpool and Man- chester assisted him in building a road connecting those cities. To build a railroad, the permission of the Parliament had to be ob- tained. Stephenson was as^ed how he expected to build a railroad over J^ ^ L > valleys and through hills. His answer 'was like that of Brindley on a like occasion : " I can not tell how I will do it, but I will do it." A report on the rail- THI 0CKET# road plan, read in the House of Commons, ended like this : " As for those who specu- late on making railways take the place of canals, wagons, stage-coaches, and post-chaises, throughout the kingdom, we deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice. It is a gross exaggeration to say that a locomotive could be made to go fifteen miles an hour, and even if it should, the danger of bursting boilers and broken wheels would be so great that the people would suffer themselves to be fired off on one of Congreve's rockets about as soon as they would trust themselves on a machine going at such a rate of speed." But the bill allowing the railroad to be built passed, and Stephen- son's new locomotive, the " Kocket," was found to be able to 354 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1830 go at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour without hurting any one. During the next twenty-five years ten thousand miles of railroads were built and equipped in England at a cost of $2,000,000,000. Better Wagon Roads also were built at this time. A Scotchman named McAdam discovered how to make a road by covering the earth with broken stone to a depth of six or eight inches. The wagon wheels would gradually force the bits of stone together so as to form a hard surface. He also made the road higher in the center than on the sides, and dug ditches to carry off the water. Eoads made in this way are still said to be macadamized. George IV. Died in the summer of 1830. He was not missed, except agreeably. He had squandered millions of the people's money, and had stood in the way of every reform. Scarcely anybody in England had a good thing to say about him. His brother William, called the " Sailor King," suc- ceeded him. William IV., 1830-1837. The New King was a bluff, hearty old man of sixty-five when he began to reign. His life had been spent in the navy. He was a friend to the people, and was certain to use his efforts in their behalf. The Reform of the Parliament was now the one great question. Action on it was hastened by another revolution in France. The French king, Charles X., had disagreed with the Chambers, as the French parliament was called, and had tried to seize absolute power. The people took up arms against him, the royal army deserted to their side, and the king had to flee from the country. When the English people heard of this change in France, they felt like rising up and doing away with the Tory minis- 1832] WILLIAM IV. 355 try and the "rotten boroughs" by force. They might have done so, if the House of Commons had not begun now to do it for them. The Duke of Wellington was prime minister, and as he said there should be no reform at all, the House of Commons would not support him and he was forced to resign. A New Whig Cabinet was now chosen. Petitions poured in upon it from all parts of the country, urging reform. A reform bill was drawn up by Lord Kussell and introduced into the House of Commons. Many boroughs were to be entirely disfranchised, and many others were to send one member instead of two. Most of the one hundred and sixty- five places thus vacated were to be given to the counties and large towns of England. When it became evident that the House would not pass the bill, the Cabinet had the Parliament dissolved and a new election ordered. The Whig, or " Lib- eral " party, as it began to be called, was sure of support from the country. " The bill, and nothing but the bill " became the rallying cry at the elections. The Eeform Bill, slightly amended, was passed by the new House of Commons by a large majority. The Creation of Peers. The majority of the House of Lords, however, was opposed to the bill. This brought mat- ters to a standstill. The Cabinet asked the king to create enough new peers to carry the bill, and resigned when he de- clined to do so. Before the king could get any one to take the office of prime minister he had to promise to create the new peers if necessary. When the Lords found that new peers would be created to pass the bill, some of those that were op- posed to it remained away, and the Eeform Bill became a law June 4, 1832. Since the time of William IV. it has been the custom, whenever the House of Commons and the House of Lords are unalterably opposed, for the king's ministers to create enough NlVER 22. 356 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1832 peers, or declare such intention, to compel the House of Lords to pass the measure desired by the House of Commons. The Reform Bill in its final form not only abolished the rotten boroughs, thus doing away with old bribery system, but it gave forty-six of the large cities the right to elect sixty-eight members of Parliament, and it added thirty to the representatives of English counties, and eleven to the representatives from Ireland and Scotland. The Present Houses op Parliament. It also cured a greater evil than the rotten boroughs. Under the old system the right to vote was very unequally distributed. In some towns all the freemen voted; in others none at all. The new law gave a vote to every man living in a town or borough who paid an annual rent of $50. In the country all those owning or leasing a certain amount of land could vote. The bill added over half a million voters to the list. The nobility and the landholders were no longer to have control of the lawmaking machinery, which they had so long used for their own advantage. Now the great "middle 1833] WILLIAM IV. 357 class" of England, the merchants, mechanics, and farmers, were to control the House of Commons. The New Reformed Parliament met in January, 1833. The Liberal party had a large majority, but it was found that the members were older and wiser men than those of former Parliaments; and none of the bad results that had been pre- dicted by Wellington and other members of the House of Lords came to pass. Slavery Abolished. The slave trade had been stopped in 1807. Since then it had been shown by some members of Parliament that slavery did not pay ; for it cost more to raise sugar in the West Indies, where slave labor was used, than it did in the East Indies, where wages were paid. In 1833 slavery was abolished in all the colonies. The owners received $100,000,000 to compensate them for their loss. It was soon found that slavery had been only an evil, and that the slave- holding colonies benefited by the change. Other Excellent Laws passed by this Parliament met with general approval. One of these relieved the Irish Cath- olics from paying certain taxes for the support of the English Church. Another regulated the employment of children in factories, the first law of the kind made in England. An- other forbade flogging in the army. The first national ap- propriation of $100,000 was made for the aid of common schools. An important change was made in the poor laws. England was overrun with paupers and vagrants. The old laws had encouraged pauperism by giving too much help. The new laws were stricter. Less help was given, and the poor who really needed help were helped in such a way that they might be able to help themselves. The Monopoly of the East India Company was taken away by the Eeformed Parliament in 1833, and the Eastern trade was thrown open to all. This was found to be a great advantage to the country. Now all merchants could buy 358 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1837 and sell in India and China, and in less than ten years three times as many British goods were sold. The company stopped carrying on trade, but continued to govern the country as be- fore (p. 316) until after the great Indian Mutiny of 1857. Its rule had been greatly extended at the expense of the Mahrattas and the Burmese, and now included more than half of India. " Good King William " had passed his three score and ten years, and died in 1837. Up to this time, the kings of Eng- land, beginning with George I., had been rulers of Hanover also. But it was a law in Hanover that only males could succeed to the throne; therefore when William's niece, Vic- toria, became Queen of England, his younger brother, the Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover, thus sep- arating the two countries. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Account for the opposition to the Reform Bill. How was it finally passed? What evils did it cure? 2. What does the demand for the Reform Bill teach us about the English people? Why did the Lords oppose it? 3. Which law passed by the first Reformed Parliament do you think best? Why? 4. How did the revolutions in France affect the English people? 5. How did the English secure control of India? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Geokge Stephenson. Smiles, Life of Stephenson; Wright, Stories of American Progress. 2. The East India Company. Hume, History of England (Stu- dent's Series) (see index) ; Sarkar, History of India. 3. The Reform Bill of 1832. McCarthy, England in the XlXth Century, Chaps. IX., X. 4. Daniel O'Connell. Lawless, Story of Ireland, pp. 379-389; Mowry, First Steps in the History of England, Chap. XXVI, XII. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER (Continued) A. Erom the Accession of Victokia to the End of the Indian Mutiny in 1858. Victoria, 183 7-1 901. At Kensington Palace, in 1830, the year of the coronation of William IV., his eleven-year-old niece, Victoria, was study- ing a table of the kings of England. " Mamma," she exclaimed, "I do not see who is to be the next sov- ereign of England, unless it is myself." Her mother had never told her that she was to become Queen of England, but allowed her to make the discovery for herself. Her father had died when she was an in- fant, but the wise and careful training she re- ceived from her mother bore fruit in the guiding principle of her rule, the Eleven-year-old Victoria. determination to do right. Victoria's Marriage took place three years after her acces- sion to the throne. Her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Co- burg and Gotha, became her husband. The marriage was highly pleasing to the people of England, chiefly because it 359 360 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1837 was one of real affection and not for political reasons. Prince Albert received the title of Prince Consort, an honorary dis- tinction conferred upon him as the queen's husband, but the sovereign power remained solely with the queen. He became a member of the House of Lords and was made Secretary to the Queen, a very important office. He proved a. wise and prudent counselor and gave his whole attention to the interests of the country. He was the first man in England to see that the selfishness and strife of employers and laborers was hurt- ful to both. " Depend upon it," he said, " the interests of the classes are the same, and it is only ignorance that prevents their uniting for each other's advantage." He said that what- ever made the laborer better and happier would make the em- ployer better off, too. ' The Victorian Age " was the most progressive period in the history of England. More was done than ever before to promote the comfort and enlightenment of the people and to give to every one a voice in the government. The charac- ter and reign of the queen afforded an example of virtue and goodness to the nation. Tennyson says of her : " Her court was pure ; her life serene ; God gave her peace ; her land reposed ; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen. " And statesmen at her council met, Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet " By shaping some august decree, Which kept her throne unshaken still, Broad-based upon her people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea." The Chartist Movement was one of the early troubles of the reign. It was an attempt on the part of the workingmen 1848] VICTORIA 361 to get political rights. Daniel CfConnell helped them to draw up a list of their demands which was called the " People's Charter." Those who favored it were known as Chartists. The People's Charter contained six demands: manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, annual Parliaments, the division of the country into equal electoral districts, the removal of the property qualification for members of Parliament, and the pay- ment of salaries to members of the House of Commons. Some of the Chartists called themselves "physical force," others, " moral force " Chartists. The " moral force " men held meetings, formed clubs for discussion, and published newspapers, in order to convince others of the truth of their beliefs. The il physical force " men, to show their strength, were to bring a petition to Parliament signed by five million names, and carried by a million of the signers. There was great alarm in London and special care was taken to prevent violence. But the monster procession dwindled down to a dozen, and the monster petition was found to be filled with names gathered from old directories and gravestones. This ended the influence of the "physical force" men (1848). In time, however, all the demands of the charter, except annual Parliaments and the payment of members, were practically granted by acts of Parliament. The " Penny Post " of England owes its origin to Mr. Eowland Hill. Before 1840 the charge for carrying a letter was from one to two shillings, and was paid by the receiver. That was a large sum for the poor peoj)le, and few could afford to have letters written to them. The idea of reform- ing the postal system was suggested to Mr. Hill by a story told by Coleridge, one of the " Lake poets." One day as Coleridge was walking past a cottage in the Lake region, a postman brought a letter to the door. The poor woman to whom the letter was addressed said she could not pay the postage and returned it to him. Coleridge kindly 3G2 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1840 paid it for her, as she said the letter was from her brother, who had gone to work in London. She was unwilling that the poet should pay the money, and after the postman had gone, she showed him that the letter contained only a blank sheet. She said that her brother had adopted this method of letting her know that all was well with him. The story set Eowland Hill to thinking. He came to the conclusion that if postage were made cheaper so many more letters would be written that more money would come to the government than under the high rates. So many petitions came, asking for the trial of Hill's plan, that the Parliament, as an experiment, tried a four-penny rate. Soon after this, the rate was made a penny per half ounce. The result showed that Hill was right. The sender now paid the post- age by putting a stamp on the letter. Since that time, every country in the civilized world has adopted this plan. Dominion of Canada. A rebellion in Canada was going on when the queen's reign began. In both Upper and Lower Canada the upper house, or council, was appointed by the sovereign of England. The French people of Lower Canada were jealous of the English, and wanted to choose the council themselves, and refused to pay their saiaries. The rebellion was put down, and peace was made by joining the two provinces into OllC and bv "ivm * it Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, Canada. a freer government. Further jealousy, however, led to the adoption of a new plan about thirty years later. The two provinces were again separated, under the names of Ontario and Quebec, for purposes of local government; but together with other North American provinces they were formed into 1843] VICTORIA 3G3 a federal union, called the Dominion of Canada, with a gen- eral government nearly independent of Great Britain. An important event near the beginning of the reign led to the closer connection of England and America. Samuel Cunard established the first regular line of steamships between Great Britain and America (1840). The " Opium War " was fought to compel China to al- low English merchants to import opium into the country. The Chinese government had forbidden trade in opium, on ac- count of the bad effects of its use upon the people. But opium was a leading production of India, and after the Indian trade was thrown open to all, there were many British merchants who made a business of selling the drug in China. The Chinese government seized a quantity of the opium, and took means to prevent any more being landed. The British began war at once, in 1839. The Chinese were defeated, and were obliged to surrender the island of Hongkong and open five important ports to British trade. Besides this, they were compelled to pay $20,000,000 for the opium destroyed, and the expenses of the war. The " Eastern Question " also attracted much attention. As it is very important, let us see how England is concerned in it, A glance at a map of Europe will show you that Turkey controls the entrance to the Black Sea, and is favor- ably situated to send ships into the eastern Mediterranean. If a strong nation, like Eussia, should get control of Con- stantinople, she might be able to control both the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, thus cutting off England from her East Indian possessions. For this reason it is better for Eng- land to have Constantinople in the hands of a weak nation. But Turkey, through bad government and the unjust treat- ment of her Christian subjects, had come to be disliked by all Christian nations, particularly Eussia, since the illtreated Christians are members of the Eussian or Greek Catholic 364 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1839 Church. The " question," therefore, is this : If Turkey is to be driven out of Europe, what nation shall have her terri- tory, especially the part bordering on the Bosphorus? Mehemet Ali, the ruler of Egypt, was one of the vassals of the Turkish sultan, but had grown stronger than his master. He had conquered Syria, and had defeated every Turkish army sent against him. In 1839 a second war began between Mehemet and the sultan. The Turkish fleet went over to the Egyptians, and if Mehemet were allowed to go on he would soon be in possession of Constantinople itself. It did not suit the nations of Europe to have Turkey either too strong or too weak. So England, Austria, Prussia, and Eus- sia made Mehemet give up his Syrian conquests and let the Turks alone. Erance was not invited to take part in the affair, and became very angry with England on account of the slight. The truth was that Erance was friendly to Egypt, over which she hoped to have great influence. Lord Melbourne, the premier, with his cabinet, was forced to retire in 1841. His name suggests the Australian city named after him, founded in the first year of Victoria's reign (p. 401). Aus- tralia was first seen by Captain Cook in 1720. The first set- tlement was made in New South Wales at the time of our Eevolutionary War. For fifty years it was used as a place to which to banish criminals. In 1803 Tasmania, too, was occupied. Early in the nineteenth century, it was discov- ered that sheep would thrive in the Australian climate. In the year 1851 gold was found and immigrants from all parts of the world hurried there in search of wealth. The growth of Australia was rapid. Eive provinces grew up, which were finally, with Tasmania, joined in a federal government like that of Canada (1901). New Zealand was occupied in 1838, and became another flourishing British colony. Sir Robert Peel became prime minister on Melbourne's 1842] VICTORIA 365 retirement, and held office for five years. Although Peel was a Conservative, or Tory, he favored a further reduction of the duty on imports. He found that by lowering the tax business was increased so much that the government received more money than before. The manufacturers bought their supplies more cheaply, and furnished more employment for labor. The Retreat from Kabul. Terrible news from India reached England the year after Peel entered office. The rugged mountain passes of Afghanistan are the gateway to India from the north. Eussia being in power at the north end of the gateway, and England at the south end, it behooved each nation to look to the character of the " gate keeper." Eussia had sought the alliance of Dost Mohammed, who had lately driven from his throne in Kabul the old "gate keeper," the Shah Soojah. The governor-general of India thought it good policy to send an army to Afghanistan to set up Shah Soojah again. This was done. But the Afghans would not have Soojah, and rebelled. They surrounded the English force and compelled them to make an agreement to return to India. Dost Mohammed's son, Akbar Khan, was now leader of the Afghans. The English commanders were cowardly and in- competent, and foolishly gave up their arms to Akbar, on condition of being allowed to retreat in safety. They were 15,000 in number, among them 4,000 English soldiers, the rest being natives of India, with some women and children. It was winter, and ice and snow covered all the country. In spite of Akbar' s orders, the Afghans lined the heights along the roads where the English had to pass, and shot down hun- dreds. Akbar now took charge of the women and children, and the English advanced to the next pass. But the Afghans kept up their attacks until all of the English force were killed, except one man, who from weakness lagged behind the rest and so escaped to tell the awful tale. General Pollock afterwards marched to Kabul, took revenge 366 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1842 upon the Afghans, and recovered the prisoners in Akbar's charge. But Dost Mohammed was sent back to reign in Ka- bul ; for it was now discovered, what should have been learned before, that it is not profitable to force a king upon an un- willing people. The Corn Laws now occupied the attention of the ministry at home. The duty on imported grain, as fixed by the " corn laws " then in force, was designed to keep the price up to two or three dollars a bushel for the benefit of the landholders. The higher the price of wheat, the more rent they could get for the land on which the wheat was raised. But the poor peo- ple who bought the bread had to pay the rent in the end. An Anti- Corn-Law League was formed by the manu- facturers in Manchester, the leaders of whom were Eichard Cobden, John Bright, and Charles Yilliers. Cobden had trav- eled widely, and understood matters connected with commerce. Both he and Bright were accomplished speakers and writers, and they soon made many people in England think as they did about the corn laws. An Irish Famine, coming at this time, added strength to the demand for the repeal of the corn laws. Half the people of Ireland had come to depend for food almost entirely on the potato crop. In the fall of 1845 a long continuance of cold, wet weather caused the potatoes to rot in the ground. The entire crop was a failure. A great cry went up to open the ports to food from abroad. Peel, the prime minister, decided that the repeal of the corn laws should not be put off any longer. But the landlords made great opposition. An oppos- ing party was formed, led by Benjamin Disraeli, called the Protectionist Party because they wanted to protect the English farmers. In spite of the Protectionists, a law was passed, through the efforts of Peel and Lord John Kussell, which left a light tax on grain for a few years, and then took it off alto- gether. Food was at last untaxed in Great Britain. 1S54] VICTORIA 367 This change, however, came too late for the starving Irish. Large amounts of money were raised for their relief, but the famine was so widespread that enough food could not be brought in time. The people streamed toward the towns and villages for help, and died in heaps by the wayside. When the famine ended it was found that the population of Ireland had sunk from eight to six millions. Of the two millions lost, about half had left the country, many of them going to the United States. Free Trade. The removal of the duty from food and raw materials was followed up in 1860 and 1872 by admitting all goods free of duty, except liquors, tea, coffee, and tobacco, thus making England practically a free-trade country. The First World's Fair was held in England in 1851. The plan was thought of and carried out by Prince Albert, who made the opening speech. An immense building of glass and iron, called the Crystal Palace, covering nine- teen acres, was erected for it in London. The nations of the earth sent exhibits. Alfred Tennyson wrote an ode which was sung at the opening. " Uplift a thousand voices full and sweet, In this wide hall with earth's invention stored, And praise the invisible universal Lord, Who lets once more in peace the nations meet Where Science, Art, and Labor have outpoured Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet." The Crimean War came from an attempt to solve the Eastern question (p. 363). It was so called because the greater part of the fighting was done in the peninsula of Crimea in the south of Eussia. The czar Nicholas I. had taken upon himself the task of pro- tecting the Christians who were under Turkish rule. He now proposed to England that they divide the territory of the " sick man," as he called Turkey, between them, and put him 368 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1854 out of the way by a quick war. When the English ministers declined this, he at once sent his armies to the Danube and in- vaded Turkish territory. The Turks defended their frontier, but their fleet was destroyed. This left the Black Sea in the control of Bussia, and Constantinople would soon be attacked. At this point (1854) England and France joined Turkey in the war in order to preserve the balance of power by pre- venting Eussia from gaining too much territory. The Eus- sians had in the Crimea a fortress of great strength, known as Sebastopol. This fortress afforded protection to the Bus- sian navy, and its capture would practically end the war, since it would leave the Eussian fleet at the mercy of the com- bined navies of France and England. The English and French landed a combined force of 64,000 men on the coast north of Sebastopol. On the march southward the allies crossed the river Alma and drove the enemy out of their intrenchments. Soon the armies took up their positions around Sebastopol. The Bus- sians fiercely attacked them near Balaklava, October 25, 1854, and were gallantly repulsed. Some guns had been taken by the Eussians in their attack. Lord Cardigan, who commanded a brigade of light cavalry numbering about 600, was ordered to "retake the guns." The officer who carried the order supposed that the guns re- ferred to were those of the Eussians a mile or more down the road. To take these, meant to charge into the center of the Eussian army of 30,000 men, along a road lined with the guns of the enemy. The order was given to advance. The men SEA OF AZOF SCALE OF MILES The Crimea. 1S54] VICTORIA 369 The Light Cavalry Charge at Balaklava. rode the length of the Kussian lines, drove them from the guns, and rode back — but "not the six hundred." Only 198 returned. This famous deed has been made immortal by Tennyson's poem, " The Charge of the Light Brigade " : Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. " Forward, the Light Brigade ! Charge for the guns ! " he said : Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. " Forward, the Light Brigade ! " Was there a man dismayed? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die : Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 370 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1854 Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered ; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. When can their glory fade? O, the wild charge they made ! All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made! Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred ! Thousands of the English, soldiers fell sick and were sent to the hospitals at Scutari. When the severe Eussian winter came on, it was found that not enough provision had been made for the comfort of the soldiers and for the care of the wounded. The hospital supplies were in the holds of ships off Sebastopol, and the tents, blankets, and clothing for the sol- diers had been lost in a. storm that wrecked the fleet of trans- ports. Some curious blunders were made. A cargo of boots were all for the left foot, and mules for the hauling of sup- plies were delivered at posts in the hands of the Eussians. The havoc made by the cold and the storms of winter killed five times as many men as the bullets of the Eussians. The emperor Nicholas was accustomed to say that there were two generals on whom he could always depend, General Jan- uary and General February. Florence Nightingale, an English lady who had made a special study of hospital work, went to Scutari, with other women, and wrought marvelous changes in the methods of car- ing for the sick. This was the first time that women were regularly employed as nurses in war. 1857] VICTORIA 371 Sebastopol was Taken in the following year, and Eussia was ready to make peace. The forts in the Crimea were de- stroyed, and the Eussians were not to keep a war fleet in the Black Sea. Turkey was kept independent of ail interference on the part of Eussia. The Indian Mutiny began soon after the Crimean War. It was a rebellion that sprang up among the Sepoys, or na- tive soldiers, of whom there were about 300,000 in the British army in India. By this time nearly all of India, including Sind and the Punjab, had been brought under English control. About two thirds of the country belonged to the company, and the other third was ruled by rajahs, or native princes, under the company's influence. A new rifle had v been introduced among the Sepoys, using a greased paper cartridge, the end of which had to be bitten off before loading. Some of the Indian princes who had lost their thrones spread abroad the story that the grease used was a mixture of lard and tallow. The story was not true, but the Sepoys believed it. To the Hindu the cow is a sacred animal, while the Mohammedan looks upon the hog with utter loathing. The Sepoys were nearly all either Hindus or Mohammedans, and they outnumbered the English ten to one. They had heard, too, of England's war with Eussia. It seemed to be a time when they might regain their independence. On Sunday, May 10, 1857, the Sepoys at Meerut mutinied and killed their officers. They then hurried to Delhi, where there was living in retirement an old man who was a descendant of the Mogul emperors. They brought him out and saluted him as "Emperor of India/' The revolt quickly spread through the Ganges valley, and many English were slain. In the Punjab, however, the Brit- ish governor, warned by telegraph, put his Sepoys on parade and brought them in front of twelve cannon loaded with grape- shot, flanked by columns of British soldiers. A command to NlVER 23. 372 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1857 " stack arms " was given and obeyed. He then sent an army which took Delhi, but only after a siege of several months. At Cawnpur, meanwhile, the English had taken refuge in an old military hospital, and resisted every effort of the Sepoys to capture it. But there was little food, and the only well was outside of the walls, exposed to the enemy's fire. Many a life was lost in bringing water from that well. Finally the Sepoy leader, Nana, made up his mind that he could never take the fort, and he proposed to let the garrison go away in peace if they would surrender. There was no sus- picion of treachery. The English all knew this Nana; they had been enter- tained in his palace, and he had always appeared to be cour- teous and generous. Boats were brought in which they were to float down the Ganges to a post held by their friends. The people passed down a few stone steps to the river's edge, but no sooner had they commenced to go aboard the boats than a storm of cannon and musketry opened on them from the banks. Only four men escaped. Some of the boats drifted to the bank, and a hundred and twenty-five women and children, and several men, who had not been killed by the shot, were kept as prisoners. One night Monument at Cawnpuk. 1857] VICTORIA 373 five natives went into the prison house and murdered them all. The next day the bodies were thrown into a well near by, which is now marked by a beautiful monument. At Lucknow the English gathered into the Besidency, a fortified place containing the governor's house and the public buildings. The attack of the Sepoys was beaten off, but the place was closely besieged for five months. Many perished, but the brave remnant fought on and waited for relief. " Oh, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair ; And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer. Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With * her ear unto the ground : ' Dinna ye hear it? dinna ye hear it? The pipes o' Havelock sound ! ' " She knew the droning pibroch, She knew the Campbell's call, ' Hark ! hear ye no' MacGregor's, — The grandest o' them all ! ' " Then a burst of wild thanksgiving Mingled woman's voice and man's ; ' God be praised ! — the march of Havelock ! The piping of the clans ! ' " 1 The coming of General Havelock's army saved the women and children at Lucknow from the fate that had befallen those at Cawnpur. The mutiny was soon suppressed by new troops sent from England. The government of India was now taken away from the old East India Company, and given to the British ministry. A War against China was in progress when the Indian Mutiny broke out. It was caused by the seizure of a Chinese Vessel sailing under the British flag. The Chinese governor at Canton, Yeh, took twelve Chinamen from the ship, on a charge of piracy, and refused to apologize for insulting the 1 From " The Pipes at Lucknow," by Whittier. 374 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1857 British flag. Canton was bombarded by the British and French, and Yeh was made prisoner. It was a hard matter to tell one Chinaman from another, but Yeh was known by his enormous size. He was found hiding in a closet and made a vigorous resistance. But a British sailor got a firm grip by winding Yen's long pigtail around his hand, and held on while the fat prisoner was secured. Peace was to be made at Peking, the Chinese capital. But when the French and English ships tried to sail up the river to that city, they were fired on from the Chinese forts and driven off. Afterward, a French and British force entered Peking, burned the beautiful summer palace of the em- peror, and set up a monument on the ruins with an inscrip- tion in Chinese, warning the natives against further treacher}^. This was the first visit of foreigners to the Chinese capital. Peking had been supposed to be a very powerful city, but was found to be a tumble-clown sort of place without regular streets and pavements, and not nearly so large as had been thought. QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. What was the purpose of each* war in this period? 2. Compare the Chartist movement with the uprising of the peasants under Wat Tyler. 3. What is the " Eastern question"? Is it still as important as ever? Give your reasons. 4. Mention the most important events in the history of British India. Why is each important? 5. Why were the corn laws made? Repealed? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. The Retkeat from Kabul. Church, Stories from English His- tory, Vol. III., Chap. XXII. ; Henty, For Name and Fame. 2. Relief of Ltjcknow. Lowell, poem, The Relief of Lucknow; MacKenna and O'Shea, Brave Men of Action, pp. 483-515. 3. The Famine in Ireland. Kendall, Source Book, pp. 414-419 ; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, I., pp. 93-110. 1S59] VICTORIA 375 4. Florence Nightingale. Fitchett, Fights for the Flag, pp. 322- 333. 5. 'Sir Henry Havelock. Edgar, Heroes of England, pp. 428-470; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, I., pp. 232-237. 6. Balaklava. Henty, Jack Archer; Fitchett, Fights for the Flag, pp. 282-292. B. From the Indian Mutiny to Victoria's Death. Just before the end of the Indian Mutiny, a change in the ministry was made on account of a dispute with France. The French had long before this tired of their king, had or- ganized a second republic, and then finally had fallen under the rule of a second emperor — Napoleon III. In 1858 an Italian threw at his carriage, in Paris, three shells containing a kind of powder that explodes by concussion. The explo- sion was so terrible that ten persons were killed and a hun- dred and fifty-six wounded. There was a great outcry among the French people because the assassin had obtained these bombs in England, and the emperor's secretary asked Lord Palmerston, who was then prime minister, to have a strict law made by Parliament for punishing such people. So Palmer- ston introduced a measure known as the Conspiracy Bill, which provided severe punishment for any one detected in a plot to murder. The British people did not relish the interference of the French in the business of a British Parliament, and the bill did not pass. Lord Palmerston was therefore forced to resign. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli formed a new Cabinet. A Law Allowing Jews to Sit in Parliament was made at this time. The oath that every member had to take on en- tering Parliament contained the words "on the true faith of a Christian/' words which could not apply to a Jew. The form of oath was altered in such a way that these words were omitted. The new ministry also tried to pass another reform bill, 376 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1859 giving laboring men the right to vote; but it was defeated. Lord Palmerston became prime minister again, and remained in office till his death in 1865. The Civil War in America now came to add to the trou- bles of the working people in England. The manufacturers of cotton had their chief source of raw material suddenly cut off by the Federal blockade of Southern ports, and thousands of workmen in English cotton mills were thrown out of em- ployment. The Trent Affair. The Southern Confederacy wished to send representatives to the countries of Europe to enlist aid. James M. Mason and John Slidell were dispatched to Paris and London. They escaped through the blockade to Ha- vana, and there boarded a British, steamer, the " Trent/' f ot England. The United States steamship " San Jacinto " overhauled the " Trent," and the two envoys were forcibly taken prisoners. Lord Palmerston at once demanded a re- turn of the envoys and an apology, threatening war if re- fused. President Lincoln replied that the captain of the " San Jacinto " had acted without authority, and sent the envoys to England in another ship. About this time, Prince Albert died, at the age of forty- two. By his death the United States lost their strongest friend in England. He had favored the Union from the be- ginning of the war and had already done much to keep Eng- lish sympathy on the side of the North. His death was a great sorrow to the queen. From that time until her death she held no court and lived in seclusion. "The real queen died with her husband, and only her shadow remained." The sympathy of the British government (that is, the Cab- inet), and that of the merchant and manufacturing classes, was on the side of the South, while the lower ranks of the people favored the North. The workingmen of England felt that the North was fighting to set free millions of slaves, and 1S05] VICTORIA 377 Blockade Runner. no amount of suffering, from lack of employment, could make them say or do anything in support of slavery. Blockade Runners, low-built, swift-sailing steamers, were fitted out by English merchants. These ships would sail into Southern ports in the _- — darkness, with sup- plies for the Southern - armies, and carry off a cargo of cotton. Many were captured by the Federal navy, but those that escaped made large profits. The Alabama Claims. The South also built or bought steamers in Great Britain, to plunder the merchant vessels of the United States. This was contrary to the law regard- ing neutral nations. The American minister, Mr. Adams, protested against it, but five of these vessels were sent out, manned partly by British sailors. The " Florida " and the " Alabama" were the most important of them. Their plan was to keep the British flag at the mast-head until they got near enough to the vessel they wished to attack; then they would suddenly run up the Confederate flag and compel the United States ship to surrender. In this way the "Alabama " captured seventy American merchant vessels. After the war was over the treaty of Washington was made with the United States, leaving the question of the payment to be made by Great Britain, for the property destroyed by the Confederate cruisers fitted out in that country, to a commission of five men who met at Geneva in 1872. It was decided that Great Britain should pay $15,500,000, to be divided among the mer- chants who had lost their vessels. The Question of Parliamentary Reform came up again at the close of the American war. Lord Palmerston died in 378 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1865 1865, the year of a parliamentary election. The Liberals car- ried the day, and Mr. Gladstone and Earl Eussell became leaders. Eussell was premier, and Gladstone the leader in the House of Commons. The reform bill which they proposed was defeated, and they resigned. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli came again into power. The workingmen held great meet- ings and sent petitions to Parliament. The government saw that they were determined to have the right to vote given to them. Mr. Disraeli thought that he might as well have the credit of being the giver. After several attempts, a bill was made that was satisfactory, and it passed both houses in 1867. It practically gave the right to vote, in cities, to every man who owned or rented a house. The Education Act. Eobert Lowe, a member of Parlia- ment, said, " Now that we are to be ruled by the majority, the workingmen, we must educate our new masters." But a divi- sion in Parliament in regard to the Irish Church forced Dis- raeli and his ministry to resign, and it was left for Mr. Glad- stone's ministry, which began in 1868, to make better provision for the education of the people. An Education Act was passed in 1870, establishing free schools among the poorer population throughout the kingdom. A small fee was charged where the people could afford to pay. All children were compelled to attend, and the dense ignorance which had so long prevailed in the great cities began to disappear. In each town there was a School Board chosen to look after the new schools, to which the name " Board Schools " was therefore given. Women as well as men were allowed to become members of such boards, and some of the best people took an active inter- est in education. The Fenian Movement in Ireland had already given the government much trouble. The Eenian Brotherhood was an association of Irish and Irish-Americans for the purpose of making Ireland independent of England. Many Irish sol- 1869] VICTORIA 379 diers who had fought in the American Civil War were mem- bers. Irishmen who had gained wealth and influence in America drifted back to the old country to help in the cause of Irish independence. A general insurrection was planned for February, 1867, but did not succeed. Mr. Gladstone's Policy. For centuries England had been keeping the Irish down by force. Mr. Gladstone now An Ikish Farmhouse. proposed to listen to their complaints and satisfy them. " Three great branches of the Irish Upas-tree/' he said, " I will cut down : the Irish Church, the Irish land system, and the Irish system of university education/' In the first place, the Irish were taxed to support the so-called Irish Church, a branch of the English Church, which they did not attend, and they also paid willing contributions to support the Cath- olic Church, which they did attend. In some Protestant churches no services were held because no one came; yet the 380 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1869 poor Irish farmer was taxed for their support. It is no won- der that Mr. Lowe called the Irish Protestant Church "a barren tree in an ungrateful soil ; it has no leaves, no blossoms, no fruit. Cut it down." It was cut down by a law which abolished all church rates, or taxes, in Ireland (1869). After this, all churches there were to be supported by the voluntary contributions of their members. The Irish land system was the next "great branch" that Mr. Gladstone attacked. The most of the land was owned by English landlords who lived at a distance. It was let, by the year, to the small farmers, who could be evicted whenever the landlord pleased. If the farmer made improvements on his land, the landlord could turn him out and get more rent from some one else, and the old tenant lost the time and money that he had spent in making the improvements. A law was now passed which made the landlord pay the outgoing tenant for all the improvements that he had made. This act did some good, but did not satisfy the Irish farmers, who wished to own their farms and stop paying rent. Mr. Gladstone did not succeed in cutting off the third branch, — the university system, by which the Catholics were prevented from obtaining a higher education, — but he did make several other reforms. The Ballot Act was passed in 1872. Before that time men had voted openly for members of Parliament, so that it was known for whom each one voted. For this reason men were often afraid to vote as they wished, fearing the power of their landlords or employers. The secret vote by ballot stopped this evil. Important Changes in Europe were made during the passing of these reform measures. A third French Eepublic and a new German Empire came into existence ; and the dif- ferent parts of Italy were united under one ruler. These changes were brought about by several wars carried on be- 1878] VICTORIA 381 tween 1859 and 1871. The union of the small German and Italian states, each into a strong nation, was worth all the struggle it cost; but while these countries, with France and Austria, were devoting their chief energies to war, the English were advancing in the arts of peace. While France and Prussia were engaged in the war of 1871, also, Eussia seized the opportunity to build a fleet in the Black Sea and fortify Sebastopol again; and England alone could not interfere. Mr. Disraeli, who was later made Earl of Beaconsfield, became premier in 1874. For six years he carried on the gov- ernment with a great display of power abroad. " Imperial policy/' this was called; but his enemies called it "jingo policy/' taking the name from a comic song written in ridi- cule: "We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do, we've got the ships, we've got the men, and we've got the money, too." It was during this period that the queen formally took the title of "Empress of India" (1877); this was a suitable expression of the relations that had long existed between England and India. The Eastern Question was brought up again by the mas- sacre of Christians in Turkey. Eussia declared war and de- feated the Turks in 1877-8. But Beaconsfield thought the terms of peace were too favorable to Eussia; and a congress of the European powers was held at Berlin to consider the matter. Through the influence of England and some other nations, Turkey was allowed to keep more territory and power than she otherwise could have held; still, several of the old provinces of Turkey were made independent. Eng- land at this time received from Turkey the island of Cyprus, which Beaconsfield thought was important on account of its being near the route to India. Egypt. Among the foreign enterprises of Lord Beacons- field was the purchase of nearly half the stock of the Suez 382 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1878 Canal Company. This canal had been built by the French engineer De Lesseps. It was opened in 1869. The Khedive of Egypt sold his share, which was nearly half the entire value of the canal, to the British government for $20,000,000. The English people were delighted with the transaction, be- cause the canal is of the utmost value to their commerce. The purchase gave England some right to interfere in Egyptian Suez Canal. politics, and she has gradually extended her power until Egypt is to-day practically a British province. Another Invasion of Afghanistan (1878) was made un- der General Eoberts. Several battles were fought, in which the British were successful, though they lost heavily. A force under Gen. Burrows, however, was defeated and be- sieged in Kandahar. Then came General Boberts's wonder- ful march across the mountains from Kabul to relieve this force (1880), an achievement that made him famous. The 1S79] VICTORIA 383 Afghans were defeated, but, to the disgust of the officers, an order came from Lord Beaeonsfield to retreat and give up the ground that the English had won. The War with the Dutch South African Republic was the most disgraceful attempt of the premier to force British rule on unwilling people. The Dutch had originally settled Cape Colony, which was a halfway sta- tion on the way to their East Indian possessions. The Dutch colony was built up between 1650 and 1806, when the British seized it o CAPE TOWN C. of Good Hope 100 200 300 The Boer Republics (1899). Some years later English settlers began to arrive; but many of the Dutch colonists, or Boers, disliked their new neighbors so much that they moved farther north and east. The British government followed them, however, and annexed Natal (1843) and the country along the Orange Eiver (1848). Many Boers then migrated across the Vaal Eiver and founded the republic known as the Transvaal. England acknowledged their independence (1852) and the independence of the Orange Free State (1854). In 1877 the government of the Transvaal was in a very bad condition. Some of its people, favoring English rule, said that England ought to take pos- session of the country and restore order. An English agent at once declared the Transvaal a part of the British Empire. The English now took up a quarrel between the Boers and the Zulus, which ended in the capture of Cetewayo, the Zulu king, and the reduction of Zululand to a British province. After the Zulu war the Boers of the Transvaal became dis- 384 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1880 satisfied, and set up. for themselves the new independent gov- ernment of the South African Eepublic. In the war that followed the successes were all on their side. At Heidelberg a hundred British were shot down with the loss of one Boer. Several other attacks of the British were almost as disastrous. Their last and greatest defeat was at Majuba Hill. Six hun- dred British troops had fortified themselves on the top of the hill, overlooking the Boer camp. The Boers, four hundred in number, stormed the hill and surrounded the British, killing or capturing half of them with a loss to themselves of one killed and five wounded. During this time Mr. Glad- stone had again become prime minister. He made a treaty of peace with the Boers of the Transvaal, again acknowledging their independence, but reserving to Great Britain the control of their relations with foreign countries. Affairs in Egypt were marked by success in the north and by disaster in the Sudan. A rising against Europeans in Egypt (1882), led by Arabi Pasha, an officer in the Egyptian army, resulted in the bombardment and destruction of Alex- andria by the English. This was followed by the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, where Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated Arabi Pasha and took him prisoner. The Khedive has continued to be the nominal ruler of Egypt, but since 1882 England has really been in supreme control. The Sudan is the great country south of Egypt and west of Abyssinia. The Egyptians, during Lord Beaeonsfield's rule, had extended their authority into this region, and several garrisons were established at Khartum and other places. These garrisons were threatened by the rising of a new " Mahdi," or prophet, among the Arabs of the Sudan. The fanatical Mohammedans fought with great bravery and de- feated an Egyptian army sent against them (1883). Glad- stone's ministry then sent General Gordon, called " Chinese " Gordon from his successful work in putting down a great re- 1885] VICTORIA 385 MEDITERRANEAN bellion in China, to withdraw the garrisons from the Sudan. While waiting in Khartum for English troops which did not come, Gordon's army was massacred by the Mahdi and his followers, who were treach- erously admitted into the fort. The weakness of the Glad- stone government in support- ing Gordon angered the peo- ple, and he had to resign in 1885. Reform Bills of 1884 and 1885. Before Gladstone's res- ignation, however, he secured the passage of the third great reform bill, which gave the franchise to the laboring classes in the country as well as in the cities, adding two and one-half millions to the voting population. A year la- ter, the kingdom was divided into districts, each one electing, as a rule, one representative to the House of Commons. These acts gave the House 670 members: 72 from Scotland, 103 from Ireland, and the rest from England and Wales. The Election of 1885 resulted in a victory for the Liberals. Gladstone again became prime minister. A strong Home Rule party had sprung up in Ireland, under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, called the Nationalists. Their object was to repeal the Act of Union passed in 1800, and have Ireland governed by an Irish Parliament sitting at Dublin. The land reform act passed in 1870 had not worked well, and Gladstone now proposed a law to lend £50,000,000 Egyptian Sudan. 386 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1886 to the Irish tenants to enable them to purchase their farms of the landlords. This bill lacked thirty votes of passing, and Mr. Gladstone resigned. Election of 1886. The home rule idea was not favored in England, and the Conservatives won the next election. Lord Salisbury became premier, and continued in office until 1892. During this period of six years several important measures were passed by Parliament. One of them abolished the fees paid by pupils in the elementary schools so that to-day England has a free school system. The Queen's " Jubilee " was celebrated in 1887, in honor of the fiftieth year of her reign. In contrast with the glory of the empire shown by the splendid pageants in London, was the general distress of the agricultural and laboring classes. The fall in the price of grain brought about by the repeal of the corn laws and by other causes had made the farmers unable to pay the high rents exacted by the landlords, and the government was obliged to give them assistance in purchasing the land, and in compelling the landlords to accept a lower rent. A Local Government Law was made for England and Wales in 1888, giving to each county the power to elect officers to manage its own local affairs. Ten years later this law was extended to Ireland to console the Irish for the defeat of their last Home Eule Bill in 1894. Mr. Gladstone became prime minister again in 1893, but retired from public life the next year, on the failure of his last effort to give home rule to Ireland. He had reached his eighty-fifth year, and had been over fifty years in the public service. Besides this, he had written many books on a variety of subjects, and was deeply interested in everything that was of interest to mankind. His noble and generous nature en- titled him to the first place among the Englishmen of his time, and to the title that they lovingly gave him, "the 1898] VICTORIA 387 Grand Old Man." He died four years after his retirement, and one year after the "diamond jubilee " .of the queen in celebration of her sixtieth year as Queen of England, and of her twentieth year as Empress of India. The Conservative Government that went into power soon after Gladstone's resignation in 1894, completely changed the policy in Africa. Mr. Gladstone said that the invasion of the • Sudan and the annexation of the Transvaal were entirely wrong, and that the Arabs and the Dutch should be allowed to carry on their government as they wished. Lord Salis- bury and the Conservatives said that the British flag should not be hauled down where it had been once set up. General Kitchener was sent into the Sudan from Egypt with a strong army of 25,000 men armed with magazine rifles and machine guns. He met the Arabs, numbering 50,000, near Khartum (1898). The mad rush of the enemy upon the English and Egyptians was met by a withering fire which mowed them down by thousands. Their short-range rifles could not reach the English. The supremacy of England in the Sudan was secured. The Boer War in South Africa called Kitchener from his campaign in the Sudan, on the very eve of its completion. Things had gone badly with the British, and the strongest generals of the empire were needed. Let us now trace the events that led up to this war. Cecil Rhodes. The most prominent man in South Africa at the time was Cecil Ehodes. When a young man he had left college and had gone to Africa for his health. While there he took an interest in the newly discovered diamond mines at Kimberley. The dry air of South Africa cured him of his lung disease, and he entered upon an active life. He 'became the head of the De Beers Diamond Company, which obtained entire control of the Kimberley mines, producing millions of dollars' worth of gems every year. NlVER 24. 388 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1889 In 1889 Khodes obtained a charter for the British South Africa Company, securing the right of trade and government in a vast territory west and north of the Transvaal, stretch- ing away for nearly two thousand miles north of Cape Colony* His great ambition was to construct a railroad from Cape Town to Cairo and build up a great African empire for Eng- land which should stretch from Cape Colony to the Mediter- ranean Sea. The Transvaal and the Orange Free State, the two Boer republics, lay in the way of his plan. A serious quarrel soon arose with the Boers on account of the discovery of gold in the mountain ridges along the southern borders of the Trans- vaal. There was a great rush of English miners into the country, and in a few years the flourishing " Gold City " of Johannesburg was built up in the mining regions. The Boer government was unjust and narrow in its treat- ment of the " outlanders," as the foreign miners were called, who soon came to form the majority of the population. They paid two thirds of the taxes, but were not allowed to become citizens, and could neither vote nor have any share in the gov- ernment. In 1895 the foreign population of Johannesburg published a " Bill of Eights " which they demanded from the Boer government. The Jameson Raid followed immediately upon this de- mand. " Doctor " Jameson was an employee of Cecil Khodes. In January, 1896, he led a raid of seven hundred men into the Transvaal, expecting that the foreigners would rise, and that together they would seize the government. The raiders were met by a force of Boers and defeated. Those not killed were captured. The British government apologized for the raid and punished the leaders, but began to prepare for war by moving soldiers and supplies into South Africa. The Brit- ish soon demanded equal rights for Boers and British in the Transvaal. The demand was refused, and President Kruger 1899] VICTORIA 389 demanded the withdrawal of British troops from the borders of the Transvaal, and the removal of all troops from Africa that had been brought in since the failure of Jameson's raid. When England refused these demands, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war, for the two republics had agreed to stand or fall together. The Boers were Prepared, and sent their troops over the borders with a rush. In a few days, they defeated the British A Group of Boers. at every point, and laid siege to Kimberley, Maf eking, and Ladysmith, the three leading towns on the British frontier. Through the autumn and winter of 1899 the British met with frightful losses. The British general in chief, Buller, was no match for the swift movements of the Boer leaders. Volun- teers from Canada, Australia, and the British Isles hastened to 390 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1900 Africa; 200,000 horses and mules were taken there from the United States and other countries to mount the British soldiers. Lords Roberts and Kitchener, " the heroes of Kandahar and Khartum" were now sent to Africa. The British out- numbered the Boers three to one, and drove them in retreat from Cape Colony. The besieged towns had held out bravely, and the Boer besiegers were driven away from all of them after sieges lasting 134, 216, and 119 days. The British army entered Bloemf ontein in March, and declared the Orange Free State a British colony. In June a similar declara- tion was made under the British flag in Pre- toria. The war was ended, with the excep- tion of guerrilla fight- ing on the part of sev- eral outlying bands of Boers. It had cost England thousands of soldiers and half a QUEEN VICTORIA. bmion of doUarg> Queen Victoria Died in January, 1901, at Osborne House, her winter residence on the Isle of Wight. No sovereign ever died more generally loved and respected throughout the world. The boast of the old Greek patriot could be truthfully made of her, " that no citizen through any act of hers ever put on mourning." INDUSTRY 391 QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. Account for the attitude of the various classes of people in England toward the United States during the Civil War. 2. What were the effects of each of the three great reform measures? 3. What do you think of Gladstone's plans for curing the troubles in Ireland? 4. In what ways was the purchase of the Suez Canal beneficial to England? How did it affect commerce? Colonization? 5. What was the object sought in each of the wars of this period? TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. Gordon at Khartum. Traill, England, Egypt, and the Sudan; Mackenna and O'Shea, Brave Men of Action. 2. The Dutch and English in Africa. Doyle, The Great Boer War; Lee, Source Booh of English History, pp. 369-385. 3. Home Rule for Ireland. Kendall, Source Booh, pp. 391-400 ; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, II., pp. 201-203. 4. General Kitchener. Kendall, Source Booh, pp. 448-459; E. N. Bennett, The Downfall of the Dervishes; Doyle, The Great Boer War. C. Industry, Literature, Government, Empire. The Change from Hand Labor to Machinery, which took place during the early part of the nineteenth century, made such important changes in the life of the people and in the management of business, that this period is usually de- scribed as that of the " Industrial Kevolution." In the days of hand labor, each workman had his spinning wheels and loom in his own house. But after the inventions made by Har- greaves, Crompton, and Cartwright, the machines used were large and cumbersome, and required steam or water power to run them. They were also expensive to make, and one man could no longer obtain money enough to own such machines. As a result, many men had to put their money together, to build factories and equip them with the machinery necessary to carry on manufacturing processes. Thus the factory sys- tem and companies arose. The workmen could no longer spin yarn and weave cloth in the old-fashioned way at home, 392 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1786 because this work could be done so much more cheaply by machinery. An amount of cotton thread worth 13 shillings in 1786 was worth only 1 shilling in 1832. A hand-weaver who earned 25 shillings a week in 1800 could earn only &y 2 shillings in 1830. As men could not make a living by hand work, they moved into the towns and went to work in the fac- tories. Two Classes grew up ; the capitalists, 'who owned the fac- tories and mills with the machinery, and the laboring class, who did the work. These two classes were, on one point, opposed to each other. The capitalist wanted to hire his men as cheaply as possible in order to make a greater profit on his goods ; and the laborer tried to get the highest price he could for his work. The laborers soon found that by joining together in a de- mand for shorter hours and higher wages they could force the manufacturer to listen to them, since without workmen he could not carry on his business. Such a union of men engaged in a common occupation is called a "trades union." If the employer refused their demands, the men would " strike f that is, would stop all work until an understanding was reached. The trades unions caused so much disturbance by their strikes that Parliament in 1800 passed laws forbid- ding workmen to combine against their employers to raise- wages. Labor unions did not stop, however, but continued to increase, and gradually grew into favor with the public. Laws against them have been repealed, and the rights of working people have been steadily upheld by their unions. There are now about 1,800 trades unions in Great Britain and Ireland. A Trade Council, or Federation, is a meeting of delegates from the separate unions, and assembles every year, or oftener, to consider matters affecting laboring men through- out the country. They have a parliamentary committee, who 1903] INDUSTRY 393 try to influence Parliament to pass factory acts (p. 357) and other laws favorable to the working people. In 1903, for instance, a trade council meeting at Sheffield petitioned Par- liament to reduce the length of a working day to eight hours. Associations of Employers have been formed to resist the demands of the trades unions. The Sheffield Manufac- turing Union was one of the earliest of these, formed in 1814 to prevent a rise in wages. An association of the Em- ployers of Engineers was made in 1851 to resist the demand of the Union of Engineers for higher wages. In 1873 a National Federation of the Employers of Labor was as- sembled to consider the demands of the Federation of Labor Unions. Besides these combinations of employers against the workmen, other associations are made to lessen expenses and keep up prices. Trusts and Trade Combinations are the names by which such associations are known. To illustrate their working, let us suppose that there are several gas companies in the same city. Each company must have its own factories, pipe lines, offices, inspectors, and various employees. It may also em- ploy salesmen to go among the people, to induce as many as possible to use the gas of that one company. If one com- pany charges one dollar a thousand for gas, another may cut the price to ninety cents, and a third competing company may reduce it still further, until the price becomes so low that the business does not pay. ISTow suppose that all the companies join into one. Instead of three lines of pipe, they need only one ; one office will do the work that before required three. No salesmen need be employed, because the people will be obliged to buy the gas supplied or go 1 without. Thus by combining, the gas " trust," as we call such a union, will save a great deal of money in the cost of manufacturing and selling its product. As this trust has practically a monopoly, it may also increase the price of its gas, perhaps to one dollar and twenty-five 394 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1860 cents. In this manner some manufacturers in England, like many in America, have combined their interests; but gas works in England are now commonly owned and run by the city governments. Another Form of Trade Combination consists only in an agreement upon uniform prices, terms of sale, length of credit, discounts, and so on. Each manufacturer selling the same product on the same terms, it will not matter to the purchaser where he buys. If two merchants in the same village agree to charge the same price for goods, they will divide the busi- ness between them. Profit Sharing has, in many cases, proved a success in preventing strife between employers and their workmen in Great Britain. This consists in giving to the laborer a share of all the profit above a certain percentage on the capital in- vested. To illustrate, suppose that a certain factory with its machinery is worth a hundred thousand dollars. The owners agree to give to the employees half of the excess of the profits over ten per cent. If the annual profits should be twenty thousand dollars, the owners would reserve ten thousand for themselves, and divide five thousand, half the balance, among the laborers. This method gives the employees an interest in the business, and encourages them to work more earnestly for its success. The Victorian Age in Literature. The reign of Victoria was marked by a wonderful increase in the number of books and authors, due largely to improved methods of printing, and to the growth of newspapers and magazines. More people now write because they can get their thoughts before the public more cheaply and easily than in the earlier times. Then, too, there is a greater demand for books as people be- come more intelligent. Alfred Tennyson was the greatest poet of this period. His greatest works are " Idyls of the King/' stories of the time of 1901] LITERATURE 395 Arthur (p. 31), and " In Memoriam," a long poem written in memory of his friend Arthur Hallam. But some of his shorter poems are better known : " The May Queen," " Locks- ley Hall," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and many others are read and loved wherever the English lan- guage is spoken. Robert Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, were poets of the first rank, but their poetry is more difficult and has not the widespread popularity of Tennyson's. Dickens. The greatest novelist since Scott is Charles Dickens. But while Scott revived the ro- mantic tales of the days of chivalry and of the border wars, Dickens wrote about Alfred Tennyson. real life and the humorous characters and incidents of his own time. He began the publication of his " Pickwick Papers " in 1836. The funny sayings of Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick delighted everybody, and the book is still a favorite. " Oliver Twist," "David Copperfield," " Dombey and Son," and " Bleak House " are some of his best novels. William Makepeace Thackeray was a clever satirist of the social follies of his time, while Dickens was the good- natured humorist and friend. Thackeray's "Virginians" deals with incidents of the reign of George III. "Vanity Fair," "The Newcomes," and "Pendennis" are his best novels. He wrote also a " History of the Four Georges " and numerous essays and lectures. 396 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1837 The Chief Historians are Thomas B. Macaulay, Edward A. Freeman, James Anthony Froude, and Samuel Kawson Gardiner, all of whom wrote histories of their own country. Thomas Carlyle wrote also a history of the French Kevolu- tion, an event which influenced in so many ways the history of England. Among Philosophers and Scientists Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall are the most important names. The first two are famous for their efforts to establish the theory of Evolution, which holds that all life is a development from lower forms. Huxley also studied animals, while Tyndall, following the methods of Bacon (p. 201) taught the world much about physical science. Lister revolutionized the practice of surgery by applying anti- septic methods. The British Government has, since the time of William III., been marked by a continual decrease in the power of the crown, and a continual increase in the power of the House of Commons. When that king adopted the plan of choosing his ministry, not from several parties, but from the party having the majority of supporters in the House, he laid the founda- tion of popular power. After the passage of the re- form measures (pp. 378, 385) giving the people the right to vote, it became possible for the will of the people to control the government more completely than in the United States. Parliament and Congress. If we compare the power of Parliament with that of the United States Congress, we shall find three important differences. First, there are practically no checks upon the power of the Common's. The veto power of the king is never used, the House of Lords seldom ventures to oppose a measure which has passed the Commons by a fair majority, and no British court can declare an act of Parliament unconstitutional, for Parlia- ment can at any time change the constitution. In Congress, 1900] BRITISH GOVERNMENT 397 on the contrary, the Senate (which is not elected by direct vote of the people) has equal power with the House of Representa- tives, and is under no compulsion to vote for a bill that has been passed by the House. And if a bill is passed by the Congress, it may be vetoed by the President and can be passed over his veto only by a two-thirds vote of both houses. And finally, the courts have power, in any case brought before them, to nullify any act of Congress which breaks our written Con- The Meeting Place of the House of Commons. stitution; the Constitution can be changed only by a three- fourths vote of the States. In the second place it requires six years to obtain an en- tirely new Congress, since the senators hold office for that time. A new House of Commons is chosen whenever the Cabinet orders it. This enables the people of England to express their opinion on any given question at the polls at any time, and through their representatives to put it in the form of law. In the third place, the House of Commons exercises far 398 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1900 greater control over the executive branch of government than our Congress has. We have seen (p. 285) how the prime minister took the place of the king as the presiding officer of the Cabinet in the time of George I. With the exception of George III., no sovereign since William III. has exercised much power in the administration of the government. All real authority is with the Cabinet, who are in reality a com- mittee of the party having a majority in the House of Com- mons, and are responsible to the House for their actions. If iheir actions displease the House and it fails to support them, they must resign or order a new election. The Cabinet; King and President. The number of officers composing the British Cabinet is not fixed by law, but depends on the needs of the government at the time. There are eleven, however, that always have seats in it: the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the five Secretaries of State (for Home Affairs, for Foreign Affairs, for the Colonies, for India, and for War) ; of these the premier is usually the First Lord of the Treasury. Be- sides these eleven, several other administrative heads, as the Secretaries for Scotland and Ireland, the President of the Board of Trade, or of the Local Government Board, are usually given seats in the Cabinet. • The Cabinet officers are members of Parliament; some be- long to the House of Lords, and some to the Commons. They frame and support bills affecting their several departments. Thus the Secretary for the Colonies would be expected to propose laws affecting the colonies ; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, those for raising revenue. It will be readily seen that the powers of king and cabinet in England differ essentially from those of the president and his cabinet in the United States. The latter are strictlv 1900] BRITISH GOVERNMENT 399 executive officers and have nothing to do directly with law- making, except in the case of a veto (p. 397). The cabinet officers in the United States are responsible to the president rather than to Congress. Neither is the president responsible to Congress, but to the people only ; the design of the Consti- tution of the United States being to make the legislative and executive departments of the government as far as possible independent of each other. In England, on the contrary, there is no such distinction of legislative and executive powers. There, the man who makes a law is supposed to be the one best fitted to carry it out. The president selects his cabinet subject to the approval of the Senate; but he may choose any one he pleases. The king must choose as prime minister the man who leads the party that has a majority in the House of Commons, and the prime minister selects, subject to the formal approval of the king, the other members of the cabinet. Thus we see that the differences between the government of the United States and that of England are more numerous and important than the resemblances; and that government by the people is more direct and effective in England. The British Empire. The little island of Great Britain has become the center of the most extensive empire the world ever saw. Twelve million square miles of territory, or over three times the area of all Europe, and four hundred millions of people now own allegiance to it. This empire stretches all the way around the globe, lies in all the zones with every climate, and includes people of every race, religion, and color, living in all the stages of civilization. In the Government of her Colonies, the policy of Great Britain has, since the lesson taught by the American War (p. 317), been most liberal. We may conveniently group them into two classes. First are those that are almost entirely self-governing; in them the prevailing race is English-speak- ongitude 401 402 HOUSE OF HANOVER [1900 ing. To this class belong the Dominion of Canada, New- foundland, the Australian Federation, Cape Colony, and New Zealand. In each there is a legislature elected by the people and a governor-general appointed by the British government. He governs through a ministry, or cabinet, representing the majority of the popular branch of the legislature. The min- istry is responsible for its actions to the legislature and not to the British government. But the British government has charge of the foreign relations of all the colonies, and makes treaties for them. Colonies of the second class are known as the "crown col- onies." These are more or less completely governed through the Secretary for the Colonies in London. There is in each of these a governor appointed by the crown, that is, by the British government. In some small establishments like Gibraltar and St. Helena, he is the only officer and has mili- tary power. In other colonies, like the Straits Settlements, there is a legislative council chosen by the colonial office to assist him. In Jamaica the people choose part of the legisla- ture, while in the Bahamas and the Bermudas it is entirely elected by them. In all the crown colonies the governor is responsible to the Colonial Office in London, and not to the people of the colony. India has a government of its own quite different from the rest of the empire. It is governed, through a governor-gen- eral and his council, directly by the Secretary of State for India, who is a member of the Cabinet. The secretary is as- sisted by a council of fifteen men experienced in Indian af- fairs. The governor-general also is assisted by a council, chosen partly by the secretary and partly by himself, who administer the affairs of India, and who have also some legis- lative power. Many states of India are still governed by natives princes, subject to the control of English officials; the rest of it is divided into a number of provinces. The 1900] BRITISH EMPIRE 403 provinces of Madras and Bombay have governor-generals chosen by the crown, while the rest are subject to lieutenant- governors chosen by the Governor-General of India. Protectorates and Spheres of Influence. Besides the above classes of colonies, a large part of the empire consists of protectorates, which, though not counted as British soil, have their foreign relations subject to British control. These protectorates are in various stages. In some, as Nigeria and British East Africa, chartered companies are in control; others are directly managed by the Foreign Office ; still others shade off into "spheres of influence," which are stepping- stones to protectorates and colonies. British Institutions in the Colonies. — It will be noticed that the colonial governments in their full development are faithful copies of the home government. The principles of the Magna Charta have been extended to the colonies, and the freedom that Englishmen enjoy at home is assured to them wherever the nag flies. It is these common institutions that bind the scattered parts of the British Empire together, and that have given rise to the idea of an imperial confederation, or union of the whole empire, governed by a common Parlia- ment sitting at Westminster. Whether this may be realized or not, it is certain that British colonial government has been productive of the highest good to mankind and that English- speaking colonists everywhere are loyal and take a patriotic pride in owning allegiance to the empire on which the " sun never sets." QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT. 1. How did the introduction of machinery and the factory system affect the English people? 2. Mention some good and some bad effects of the organization of capital. Of labor. What benefits arise from profit sharing? 3. What advantages does the British Cabinet have over the American? 4. Would it be better to elect a new Senate every two years? Give reasons. In what way do the king and the president resemble each other? The prime minister and the president? 404 RECENT EVENTS [1901 TOPICS FOR HOME READING. 1. British Colonial Government. H. E. Egerton, Origin and Growth of the English Colonies, pp. 140-180. 2. The British Flag. Cumberland, History of the Union Jack. D. Eecent Events. Edward VII., 1901- Albert Edward, the oldest son of Victoria, succeeded her under the title of Edward VII. His policy is one of peace. Through his efforts most liberal terms were granted to the Boer guerrilla bands (p. 390), in order that the entire British Em- pire might be at peace during the year of his |||| coronation. Besides pacifying the Boers, he favored measures to end the discontent of the Irish by making them a grant of money to purchase their farms of the landlords. Arthur J. Balfour became prime minis- ter on the resignation of Lord Salisbury in 1902. He carried a measure giving £12,000,000 to Irish tenants, and also making government loans to them at a low rate of interest, thus en- abling every Irish farmer shortly to become his own landlord. Edwaed VII. 1903] EDWARD VII. 405 A New Education Bill was also passed by the Balfour government, extending the national system of education to embrace all departments from the primary school to the university. State aid is given to public and private schools alike, and religious instruction is permitted. Affairs in China. A few years before Edward came to the throne, there was a scramble on the part of the nations of Europe to secure concessions. England, Eussia, France, and Germany secured grants or leases of ports and strips of Harbor of Hongkong, England's Chief Port near China. land. The forced concessions and the hatred of the Chinese for everything foreign led to the Boxer insurrection of 1900. Many foreigners and native Christians were massacred, and the German minister was killed. The allied armies of Eng- land, Germany, France, Japan, Russia, and the United States soon restored order, but in making a permanent settlement of the Chinese question a difference of opinion arose. Eussia, Germany, and France were eager for the partition of China among the foreign powers, or at least for compelling her 406 RECENT EVENTS [1904 to make increased concessions of territory. England, Japan, and the United States took the ground that the Chinese should keep their own land and government, and that foreign nations should be content with the right to trade, — the li open door " policy, as it is called. Eussia had sent soldiers into Manchuria to protect her rail- way interests there, but agreed that they should soon leave. She did not keep her agreement. Her military occupation of that province and her apparent intention to absorb Korea also, brought her into conflict with Japan, whose interests in Korea and China were thus threatened. Japan began war early in 1904, and in a few weeks gained command of the sea in that part of the world, by destroying many of Russia's war ships. England, by a treaty made with Japan in 1902, stands pledged to support her in maintaining the " open door " and the integrity of China. APPENDIX. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE: IMPORTANT EVENTS AND DATES IN ENGLISH HISTORY. The Roman Period, 55 b. c-410 a. d. Caesar's first invasion . . 55 B. c. Claudius begins conquest of Britain 43 a. d. Revolt of Boadicea 61 Agricola builds line of forts 81 Hadrian's Wall begun 121 Romans leave Britain 410 The Anglo-Saxon Period, 449-1066. First Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain 449 Augustine preaches in Kent 597 Church Council of Whitby 664 First invasion of the Danes '. 787 Death of Egbert, first king of all England 839 Reign of Alfred the Great 871-901 Peace of Wedrnore 878 Massacre of Danes in England 1002 Danish Conquest of England 1013-6 Canute becomes king 1016 Edward the Confessor becomes king 1042 Battle of Hastings 1066 The Norman Period, 1066-1154. William I 1066 Charter granted to London 1066 Hereward defeated at Ely 1071 Landholders swear allegiance to William 108G William Rufus 1087 The king robs the church of its revenue 1094 Henry 1 1100 The first charter of liberties granted 1100 Normandy conquered at Tinchebrai 1106 Princess Matilda marries Geoffrey Plantagenet .... 1128 Stephen 1135 Civil war begins 1139 Treaty with Henry Plantagenet 1153 Niver — 25 i ii APPENDIX The Plant agenet Period, 1154-1399. Henry II 1154 Payment of scutage established 1160 Constitutions of Clarendon 1164 Murder of Becket 1170 Strongbow's invasion of Ireland 1170 Circuit judges appointed 1178 Richard 1 1189 Third crusade 1190-1194 John 1199 Battle of Bouvines 1214 The Great Charter 1215 John's war with the barons and death 1216 Henry III 1216 The Charter confirmed 1216 The Friars land in England 1221 Coal mines opened .~ 1234 Battle of Lewes 1264 De Montfort's Parliament 1265 Battle of Evesham 1265 Edward 1 1272 Statute of Mortmain 1279 The Conquest of Wales 1282^ Jews driven from England 1290 Model Parliament 1295 Confirmation of Charters 1297 Scotland conquered 1296-1304 Edward II . 1307 Battle of Bannockburn 1314 Edward deposed and murdered 1327 Edward III 1327 Independence of Scotland admitted 1328 Woolen manufacture introduced 1331 House of Commons becomes a distinct body 1333 Hundred Years' War begun 1337 Battle of Crecy 1346 Capture of Calais 1347 The Black Death 1348-9 Staples (market towns) established 1354 Battle of Poitiers 1356 Peace of Bretigny 1360 Richard II. . 1377 Revolt of the peasants * 13S1 Chaucer begins the " Canterbury Tales " 1384 Henry Bolingbroke returns to England 1399 Parliament chooses Henry king 1399 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE in The Lancastrian Period, 1399-1461. Henry IV I399 Revolt of Glendower 1400 Battle of Shrewsbury 1403 Henry V 1413 Battle of Agincourt 1415 Treaty of Troyes 1420 Henry VI 1422 Siege of Orleans 1428-9 Joan of Arc burned 1431 Jack Cade's Insurrection 1450 End of Hundred Years' War 1453 Wars of the Roses begin; battle of St. Albans 1455 Battles of second St. Albans and Towton 1461 The Yorkist Period, 1461-1485. Edward IV 1461 Warwick restores Henry VI 1470 Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury 1471 Death of Henry VI. in the Tower 1471 Caxton prints the first book in England 1477 Edward V.; murdered 1483 Richard III . 1483 Battle of Bosworth ; end of Wars of the Roses 1485 The Tudor Period, 1485-1603. Henry VII 1485 Court of Star Chamber 1487 Laws against retainers 1487 First voyage of John Cabot 1497 Henry VIII 1509 Battle of the Spurs and battle of Flodden 1513 Wolsey becomes chief minister 1515 Beginning of Protestant Reformation in Germany .... 1517 Henry makes himself Supreme Head of the English Church . 1531 Death of Sir Thomas More 1535 Dissolution of the monasteries 1536-9 Edward VI 1547 Battle of Pinkie 1547 First English Prayer Book 1549 Act of Uniformity 1549 The Forty-two Articles 1552 Grammar schools and hospitals founded 1552-3 Mary 1553 Wyatt's rebellion; Lady Jane Grey executed 1554 Reconciliation with the Pope 1554 Loss of Calais 1558 iv APPENDIX Elizabeth 1558 Protestantism restored 1559 John Knox preaches in Scotland 1559 Mary Stuart lands in Scotland 1561 Thirty-nine Articles 15G2 Slave trade begun by Hawkins 1562 Drake's great voyage 1577-80 Raleigh sends first colony to Virginia 1585 Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots 1587 The defeat of the Armada 1588 East India Company chartered 1600 Conquest of Ireland completed 1603 The Stuart Period, 1603-1689. James I . . 1603 Hampton Court Conference 1604 Founding of Jamestown 1607 Death of Shakespeare 1616 Execution of Raleigh . 1618 Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in America . . . . 1620 Charles I 1625 The Petition of Right 1628 Wentworth sent to Ireland as Deputy 1633 Laud made Archbishop of Canterbury 1633 Hampden refuses to pay ship money 1637 Long Parliament meets 1640 Execution of Strafford 1641 Civil War begins at Edgehill 1642 Cromwell's Ironsides organized 1642 The Solemn League and Covenant 1643 Marston Moor 1644 Naseby ' . 1645 Execution of Charles 1 1649 The Commonwealth 1649-1653 Cromwell in Ireland 1649-1650 Battle of Dunbar 1650 Battle of Worcester 1651 Blake's battles with the Dutch ......... 1652-3 Cromwell dismisses the Long Parliament 1653 The Protectorate 1653-1660 Death of Oliver Cromwell; Richard Cromwell Protector . . 1658 Charles II., the Restoration 1660 Second Dutch War 1664-7 The Plague in London 1665 The Great Fire in London 1666 Secret treaty of Dover 1670 Third Dutch War 1672^ CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE v The Test Act . ' . 1073 Habeas Corpus Act 1079 Rise of Whigs and Tories 1080 Town charters revoked 1083-4 James II 1085 Monmouth's Rebellion 1085 Trial of the Seven Bishops, June 1088 William of Orange lands in England, November .... 1088 William III. and Mary II 1089 The Bill of Rights 1089 Mutiny and Toleration Acts 1089 War of the Palatinate 1089-97 Battle of the Boyne 1090 Battle of La Hogue 1092 Bank of England founded 1094 Freedom of the press - 1095 Act of Settlement 1701 Anne 1702 War of the Spanish Succession ........ 1702-13 Battle of Blenheim 1704 Gibraltar taken 1704 Union of England and Scotland 1707 The Hanoverian Period, 1714- George I 1714 Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland 1715-10 Septennial Act 1710 South Sea Company and others fail 1721 .Walpole prime minister; rise of the Cabinet .... 1721-12 George II 1727 War of Jenkins's Ear begins 1739 England in War of the Austrian Succession 1744-48 Second Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland 1745-40 Battle of Culloden 1740 " New Style " calendar adopted 1752 French and Indian War 1754-03 The Seven Years' War 1750-03 William Pitt (the elder) in power . 1757-01 Clive wins the battle of Plassey 1757 Capture of Quebec 1759 George III 1700 The Stamp Act 1765 Watt invents the condensing steam engine 1705 Prison reform begun by John Howard • • 1774 Port of Boston closed 1774 American Declaration of Independence 1770 Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga 1777 vi APPENDIX Gordon riots 1780 Surrender of Cornwallis 1781 Treaty of Versailles ; United States independent .... 1783 French Revolution begun 1789 Battle of the Nile 1798 Union of Great Britain and Ireland 1800 Peace of Amiens 1802 Battle of Trafalgar 1805 Slave trade abolished 1807 War with the United States 1812-11 Battle of Waterloo 1815 George IV 1820 Repeal of Corporation and Test Acts 1828 Catholic Emancipation 1829 William IV 1830 Opening of Liverpool and Manchester Railroad 1830 Passage of the Reform Bill 1832 Slavery abolished in British colonies . . . . . . . 1833 Monopoly of East India Company abolished ...... 1833 New poor law 1834 Victoria 1837 Chartist agitation 1837-48 The Opium War 1839 Penny postage established 1840 Famine in Ireland 1845 Repeal of the Corn Laws 1846 First World's Fair 1851 Crimean War 1854-5 The Indian Mutiny 1857 Government of India taken from East India Company . . . 1858 Second Reform Act 1867 Canadian Federation 1867 Irish Church disestablished 1869 Public schools established 1870 Irish Land Act 1870 Victoria proclaimed Empress of India 1877 Third Reform Act 1884 Sudan War 1884-5 Queen's Jubilee 1887 Jameson Raid * 1896 Sudan recovered 1898 War with the Boer Republics 1899-1902 Edward VII 1901 Irish Land Act 1902 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE. Source Books: C. W. Colby, Selections from the Sources of Eng- lish History (Longmans, N. Y.). E. Kendall, Source Book of Eng- lish History (Macmillan, N. Y.). G. C. Lee, Source Book of English History (Macmillan). General Works: J. F. Bright, English History, 4 vols. (E. P. Dutton & Co., N. Y.). E. P. Cheyney, Industrial and Social His- tory of England (Macmillan, N. Y.). J. A. Froude, History of Eng- land, 12 vols. (Scribner, N. Y.). S. R. Gardiner, Student's History of England (Longmans, N. Y.) ; Atlas of English History (Long- mans). J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People (Ameri- can Book Company) ; Readings from English History (Harper, N. Y.). Guest and Underwood, Handbook of English History (Macmil- lan). David Hume, History of England (Student's Series, Ameri- can Book Company). J. Lingard, The History of England (Mur- phy, Baltimore). H. D. Traill, Social England, 6 vols. (Putnam, N. Y.). Special Works: A. J. Church, Story of Early Britain (Putnam, N. Y.). E. A. Freeman, Old-English History (Macmillan, N. Y.). S. O. Jewett, Story of the Normans (Putnam). W. Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets (Longmans, N. Y.). M. Creighton, The Tudors and the Reformation (Longmans) ; Age of Elizabeth (Longmans). E. J. Payne, Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen (Oxford). E. E. Hale, Fall of the Stuarts (Longmans). T. B. Macaulay, History of Eng- land from the Time of James II., 3 vols. (Longmans). E. E. Morris, The Age of Anne (Estes, N. Y.). J. McCarthy, A Short History of Our Oivn Times, 2 vols. (F. A. Stokes, N. Y.). W. S. Churchill, London to Ladysmith (Longmans). J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England (Little, Boston). J. Hight, The English as a Colonizing Nation (Whitcombe & Tombs, London). G. E. Bolen, Plain Facts as to the Trusts and the Tariff (Macmillan). E. Lawless, Story of Ireland ( Putnam ) . Government: Acland and Ransome, A Handbook in Outline of the Political History of England to 1896 (Longmans, N. Y.). E. S. Creasy, Rise and Progress of the English Constitution (Appleton, N. Y.). Louise Creighton, The Government of England (Longmans). T. F. Moran, The English Government (Longmans). Biography: T. Hughes, Life of King Alfred (Macmillan, N. Y.). Agnes Strickland, The Queens of England (American Book Com- pany). Alice Green, Henry the Second (Macmillan). M. Creigh- ton, Simon de Mont fort (Longmans, N. Y.). R. H. Blades, Caxton (Hardwicke, London). Goldwin Smith, Three English Statesmen (Pym, Pitt, and Cromwell) (Macmillan). C. H. Firth, Cromwell (Putnam, N. Y.). J. Morley, Walpole (Macmillan). W. Besant, Captain Cook (Macmillan, N. Y.). W. C. Russell, Nelson (Putnam). G. Russell, Life of Gladstone (Harper, N. Y.). vii PRONOUNCING INDEX Key to pronunciation : a in late, a in senate, a, in fat, a in care, a in far, a in last, a in fall, a in final ; e in me, e in event, e in met, e in term, e in recent ; i in fine, i in tin ; 6 in note, o in obey, 6 in not, 6 in for, oo in loop, 6"6 in bdok ; n= ng, in its effect on the preceding vowel, but is itself silent ; u in tune, u in nut, u in rude, u in full, u in burn, u= French u„ Aboukir Bay (a-bo"6-ker') 330 Acadia 271 Acre (a'ker) 85 Addington, Henry 334 Addison, Joseph 281 Aetius (a-e'shi-us) 25 Afghanistan (af-gan-is-tan') . . . 365, 382 Aghrim (ag'rim) 268 Agincourt (a-zhaN-koor') ...... 13T Agriculture .... 171, 174, 191, 201, 320 Aids ............. 61 Aix-la-Chapelle (aks-la-sha-pel'), treaty of 292 Akbar Khan (ak'ber kan) „ . . . . . 365 Alabama claims . . 377 Albert, Prince Consort . . 359, 360, 367, 376 Al'bi-on 13 Alexander 1 332 Alfred the Great . . . 39-46 Algiers (al-jerz') . . . . «, ... . 234 American colonies, 199, 211, 212, 217, 240, 253, 254, 261, 290, 291, 302-307, 309-315 Amiens (a-ine-aN'), treaty of . . . . 333 Amusements, time of Elizabeth . 201, 202 Anderi'da . 29 Angles 26-28, 32 An'gle-sey ........... 21 Anglican Church, see Church of England. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . 38,' 45, 62, 71, 72 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms 31, 32 Anglo-Saxons 26-35 Anjou (aN'zhoo) 71, 73, 83 Anne, Queen 249, 273, 274 Anne of Cleves (klevz) 170 Anselm 66, 68 Anti-Corn-Law League 366 Antoni'nus 23 Appeals to the Pope 169 Aquitaine (ak-we-tiin ') . . . . 73,120,121 Arabi Pasha (a-ra'be pa-sha') .... 384 Archer, Thomas . . . . 157 Archery, English . 108,116 Arcot(ar-kot'), siege of .... 300,301 Ar-gyle', Earl of 285 Ark'low 334 Arkwright, Richard ........ 322 Arma' da, the Great 192 Armagnac (ar-man-yak") „ 137 Arthur, Duke of Brittany . . . . 90, 91 Arthur, King .31 Arthur, son of Henry VII ..... 160 Articles 172, 175 Attainder, act of 221, 267 Au'gustine 34 Australia 364, 402 Austria 272, 292, 341, 351 Austrian Succession, War of the . . . 292 Bacon, Francis 200, 201, 207 Bacon, Boger 101 Ba'donHill 31 Bakewell, Eobert 320 Balaclava (ba-la-kla°va) .... 368-370 Balance of power 165, 271 Bal'four, Arthur J 404 Baliol (ba'li-ul), Edward 114 Baliol, John 105 Ball, John ........... 127 Ballot Act 380 Baltic, battle of the . . 331 Baltimore, Lord 240 Bank of England . 269 Bannockburn, battle of ... . 110, 111 Barba'dos 240, 241 Barebones' Parliament ...... 236 Bar'net, battle of 148 Barons' War 98 Battle Abbey 54 Bavaria 275 Bayeux tapestry (M-ye ') 53, 54 Baylen (bi-lan') . .. . „ 340 Beachy Head, battle of 268 Beau'fort, Jane 136 Becket, Thomas a . 80, 81 Bede (bed), the Venerable ..... 33 Benedict, Saint ......... 34 Benevolences ........ 149, 159 Big'od, Boger 98 Bill of Eights ... 263 Bishops, the seven 259, 260 Bishops' Wars, the 220, 221 Black death 118, 119 Black Prince 117, 120, 121, 123 Vlll INDEX IX Blake, Eobert „ . 234 Blenheim (blen'lm) ........ 275 Blockade runners . 377 Blois (blwa) . . , . 71 Bloody Assizes ......... 257 Blore Heath, battle of .145 Blucher(blii'ker). ........ 343 Bo-a-di-ce'a ......... 21, 22 Board Schools 378 Boer Wars (boor) ...... 383, 387-390 Boleyn (bdol'in), Anne ...... 167 Bolingbroke (bdl'in-brdok), Henry 130-136 Bombay' 243 Book of Common Prayer ...... 175 Bordeaux (bor-do') ........ 121 Bosworth, battle of ....... . 154 Bothwell, Lord ......... 187 Boulogne (bdo-lon') 336 Bouvines (boo-ven'), battle of .... 91 Boyle (boil), Eobert 282 Boyne (boin), battle of the 268 Braddock, General . 304 Bradshaw, John ......... 231 Brahe (bra), Tycho ........ 282 Braose (bra-oz'), William of . .... 93 Bretigny (bre-ten-yi'), peace of . . . .121 Bret'walda . . . . 32 Bridgewater, Duke of 321 Bright, John . 366 Brindley, James 321 Britain, early races in . . . . . 9, 11, 13 British Empire ........ 399-403 British Isles 10 Britons 13, 14-20, 32 Bronze Age . 12, 13 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett .... 395 Browning, Eobert 395 Bruce, David 113, 121 Bruce, Eobert 109,110,111 Bruges (bru'jez) 115, 125 Buckingham (buk'ing-am), Henry Staf- ford, Duke of 151-154 Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of ... 209, 214, 215 Bunker Hill, battle of 313 Bunyan, John . 244 Burgh, Hubert de 97 Burgoyne (bur-goin') 313 Bur'gundy, Duke of 135, 139 Burns, Eobert Ill Bury St. Edmunds ....... 93, 94 Butter, Nathaniel . 281 Byng, Admiral 304 Byron, Lord 347, 351 Cabal', the 247, 248 Cabinet 398, 399, 278, 284, 285 Cabots, the ........... 161 Cade, Jack 144 Ca'diz ............ 214 Caerleon (kiir-le'un) ....... 81 Caesar, Julius ......... 14-20 Calais (ka-la') ...... 117, 125, 181 Calcut'ta, Black Hole of ... . 301, 302 Cal'vin, John .......... 186 Calvinists 195 Canada 307, 362, 402 Canals 320, 321 Canning, George. ..... 339, 340, 352 Canon Law 219 Canterbury, Archbishop of . . . . .79 " Canterbury Tales " ..... 123,124 Canute (ka-niit') 48 Cape Colony ........ 383, 402 Capital and labor ...... 392-394 Carac'tacus 20 Car'adoc 20 Carlyle (kar-hT), Thomas ..... 396 Carnar'von 104 Carolinas 253 Carr, Eobert 208 Cartwright, Edward 322 Carver, John .......... 211 Cassivelau'nus 16 Castles 43, 56, 71, 77, 157 Caswal'lon ........... 16 Catesby, Eobert 206 Catherine of Ar'agon . .160,162,167,168 Catherine of Bragan'za 243 Catholic Emancipation Act ..... 350 Catholics, English . . . 194, 213, 214, 350 Cato Street conspiracy ........ 349 Cavalier Parliament 244 Cavaliers' . 224, 240 Cav'endish, Thomas 199 Cawnpur (can-poor') ....... 372 Caxton, William . 150 Cecil (ses'il), Eobert 203 Cecil, Sir William 184 Celts (see Britons, and Scots) . . , 13, 14 Cet-e-wa'yo • 383 Chaluz (sha-lus') ......... 87 Chancellor, Eichard 198 Char'ing Gross 103 Chariots, British war 18 Charles L, 208-210, 213-215, 217-221, 225-229 Charles II. . .' . . 233, 239, 242-244, 248 Charles V.. German emperor . . 163, 169 Charles VI., King of France 135 Charles X. of France . 354 Charles, Archduke of Austria . . . .271 Charles, son of James Edward .... 292 Charters, Confirmation of 107 Charters, town ....... 85, 251 INDEX Chartists . . . 360, 361 Chau'cer, Geoffrey „ 123, 124 Chev'y Chase, Ballad of ...... 129 China, wars with . . . 363, 373, 374, 405 Chivalry 88 Church, early 25, 34, 69, 79, 80 Church of England, 169, 172, 175, ISO, 183, 194, 205, 222, 252 Churchill, John 274-278 Churls 27 Civil War, American 376, 377 Civil War, English 225-228 Clare, Eichard de 82 Clarence, Duke of 148, 150 Clar'endon, Constitutions of .... 80 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of . . 245 Clau'di-us 20 Claverhouse (kla'verz) .... 255, 265 Clive, Eobert 299-302 Cloth, manufacture of . . . 124, 197, 2S0 Cobden, Eichard 366 Coeur de Lion (ker de le-ON 1 ) .... 87 Coinage 197, 270 Coke, Sir Edward 209 Col'chester 21 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 347 Col'et, John 165 Cologne (ko-lon') 125 Colonial policy 312, 317, 399 Colonies, government of ... . 399, 402 Colum'ba, Saint 36 Columbus 160 Commerce, see Trade. Commonwealth, the 231-236 Compurgation 44, 45 Conquests of England 54,55 Conventicle 244 Convention Parliament .... 243, 244 Copenhagen 331 Corn Laws 345, 366, 367 Cornwal'lis 315 Coronation chair 107 Corun'na, battle of 341 Cor'yat, Thomas 211, 212 Count of the Saxon Shore 23 Covenant 220, 226, 227, 255 Covenanters 221, 252, 255 Cranmer, Thomas . . . 168, 169, 175, 180 Crecy (kra-se'), battle of 116 Cri-me'an War 367-371 Criminal law 294, 345, 349 Criminals 175 Croft, James 320 Crompton, Samuel 322 Cromwell, Oliver .... 227, 228, 231-238 Cromwell, Eichard 238 Cromwell, Thomas 168, 170 Crusades 67, 84-86 Crystal Palace 367 Cullo'den, battle of 293 Cumberland, Duke of 358 Cy'prus 313 Danes 38, 39, 40-43, 47, 48 Darnley, Lord 187 Darwin, Charles 396 Declaration of Independence .... 313 Declaration of Indulgence . 248, 258, 259 De Foe, Daniel 281 De'i-ra 33 Delaware 254 De Lesseps' 382 Delhi (del'e) 299 Denmark 272, 331 Despensers, the 112 Det'ting-en, battle of 292 Dickens, Charles 395 Directory, French 325 Dispensing power . - 258 Disraeli (diz-ra'li), Benjamin, Lord Bea- consfield 366, 381 Dissenters 194, 205, 244 Divine right of kings 204 Domesday Book 62 Dom'inic, Saint 100 Domremi (doN-ra-me') . ....... 141 Dost Mohammed (dost mo-ham 'ed), 365, 366 Dover, secret treaty of 248 Drake, Sir Francis .... 190, 191, 195 Drog'heda 231, 233 Druids ........... 19, 21 Dunbar', battle of 233 Duncan, Admiral . . •. 32S Dun 'kirk 235, 245 Dunstan , . 47 Dupleix (dii-pla') 299 Duquesne (du-kan') Fort 302 Dutch Wars "... 233, 234, 245, 246, 248 Duty, export 103 import . . 214, 255, 318, 365, 366, 367 East India Company, 199, 211, 241, 299, 357, 358, 373 Eastern Question 363, 381 Eddington, battle of 41 Edgar 47 Edgehill, battle of 226 Education Acts . 378, 405 Edward the Confessor 48 Edward the Martyr 47 Edward 1 99-109 Edward II 109-112 Edward III 113-123 Edward IV 146-148 INDEX XI Edward V 150-153 Edward VI 173-176 Edward VII 404-406 Edwin, Earl 51, 58, 59 Edwin, King of Northumbria .... 35 Egbert 37-39 Egypt 382, 384, 3S7 Eleanor of Castile 102, 103 Eleanor of France 73, 83 Eliot, Sir John . 214, 216 Elizabeth .... 182-185, 190, 193, 197 Emma of Normandy 48, 49 English Church, see Church of Mi gland. English race ....... 9,32,38,91 Eras'mus 165, 166 Established Church, see Church of England Eth'elbert 34 Eth'elred 1 40 Ethelred II 47, 48 Evesham (evz'ham) . .99,100 Excommunication 92 Factory legislation . . . o . . 357, 393 Factory system 391-393 Fairfax, Lord .......... 227 Fairs - 103, 125 Falkirk, battle of . 108 Farming improved .... 171, 201, 320 Fawkes (faks), Guy 206, 207 Fealty ." 62 Federation of employers 393 Federation of unions 392,393 Fenian movement 878, 379 Feudal system 62 Field of the Cloth of Gold 165 Fitzwalter, Kobert 95 Flanders 115, 197 Flemish in England ........ 197 Flodden Field, battle of 163 Forests . , 62, 218, 222 Foth'eringay Castle 188 France, wars with, 83, 90, 91, 96, 114-118, 120, 121, 126, 137-142, 163, 181, 214, 215, 235, 264, 265, 268-279, 292, 299-307, 314, 327-344 Francis I., King of France 165 Francis, Saint 100 Frederick the Elector ..... 208, 212 Frederick the Great 305 Freeman, Edward Augustus .... 396 French and Indian War .... 305-307 Friars • .... 100 Frob'isher, Martin 199 Froude (frood), James Anthony . . . 396 Gael 13, 23 Galile'o 282 Garter, Order of the 118 Gascony 107 Gaul 14, 16, 17, 19 Gav'eston, Piers 109, 110 Genoa (jen'6-a), trade of 126 George 1 284, 2S5 George II 289-292 George III 30S-315, 346 George IV 348, 354 Georgia 291 German Empire 380 Germanic races 26, 27, 28 Ghent (gent), treaty of 344 Gibbon, Edward 347 Gibraltar (ji-bral'ter) 277, 402 Gladstone (glad' stun), William Ewart, 379, 380, 3S5-387 Glendower (glen 'door), Owen . - . . . 134 Gloucester (glos'ter), Kichard, Duke of, 150-154 Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of . . 128-130 Gloucester, Eobert, Earl of 73 Godwin, Earl 48 Goldsmith, Oliver , . . 347 Gordon, General 384, 385 Gordon Eiots 315,316 Government 396-403 Grand Alliance 272 Grand jury 7S Grand Kemonstrance 223 Great Britain 11, 277 Great Charter 93-95 Great Council, Norman 64 Great Fire 246, 247 Great Plague 246 Greece 351 Greg'ory the Great 33, 34, 45 Gregory VII 63 Grenville, George .... 308, 309, 310 Grenville, Sir Richard 195, 196 Grey, Lady Jane 177, 180 Guienne (ge-en') 121 Guilds 45,100,124,126 Gunpowder 157 Gunpowder plot 206 Guthrum (gooth'room) ..... 41, 43 Ha'be-as Corpus Act 250 Ha'drian, Wall of 23 Haidarabad (hi-dar-a-bad') ' 314 Hal'idon Hill U3 Hampden, John 214, 219, 226 Hampton Court Conference 205 Han'over 279, 292, 35S Hanover, House of 284 Han-se-at'ic League 125 Har'dicanute 48 Har'drada, King of Norway . . , .51,52 Xll INDEX Har 'greaves, James 321 Harold 1 48 Harold II 49-53 Harold Har'drada 51, 52 Hasting, the Dane 43 Hastings, battle of 52-54 Hastings, Warren 316 Havelock (hav'e-lok), General .... 373 Hawkins, Captain John .... 189, 195 Hengist (heng'gist) 29 Henry 1 65, 68-70 Henry II 73-84 Henry III 96-97, 100 Henry IV 130-133, 135, 136 Henry V. . 137-139 Henry VI 140-145, 148 Henry VII 153-161 Henry VIII 162-172 Heretics 133 Her'eward 59, 60 High Church party 194, 216, 277 High Commission Court .... 194, 222 Hill, Rowland 362 Hoche (osh), General 333 Holland, 189, 233, 234, 245, 246, 248, 275, 298 Holy Alliance 351,352 Horn 'ildon Hill, battle of 134 Hongkong' 363 House of Commons, 64, 65, 121, 126, 136, 396-398 ; see Reform Howard, Admiral 192, 195 Howard, Catherine 170 Howard, John 296 Hume, David 347 Hundred Tears' War, 114-121, 126, 137-142 Huxley, Thomas 396 Impeachment 143 Independents 228 India, 199, 243, 299-302, 316, 330, 371-373, 402 Indian Mutiny 371-373 Industrial revolution 391 Innocent III 92 Instrument of Government 236 Interdict 92 Inventions, mechanical . 321, 322, 352, 353 Ireland 23, 196 union with England 334 famine 366 reforms in 379, 380, 386, 404 Isabella of France 112, 113 Italy 161, 163, 166, 351 Jac'obites 264, 285 Jamaica 241,402 James 1 203-212 James II. . . . 249-253, 255-261, 268, 271 James, Prince of Scotland . . . 135, 136 James Edward 279, 285 Jameson's raid 388 Japan, war with Eussia 406 Jeffreys, Judge 257 Jenkinson, Anthony 199 Jenkins's Ear, War of 290, 291 Jennings, Sarah 278 Jes'u-its 191 Jews S5, 104, 238, 375 Joan of Arc 140-142 Johannesburg (yo-hiin'nes-burg) . . . 388 John, King of England . 83,84,86,90-96 John, King of France 120 John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, 121, 122, 128, 129 Johnson, Samuel 347 Judges, the king's 77 Junius 319 Jurors 45 Jury trial 78 Justiciar 89 Jutes 29 Kabul (ka'bul), retreat from . . . .365 Kandahar' 382 Ken'ilworth Castle 146 Kent 29 Ket, Eobert 176 Khartum (kar-toom') 384 Kim'berley 389, 390 King, compared with President . 398, 399 King George's War 292 King William's War 271 King's judges 77 Kings Mountain, battle of 314 Kitchener, General 387, 390 Knighthood „ . 87, 88 Knight's fees 61 Knox (n6ks), John 186 Kruger (kru'ger), President 388 Labor, organization of 392 Laborers, statute of 119 Ladysmith 389, 390 La Hogue (la hog'), battle of . . . .268 Lake School of Poetry 347 Lancaster (lang'kas-ter), John of Gaunt, Duke of ...... 121,122,128,129 Lancaster, House of 133 Land Acts, Irish ...... 380, 385, 404 Lan 'franc 64 Langland, William 122 Langton, Stephen 91, 92, 96 La Eochelle (la ro-shel') 215 Laud, William 216, 219, 222 Layamon (la'ya-m5n) 100 INDEX Xlll Learning 1 , the New 166 Leicester, (les'ter), Earl of ..... 189 Leipzig (Hp'sik), battle of . . . . . . 342 Le'opold, Duke of Austria 85 Lewes (lu'Is), battle of 98 Lexington, battle of 313 Ligny (len-ye'), battle of 343 Lincoln (ling'kun), battle of .... 73 Lisle (111), Alice 257 Literature, English, 123, 200, 281, 346, 394-396 Little Parliament 236 Llewellyn (ldo-el'lin) „ 104 Local Government Law 386 Loch Lev'en (16k) 187 Lollards . 127, 136, 137 London . . . 21, 32, 56, 125, 224, 226, 251 London Company ....... 210, 211 Londonderry 267 Long Parliament 221, 235, 239 Loom 322 Lords Ordainers m H2 Louis IX. of France 98 Louis XIV. of France . „ . . 25S, 272, 324 Louisburg 292 Low Church party 277 Lii'beck 125 Luck'now 373 Luther, Martin .......... 166 McAdam 354 Macaulay, Thomas Babington .... 396 Madras' 299 Ma-fe-king' 389, 390 Mag'na Charta (kar'ta) 93-95 Mahrattas (ma-rat'taz) ..... 316, 330 Maid of Norway 105 Maju'ba Hill, battle of ....... 384 Malcolm (mal'kum), King of Scotland . 60 Malplaquet (mal-pla-kii') ...... 276 Manchester Massacre ....... 34S Manorial system 119 Manufactures, beginning of . . 124, 197, 280 domestic system of ... . 322, 391 Margaret of A njou 142,146,148 Marlborough (mal'bur-o), John Church- ill, Duke of 274-278 Marston Moor 227, 228 Mary I 1T6-180 Mary II 249 Mary of Guise (gez) 186 Mary Queen of Scots 186-191 Maryland . . . ....... . 240 Massachusetts 217, 240 Massena (ma-sil-na') 341 Matilda 71-73 Mehemet Ali (m&'he-met a'le) .... 364 Melbourne (mel burn), Lord .... 364 Mercia 32, 50 Methodism 294-296 Middle Ages „ 161 Mil'an Decree , 339 Militia , . 43° 103 Milton, John 244 Minden, battle of 305 Min iflg 11, 13, 280, 321 Model, the new 228 Model Parliament 107 Monasteries 34, 98, 170, 171 Monastic system 34 Monk, George 227, 239 Monmouth (mon'muth), James Stuart, Cuke of 251, 256, 257 Monopolies 197 7 218 Mon-roe' Doctrine 352 Mont 'fort, Simon de .... 98, 99, 100 Moore, Sir John 341 More, Sir Thomas 165, 169 Mor'kar, Earl 51, 59 Mor'timer, Roger 112, 113 Mortimer's Cross 145 Mortmain, Statute of 103 Murshidabad (moor-shed-ii-bad ') . . . 302 Mutiny Act 264 Mutiny at Spithead and Nore .... 32S My-sore' 314, 330 Na'mur 269 Nantes (nants), edict of 258 Napo'leon . . . 325-330, 338, 339, 342, 344 Napoleon III 375 Naseby (naz'bi), battle of 228 Nationalists 385 Navigation Laws 234, 352 Nelson, Horatio 327,337,338 Netherlands, 188, 189, 271, 272, 275, 276, 279, 327 ; see Holland, and Dutch Nev'ille's Cross, battle of 117 New Forest . 62, 67 New Jersey 253 New Netherland . 246 New Or'le-ans, battle of 344 New York 246 New Zealand 364, 402 Newcastle (nu'kas'l), Duke of . . 291, 304 Newspapers . 281 Newton, Sir Isaac 282 Ney (na), Marshal 342 Nicolas, Czar of Russia ...... 370 Nightingale, Florence 370 Nile, battle of the 330 Non-jurors . . 264 Norfolk (nor'fak), Duke of 191 Norfolk, Earl of 107 Norman Great Council ...... 64 XIV INDEX Norman kings 56 Normandy 49, 69, 91 North, Lord 312, 315 Northampton, battle of 145 Northumberland, Earl of 134 Northumberland, John, Duke of . . . 176 Northum'bria 35,52,59 Oates (ots), Titus .... 249, 250, 255 O'Connell, Daniel 350 O'glethorpe, James 291 Ohio Land Company 302 Oldcastle 137 Open door policy 406 Opium War 363 Orange Free State .... 383, 388, 390 Ordeal 44, 45, 78 Orders in Council 339 Or'le-ans, Duke of . 135 Orleans, siege of 141, 142 Or'mu-lum 100, 101 Oswy, King 36 Ot'terburn 129 Oudenarde (ou'den-ar-de) 270 Oxford 98, 226, 259 Palat'inate, War of the . 264, 265, 267-271 Pale, the English 130 Palmerston (pam'er-stun), Lord . . . 375 Paris, treaty of . . 307 Parker, Sir Hyde 331 Parliament . . . 396-39S, 64, 65, 122, 207 Parr, Catherine 170 Patrick, Saint 35, 36 Peasant Revolt 126-128 Peel, Sir Robert 364, 365, 366 Peers, creation of 355 Peking' ' 374 Pelham (pel'am), Henry .... 291, 292 Pelham, Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, 291, 304 Peninsular War 340-342 Penn, William 253 Pennsylvania 253, 254 Percy, Harry 135 Percy, House of 129, 134 Petition and Advice, the Humble • . . 237 Petition of Right 215 Philip II. of France .... 85, 86, 90, 92 Philip II. of Spain .... 178, 188, 192 Philippa of Hainault (ha-no') 113, 117, 124 Picts 23, 26, 60 Pilgrimage of Grace 171, 172 Pilgrims 211 Pinkie, battle of, 173 Pitt, William, the Elder .... 304, 305 Pitt, William, the Younger . . . 318, 319 Plague, the Great . „ 246 Plantagenet (plan-taj'e-net), Geoffrey, 73, 75 Plantagenet kings 75, 102 Plassey, battle of . . 302 Plymouth (plim'uth) 211 Plymouth Company 210, 211 Poitiers (pwa-tyii'), battle of ... . 120 Poitou (pwa-too') 73 Pondicherry (pon-di-sher'ri) .... 299 Pope, Alexander . 281 Popish Plot 249, 250 Portugal 275, 340, 341, 342, 351 Postage, penny 362 Pi-ayer Book 175 Presbyterianism 195, 222 President and king, powers of . . 398, 399 Press, freedom of the 269 Preston, battle of 229 Prest.onpans, battle of 292 Pretender, the Old 279, 285 Pretender, the Young 292, 293 Prince of Wales 104 Printing 150 Profit sharing 394 Protectorate, the . . . . . . . 236, 237 Protectorates 403 Provisions of Oxford 98 Prussia 342, 343, 351, 364 Puritans 194, 216, 227, 238 emigration to New England . . . 240 Pym, John 214, 217, 221 Quakers 252, 253 Que-bec', capture of 306 Raikes (raks), Robert 296 Railroads 352-354 Raleigh (ra'H), Sir Walter . 199, 200, 209-211 Reform, parliamentary, 345, 350, 354-357, 377, 378, 385 Reform Bills 355, 377, 378, 385 Reformation, Protestant . . 166, 167, 175 Regicides, the 244 Reims (remz) 141 Reliefs 61 Restoration 242 Retainers 134, 158 "Revenge," the 195 Revolution, American 312-315 Revolution, English 260, 261 Revolution, French 324, 351 Rhodes, Cecil 387, 388 Richard I S4-89 Richard II 126-131 Richard III 150-154 Rizzio (ret'se-6) 187 Roads 320, 354 Ro-a-noke' 199 INDEX XV Eobert of Normandy . . . . . 65, 67, 69 Roberts, General ...... 3S2, 390 Eobertson, William 347 Romans in Britain ....... 20-24 Rome 14, 10, 24 Rom 'illy, Sir Samuel . 345 Rotten boroughs ..... 312, 318, 319 Rouen (rOo-iiN'), siege of .... 138,139 Round Table, Knights of the .... 31 Roundheads 224 Royal Exchange 198 Royal Society 282 Rump Parliament . . . 229, 235, 236, 239 Run'nymede 95 Rupert, Prince 225, 226, 227 Russell, Lord John .... 350, 351, 355 Russell, Lord William ....... 252 Russia, 198, 338, 341, 342, 304, 367, 370, 405, 406 Rye House plot ......... 251 By s' wick, peace of ....... . 270 Sacheverell (sa-shev'er-eT), Dr 278 St. Albans (al'banz), battles of . 144, 145 St. He-le'na" ........ 344, 402 St. Yincent, battle of 327 Saladin 84 Salisbury (salz'ber-i), Lord . . . 386, 404 Sa-voy' . . . 275 Saxon kings 37 Saxons 26-32 Schools .... 45, 175, 176, 294, 378, 405 Scotland, 60, 105, 108, 110, 111, 129, 186, 277 Scots of Ireland 23, 26, 60 Scott, Sir Walter 346 Scrooby .211 Scu'tage .......... 61, 78 Scutari (skoo'ta-re) • 370 Sebas'topol 368 Sedgemoor, battle of 257 Self-government .'"... 27, 28, 126, 386 Sen 'lac Hill 52 Separatists ........... 194 Sepoy Rebellion ....... 371-373 Septennial Act . . . 2S6 Serfs or villeins 119, 128 Settlement, Act of . . 272 Seven Tears' War ...... 305-307 Seymour (se'mor), Jane ...... 170 Shaftesbury, Lord .... 243, 250, 251 Shakespeare, William 11, 200 Sheriff 44, 77 Sher-iff-muir', battle of ...... 285 Shield money ......... 61, 78 Ship money ...... 218, 219, 222 Shrewsbury, battle of .... . 134, 135 Sidney, Algernon ........ 252 Sidney, Sir Philip 189 Simnel, Lambert ........ 159 Slave ........... 27, 119 Slave trade ........... 189 Slavery abolished ......... 357 Slidell', John .......... 377 Smith, Adam .......... 317 South Africa Company ...... 388 South African Republic ...... 383 South Sea Company 286, 287 Spain . . 184, 188-195, 20S, 209, 271, 290, 291 Spanish Succession, War of the, 271, 274-277 Spencer, Herbert 396 Spenser, Edmund 200 Sphere of influence ........ 403 Spinning jenny 321 Spurs, battle of the 163 Stamford Bridge, battle of ..... 51 Stamp Act 309, 310 Standard, battle of the . . . . . . 72, 73 Staples 125 Star Chamber Court . . . 158,220,222 Steam engine 322, 323, 324 Steelyard „ . 125 Stephen 71-73 Stephenson, George 353 Stone Age 12 Stone of Destiny ......... 106 Stonehenge (ston'henj) 19 Strafford, Earl of .... . 217, 220, 221 Straw, Jack .127 Strikes ............ 392 Strongbow 82, 83 Stuart, House of 203 Succession, Act of ........ 169 Sudan (soo-dan') 384,385,387 Suetonius (swe-to'ni-us) 21, 22 Suez' Canal 382 Suffolk, Duke of 143 Suffrage, the . . 311, 350, 356, 378, 380, 385 Supremacy, Act of 169 Surajah (sot>-ra'ja), Dow'lah 301 Surat (soo-raf) ......... 299 Sweden 272, 331, 332 Sweyn (swan) 48 Swift, Jonathan 281 Tab'ard Inn . 124 Tacitus (tas'i-tiis) 26-28 Talavera (ta-la-va'rii) ....... 341 Tariff, or duties, 103, 214, 255, 318, 365-367 Tasma'nia 364 Taxes, 61, 78, 95, 108, 127, 136, 215 ; see Duty. Tea tax 311 Tel-el-Kebir (ke-ber'), battle of. . . . 384 Tennyson, Alfred 394 Test Act 249 Tewkesbury, battle of .... . .148 XVI INDEX Thack'eray, "William Makepeace . . . 395 Thames (temz) 16 Thane 44 Thirty-nine Articles 175 Thirty Years' War 166, 167 Thorough, policy of 220 Thralls 27 Thurstan 72 Til' sit, treaty of 338 Tippoo' Sahib (sa'heb) 330 Tobacco 211 Toleration Act 264 Tone, Wolfe 333 Tory 250, 251 Tos'tig 51 Tournament 88, 89 Tower of London 56, 131 Town meeting and officers . . .27, 28, 44 Towton, battle of 145 Trade . . 160, 2S0, 289, 290, 297, 298, 318, 339 effect of crusades on 86 with the East 212 Trade combinations 393, 394 Trades unions .......... 392 Traf-al-gar' . 337 Transportation .... 320, 321, 352, 353 Transvaal (trans-val') .... 383, 388-390 " Trent " affair „ . 376 Triennial Act 286 Troyes (trwa), treaty of ..... . 139 Trusts .......... 393,394 Tudor, House of 156 Tun'ge-mot 27, 28 Tyler, Wat . 127, 128 Tyndall, John .......... 896 Ty-rone', Earl of 196 Uniformity, Act of . . . . . . . .175 Union with Ireland, Act of .... . 334 Union with Scotland, Act of 277 United Irishmen 333 United States . . . 315, 344, 352, 376, 377 Utrecht (u'trekt), peace of . . . 279, 290 Vagrant Act .......... 174 Van Tromp, Admiral ....... 234 Venice, trade routes of .... 126, 164 Versailles (ver-salz'), treaty of ... . 315 Victoria ....... 359, 360, 3S6, 390 Vill 44, 119 Villeins and villenage 119, 128 Villeneuve (vel-neV) ..... 336, 337 Villiers (vil'lerz), Charles 366 Villiers, George, Duke of Buckingham, 209, 214, 215 Vimeiro (ve-m&'e-ro'o) . 340 Vinegar Hill 833 Vittoria (vSt-to're-a), battle of . . . .842 Vor'tigern . . . • 28, 29 Wagram (va 'grain), battle of . . . .341 Wakefield, battle of 145 Wales 31, 104, 134 Wallace, William 108 Walls, Eoman 23 Walpole, Sir Eobert 2S5, 288 Walter, Hubert 89 WaroflS12 344 Warbeck, Perkin . 160 Wars of the Eoses .... 143-148, 154 Warwick (wor'ik), Earl of . . . 146-148 Washington, George 302, 313 Waterloo', battle of 343 Watt, James 322, 323 Wedmore, peace of ...... . 41-43 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 330, 340, 341, 343, 351, 357 Wentworth, Thomas . . . 217, 220, 221 Wesley, John ........ ?94-296 Wesleyan movement ....... 296 Wessex 31, 32, 39 Westminster Abbey .... 58, 97, 161 Wexford 233 Whig 250, 251 Whitby, council at ........ 36 "White Ship" 70 Whitefield (whit'feld), George . . 294, 295 Wilberforce, William 319 Wilkes (wilks), John 311,312 William I. ......... 50, 57-65 William II. . . 65-67 William III. ....... 249, 262-272 William IV 354-35S Winthrop, John 240 Wit'an 44 Wit'e-na-ge-mote 44, 64 Wolfe, General 306 Wolseley (woolz'li), Sir Garnet . . .384 Wolsey (w<561'zl), Thomas . . . 165, 167 Woodville, Elizabeth 147 Wool 115,143,197 Worcester (woos'ter), battle of ... . 233 Wordsworth, William 347 World's fair, first 367 Wren, Sir Christopher 247, 270 Wyatt's Eebellion 178, 179 Wyc'lif, John 122 York, House of 146 York, James, Duke of ... . 249-253, 254 York, Eichard, Duke of .... 143, 145 Zulu (zoo 'loo) War 383 Zut'phen, battle of . 189 H 66 89 & ^J .0^» *^ ST* ^4©*, * «7 **► • • ♦♦*% ■ • v..».. • -i w **$&*