BnA . C- 94 _ COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 1$ A SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO MODERN ENGLAND AND WALE^ ENGLISH MILES A SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN BY ARTHUR LYON CROSS, Ph.D. RICHARD HUDSON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Nefo gork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All rights reserved 5» a Copyright, 1920, By THE MACM1LLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920. NorfoooU ^«S2 J. S. dishing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. OCT. 14 1820 ©CU597767 I PREFACE • i The present work is a shortened form of the author's History of England and Greater Britain, brought up to the beginning of 19 19. Four chapters have been added, two of which aim to re-survey the relations between the Mother Country and the Self-governing Dominions beyond the seas and British foreign relations from 1870 to 1914, and two of which seek to describe the activities of Britain and Greater Britain in the World War, as well as the problems of government and administration which the War involved. In treating of the causes which drew the British into the War it has been necessary, for the sake of completeness, to repeat much that has of late been frequently well described and is now oppressively fa- miliar. Unfortunately the Kautsky documents and the latest Austrian Red Book which would have caused the writer to modify his statements concerning the Kaiser's alleged conference and the respective respon- sibility of the German and Austro-Hungarian Governments in the negotiations following Serajevo, were not at hand when his chapter went to press. However, the first part of the story has been admirably told, in the light of the new evidence, by Professor S. B. Fay in the American Historical Review for July, 1920, and the second part is promised in October. In revising and condensing the earlier parts of the book the writer has confined his abbreviating largely to the political narrative, retain- ing the surveys of social, industrial, intellectual and religious condi- tions with comparatively little curtailment. He wishes to repeat his thanks to those who have so kindly assisted him in his first under- taking, and further to express his obligations to his colleagues Pro- fessors Campbell Bonner, A. E. R. Boak and W. R. Frayer for very helpful suggestions. Arthur Lyon Cross. University of Michigan, August, 1920. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The British Isles: Theer Physical Features and Resources i II. The Earliest Inhabitants of Britain 8 III. The Coming of the Anglo-Saxons. The "Heptarchy" and Struggle for Supremacy 18 IV. The Ascendancy of the West Saxons. The Growth and De- cline and Fall of the Anglo-Saxon Monarchy . . 29 V. The State of Society at the Close of the Anglo-Saxon Period 4 2 VI. The Anglo-Norman Kings (1066-1154). The Strengthening of the Central Power of William and His Sons. The Interval of Anarchy in the Reign of Stephen . .53 VII. Henry II (1154-1189). The Restoration of the Royal Power and the Rise of the English Common Law . . 71 VIII. Richard I (1189-1199) and the Transition from Absolute toward Limited Monarchy. Conditions at the Close of the Twelfth Century 80 IX. The Reign of John (1 199-12 16). The Loss of Normandy, the Quarrel with the Church, the Baronial Revolt, and Magna Carta 89 X. Henry III. The Struggle of the Barons to Maintain the Charter, to Expel Foreign Influence, and to Control the Administration of Kingdom. Conditions at the Close of the Reign 98 XI. Edward I and Edward II (12 7 2-13 2 7). The Completion of the Foundations of the English Constitutional System hi XII. The Reign of Edward III (1327-1377). The Beginning of the Hundred Years' War. Chivalry at Its Height. The Growing Importance of the Commons. The Increase of National Sentiment. First Attacks on the Power of Rome 125 vii v jii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XIII. Life in England under the First Three Edwards (1272- PAGE 1377) x 37 XIV. Richard II (1377-1399)- The End of the Plantagenet Dynasty 153 XV. The House of Lancaster in the Ascendant. Henry IV (1399-1413), Henry V (1413-1422), and "The Constitu- tional Experiment" in Government .... 161 XVI. The Fall of the House of Lancaster. Henry VI (1422-1461) 168 XVII. The Yorkist Kings and the End of the Wars of the Roses. Edward IV (1461-1483), Edward V (1483), Richard III (1483-1485) J 75 XVIII. The Beginning of the Tudor Absolutism. Henry VII (1485-1509) 183 XIX. The First Years of Henry VIII (1509-1529). The Eve of the Separation from Rome 194 XX. Henry VIII and the Separation from Rome (15 29-1 547) 206 XXI. The Henrician Regime (1 509-1 547) 222 XXII. The Protestant Extremists in Power. Edward VI (1547- 1553) 2 3° XXIII. The English Counter-Reformation. Mary (1553-1558) 236 XXIV. The Elizabethan Religious Settlement and the Early Years of Elizabeth's Reign (1558-1572) . . .243 XXV. Elizabeth's Ascendancy and Decline (15 7 2-1603) . . 253 XXVI. Elizabethan England (1 558-1603) 264 XXVII. James I and the Beginnings of the Puritan Revolution (1603-1625) ' • .285 XXVIIL Charles I and the Precipitation of the Conflict between King and People (1625-1640) 3 01 XXIX. From the Opening of the Long Parliament to the Out- break of the Civil War (1640-1642) . . . .319 XXX. From the Outbreak of the Civil War to the Execution of Charles I (1642-1649) 327 TABLE OF CONTENTS IX CHAPTER PAGE XXXI. The Kingless Decade: The Commonwealth and the Protectorate (i 649-1 660) 348 XXXII. From the Restoration to the Fall of Clarendon (1660- 1667) 359 XXXIII. From the Fall of Clarendon to the Death of Charles II (1667-1685) , 372 XXXIV. James II and the "Glorious Revolution" (1685-1688) . 385 XXXV. Puritan and Cavalier England ...... 400 XXXVI. The Early Years of the New Dynasty and the Opening of the Great War. William and Mary (1689-1694) 423 XXXVII. The Completion of the Revolution of 1688. William Alone (1694-1702) 434 XXXVIII. The End of the Stuart Dynasty. Anne (1702-17 14) . 445 XXXIX. The FrasT Hanoverian, George I (17 14-17 2 7) . . . 463 XL. The Ascendancy and Fall of Walpole and the Opening of a New Era of War. The First Part of the Reign of George II (1 727-1 748) 475 XLI. The Duel for Empire. The Closing Years of George II's Reign (1 748-1 760) 491 XLII. The Revival of the Royal Ascendancy. The First Years of George III (1 760-1 770) 506 XLIII. The American Revolution and the End of the Personal Ascendancy of George III (1 770-1 783) . . . 525 XLIV. Eighteenth- Century England to the Eve of the In- dustrial Revolution 543 XLV. The Younger Pitt : The New Toryism and Administra- tive Reform (1 784-1 793) 570 XL VI. The Great War with France to the Peace of Amiens (1 793-1802) 587 XLVTL The Struggle against Napoleon: From Amiens to Waterloo (1802-1815) 600 ■ / X TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XL VIII. From the Overthrow of Napoleon to the Eve of the Great Reform Bill. The Last Years of George III and the Reign of George IV (i 8 15-1830) . . .615 XLIX. England at the Eve of the Reform Bill .... 633 L. The Epoch of Reform. William IV (1830-183 7) . . 645 LI. The Early Years of Victoria's Reign and the Triumph of Free Trade (183 7-1 846) 661 LII. The Revolutionary Movements in Europe and the Be- ginning of a New Period of War (1 846-1 856). The Palmerstonian Regime and the End of an Epoch (1857-1865) 676 LIII. A New Era in Democracy. The Political Rivalry of Gladstone and Disraeli (1 765-1 880) . . . .697 LIV. The Two Last Decades of Victoria's Reign (1880-1901) 712 LV. Victorian and Post- Victorian England . . . .727 LVI. Sketch of the Reign of Edward VII (1901-1910) and of the Early Years of George V (1910-1914) . . 752 LVII. A Century of the Development of Greater Britain . 761 LVIII. British Foreign Relations with Particular Reference to Germany and the Causes of the World War (1870- i9 J 4) 799 LIX. Britain and Greater Britain in the World War (1914- 1918), Part I 832 LX. Britain and Greater Britain in the World War (1914- 1918), Part II 865 MAPS Modern England and Wales Frontispiece FACING PAGE Roman Britain . . . . , . .-. . . . • . 12 England to Illustrate the Germanic Settlements 22 Possessions of the House of Anjou 7 2 Scotland in the Reign of Edward I 112 England to Illustrate the Wars of the Roses 172 Ireland after 1603 324 England to Illustrate the Civil Wars 33° Scotland after 1603 334 Spain to Illustrate the Peninsular War 604 Africa in 1910 . 77^ India in 1857 786 The British Empire in 1914 794 The War Area of Western Europe, 1914-1918 836-837 INSETS Gallipoli, 191 5 842 The British Advance in Asiatic Turkey, 191 8 899 GENEALOGICAL TABLES RULERS OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN INTRODUCTION TABLE PAGE I. Rulers of Anglo-Saxon England, 802-1066 xv II. The Anglo-Norman Kings, 1066-1 154 ...... xv III. The Earlier Angevin Kings, 1 154-1272 xvi IV. The Later Angevins or Plantagenets, 1272-1399 .... xvi V. The Houses of York and Lancaster xvii VI. The House of Tudor xvii VII. The Stuarts xviii VIII. The House of Hanover xviii RELATED FAMILIES AND CLAIMANTS IX. The Beauforts and the Tudors xix X. The Greys and the Seymours xix XI. The Howards xx XII. The Exiled Stuarts xx XIII. The Kings of Scotland, 1066-1603 xxi XIV. Kings of France xxii List of Prime Ministers from Walpole to Lloyd George . . xxv xm GENEALOGICAL TABLES i RULERS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND, 802-1066 Egbert, 802-839 Ethelwulf, 839-858 Ethelbald, 858-860 Athelstan, 925-940 Ethelbert, 860-866 Ethelred I 866-871. Ethelwald Alfred, 871-901 _l I Edmund I, 940-946 Edward the Elder, 901-925 I 1 Edred, 946-955 Edwy, 955-959 Edgar, 959-975 Edward the Martyr, 975-979 Ethelred the Unready = (i) Elgiva; (2) Emma=CANUTE, 1016-1035 979-1016 of Normandy I I Harold I Hardicanutb 1035-1040 (Emma's son), 1040-1042 Godwine, Earl of Wessex, d. 1053 I (1) Edmund Ironside, (2) Edward the Confessor = Edith, Harold II, 1016 1042-1066 d. 1075 d. 1066 I 1 Edmund, d. 1050 Edgar Atheling, d. 11 20 Edward, d. 1057 I Margaret, d. io93=Malcolm Canmore, d. 1096 Matilda, d. 11 18 = Henry I, d. 1135 II THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS, 1066-1154 William the Conqueror = Matilda of Flanders 1 066- 1 08 7 Robert, Duke of Normandy, d. 1125 William, d. 1 134 William Rufus, 1087-1100 Henry = Matilda 1100-1135 d. 1118 William, d. 1120 Adela = Stephen of Blois Matilda = (1) Emperor d. 1 167 Henry V (2) Geoffrey of Anjou Stephen, H35-II54 Robert of Gloucester Henry, Bishop of Winchester (2) Henry II, 1 1 54-1 189 Illegitimate. XV XVI GENEALOGICAL TABLES III THE EARLIER ANGEVIN KINGS, 1154-127* Henry 11= 1154-1189 = Eleanor of Guienne, d. 1204, divorced wife of Louis VII Henry, d. 1 183 Richard I, 1189-1199 Geoffrey = Constance d. 1 186 I of Brit- tany John = Isabella Eleanor 1 199- of An- 12 16 goul&ne Arthur, d. 1203 Henry III = Eleanor of 1216-1272 Provence Joan, m. Alexander II of Scotland Eleanor, m. Simon de Montfort Edward I, 1272-1307 Edmund Crouchback, d. 1295 Margaret, m. Alexander IH of Scotland Richard, Kin ' of the Romans, d. X27I IV THE LATER ANGEVINS, OR THE PLANTAGENETS, 1272-1399 Henry III, 1216-1272 Edward I = (i) Eleanor of 1272-1307 Castile ; (2) Margaret of France Margaret, m. Alexander III of Scotland Edmund (Crouchback) Earl of Lancaster (1) Edward 11= Isabella of France Edward III 1327-1377 Philippa of Hainault (2) Edmund, Earl of Kent, executed 1330 Joan, m. (1) Sir T.Holland; (2) The Black Prince Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, d. 1322 Henry, Earl of Lancaster, d. 134S Henry, Duke of Lancaster, d. 1362 Blanche = John of Gaunt Edward = Joan of Black Prince, d. 1376 Kent Lionel, Duke of Clarence John of = Blanche, Gaunt, heiress of d. 1399 Lancaster RxCHARD II, 1377-1399 Edmund, Duke of York Thomas, Duke of Gloucester; John I, d. 1316 Joan, Queen of Navarre 1 Charles the Bad 1350-1364 Charles V, 1364-1380 1 1 Philip. Duke of Burgundy, d. 1404 Charles VI, 1380-1422 1 Charles VII, 1422-1461 1 Louis XI, 1461-1483 1 Charles VIII, 1483-1498 Louis murdei Charles, Du captured 1 grandf Loui 1498 Orleans, ed, 1407 te of Orleans, it Agincourt, ather of s XII, -1515 1 John, Duke of Burgundy, murdered, 1419, at Montereau 1 Philip, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1467 1 Charles (the Bold), Duke of Burgundy, d. 1477, m. Margaret, sister of Edward IV Claude = Francis I, 1515-1547, a great-grandson of Louis of Orleans Henry 11 = Catharine de' Medicis I547-IS49 ! Francis II, 1 Charles IX, 1 Henry III, 1 Francis, 1 Margaret = Henry IV 1 559-1 560, 1560-1574 1 5 74-i 589 Duke of (Henry of Navarre), m. Mary suitor of Alencon, 1589-1610, a de- Queen of Queen suitor of scendant of Robert, Scots Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth son of St. Louis, (1226-1270) Marie de Medicis GENEALOGICAL TABLES xxiil Louis XIV, 1643-1715 Louis (dauphin), d. 1711 Louis, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1712 I Louis XV, 1715-1774 Louis (dauphin), d. 1765 I Louis XVI, 1 7 74-1 793 Louis XVII, never reigned, ti- 1 795 Louis XIII, 1610-1643 Philip, King of Spain, d. 1746 I Ferdinand of Spain Louis XVIII, 1815-1824 Charles, King of Naples Charles X, 1 824-1 830, abdicated. Grandfather of the Count de Chambord, who died without issue, 1884 I Philip. Duke of Orleans, d. 1710 I Philip (Regent), d. 1723. Great-great-grand- father of Louis Philippe, 1 830- 1 848 Duke of Orleans, d. 1842 Count de Paris, d. 1894 Philip, Duke of Orleans Duke d'Aumak LIST OF PRIME MINISTERS FROM WALPOLE TO LLOYD GEORGE 1721-1742 Sir Robert Walpole. 1 742-1 743 Lord Wilmington. 1 743-1 754 Henry Pelham. 1754-1756 I. Duke of Newcastle. 1 756-1 757 Duke of Devonshire. Real head, William Pitt Secretary of State. i757 - i7 02 II. Duke of Newcastle. Pitt Secretary of State till 1761. 1762-1763 Earl of Bute. 1 763-1 765 George Grenville. 1 765-1 766 I. Marquis of Rockingham. 1 766-1 770 Duke of Grafton. 1770-1782 Lord North. March- July, 1782 II. Marquis of Rockingham. 1 782-1 783 Earl of Shelburne. April-December, 1783 Coalition Ministry. Duke of Portland nominal Prime Minister. Real heads Fox and North. 1 783-1801 I. William Pitt, the younger. 1 801-1804 Henry Addington (Viscount Sidmouth). 1804-1806 II. William Pitt. 1806-1807 "All the Talents." Lord Grenville and Fox, d. September, 1806. 1807-1809 II. Duke of Portland. 1809-1812 Spencer Perceval. 1812-1827 Lord Liverpool. April-August, 1827 George Canning. 1827-1828 Lord Goderich. 1828-1830 Duke of Wellington. 1830-1834 Lord Grey. July-November, 1834 I. Lord Melbourne. 1834-1835 I. Sir Robert Peel. 1835-1841 II. Lord Melbourne. 1841-1846 II. Sir Robert Peel. 1846-185 2 I. Lord John Russell. February-December, 1852 I. Lord Derby. 1852-1855 Lord Aberdeen. 1855-1858 I. Lord Palmerston. 1858-1859 II. Lord Derby. 1859-1865 II. Lord Palmerston. 1 865-1866 II. Lord John Russell. 1866-1868 III. Lord Derby. February-December, 1868 . . . I. Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield). 1868-1874 I. William E. Gladstone.. 1874-1880 II. Disraeli. xxv xxvi LIST OF PRIME MINISTERS, WALPOLE TO LLOYD GEORGE 1880-1885 II. Gladstone. 1885-1886 I. Marquis of Salisbury. February-July, 1886 III. Gladstone. 1886-1892 '. II. Salisbury. 1802-1891 IV. Gladstone. 1894-1895 Lord Rosebery (Earl of Midlothian). 1895-1902 III. Salisbury. 1 902-1905 Mr. Arthur Balfour. 1905-1908 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 1908-1916 Mr. Herbert Henry Asquith. 1916- .' Mr. David Lloyd George. A SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN A SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN CHAPTER I THE BRITISH ISLES: THEIR PHYSICAL FEATURES AND RESOURCES England and the British Empire. — England is the cradle and present center of the British Empire, an empire which covers a quarter of the land surface of the earth and includes a population of more than four hundred million souls. 1 This little country of England, with an area of about 50,000 square miles, barely larger than the state of New York, forms, together with Scotland and Wales, the island known as Great Britain. Ireland, lying to the west, is the only other important division of the United Kingdom, although the British Isles which compose it number no less than five thousand, with a total area of 1 20,000 square miles and a population of about 45,000,000. It will be the purpose of this history to trace the course of events by which England and the adjacent countries became the United Kingdom, and by which the United Kingdom has become the greatest sea power ever known, and has fashioned an empire with an extent of territory nearly a hundred and a population fully ten times its own. Climate and Distribution of Rainfall. — In this remarkable de- velopment climate has been especially important. Extreme cold is a serious obstacle to the production of those things on which man is dependent for his existence; extreme heat, on the other hand, checks active exertion by which character is developed and by which man is able to make the most of his surroundings. With respect to climate Great Britain has been especially fortunate. The summers are long enough to ripen the crops, while the winters are not too long or too severe seriously to interfere with outdoor occupations, agricultural pursuits can be carried on in many parts of the country 1 At the last census before the Great War. B I 2 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN throughout the year, and there is rarely snow or ice enough to inter- rupt communications. The moisture-laden winds from the southwest, which temper the climate, bring an abundance of rain which makes Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, and western England little suited for agriculture, though, in the case of England, the mountains, grouped and ranged along the western coast, modify and distribute the rainfall so that the greater part of the soil is well adapted for farming. 1 Northern and Western England. — England proper is separated from Scotland by the indentation of the sea known as the Solway Firth, by the Cheviot Hills, and the Tweed River. There are two distinct divisions within the country itself, which might be marked by a line from the mouth of the Humber to the mouth of the Severn and thence down to the shores of the English Channel. North and west the country consists of mountains and moorlands. For cen- turies, this western country, given over mostly to sheep pasture, lay remote and backward, compared to the more favored districts south and east. Yet, even in early times, the mountains were serv- ing their country well : the Pennines, running south from the Scotch border to the heart of the Midland country, formed a protecting wedge which served to split the waves of barbarian invasion and to prevent them from inundating the English plain. Furthermore, aside from regulating the distribution of moisture, the western moun- tains have determined the course and the nature of the important rivers — by giving them long, gentle slopes they have admirably adapted them for commerce and irrigation, in striking contrast to the short, precipitous torrents of Greece or of Wales and northern Scotland. Nor does the Pennine system isolate one part of the country from the other, for three canals run through it east and west. With the discovery of the use of steam in manufacturing, the Pen- nine range was found to contain vast stores of mineral wealth; in consequence the neighboring region has become the center of indus- trial England, and the once solitary mountain sides and vast stretches of moorland are now studded with smoking, busy cities and swarm with life. Little places, once mere villages, grew to be teeming centers of population. Manchester, for instance, which now has over a million inhabitants, and is the chief seat of the cotton manu- facture, numbered, as late as 1776, only 27,000. Leeds is the head- quarters for the production of wool, and Birmingham and Sheffield 1 Even the extremely wet regions of the western midlands are not without their advantages, since a dryer climate which makes the threads brittle would be a great obstacle to cotton manufacture. THE BRITISH ISLES : PHYSICAL FEATURES AND RESOURCES 3 for iron and steel, while along the banks of the Clyde, the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees are shipyards which supply not only Great Britain, but many other parts of the world. The Cumbrian group of mountains, unlike the Pennine range, is of little industrial impor- tance. The native population is scanty, and sheep raising is the chief occupation, though, owing to the beauty of the scenery, the district is a center for tourists as well as for summer homes, and the lakes furnish a water supply for many of the cities farther south. The mountains of Cornwall, on the other hand, contain rich deposits of lead and tin, especially the latter, which have been worked for centuries. Southeastern England. — The structure of southeast England is markedly different from that of the north and the west. It is pre- vailingly a plain varied with hills or uplands of limestone and chalk. In earlier times this southeastern country was the most prosperous and progressive section of England — it was the district earliest settled, and its soil was the most fruitful in the land, enabling people to live closer together than in the more barren north. Thus they were better able to exchange ideas and had more means and leisure for education; more important still, they were in closest communi- cation with the Continent whither the medieval Englishman looked for trade, knowledge, fashions, and ideas. The Industrial Revolu- tion of the late eighteenth century changed all this and, with the exception of London, the center of progress and ideas has shifted to the Midland country. Internal Communication. — Before the Romans introduced their excellent road system, a system to which many of the European highways of the present day owe their origin, Britain was largely a land of tangled forests and impassable marshes, with the ridgeways and the rivers forming almost the sole means of communication. But, even with the advent of roads and railways, the rivers are still of great importance ; they furnish irrigation for the soil, they are utilized to provide power for mills and factories, and, together with the canals which they supply, they continue to serve as a cheap and convenient means of transportation. English River Systems. — There are three great systems : the Eastern, flowing mainly into the North Sea ; the Southern, emptying into the English Channel ; and the Western, which finds its chief out- let in the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea. Taken as a whole the eastern system is the most important. Proceeding from north to south the first is the Tweed, famous for the cloth manufacture along its banks ; the Tyne has for its chief port Newcastle, a great center 4 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN for the distribution of mining products ; while the Humber is fed by the Ouse and the Trent, which with their tributaries bring the prod- ucts of a large and wealthy district to Hull, the leading port of north- eastern England. The Thames is the largest river of England and the chief waterway across the south country ; the harbor at its mouth is the finest in the whole kingdom ; hence, in spite of the fact that the center of industry has shifted to the North, London is still the leader in imports and second only to Liverpool in exports. The rivers of the southern group are relatively short and unimportant. On the west two rivers call for special notice. The Severn, rising in the Welsh mountains, sweeps round to the east and south in the form of a bow widening at the end of its course into the Bristol Channel. Bris- tol, its chief port, rose to consequence as a result of the discovery of America. Yet, save for a small amount of wool manufacturing, the districts lying behind are mainly agricultural ; therefore, Bristol had long ago to yield its preeminence as a port to Liverpool on the Mersey, situated in the center of a district rich in manufacturing, mining products, and pasture lands. Importance of British Insularity. — There was a time when the British Isles formed a part of the neighboring continent of Europe. The watery barrier, which has existed since England began to have a history, has been a significant element in shaping her destiny. It has kept her out of reach of her greedy and powerful neighbors, thus enabling her to maintain her independence, to preserve her energies free for commercial and colonial expansion, and to develop her ways of thinking, manners, customs, and system of government in her own way. In early times when the population was scanty and means of resistance unorganized, peoples from the Continent forced their way in ; but never since the eleventh century has there been any serious danger from this source. At the same time, the country has not been too remote to feel the influence of the great Continental move- ments such as the Crusades, the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, and the French Revolution, though most of them had spent their force when they reached her shores, and hence took a very individual form. World Position and World Trade. — A glance at a map of the globe will show how centrally the British are situated with respect to the two great continents of Europe and America and will help to explain British leadership in commerce. Indeed, one fifth of their present exports consists of things produced by other countries and distributed by British ships ; wool from Australia is carried to Germany, France, and the United States and, in the same way, French silks are con- THE BRITISH ISLES: PHYSICAL FEATURES AND RESOURCES 5 veyed to Australia. Likewise, the raw cotton from America, India, and Egypt passes through British ports on its way to the Continent of Europe, while most of the Oriental goods destined for the United States are handled in the same manner. With the further advantage of excellent harbors and a most accessible coast, her seaports naturally grew to be important commercial centers — Newcastle, Hub", and London on the east, — Bristol, Liverpool, and, more recently, Glasgow on the west. England as a Producing Power. — But England is not only a dis- tributing power, she is a producing, a manufacturing power as well. Here, too, physical conditions have been most favorable. Her soil is well adapted for sheep raising, and sheep furnished not only food, but the material for clothes ; then with the introduction of machinery her vast stores of iron and coal were extensively developed for manu- facturing. The great productiveness of the country led to an over- flow of population, this led to colonization, and the colonies in their turn created new markets. Wales. — The rocky coast, the rugged mountainous surface, and the excessive moisture of the climate make Wales of little value for agriculture, while the barriers to communication and the prevailing wildness produced a people fierce, independent, and disunited, who fought not only against England, but among themselves. At the same time, the beauty of the scenery tended to foster a romantic imagination and a school of bards who sang with rare beauty and exaltation of sentiment. The country was transformed by the In- dustrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and now derives its chief wealth from its mineral products, coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, slate, limestone. Cardiff is a busy town noted for its export of coal and iron and for its docks. The coal of the Black Mountains is famous for its smelting and Swansea is, perhaps, the chief center in the world for this industry, while the Cambrian range 1 is rich in slate quarries. But the industrial area is limited and the stretches of mountain districts, though they charm the tourist, re- duce the average of population and wealth. Scarcely more than half the country is under cultivation and its total population is less than 2,000,000, not greatly exceeding that of Manchester and its adjoining towns. Scotland. — Taken as a whole, Scotland is still less adapted for agriculture than Wales, only a fourth of its soil being devoted to that purpose. In the olden time, when men depended largely upon that form of livelihood, the country was indeed badly off. The northern 1 Not to be confused with the Cumbrian. 6 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Highlands, bounded by a rugged coast and stormy seas, a country of rugged mountains and remote inaccessible glens, sheltered a race fiery and turbulent who eked out a scanty support from hunting, fishing, and sheep raising, by cattle forays in which they plundered their neighbors, Scot and Englishman alike. At the present time this district lives largely off the hordes of tourists and sportsmen attracted by the wild beauty of the scenery and its preserves of fish and game. The country to the south, known as the Lowlands, is inhabited by people of quite another type — thrifty, industrious, and austere, touched, nevertheless, by strains of wild enthusiasm and poetic im- pulse. The southern Lowlands, or " Border," consists mainly of hill and moorland adapted for little but sheep raising, though it is as rich in historical association and romantic legend as it is poor in re- sources. In course of time, manufactures developed along the Tweed ; but Scotland's greatest industrial gifts are centered farther north in the Lowland plain between the Border and the Highlands. The Firtk of Forth on the east, and the Firth of Clyde on the west, furnish excellent harbors ; a line of communication has been carried straight across the country by a canal joining the two bodies of water, and the neighboring districts are rich in mineral deposits. This combination of industrial resources and commercial facilities has led to a great development in manufacturing. The Clyde is the center of the world's shipbuilding and Glasgow, on its banks, is the second city in the United Kingdom. Ireland. — England's early treatment of Ireland has done much to make her people miserable and unquiet ; but much has been due to natural disadvantages. Her hills and mountains, though they encircle the coast, are too low to modify perceptibly the abundant rains brought by the ocean winds, and contribute rather to drain water into the central plain. With an average of over two hundred rainy days in the year much of the soil is too wet for agriculture and there are places which are mere bog and marsh. Ireland's mineral resources also are scanty ; the coal is of poor quality, and, mainly in the southern county of Kilkenny, is separated from the chief deposits of iron which are in Antrim in the extreme northeast. Commercially, too, the coun- try has been unfortunate ; England lies in a position to intercept its Continental trade, many of its best harbors are to the west and north, where, at least in early times, they did little good, and there is only one navigable river. Dublin, the capital, and Belfast, noted for its linen manufactures and its shipbuilding, are the only towns of any consid- erable size. Conditions, however, are favorable to pastoral pursuits, and, relative to its population, Ireland raises more live stock than any THE BRITISH ISLES: PHYSICAL FEATURES AND RESOURCES 7 other country of Europe. Ireland's cattle trade, however, has been seriously affected by improved methods of transportation which has made American and Australian competition possible ; but, since the end of the last century, a growing industry has been developed in sup- plying England with poultry and dairy produce. What with the new activities, cooperative banks, and cooperative farming the country has been more prosperous in the last decade than ever before, though the political situation is still very troubled. General Summary. — While Ireland has been to some degree an unfortunate exception, Great Britain, in general, has been greatly favored by nature in attaining the preeminent position she now occupies. She enjoys the advantage of a mild and even climate, of a central geographical position, a coast line safe and accessible, of mountains stored with minerals and situate4 so as to regulate the rainfall and to form rivers adapted to internal communications. FOR ADDITIONAL READING 1 J. R. Green, A Short Geography of the British Isles (1903) ; the best de- scription for historical purposes, but the tables of population are out of date. G. G. Chisholm, Handbook of Commercial Geography (8th ed. 191 5). A. C. Ramsay, Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain (1894). H. C. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas (1892) ; the most recent work on the physical characteristics of the British Isles. A. Geikie, Landscape in History (1905). H. B. George, The Relations of Geography and History (1901). 1 The editions are those accessible to the writer, preferably the most recent. CHAPTER II THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN Means of Studying Primitive Peoples. — Far away in the dim past Britain was inhabited by men now extinct ; since no written records tell what they did and^ how they lived, their times are known as the pre-historic. It is beyond our power to reconstruct any account of this period; but certain sciences throw some light on the physical characteristics of these ancient men, their conditions and customs, and the successive stages of their development. Archaeology teaches much from a study and classification of the relics of tools, weapons, and places of habitation ; from human remains, anthropology attempts to determine what manner of men they were and their race relation- ships; the strata in which such remains have been found enables geology to suggest information as to the relative age in which they lived ; while, from such vestiges of their language as have survived, philology helps to determine their degree of culture and the other groups of people with whom they may have associated. Paleolithic Men of the River Drift. — Ages ago, when Britain was still a part of the Continent, the earliest men appeared. Few, if any, remains of them in this period have been discovered, and none in Britain ; but rude, unground weapons of chipped flint, unprovided with handles, found in the deposits of ancient rivers prove that they ranged over a wide territory from India on the east, northern Africa on the south, to Britain on the west. From the form and size of their implements and the places where they have been discovered, scholars conclude that they were a small race of nomad hunters, too rude to polish their weapons or to build themselves habitations, dwelling chiefly along the banks of rivers. They belonged to the most primi- tive type, the earliest stage of civilization, the old stone or paleolithic age. Paleolithic Men of the Caves. — In course of time they gave way to a new race, still in the old stone age ; for their weapons, though they had handles, were still of unpolished stone. While they had no do- THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 9 mestic animals and knew nothing of agriculture, they represented a distinctly higher type than their predecessors. Their arrowheads were of flint ; but they formed harpoon heads of antlers, they made needles of bone and fashioned themselves clothes of skins sewed with reindeer sinews. They constructed bird snares, and speared fish with their barbed harpoons; they knew how to strike fire from flint and boiled water by means of hot stones ; moreover, they possessed a rare artistic faculty, carving pictures of animals and hunting scenes with great accuracy and spirit. The Neolithic Men. — After another long interval the men of the old stone age gave place to the men of the new. Their weapons, still of stone, were more skillfully fashioned and were ground and polished to give them a smoother surface and a keener cutting edge. The new race, understanding the rudiments of navigation, crossed the watery barrier in canoes, some at least forty feet in length, bringing with them domestic animals, horses, short-horned cattle, sheep, dogs, goats, and pigs. They did not dwell in caves, but constructed dwellings by hollowing out circular pits under ground with an opening at the surface to admit light and air. They buried their dead in long ellip- tical barrows or mounds, numbers of which still exist, that they con- structed by planting stones upright in the ground, by laying others across their tops, and covering the chamber thus formed with earth. The builders indicated their belief in a future life by burying tools and weapons with the departed, that they might have them for use in the other world. Their remains show these neolithic people to have been of small stature with so-called dolichocephalic skulls — long in proportion to their breadth. 1 The " Celtic " Invaders. — The men of the new stone age were, in course of time, overcome by a fair-haired people who were much larger and stronger of body and were round headed or brachycephalic. The race of these invaders and the place of their origin has never been determined with any certainty. 2 Starting, it would seem, from the eastern part of the plain of Central Europe the new peoples, whom it has been customary to group together as Celts, poured westward in successive waves, the first of which must have reached Britain fully 1 Folk of this physical type more diluted, fragments of their speech, and some of their superstitions still survive in western England, and in Wales, parts of Scotland, and Ireland. 1 It was formerly the practice to call them the Celts and to assert that they formed a branch of a great family composed of the Greeks, Romans, Teutons, and Slavs in Europe and the Medes, Persians, and Hindus in Asia — a family to which the name Aryan or Indo-European was applied, but the view that there was such a family of peoples united by blood is no longer held. IO SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN a thousand years before the Christian era. Under the common name Celts are included no less than three groups of peoples who followed one another from the Continent. The first comers were the Goidels or Gaels, who were later pushed north and west, where their descendants still survive in Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the west highlands of Scot- land. The Brythons, for whom they made way, are the ancestors of the modern Welshmen and of a portion of the inhabitants of the west coast of England. The rear guard of the Celtic bands was formed by a group of tribes known as the Belgae, who occupied the eastern and southern parts of the country till the Germans finally absorbed or destroyed some of them and drove the remainder to join their kins- men in the west. Sources of Information. — The Celts understood how to mix copper and tin to produce bronze — so superior to stone that its users have been ' placed a stage higher in the social scale than the stone men, and be- fore they were conquered by later comers they had reached a third stage in civilization by learning to employ iron in their industries. We are able to form some opinion about them and their manner of life from the abundant remains they have left, skeletons, burial places, habitations, tools, weapons, and ornaments ; moreover, since they survived into the time of written records, we learn further about them from inscriptions and accounts of old Greek and Roman writers. 1 Religion. Druidism. — They worshiped the forces of nature as gods ; they created lesser divinities for particular localities, identifying each grove, stream, or spring with its appropriate guardian spirit, and peopled the land with fairies, dwarfs, and elves. Living in wild and unfriendly surroundings, in the midst of dense gloomy forests and treacherous, inaccessible fens, exposed to storm, thunder and lightning, their attitude was naturally one of wonder mingled with fear. Much of their worship, which included human sacrifices, was designed to placate the ferocious or malicious powers to which they were exposed. They believed in wishing wells and cursing stones, and the mistletoe, which still figures in our Christmas celebrations, they venerated for its miraculous properties. Very probably they borrowed from the stone men their priestly system and ceremonialism known as Druid- ism. The Druids were a highly privileged body who ranked with the 1 The first certain historical notice of the island of Britain comes from Pytheas, a Greek mathematician and explorer sent out by the merchants of Marseilles about 330 B.C. in the interests of trade development, and the fullest account is furnished by Caesar in his Gallic Wars, though these early writings are fragmentary at best and have to be pieced out by what we know of the Gauls. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN II nobles and were exempt from all public burdens, who conducted the sacrifices, practiced magic, foretold the future, acted as judges, and were the custodians of learning, human and divine. Dwellings and Stone Circles. — The Celts lived in huts of wood, roughly or altogether unhewn, or of reeds woven together and plas- tered with mud or clay. These were often placed in marshes or lakes on piles or artificial platforms for purposes of defense. They burned their dead and deposited their remains in round instead of long barrows. But the most striking monuments that they have left are the great stone circles which they may have used as sepulchers, or possibly, as was formerly believed, for temples. Stonehenge at Old Sarum — near the present Salisbury — the most celebrated, now con- sists of a confused mass of huge bowlders, but in its original form it must have been a wonderful evidence of the skill and devotion of the builders. Characteristics. Social and Political Organization. — These old Celts were a rude, hardy folk, but hospitable and kind in their crude, boisterous way. Their serious occupation was war and their diversion rough games and immoderate eating and drinking. In the earliest times we find them tattooing or painting their bodies, a practice which long survived among the northern peoples, the Scots and the Cale- donians or Picts. 1 At first their only form of social and political or- ganization was the family, who chose their ablest male to lead them in war and to represent them in peace. As time went on, these families were united into tribes from which the most capable male member was selected as king. Their legal system was very primitive. They had no courts, as we understand the term, and their judges were merely umpires or arbitrators, who had no power to compel the acceptance of their decrees. Trade and Industry. — In their earliest intercourse the Celts used cattle and bars of iron and tin for standards of value ; but as early as 200 B.C. they seem, in the southeast, to have had gold coins fashioned on Greek models. In the absence of roads they made use of rivers and the tops of ridges as trade routes. The Thames and the Severn were especially important. Their greatest trade was in tin which they carried from Cornwall overland to the southeast coast, thence in ships to the shores of Gaul. Besides tin they came to export cattle, hides, grain, and also slaves and huge dogs, the latter used by the Gauls in war and by the Romans for hunting. Their imports were chiefly manufactured articles of iron and bronze, cloth, and salt. But this does not mean that they did not manufacture, to some extent them- 1 Probably from the Latin pictus, painted. 12 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN selves. They were fond of bright colors, and we are told that they wore clothes of various hues, getting the dyestuff from the bark of trees. They excelled in enamel work and made many of the gold orna- ments which they wore, as well as the weapons and chariots which they used in war. Caesar in Britain 55 and 54 B.C. — During the course of his famous conquest of the Gauls, Julius Caesar determined to invade Britain. Late in August, 55 B.C., he set sail ; but, owing to the lateness of the season and the fear of the autumn gales, returned to Gaul, after a brief survey of the neighboring country and some skirmishes with the tribes round about, who made a vain effort to resist his landing. The ensuing winter was devoted to building ships and collecting men and supplies for another campaign. By July he was ready . This time he marched inland and forced a passage of the Thames by a ford above London which the British had sought to obstruct by driving sharpened stakes under the water and along the opposite bank. After im- pressing the native chieftains with his military prowess he again with- drew without attempting a permanent occupation. The Romans Secure a Foothold in Britain, 43 A.D. — Nearly a century elapsed before the Romans again took up the conquest of Britain. Caesar was henceforth fully occupied in other parts of the Empire, and so were his successors, or else they had no inclination to extend the Roman boundaries in the direction of Britain. A change came with the Emperor Claudius to whom a pretender fled for assist- ance, though he was ready to seize any pretext for an intervention in British affairs. He was a Gaul by birth, and so, interested in the con- cerns of that part of the country, while furthermore he was anxious to celebrate the triumph which always followed a Roman conquest, so he sent his general, Aulus Plautius, to Britain in the year 43 a.d., and even came over in person at the final stage of the campaign. Britain was made a province and Claudius got his triumph. Thus began an occupation which lasted nearly four hundred years. The Suppression of the Druids and the Insurrection of Boudicca. — The Druids were particularly active in opposing the extension of Roman influence. Solely from reasons of political necessity, for the Romans were usually fairly tolerant of other religions, the governor, Suetonius Paullinus, undertook the suppression of their order in the year 61 a.d. On his approach they took refuge in the little island of Mona (now Anglesey) off the Welsh coast. But there was no escape for them. The Roman soldiers " bore down upon them, smote all that opposed them to the earth," and destroyed their sacred grove. Meantime, events were happening in the east which forced Suetonius 4 Longitude 3 from 2 Greenwich 1 B*3t & CO.,tNGR'SjN.Y. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 13 to hurry back toward London. The Roman government had become unbearable. Excessive levies and financial extortion on the part of capitalists and tax-gatherers stirred the righteous wrath of the Britons. The climax came when Boadicea or Boudicca, widow of a native chief, stung by injustice and injury, raised a revolt of her people and those round about, who were already charing under grievances. Camulo- dunum (Colchester), a colony of Roman veterans, was overcome and reduced to ashes, and Lundinium (London) and Verulamium (St. Albans) met a similar fate. Fully 70,000 Romans and their supporters are said to have been massacred. As the victorious Britons were re- turning from the destruction of Verulamium, Suetonius at length felt strong enough to strike. In a battle somewhere in the neighborhood of London he crushed the enemy and slaughtered numbers of a host of 80,000, including women and children who followed the army. Boudicca escaped her captors by taking poison. The vengeance of Suetonius was ruthless. " He made a desert, and called it a peace." Yet, in the long run, the uprising had the effect of softening the rigors of the Roman administration. Agricola. — Under the governors who followed, inaction alternated with military suppression till the advent of Agricola (78-84), whose rule marks the highest point of the Roman supremacy. He replaced uncertain and heavy burdens by just and equal assessments; did away with monopolies ; removed incompetent officials ; fostered ed- ucation and the use of the Latin language ; and encouraged building. Furthermore he extended the imperial sway far to the north, and se- cured the lines of the Tyne and Solway and Forth and Clyde by a series of forts. He even penetrated beyond the Tay and defeated the wild Caledonians on the threshold of the Highlands. His last achieve- ment, before his recall, was to send a fleet to circumnavigate the Island, thus for the first time determining its true geographical character. The Last Two Centuries of the Roman Occupation. — Under his successors little attempt was made to hold the line north of the Tyne and the Solway, 1 while during the last two centuries of the Roman occupation, Britain itself was in a very unsettled state and often proved a thorn in the flesh of the Empire. Under weak rulers there was disorder and confusion ; strong, ambitious governors, on the other hand, sought independence, or aimed to use the country as a basis of operations for seizing the imperial crown. Saxon and Frankish 1 By the orders of the Emperor Hadrian this southern line of forts was reen- forced by a wall of turf. The remarkable stone wall usually known as "Hadrian's Wall" — parts of which still remain — was probably not built until the time of Septimius Severus, who came over in 208 a.d. 14 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN pirates began to infest the eastern shore as early as the beginning of the third century, and, in the fourth, the northern Highlanders, now called Picts, reenforced by Scots coming originally from Ireland, became a constant menace to the border. To meet the pirates a new officer, the Count of the Saxon Shore, was created ; but the first two Counts used their position to set up an independent rule instead of protecting the coast. The Roman power was finally restored in 296 by Constantius, father of the famous Emperor Constantine, founder of Constantinople. Meantime the Empire had been entirely reor- ganized under Diocletian (284-305). It was divided into four pre- fectures ; these again were subdivided into dioceses, Britain forming one diocese of the prefecture of Gaul. End of the Roman Occupation. — Even thus effectually reorganized the Empire was unable long to withstand the double strain of revolt from within and pressure from without. In 407 a pretender, who set himself up as Emperor, led the British legions into Gaul and, though he was overthrown, his troops were never marched back. The German barbarians had overrun the Empire. In 410 Alaric captured and sacked Rome. The Emperor Honorius bade the Britains hence- forth defend themselves ; they proved unequal to the task, and before the close of the century had to yield the greater part of their territory to the German tribes who swarmed across the Channel in constantly increasing numbers. General Nature and Advantages of the Roman Rule. — The Roman occupation left few enduring traces on the history and life of Britain. While the thoroughness of the later Teutonic conquest was largely responsible for this, it was, to some degree, due to the fact that few of the Latin stock came to found homes. The remoteness, the severe climate, the gloomy skies, and the turbulence of the people repelled colonists. Settlement was confined to soldiers, government officials, merchants and traders. The few who took up large estates worked them mainly by natives. However, the period of Roman rule was not without its advantages. For some time it furnished a fairly effective protection against external foes and held in check the warring tribes within. The concerns of the subject peoples were regulated by the Roman law, a fusion of principle and practice superior to anything the world had yet seen. The application of a uniform legal system made for unity. A decree of Caracala, in 212, conferring the privilege of Roman citizenship on all free-born provincials contributed powerfully to break down provincial differences in Britain as well as elsewhere. While the general administration was kept in Roman hands, the Brit- ons were given some training in local self-government by allowing them THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 15 membership in the district councils which were intrusted with the building of temples, erecting fortifications, and laying out streets. Theaters were constructed, which in spite of their corrupting influence made for education and culture. Remains of museums, baths, public buildings, and private dwellings show how far they had progressed in the art of living and in the comforts of civilized life. Aqueducts provided many communities with an abundant water supply, and the Romans had a superior system of heating by means of hypocausts, or hollow pipes, heated from an arched fire chamber below. Commerce and industry throve, protected by peace and wise laws and fostered by the building of roads and the growth of cities. A network of roads, so skillfully constructed that they have survived to excite our wonder even in the present day, provided alike for communication, the trans- portation of troops, and for transaction of all kinds of government business, as well as for the distribution of wares. Most of these roads ran through London, whose importance as a commercial center was foreshadowed thus early. British Christianity. — One most significant result of the Roman occupation was the introduction of Christianity. Legends tell that the apostles Peter and Paul visited the land. A most beautiful story is that concerning Joseph of Arimathea who provided the sepulcher for Christ's burial ; it was believed that he fled to far-off Britain bringing the holy grail or the cup used at the Last Supper, that he founded the famous abbey of Glastonbury, marking the site by plant- ing his staff of thorn which grew into a tree and blossomed every Christmas morning in honor of the sacred day. But, much as these lovely and inspiring tales enrich our literature, it must be admitted that they rest on no historical foundation. Christianity was no doubt slowly introduced by Roman soldiers, merchants, and officials, and from the mission station in Gaul. The first evidence of any organized church is marked by the presence of three British bishops at a synod held at Aries in Gaul in 314 a.d. Within a century and a half the Teutons came and thrust a " wedge of heathendom " between the Christians of Britain and the Continent. During the long years when they were cut off from the mother Church at Rome they developed forms of worship and government distinctly peculiar to themselves in many respects. When they are next heard of, there was a British and a Scotch-Irish Church, both independent of the Bishop of Rome, and both different from the Roman usage in their method of computing the date on which Easter fell. Evils and Disadvantages of Roman Rule. — While the Roman rule brought many advantages to Britain — peace, prosperity, increased 1 6 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN unity, improved communications, civilized arts, and Christianity — it brought burdens and evils as well. For one thing, it introduced taxes and exactions always burdensome and often destructive and crushing. Worst of all, these revenues were not collected by responsible officials but were let out to tax farmers who paid a fixed sum and squeezed what they could from the unfortunate payers. Money was lent at exorbitant rates. Perhaps worse than the financial burdens was the system of conscription which took men from their homes, usually for life, to form a part of the great military machine. " We pay a yearly tribute of our bodies," wrote one Briton in a pathetic narrative. Then the strange vices which came in with the conquerors had a disastrous effect on those who came in closest contact with them, while those more remote were excluded from any participation in affairs. Both causes operated to kill independence and patriotism. With the with- drawal of the legions, Roman political institutions, laws, language, and manners soon passed away, and it was too late for the natives to com- plete their own national edifice from the point where they had so long ago been stopped in their work. In Britain, as elsewhere, the tend- encies preparing the way for a successful barbarian invasion had been long at work ; heavy taxation, conscription, and exhausted revenues had bred discontent ; private ambition and local feeling were stronger than Imperial loyalty ; and the barbarians, enlisted in increasing numbers, were favorable to those outside who were knocking at the gates. At last the barriers gave way, and the enemy passed in. FOR ADDITIONAL READING B. C. A. Windle, Life in Early Britain (1897) ; a good popular account. W. B. Dawkins, Early Man in Britain (1880) ; some of the author's views have been superseded. John Beddoe, Races in Britain (1885). C. I. Elton, Origins of English History (1890) ; a valuable work. J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (1904) ; contains valuable information mingled with details chiefly useful for the special student. E. Conybeare, Roman Britain (1903) ; brief and readable. W. Z. Ripley, Races of Europe (1899) ; excellent. H. D. Traill, Social England (new illus. ed. 6 vols., 1901) ; a cooperative work contain- ing a mass of information on the non-political aspects of the subject, with bibliographies at the ends of chapters. Sir James Ramsay, The Founda- tions of England (vol. I, 1898) ; a detailed narrative with copious references to the sources. Charles Oman, England before the Norman Conquest (19 10) ; this is the first of a series of seven volumes by different hands covering the history of England from the earliest times to the present. The volume is especially valuable as presenting the results of recent work on the Roman occupation. Thomas Hodgkin, A Political History of England (1906) ; THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 17 the first of another series, devoting twelve volumes to the political history of England with useful annotated lists of authorities. C. Gross, Sources and Literature of English History (2d ed., 1915) is a work of unique value, containing the only complete bibliography covering the whole period from the earliest times to 1485. CHAPTER III THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. THE "HEPTARCHY " AND STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY The Britons after the Withdrawal of the Romans. — After the withdrawal of the Romans, the Britons seem to have resumed their old tribal organization, although for purposes of defense they chose a common leader or Gwledig. For years they fought a losing fight ; but for good or ill, the Roman connection with Britain had been for- ever broken. Before a century had gone by, the Island had so far passed beyond the Imperial ken that the strangest stories were cir- culated about it. According to one current legend, Britain was a home for the spirits of the dead, and certain boatmen were exempt from tribute to the King of the Franks for rowing them across the Channel. The Coming of the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. — In 449, if the usual date can be accepted, a body of Jutes under their mythical leaders, Hengist and Horsa, effected a landing on the little island of Thanet off the coast of Kent. At any rate, some time about the middle of the fifth century the Jutes established themselves in Kent and their arrival marks the beginning of a continuous series of inva- sions culminating in the conquest of the Island by a body of German peoples whose racial traits, laws, and customs form the basis of those which prevail to-day, not only in Great Britain, but in every land where the English language is spoken. 1 Two other tribes joined the Jutes in the westward movement — the Angles and the Saxons. Their original home was in the coast country stretching from the eastern shore of the present Denmark to the mouth of the Rhine. Earliest Accounts of the Germans at Home. — From Roman his- torians, notably from Julius Caesar, and from Tacitus, who wrote about 100 a.d., we learn something in general about the Germans or Teutons, to which stock the three invading tribes belonged, while 1 Though, in their native land, their basic ideas of individual freedom and local self- government were, in modern times, largely repudiated by Prussianized Germany. 18 THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 19 among the Scandinavians, the most northern of the German peoples, a rich mythology has been preserved in their eddas or legends. They were pagans, worshiping the forces of nature, personified in great gods whose names have been preserved in the days of the week. Su- preme over all was Woden (Wednesday) from whom ancient kings derived their descent ; Thor (Thursday) was the god of storm and agriculture, whose chariot rumbling over the clouds caused the thunder and who produced the thunder-bolts by the blows of his mighty ham- mer; Tiu (Tuesday) was the god of war. Besides these great gods, their imaginations created all sorts of strange beings : giants ; fire- breathing dragons ; kobalds, mischievous demons of mines ; nixies or water-sprites; tiny prankish elves and other spirits good and bad. Many of the modern fairy stories are drawn from the actual beliefs of our forefathers. They rarely had temples made with hands, but worshiped in sacred groves, or sometimes they reverenced a particu- lar tree or set up a wooden column. After death, the valiant warrior was supposed to go to Valhalla and live forever amidst the highest joys they could picture, of constant feasting and fighting ; the cowardly and selfish went to the cold and joyless underworld presided over by the goddess Hel. While we hear of priests, they had nothing like the organization or influence of the Druids. Worship was very rudi- mentary, and human sacrifices, usually of prisoners, not unheard of. The Germans who came to Britain soon left their paganism for Chris- tianity, but many of their practices have survived. The feast of the Resurrection takes its name from Eastre, the goddess of dawn and the returning year, and children still follow the pleasant custom of hunting colored eggs on that day. Christmas falls within their Yule- tide when they celebrated the winter solstice, or the time when our northern lands are turned farthest from the sun ; the burning of the Yule-log is supposed to have originated in their old bonfire in honor of Thor, once a sun god ; and from them we learned to decorate our Christmas trees. Political Organization. — In the time of Tacitus the Germans had advanced to a settled form of agriculture, and, although the bulk of the land was owned by the tribes and families, there are traces at least of individual ownership. Tacitus tells us of a well-defined political organization. First there was the tribe or state. Some were governed by kings, but those in the far-off north were governed, in times of peace, by a council of chiefs, who prepared measures for the assembly consisting of all the free men of the tribe. They usually came armed to their meetings, which were mainly to decide questions of war and peace. The, tribes were divided into districts presided 20 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN over by chiefs elected in the tribal assembly. These districts were settlements made by groups of families which had originally sent a hundred warriors to the army and an equal number to the judicial assembly. All except the more important cases were decided in these district assemblies by the people themselves, for the chief was in no sense a judge, but merely a chairman to voice the opinion of the majority. Every district included several groups of kindred, each forming a free village community. Each household had its own dwelling, surrounded by a plot of ground, which was the property of the father of the family, while the arable land, owned by the kindred group, was* reallotted every year at the meeting of the community. Some of these villages may have been under the control of a chief, but it is generally supposed that most of them managed their own affairs — a primitive example of the modern town meeting. They cultivated in common and used only a portion of the soil each season, allowing the remainder to rest or lie fallow. Meadows and woods were common to all. Ranks among the Early Germans. — Society was graded into ranks or classes. In many states there was an hereditary nobility who claimed descent from the gods, and enjoyed personal distinction, but no political privilege by virtue of their descent. The bulk of the inhabitants were freemen distinguished from the lower orders by their long flowing hair, their right to bear arms, their right to attend the assemblies of the tribe and the district, and their right to share in the annual allotment of their village lands. Below them were a class of half-freed slaves or freedmen. Lowest of all were the bondmen, whose lives were absolutely at the disposal of their masters, to whom any one else who injured them was answerable. Each chief had a body of select companions, or comites, whom he supplied with horses and weapons and who fed and drank at his rude but plentiful table. In return, they fought by his side in time of war and helped him to while away the idle hours of peace. Such were the characteristics which the Angles, Jutes and Saxons transmitted to their new island home. The Jutes and the Saxons. — The impelling cause for their migra- tion seems to have been desire for more land due to their hunting and pastoral pursuits, to their wasteful system of agriculture and their general roving instincts; moreover, they were hard pressed by the tribes constantly sweeping upon them from the east. The Jutes, who occupied Kent, never expanded very far. The bulk of the lands south of the Thames fell to the lot of the Saxons. In 477 a band of South THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 21 Saxons landed on the coast at Selsey and appropriated to themselves the modern county of Sussex. In 495 Cerdic and his son Cynric — again the names of the leaders are only traditional — landed on the shores of Southampton Water, and their followers, known as the West Saxons, reenforced by some Jutes soon overran what is now the county of Hampshire. After a time they worked their way up to the Thames, but were stopped in their advance down the valley by the tribes who had pushed in from the eastern coast. The strip of coast between the Thames and the river Stour fell to a band who came to be known as the East Saxons, a name which survives in the modern Essex The Middle Saxons, stretching farther inland along the northern bank of the Thames, stood between them and their West Saxon kin. The latter, turning west after their failure to secure possession of the lower Thames valley, gained a decisive victory, in 577, at Deorham over three British kings, a victory which gave them control of the Severn River and enabled them to cut off the Welsh massed in Devon and Cornwall from those lying north of the Bristol Channel. Ceawlin, their leader at this time, pressed north, but a decided defeat some miles south of Chester, coupled with a revolt of the mixed population of Saxons and British settled in the Severn valley, stopped the growth of the West Saxon power for over two hundred years. The Angles. — By far the greater part of present England was occupied in the sixth century by the Angles, who gave their name to the country — Angle-land or England. Lying between the River Stour and the Wash were the East Angles, made up of the North Folk and the South Folk. North of the Humber and stretching beyond the borders of present Scotland were the Northumbrians, consisting of two peoples, the Deirans and the Bernicians. Along the Trent, running into the heart of the midlands, were the Middle English, and still farther west, on the British border, were the men of the Mark or Mercians. Tribal Grouping at the Close of the Teutonic Invasions. — Leaving the minor tribes out of account, we have now noted the settlements of the various peoples who came to compose what was formerly called the " Heptarchy," or Seven Kingdoms, though the number varies and the name has little significance : three kingdoms of Angles — Northumbrians, East Angles, and Mercians; three kingdoms of Saxons — East, South, and West — and Kent, the kingdom of the Jutes. To the north and west were the Celts, mingled with remnants of earlier peoples. Slightness of Roman or Celtic Influences on Anglo-Saxon Britain. — The Romans left very slight permanent influences on the country, 22 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN while the Teuton invaders had gone from their homes comparatively untouched by the brilliant if decaying civilization of the great Latin race. So the manners and customs and forms of government of the English are, to a large degree, Teutonic, not Roman or even Celtic. The invaders found a British people enjoying some degree of culture, advanced in trade, living in cities and cultivating large estates. But they either exterminated them or drove them into the inaccessible west, sparing chiefly women and slaves. The English medieval towns are to be traced from the rural settlements of the Anglo-Saxons, not from the vills and cities of the partly Romanized Celts. Many of these latter communities were utterly destroyed and have only been excavated in recent times, while the original sites of others were only centuries later repeopled. Union into Larger Kingdoms and Introduction of Christianity. — Two main features mark the period following the invasions. One is the union of the various incoming tribes into larger kingdoms, 1 and the attempts of the larger and stronger of these kingdoms — North- umbria in the seventh, Mercia in the eighth, and Wessex in the ninth centuries — to obtain control over the whole Island. The progress toward unity was helped and hindered in many ways ; but the early combinations were due mainly to two causes — the subjugation of the weaker by the stronger, and the union of neighboring tribes for defense and conquest. The other notable feature of the period is the conversion of the invaders to Christianity, which proved to be a great unifying force. The form which was to prevail, that of Rome, was introduced in the southeast, while Scotch and Irish missionaries worked their way in from the north and west. Augustine Converts -^thelbert of Kent. — The first of the new rulers to adopt the Christian faith was iEthelbert, King of Kent (560-616), who married Bertha, a Frankish princess and a Christian, though the conversion of the King and his people was actually brought about by a mission from Rome. The Pope at this time was Gregory the Great (590-604). Already, as a young man, he had seen young English captives in the slave market at Rome, and much attracted by their fair faces, blue eyes, and silky golden hair, he asked whence they came. He was informed that they came from the country of the Angles. " Right," said he, " for they have angelic faces." On asking further the name of the province to which they belonged he was told that it was Deira. " Truly," he exclaimed, " they shall be 1 The West Saxons, for instance, were originally composed of many smaller groups, the Dorsaetas, Somersaetas, and Wiltsaetas, to mention only a few, and the same may be said of the other kingdoms. SORMAr 4 CO.,eKSK'g,M,Y. THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 23 withdrawn from the wrath of God x and called to the mercy of Christ." From that time, according to this legend, so beautiful that one hopes it may be true, he seems to have been determined to convert the land of the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian faith. So, in the year 596, he selected a monk, Augustine, and a band of followers to perform this work. It is easy to see why he chose the country of ^Ethelbert, the leading man in southern Britain, the best known on the Continent and the husband of a Christian. In 597 Gregory's emissaries landed in Thanet, whence Augustine sent word to the King that they brought him a joyful message. ^Ethelbert arranged to receive them sitting in the open air, fearing if he entered a house they might overcome him by magic spells. The monks approached him in a procession, bear- ing a silver cross and a picture of Christ painted on wood and singing the litany, and told him of the Gospel. After some hesitation he allowed the holy strangers to come and dwell in his royal city of Canterbury, and on Whitsunday, 597, he consented to be baptized. It is said that 10,000 of his people followed his example, possibly from conviction, possibly from loyalty or by royal command. From that time to the present day, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been at the head of the Church of England. End of the Kentish Supremacy and the Decline of Christianity. — Pope Gregory had also instructed Augustine to enter into relations with the British Christians ; but their Bishops, although they met him in two conferences, sullenly refused to join hands with one associated with their hated conquerors. Augustine died in 604, having done little more than spread his faith into the neighboring East Saxon land. After the death of yEthelbert, in 616, his sons and the East Saxon chiefs relapsed into heathendom. ^Ethelbert was the leading ruler in the country and the Kentish supremacy perished with him. His reign is notable not only for the introduction of Christianity, but for the first bock of laws issued by an English King. They are merely a record of existing customs, somewhat amended by Christianity, and relate chiefly to offenses and penalties to be imposed. The Rise of Northumbria. — Meantime, the Northumbrians had come to the front and developed a power that was destined to be su- preme for over a century. In 593 ^Ethelfrith of the house of Bernicia, whose father had gained control of the rival kingdom of Deira, became King. Known as " the devastator " from the extent and ruthlessness of his conquests, he first secured his northern border by a victory over a combined force of the Picts and Scots and then advanced west against the Welsh whom he overcame at a battle near Chester at a 1 Latin, dc ira. 24 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN date variously given as 607 and 613. Legend tells that two thousand monks from Bangor appeared to pray for their countrymen, where- upon the Northumbrian King ordered an attack upon them, declar- ing : " if they cry to their God against us, they, too, are our adver- saries, though they bear no weapons, since they oppose us by their imprecations." Be this as it may, the battle of Chester ranks with that of Deorham (Dyrham) in importance, for it had the result of cutting off the Strathclyde Welsh from the inhabitants of the country we now know as Wales. Thus the solid Celtic western wall had been broken into three parts. yEthelfrith did not long survive his triumph for he was defeated and slain in 617. Supremacy of Edwin (617-633). His Conversion. — Edwin, an exiled Deiran prince, thereby became supreme over the united North- umbrian Kingdoms. He extended his rule to the north, and estab- lished a fortification from which Edinburgh (Edwin's burh) takes its name. He also made himself the leading power in mid-Britain and allied himself in marriage with a Kentish princess, whose chaplain strove to convert him to the Christian faith. Edwin, after a narrow escape from death, promised to adopt it, if he should succeed in gain- ing a victory over the West Saxons with whom he was at war. When his arms prevailed he held a meeting of his Witan, or Council, to discuss the question. History has preserved for us the lofty, simple words of one of his councilors. " So seems the life of man, Oh King," he said, "asa sparrow's flight through the hall when a man is sitting at meat in winter tide with the warm fire lighted at the hearth ; but the chill rain-storm without. The sparrow flies in at one door and tarries for a moment in the light and heat of the hearth fire, and then flying forth from the other, vanishes into the wintry darkness whence it came. So tarries for a moment the life of man in our sight; but what is before it we know not. What after it we know not. If this new teaching tell us aught certainly of these, let us follow it." This was in 627. Edwin not only extended his sway over a considerable portion of the Island, but he maintained such peace and order that a woman might walk from sea to sea and no one would do her harm. But his enemies in the end proved too strong for him and Christianity contributed to his undoing. A King of North Wales formed a com- bination with Penda of Mercia, a stout old pagan, and the two over- threw him in 633. Oswald, King of Northumbria. The Scotch-Irish Mission. — After an interval Edwin was succeeded by Oswald, a son of the Berni- cian, /Ethelfrith. During the time of Edwin he had been in exile chiefly at Iona, a little island off the west coast of Scotland where THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 25 there was a famous monastery founded in the sixth century by the Irish Saint Columba. Oswald — noted for his humbleness, piety, and charity — labored to convert his kingdom to the Scotch-Irish faith, which he had adopted at Iona, and was ably assisted by Aidan, a gentle and holy man, who established a monastery at Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle, on the Northumbrian coast not far from the royal resi- dence. Although Oswald was a strong and valiant warrior as well as a man of piety, he was not long able to maintain headway against Penda, who led an army against him and defeated him in 642. Oswald was slain, and miracles were performed by earth soaked with his blood. Oswy, a younger brother, was able at last to overcome old Penda, in 655, a triumph which accelerated the work that the Scotch-Irish Church was doing. Meantime, the Roman Church had secured a foothold in East Anglia and in Wessex, and a clash between the rivals was bound soon to come. Triumph of the Church of Rome. Organization and Extension under Theodore. — Finally, in 664, a synod was arranged in the presence of King Oswy at Whitby, where Wilfrid, a young Northum- brian noble, who had just returned from a pilgrimage to the Eternal City, presented the Roman claims. The main controversy was over the date of Easter. In the course of the debate Wilfrid asserted that the Roman custom was that of Peter to whom Christ had intrusted the keys of heaven. This decided Oswy, who declared that he would take the side of Peter, lest " when I come before the gates of heaven, he who holds the keys should not open unto me." The results of the Roman victory at Whitby were momentous and far-reaching. It brought England into contact with the civilization of continental Europe and led to the formation of what had been a mere group of mission stations into an organized Church. The man to whom this work is chiefly due was Theodore of Tarsus, whom the Pope sent out as Archbishop of Canterbury, and who worked unceasingly from 669 till his death in 690. He found seven bishoprics and only three bishops to fill them ; he left fifteen in effective working order. To bring the Church into closer touch with the people he greatly extended the parochial system, 1 and established a school at Canterbury where boys were taught arithmetic, astronomy, Latin, Greek, and the Scrip- tures. 1 The center of church life in primitive times was the bishop. To each was allotted a single church, and he had in his household a body of young men whom he taught and sent out to preach and teach in their turn. But, corresponding to a need for more regular ministrations, as time went on, the lords of large estates began to settle priests on their lands, and the little townships or hamlets did like- wise ; thus parishes originated. 26 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Monks and Their Work. — The religious and educational work of the Church in early England was largely done by the monks. In the Anglo-Saxon period these monastic orders were mostly Bene- dictine, following the rule of St. Benedict (480-543), a holy man who founded a monastery at Monte Casino in southern Italy. His fol- lowers were pledged never to marry, to obey their superiors without question, and to accumulate no wealth for themselves ; in other words, they were bound by the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. While the individuals remained poor, the monastic communities became immensely rich. Enjoined to labor as well as to pray, they entered into waste places, cut down the forests, drained the swamps, built dwellings, and cultivated the soil. Aside from their manual labor they studied and copied manuscripts and taught the youth. Unhappily these monks, as their wealth increased and their pioneer work was accomplished,' became weak, idle, and corrupt ; nevertheless, after all is said, they were a great power for good. Life was hard, brutal, and vicious, and the gentle, pious men and women who de- voted themselves to study, work, and prayer were shining examples in an age when greed, ignorance, and bloodthirstiness were all too common. The literature of the times is full of the doings of monks and nuns. The Venerable Bede (673-735). — By far the most renowned and attractive figure among these early monks is the venerable Bede (673-735), the " father of English history." His Ecclesiastical His- tory of the English Nation, extending from 55 B.C. to 731 a.d., is notable not only for being the first truly historical work produced by an Englishman, but also for a grace of style and temper that is all but unique. Although primarily a church history, it deals incidentally with temporal affairs, and indeed is almost our only authentic source' for the period of the seventh and early eighth centuries. As a boy Bede was sent to the monastery of Jarrow on Tyne and passed his life there. He says " he gave his whole energy to meditating on the Scriptures, and, amid the observance of the monastic rule and the daily ministry of singing in the Church, ever held it sweet either to learn or to teach or to write." Humble and devout, he became the most learned man of his day. Influence of the Church. — The influence of the Church in those days was manifold. Its organization furnished a model of unity in the midst of separation and disorder. Its synods brought men together and broke down provincialism and prejudice. It contributed at least somewhat to raise the standard of morality, and to preserve and spread learning. It fostered industry, agriculture, and the arts ; THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 27 while the monks builded and studied and dug, the nuns spun, wove, and embroidered. Moreover, many Englishmen became famous and heroic apostles to their kinsmen on the Continent. End of the Northumbrian Supremacy. — Oswy of Northumbria died in 670, and Northumbria soon ceased to be a leading power. Internal strife, hostilities on the northern border, and the enmity of Mercia proved too much for it to withstand. The kingdom lingered on till it was destroyed in the ninth century by a new enemy, the Northmen ; but it would be useless to try to make headway through its confused and tumultuous annals. Suffice to say that during the eighth century there were fourteen kings, of whom many were de- posed and none died peacefully. Supremacy of Mercia. Oflfa (757-796). — During the eighth cen- tury the leading position in England was taken, by Mercia. Mercian power reached its height under Offa (757-796), who after more than twenty years of hard fighting succeeded in securing his supremacy south of the Humber and in subduing and absorbing the Welsh on the western border. He was on terms of intimacy with Charlemagne and more than one sign indicates his influence with the Papacy: Pope Hadrian described him as the King of the English nation ; and he made the Pope a grant, in 787, which is regarded as the origin of Peter's pence. Offa also made laws for his people, which, while they are no longer extant, were drawn on by Alfred the Great for his later and more famous compilation. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Caesar in his Gallic Wars and Tacitus in his Germania describe the con- ditions of the early Germans on the Continent in about 50 B.C. and 100 a.d. respectively. Among the descriptions in later works are : Pasquali Villari, The Bar- barian Invasions (1902) ; F. B. Gummere, Germanic Origins (1892) ; Hannis Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution (vol. I, 1892) ; Wm. Stubbs, English Constitutional History (5th ed., 1891) I, chs. II, III. Taylor's work is a compilation which is very clearly written, but exaggerates the Germanic origin of English institutions. Stubbs, although super- seded in places, is still the authoritative comprehensive work on English constitutional history in the Middle Ages. Among the best of the briefer manuals are: A. B. White, The Making of the English Constitution (1908) ; F. W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England (1908) ; and T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History (7th ed., 1911). A very suggestive sketch is G. B. Adams, An Outline Sketch of English Con- stitutional History (1918). D. J. Medley, Manual of English Constitutional History (4th ed., 1907) is a most useful work of reference. 28 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN For invasions and the early history of the Anglo-Saxons, the most valuable general sources are Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, to 731, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which in one version goes to 11 54. Each work has been translated many times. Inexpensive editions are those of J. A. Giles in Bohn's Standard Library, (1843) and (1847) respectively. The best modern narratives are J. R. Green, The Making of England (1881) ; Ramsay, Foundations oj England, I ; Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, and Hodgkin, Political History of England. For the introduction of Christianity, see H. O. Wakeman, History of the Church of England (8th ed., 19 14), and William Hunt, History of the English Church (1901). Wakeman's is the best one- volume work. Hunt's is the first of a series of nine volumes by different authors. Each chapter is pro- vided with a fairly full bibliography. F. Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England (Eng. tr., 1895) is very good on the organization of the Church. An invaluable work of reference for the whole period is the Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols., 1885-1900, with 6 supplementary volumes bringing the work up to 1912. The ample biographies are accompanied by good bibliographies. In 1908-1909 a cheaper edition in 22 volumes was issued. CHAPTER IV THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS. THE GROWTH AND DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ANGLO-SAXON MONARCHY Rise of the West Saxons. Ine (688-725) . — Not long after the death of Offa, the Mercians were forced to yield their supreme position to the West Saxons, who had started on a career of conquest with the brightest of prospects generations before, but had been held back largely by internal dissensions. The greatest of their early Kings after the warrior Ceawlin (593) was Ine (688-725), celebrated for his com- manding position in the south and for his code of laws — largely amendments of existing custom and an enumeration of crimes and their penalties. After reigning nearly forty years Ine abdicated and went on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he died. Nearly a century was to pass before the West Saxon power again took the lead. Then its supremacy among the Anglo-Saxons was destined to be lasting. Many reasons explain this : there began in the ninth century a series of Kings who were, almost without exception, effective rulers and indomitable warriors ; they were supported by the Church, which saw the best prospect of carrying on its work under a strong united monarchy ; and finally, the invasions of the Northmen destroyed the rival king- doms which had impeded the West Saxon advance and drew the divided peoples together against a common enemy. Egbert (802-839) Establishes the West Saxon Supremacy. — The beginning of the West Saxon supremacy dates from the accession of Egbert, who, during some years of exile, dwelt in the domain of Charle- magne, from whose vast Empire he gained his first ideas of a great united rule. On the death of the King who had driven him out he returned, in 802, and was accepted as ruler by the West Saxons. He reduced the Mercians to submission ; the people of East Anglia sought his " peace and protection " ; he recovered the Kentish kingdom of his father ; and he forced the Northumbrians and Welsh to take him for their lord. During his last years he had to fight off attacks of the Northmen who had first appeared in the reign of his predecessor, 29 30 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and who were to occupy practically the whole energies of Egbert's son and of his four grandsons. The Northmen. — The Northmen, or Danes, as the Anglo-Saxons called them, — often known as the " vikings " or rovers — inhabited the peninsulas of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They were heath- ens, sea rovers, and pirates who passed their time mainly in plundering and fighting. Organized in small bands, they had their headquarters in the innumerable fiords, inlets, and creeks which indented the Scan- dinavian coast. Their boats were small open affairs, high at the prow and stern, propelled by oars, though often they bore a single mast and sail which could be set up to help the oarsmen when the wind was right. While they founded powerful states in northwest France (Normandy) and in southern Italy, we are concerned primarily with the Northmen in England. At first they conducted merely discon- nected plundering expeditions, then they made settlements, and finally established kingdoms. The Danes in England. — In 793 they landed at Lindisfarne, where they " lamentably destroyed God's church . . . through rapine and slaughter." During' the course of the next century the invaders secured territorial settlements in northern and eastern England, overrunning Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. In 795 they landed in Ireland, where they later established a kingdom. As has been seen, they proved, from the time of Egbert, a serious menace to the West Saxons. They not only infested the southern and south- eastern coasts, but, during the reign of his son, they penetrated in- land 1 and even took London and Canterbury. While yEthelred, a grandson of Egbert, was ruling the West Saxons and straining every nerve to drive the Danes out of his territory, he was mortally wounded in 871. Alfred the Great (871-901). — yEthelred left two sons ; but they were under age, and Alfred, who had so ably assisted his brother, was chosen to succeed him as King of Wessex and Kent. That the kingdoms of Wessex and Kent were defended against the Danes and organized to form a center for the ultimate recovery of the whole Island was due to Alfred, the supreme hero of the English race. He was born in 848, and from his infancy he was marked as a child of special attainments 1 A raid into East Anglia in 870 is notable for the gruesome martyrdom of the King of that land. St. Edmund, as he came to be, refused to divide his treasure with the Danish chief, to renounce his religion, or to become a vassal. Forthwith he was tied to a tree, scourged, then shot through with arrows and beheaded. Long after, a shrine was built to commemorate his martyrdom at Bury, now known as Bury St. Edmunds. THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 3 1 and charm ; his later youth was spent in hard and stern duties, and he was only twenty-two when the whole burden of defending the kingdom fell on him. The darkest time in the annals of England came in 876, when, after a brief truce, Guthrum, who had made himself King of East Anglia, landed on the south coast, overran Dorsetshire and seized Exeter. Alfred retreated to the fen country of Somerset, 1 and estab- lished a fortress on an inaccessible island in the marshes. After he had brought together the men of Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Somerset he sallied forth and defeated the Danes in 878 at Ethandun (now Hedington). By the so-called Peace of Wedmore (879) Alfred made them consent to receive baptism and to evacuate the West Saxon land. It was not till 886, after he had defeated the Danes in a sea fight north of the Thames, that Alfred got a treaty dividing his land from what came to be known as the Danelagh. By the terms of that treaty the Danes were to keep all east of a line " up the Thames to the mouth of the Lea, up the Lea to its source, thence across to Bed- ford, thence up the Ouse to Watling Street." Thereby Alfred got London, which he fortified and rebuilt. Alfred's Military Reorganization. — Having driven out the enemy, he set himself to organize a permanent defense, to give his people wise laws, to improve their political institutions, to educate them and furnish them with a literature. The chief military weakness of the English had been the fact that, as soon as a battle was won, the army would disperse and leave the land unprotected. To prevent this, Alfred divided the men into three parts ; one was kept at work in the fields, another was held constantly under arms, and still a third was assigned to garrison strongholds or fortresses. His Laws and Political Reorganization. — Having prepared for defense he proceeded to compile a body of laws. Besides a few new provisions and some taken directly from the Scriptures he selected what to him " seemed good " from those his " forefathers held " from the dooms of ^Ethelbert of Kent, from Ine of Wessex, and Offa of Mercia, besides taking some provisions directly from the Scriptures. It was a decided step in unification to give his subjects a common law where each people had had its own particular system, moreover his influence on the political institutions of his time is not without signifi- cance. The invention of shires 2 has been attributed to Alfred, but 1 The story is that he was a fugitive in hiding and that once he took refuge in a cowherd's hut where the housewife gave him some cakes to tend. He allowed them to burn and was sharply berated for his carelessness. This story is a myth, nor indeed, did Alfred come as a fugitive, but to gather new strength against his enemies. 2 For shires, see below p. 45. 32 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the arrangement for Wessex is at least as old as Ine. What Alfred did was to perfect it and extend it to the old tribal kingdoms of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex which had, up to the period of his victories, been ruled by one or more under-kings of the royal family. From the time of Alfred all lands south of the Thames formed part of the West Saxon kingdom, divided into judicial and administrative districts each under regular officials. The arrangement offered an admirable combination of local self-government and central organization ; for, while the forms of procedure were popular, the presiding officers were responsible to the King. Alfred spent much time in deciding complaints. He always favored the poor, " because," he said, " the poor had no friend but the King." His Work in Promoting Literature and Education. — Another phase of Alfred's varied activity is his work as a promoter of education and literature. Often lamenting that his own attainments in reading were so poor and that learning had reached such a low ebb in these turbulent times, it was his wish that " all the youth of England of free men ... be set to learn . . . until that they are well able to read English writing," and " that those whom it is proposed to edu- cate further and promote to a higher office should be taught Latin." For the latter purpose he caused a Court school to be founded at Winchester. Also he did much to foster the writing of his native tongue: under his auspices the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the first his- tory of any modern country in the vernacular, was greatly expanded ; he started a collection of ancient epics of which only one, Beowulf, has survived, and caused various books to be translated, chief among them Bede's History. Probably the actual translations were made by the learned men he gathered about him, yet the renderings were Alfred's, and he interspersed them with little comments, bits of his- torical and geographical information and lofty sentiments which he thought would inform and uplift his people. Final Estimate of Alfred. — Such was the work of Alfred, defender, lawgiver, and educator of his people. He was a man of many in- terests but one aim — to serve those over whom he ruled. Always active and methodical in his activity, he was so careful of his time that, it is said, since there were no clocks, he devised a candle covered by a lantern to measure the hours that were all too brief for what he had to do. He did not invent shires, found Oxford, or establish trial by jury as our forefathers believed. The burden of achievements at- tributed to him is greater than he can bear. But he did much for Eng- land, and, if we can see him aright through the distorting medium of myth and fable, he was just as great for what he was and what he did. THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 33 Edward the Elder (900-924), and the Beginning of Reconquest. — Alfred died 28 October, 900, and was succeeded by his son Edward, the Elder, who undertook to conquer all England from the Danes and to extend his overlordship over the Scots and the Welsh. While Edward himself was a persistent and able general he owed much to his sister Ethelrleda, " the Lady of the Mercians," whose military achievements surpassed those of the Amazons of old. Edward and Ethelfleda developed the method of warfare originated by Alfred ; avoiding battles whenever possible, they seized commanding points, which they fortified and garrisoned as centers of defense and further conquest. Before the close of his reign, Edward, and his valiant sis- ter (t9i8) had recovered Essex and East Anglia and a large portion of the Mercian district of the five boroughs. He had also extended his overlordship over the Northumbrians and the Welsh, and it is asserted that the King of the Scots also took Edward " to father and lord " ; x but this is disputed, although later English Kings based a claim on Scotland on this alleged submission. We hear of subsequent revolts even in the districts which Edward had actually conquered, but he had good ground for being called King of the Anglo-Saxons. His work was finally completed by his sons, three of whom in turn succeeded him. Further Extension of the West Saxon Power. — The first of these was Athelstan (925-940), known as " Glorious Athelstan," from his grace and beauty. His growing power and reconquests — he wrote himself Monarch of all Britain — caused alarm to the princes on his borders, and, in 937, the Scots, Welsh, and Danes combined against him. He met the coalition at Brunnanburh, an undetermined site somewhere in the north country, where a desperate hand to hand battle was fought from sunrise to sunset, resulting in a victory for Athelstan which determined that the West Saxons were to be supreme in Britain. The second son had to face a series of revolts, and only managed by hard fighting to retain what his father and brother had won. The third, Edred, though he waged persistent war against the restless Danes in Northumberland, adopted, in 954, the year before his death, a new policy ; he put them under an Ealdorman, and allowed them their own customs and their own laws — a policy of wise moderation that resulted ultimately in incorporating the Danes as peaceful subjects. St. Dunstan, His Reforms, Political Influence and Banishment. — It was in the reign of Edred that Dunstan came to take a leading share 1 The Picts had already in the middle of the ninth century been united with the Scots under one King. D 34 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN in the government. Born about 924 of a noble West Saxon family, Dunstan was educated at the monastery of Glastonbury and early introduced to the court of Athelstan where he spent much of his time. He was a dreamy, imaginative youth who cared little for the pastimes of his fellows. After he had been banished from court on a false charge of sorcery and after a serious illness he decided to become a monk. At Glastonbury he built himself a tiny cell, where he spent his time studying the Scriptures, copying and illuminating manuscripts, skillfully working metals and playing the harp, though, in spite of his manifold occupations, he was frequently assailed by horrid visions and temptations from the Evil One. Eventually he was made Abbot. In his new position, Dunstan led a movement in England to meet the decay in religion and learning that had set in as early as the time of Bede, and which had been accentuated by the disorders resulting from the Danish invasions. Monks and nuns had departed from the rules of their orders, had married, had assumed the dress and manners and customs of the laity, had lost interest in study and entered into the pursuits and pastimes of those in the world about them. Dunstan set himself against all this. He introduced monks at Glastonbury, pledged to live the single life and to devote themselves to study and the services of the Church, and worked untiringly as a teacher him- self. But, in addition to his work as Abbot, he accomplished a great political work as well ; for Edred made him chief adviser, and it was probably due to Dunstan's sage counsel that the device was adopted of conciliating the Danes by granting them a measure of local independence. Under Edred's nephew he lost influence for a time. The West Saxons hated him for his opposition to their plan of estab- lishing their ascendancy by force, and he crossed the purposes of an ambitious woman who was bent on marrying her daughter to the young and weak-minded King. Consequently, Dunstan was banished. He remained two years in exile, where he learned much at first hand of the revived and developed Benedictine rule, known as the " Cluniac " re- form from the fact that it began at Cluny in France. Dunstan, however, was more interested in education and religion than in monas- tic discipline, and it is due more to others that the stricter aspects of the reform were introduced into England. Recall of Dunstan. Edgar, the Peaceful (959-975). — Dunstan was recalled and made Archbishop of Canterbury by Edgar, whose reign marks the highest point in the power of kingship in the Anglo-Saxon period. The royal policy was consolidation on the basis of concilia- tion ; the Danes were to have their laws and so were the English : while the King was supreme over all, the local government was in the THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 35 hands of the great Ealdormen of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. This was an extension of the policy which had been initiated largely by Dimstan in the reign of Edred, and it worked well under Edgar's vigorous control, but there was danger, realized all too soon under weak rulers, that local divisions would break up the unity of the kingdom. Edgar was crowned in 973, and " there was much bliss on that blessed day." The coronation is notable as the first which the records describe in detail. The King entered the Church wearing his crown, which he took off as he knelt before the altar. A Te Deum was sung, after which the bishops raised the King, and the coronation oath was administered by Dunstan, who presided. Edgar swore " that the Church of God and all Christian people should enjoy true peace forever, that he would forbid all wrong and robbery to all degrees, and that he would command justice and mercy in all judg- ments." Then prayers were said, the Archbishop anointed him, and the people in the church shouted " Let the King live forever." Next Dunstan girded him with a sword, placed a ring on his finger, the crown on his head, a scepter in his hand, and, assisted by the Arch- bishop of York, seated him on the throne. Later, the time when Edgar's law prevailed was looked back to as a golden age. ^thelred the Redeless (978-1016). Beginning of Decline of Royal Power. — With his death, Dunstan 's influence ceased and troubles began. His eldest son, a mere boy, Edward, known in time to come as " The Martyr, " was murdered by the followers of his wicked step- mother to make way for her own son ^Ethelred. ^Ethelred, as he grew to manhood, showed himself incompetent to rule his country in the troublous times that came upon it. While by no means wanting in ability or energy, he would not listen to wisdom or good counsel, hence his name of the " Redeless " or " Unready." Soon the great Ealdormen in the different districts set about making themselves independent of royal control, and ^Ethelred made matters worse in seeking to counteract them by raising new favorites to power and en- dowing them with land. They naturally sought to advance their own interests, and thus iEthelred only made new whips to scourge himself. The Second Coming of the Danes. — In the midst of this turmoil the Danes reappeared, and this time they continued their attacks till they established themselves as rulers of the whole kingdom. They began, in 980, with some predatory raids in which Swein, son of the Danish King, figured, while, in 991, after an overwhelming force had won a bloody battle at Maldon in Essex, " it was decreed that tributes should be given to the Danish men, on account of the great terror which 36 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN they caused by the seacoast." The money was raised by a tax on land called Danegeld, which, continued long after the danger was past, was, for some time, the only land tax raised in the country. ^Ethelred failed to take advantage of the respites which he frequently purchased, to compose the differences between his warring lords and to develop a strong army and navy. However, the condition of the country as well as the indecision of the King must be taken into account. A great part of the resources in men and money were in the hands of the great territorial nobles who were at odds with ^Ethelred, yet even when the King's officials could be depended upon, they had, as a fight- ing force, only the ill-organized shire levies. At first the Danish cus- tom was to land at unexpected places, mount on horses, ride " as far as they would," burning, plundering, and " man-slaying " and doing " unspeakable evil," and, by the time the English were prepared to meet them, seek their ships and slip away. Then, later, they came in irresistible forces, won battles and had to be bought off. At the mercy of the invaders as he was, yEthelred brought dire vengeance on the English by a very stupid as well as brutal step. Alarmed at the rumor of a Danish plot to seize his kingdom, he ordered a general massacre of all those of that race to be found dwelling in the land, on St. Brice's day, 13 November, 1002. This fell deed brought Swein — now king of Denmark and Norway — into the coun- try again. Year after year the poor English were subject to his attacks, and to those of other bands as well. The Danes Gain a Foothold. — A crisis came in 1013, the beginning of the end, when Swein, accompanied by his son Cnut, landed with a great force at the mouth of the Humber. The Northumbrians, the Mercians, and the West Saxons submitted in quick succession ; even London, which at first held out, saw the futility of further resist- ance. The acceptance of Swein amounted to a practical deposition of ^Ethelred, who retired in 1014 to the court of Duke Richard of Normandy, whose sister Emma he had married in 1002, on the eve of his disastrous massacre of the Danes. Within a month after ^Ethel- red's flight, old Swein suddenly dropped dead ; while the Danes chose Cnut to succeed him, the English recalled ^Ethelred who, in spite of his promises, accomplished little. He did, in a fitful burst of energy, try to drive Cnut out of England ; but the latter soon returned and was in possession of western and northern England when /Ethelred died in 1016. Cnut Overcomes Edmund Ironside. — Thereupon, the people of London proclaimed as King, Edmund — known because of his valor as Edmund Ironside — ^Ethelred's son by a nameless mother. But THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 37 the bulk of the English, led by a traitorous Ealdorman of Mercia, declared for Cnut. After an uphill fight, finally defeated at Assan- dun (Ashington) in Essex, Edmund was forced to consent to a parti- tion of the kingdom ; but died a few days after the treaty, so oppor- tunely that it has been believed he was murdered, and Cnut became the undisputed King of all England. Edmund's sons were sent out of the country, some say to be slain ; but they found a refuge in Hun- gary, while yEthelred's sons by Emma were in safe keeping in the court of the Norman dukes. Reign of Cnut (1016-1035). — Cnut had shown himself crafty, bloody, and ruthless in his rise to power, and during the first years of his rule he was merciless and unscrupulous in disposing of those who stood in his way, yet, once seated firmly on the throne, he ruled as a wise and just King and sought to govern in the interests of his English subjects. If naturally cruel and greedy of power, he sought to re- strain his instincts. Recognizing the necessity of the situation, he followed the recent practice and organized the country into four great earldoms, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex, though, later at least, there were many smaller ones besides. In 1018 he held a Witan, or assembly of his wise men, at Oxford where " Danes and Englishmen " agreed to live " under the laws of King Edgar." This meant simply that the old laws of the English as they were in Edgar's time were to be observed, and this was the spirit of all Cnut's enactments. He pledged himself to " rule rightly," while the people, in their turn, were to " love God and be true to King Cnut." When Cnut died in 1035 in the full vigor of his manhood, his dominion in- cluded not only England, but Denmark, Norway, and Southern Sweden as well. On the other hand, by a victory at Carham, in 1018, which the Scots gained over his northern subjects, he was obliged to cede Lothian, formerly a part of Northumbria, and to recognize the Tweed as the boundary between the English and the Scots. Many stories are told of him which if not true, at least indicate the estimate in which he was held. 1 The favorable judgment of the time seems to be justified by his acts : he was wise enough to identify himself with his people, 1 On one occasion his courtiers urged him to sit in a chair by the seaside and bid the waves stop. When they came on, regardless of the royal presence, he refused to wear his crown again " because the honor belonged to God alone, the true ruler of the world." Perhaps the prettiest of all is that which tells how he listened to the singing of the monks of Ely. "Cheerful sang the monks in Ely As Cnut the King rode by. ' Row to the shore, lads,' said the King, ' And let us hear the Churchmen sing.' " 38 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and if he sought his own interests, they were England's interests as well. Return to the Old English Line. Edward the Confessor (1042- 1066). — The reigns of Cnut's two sons, from 1035 to 1042, were years of disorder, bloodshed, and heavy taxation. Neither left an heir, so on the death of the second of this evil pair the English joyfully pro- claimed as King, Edward, sole surviving son of ^thelred and Emma. Edward was royal in his bearing, affable and gentle as well; but he was utterly lacking in decision and not above spite, petty meanness, or even worse. Yet his reputation for personal holiness was so high — he is said to have abolished the Danegeld because he saw the devil sitting on the money bags — that he was popularly called the " Con- fessor " and was actually made a saint within a century after his death. Having passed the greater part of his life in Normandy his interests were more distinctively Norman than English. He brought over a number of Norman followers, who succeeded in not only secur- ing themselves wealth and -offices but also a voice in his counsels — chief among them was Robert of Jumieges who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 105 1. But Godwine, the stanchest champion of English interests, whom Cnut had made Earl of Wessex, was allowed to retain his office, and Edward married his daughter, a lady of more learning than charm. Although greedy and politic, Godwine was, so long as his power lasted, a strong check on the foreigners. How- ever, he and his whole family were forced to flee the country and outlawed, in 1051, because he resisted the King's orders to punish the men of Dover who had been drawn into a conflict with the unruly followers of Edward's brother-in-law, the Count of Boulogne, who had been the guest of the King. Visit of William of Normandy. — During their enforced exile Edward is said to have received a visit from a very notable man, no less a per- son than William, Duke of Normandy and future conqueror of Eng- land. He was a descendant of Rollo the Northman, who had con- quered the district about the mouth of the Seine early in the tenth century. The line founded by this old Norse viking had, in the course of time, become ducal vassals of the newly established kingdom of the French, and the Norsemen, while retaining the fierceness and war- like prowess of their race, had adopted French manners and customs and French methods of government. In 1035, when William was barely eight years old, his father, Robert the Magnificent, had died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. William was an illegitimate son by a mother of very humble birth, the daughter of a tanner of Falaise. Nevertheless he had, by hard fighting, secured the Dukedom, and, THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 39 still a young man of twenty-four, was the most powerful lord among the French. William's visit to England was so well timed that there seems to be no doubt that he undertook it on a chance of being made the heir of the childless Edward. Godwine and his family, the cham- pions of the English party, were in exile and Norman influence was supreme at the court. William afterwards asserted that Edward promised him the succession. Very likely this was true. But Edward had no right to make any such promise which had no binding value ; for it was the custom of the English Witan to choose their own King from the members of the royal family. Reaction Against the Normans. — Soon after William's alleged visit, a revulsion of popular feeling against Edward's favor to the Normans encouraged Godwine to return. The unpopular Normans fled and outlawry was declared against those who " reared up bad law . . . and brought evil councils into the land." Robert of Jumieges was replaced as Archbishop of Canterbury by Stigand, an Englishman. The Pope, however, was not consulted, and his decision that the pro- ceeding was unlawful gave William a second pretext for his later in- vasion of England. Godwine died in 1053, whereupon the Earldom of Wessex fell to Godwine's son Harold, a brave and earnest man, conscientious and gracious, but evidently inferior in ability to his father. In 1055, on the death of the Earl of Northumbria, Waltheof, the heir was passed over and Harold's brother Tostig was appointed to succeed him. When another brother got East Anglia, which Harold had once held, and other territories as well, all of England, except Mer- cia, was in the control of Godwine's sons. In such a situation it was quite natural that Harold should aspire to the throne, even though he was in no way related to the royal family except as brother to the Queen. To be sure, Edward the^Etheling, son of Edmund Ironside, had returned home in 1057, but he died almost immediately, and his son Eadgar and his daughter Margaret were mere children. By 1064 Harold was generally regarded as heir to the throne. Death of Edward the Confessor. — About this time a curious inci- dent happened which gave William his third pretext for claiming the crown. Sometime between the autumn of 1064 and the spring of 1065, Harold, while on a ship, was blown by contrary winds to the coast of Ponthieu, and seized by the reigning Count. When the news reached William he demanded that Harold be handed over to him, and forced him to swear to support his succession to the throne. Not very long after Harold's return to England the Northumbrians rose against Tostig, threw off his rule, and chose in his place, Morkere, the brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia. Much to Tostig's disgust Harold 40 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN yielded to the popular will. In the midst of this confusion, Edward passed away, 5 January, 1066, uttering gloomy prophecies in his de- clining days. Recognizing the inevitable, however, he commended the kingdom to Harold on the eve of his death. Harold, King (1066). — There were three candidates for the throne, little Eadgar the yEtheling, Duke William, and Harold. Even the sticklers for the old line saw that they stood the best chance of pre- serving English independence by supporting Harold. So he was hastily elected by such of the Witan as were in London on the very day of Edward's funeral, 6 January. Popular as he was with the people, the new King " had little stillness the while that he ruled." His enemies were many. There were Edwin and Morkere hostile to the house of Godwine ; there was his own brother Tostig, lurking abroad, burning to recover his northern earldom and to revenge him- self on all who had shared in putting him out, and there was the Pope, ready to aid whoever would expel the usurper Stigand. Finally, there was William, alert, resolute, and determined to secure the coveted crown. His claims and pretexts, as we know, were many, the promise of Edward, the oath of Harold, and the championship of the Church ; indeed, he advanced a further claim in behalf of his wife, Matilda, descended from the old Anglo-Saxon line of kings. When Harold refused to listen to him he at once prepared for war, sought to attach the courts of Europe to his cause, and secured the papal blessing for his expedition. In the late summer of 1066 Tostig, accompanied by Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, and a great force invaded York- shire. Directly the news reached him, Harold hurried to the scene, met and annihilated the invading army, 25 September, 1066, at Stam- ford Bridge, eight miles northeast of York. Tostig and Harold Hard- rada both fell on the field. The Coming of William. His Victory at Hastings (1066). — Within ten days Harold was back in London ; but already, six days before, William had landed at Pevensey on the south coast of England, with a following composed of members of young Norman nobility and by adventurers and soldiers of fortune from all over Europe. 1 From Pevensey he marched to Hastings, which commanded the northern road to London, where he awaited the coming of Harold, who hastened to meet him after taking less than a week to prepare his forces. At the news of Harold's approach William advanced to attack him. On the morning of 14 October the Anglo-Saxon King took a strong posi- 1 According to tradition William stumbled and fell on the shingly beach as he landed. His followers regarded this as a bad omen; but he reassured them by crying out : "By the splendor of God, I have taken seizin of England." THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 41 tion on a little plateau — now covered by the site of Battle Abbey — lying north of Hastings and somewhat south and west of Senlac. He massed his men closely with their front line protected by locked shields, 1 and their formation extending along the front and two sides of the plateau, with the fourth side of the square open, protected by the steepness of the northern slope. In the center, at the highest point now marked by the high altar of the abbey church, stood Harold and his brothers. Here was planted the Dragon of Wessex and the King's own standard, an embroidered picture of a fighting man. William drew up his forces in three divisions, one of which attacked the English in front, while the two wings attacked their flanks. 2 Only after a series of fierce assaults were the Normans able to gain a foothold on the plateau, to break the shield wall, and to capture the standard beside which Harold fell, fighting to the last. His men made one final stand on a narrow isthmus protecting the rear of the plateau from which they had been driven. Here too they had to yield, and by sunset of the short October day William had won the victory which was to make him King of England. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Ramsay, Oman, Hodgkin, and Taylor cited above. Also J. R. Green, The Conquest of England (1883) ; and E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest (1875-1877), vols. I-III. Alfred Bowker, ed., Alfred the Great (1899) con- tains chapters on his life and times by various hands. The best biography of Alfred is a brief volume by Charles Plummer, Life and Times of Alfred the Great (1902). L. M. Larson, Canute the Great (1912), is particularly good for the Scandinavian background. J. H. Round, Feudal England (1895), pp. 332-398, sharply attacks Freeman's account of the Battle of Hastings. For the history of the Church in this period, see Wakeman and Hunt. 1 Another account not so generally accepted says that they stood behind a sort of wooden palisade which they had hastily erected. 2 Of the Norman light-armed forces some were provided with cross-bows, a recently invented weapon, others were archers. The heavy-armed forces carried spears and long kite-shaped shields and were protected by helmets and by shirts and short breeches of ringed mail. The cavalry who fought, with heavy swords, were likewise protected by helmet and mail. The Anglo-Saxon light-armed forces bore javelins and stone hammers or axes for throwing. The heavy-armed had two-handed battle-axes. Among their other weapons were swords and daggers. The famous Bayeux Tapestry — a pictorial story of events from the time Harold was captured on the Norman coast till his death — is of great value on such points. It is embroidered on a strip of canvas nineteen inches wide and two hundred and thirty-one feet long. It was probably designed for the Bayeux Cathedral, but is now preserved in the Museum in the library. CHAPTER V THE STATE OF SOCIETY AT THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO- SAXON PERIOD Political Organization. — The Anglo-Saxon kingdom in its com- pleted form consisted of several shires; each shire contained sub- ordinate districts which came to be known as hundreds, and each hundred was made up of a number of small communities, either in- dependent and self-governing, or subject to the control of a lord. If free, these latter were called townships ; if under a lord they came, towards the close of this period, to be called manors. The Township. — The kinsmen of each invading tribe settled down in a village surrounded by a rude form of boundary. These bound- aries were called " tuns " (compare the German word zaun, meaning hedge) and the inclosed area was known as a tunscipe or township. Less frequently the village was known as a ham (from heim, the German word for home). Originally, most of these villages seem to have been free or independent. The settlement consisted of a line of houses along a street, the parent of the modern High Street, and each house was surrounded by a plot of ground which supplied garden produce. Stretching out beyond the village street were the lands used for tillage, of which every freeman was entitled to a certain amount, usually a " hide," supposed to contain about one hundred and twenty acres. The original allotments were scattered in strips in order that each might share in the good land and the bad land alike. Owing to lack of stock and farming implements each man helped his neighbors and was helped by them in turn. To avoid exhausting the soil, one part of the land was planted with wheat or rye, another with oats or barley, and a third would be allowed to lie fallow, and the crops were annually rotated. This was known as the three-field system. During the time from planting to harvest, rude temporary fences were con- structed to keep out the cattle ; after the crops were gathered, the fences were taken down and the cattle turned in to graze on the stubble. Besides the arable land there were common meadows and pasture 42 STATE OF SOCIETY AT CLOSE OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 43 lands for the whole community, and woodlands as well. In the woods fuel was cut and swine roamed about, feeding on acorns and whatever else they could find. At stated seasons the qualified freemen assembled in their tun-moot, or town meeting; here officers were elected, chief among them the reeve, who presided over the affairs of the community and went with four chosen men to the meetings of the hundred and shire ; at the tun-moot, also, by-laws were framed, rules of cultivation were settled, arrangements were made for looking after the roads and keeping the peace; but no judicial decisions were undertaken. The Manor as an Agrarian and Judicial Unit. — As time went on most of these villages lost their independence and passed under the control of lords. The lord's steward or bailiff took the place of the elected reeve as president of the moot, and the freemen became depen- dent cultivators. Although landed estates with village communities in subjection upon them existed from the beginning of the period — old Roman villas under new lords — the numbers had greatly increased by the eleventh century when they came to be known as manors. They usually consisted of two parts. One was the demesne, or " in- land," the land cultivated directly for the lord by slaves or by serfs, although it might be scattered among the other strips. The " out- land " comprised the holdings of the serfs, usually limited to a yard or virgate (thirty acres or a quarter of a hide) although certain per- sons called " cotters " had no more than five acres. The serf received not only land from his lord, but also stock, cattle, and farming imple- ments, and some household furniture. In return, he paid part of his produce in rent, and was called upon to labor during some days in the week and at intervals during harvest and to plow in the lord's lands. On the eve of the Conquest the lords had come to administer justice on their estates, and the old township courts became judicial as well as administrative bodies under the lord's steward or bailiff. Boroughs and Cities. — Another growth of this period is the borough and city. Usually in England the word " town " is synonymous with borough and is to be distinguished from a township or village. The former had a larger population and enjoyed peculiar organization and privileges. The most characteristic feature was the wall, 1 then they usually had a court of their own and a market. The origin of most of these boroughs is shrouded in obscurity. Some have tried to trace them from the Roman municipalities, but without success. The Roman towns were centers of a highly developed urban life, while the medieval towns were frequently little more than agricultural and fishing centers; indeed, the burghers often had farms outside the 1 Hence the name burh, a fortification. 44 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN walls. While the sites were sometimes determined by the older Roman settlements, these boroughs seem usually to have originated from for- tified places in the wars against the Danes during the ninth and tenth centuries. Sometimes, however, a town grew from the union of many neighboring townships, or developed from a settlement around a monastery or a castle, or where a crossing of roads or the ford of a river provided a favorable site for a market. Gradually these towns ac- quired charters confirming old privileges or granting new ones. A city is merely a borough where a cathedral is situated. 1 The Hundred. — Until the courts of the boroughs and manors came into being, the hundred was the center for all judicial purposes. The hundreds seem to have been originally districts of the tribal kingdoms, allotted to a hundred warriors or a hundred heads of families. Each had an assembly which met once a month. It was the duty of the presiding man, the reeve or elder, to collect the dues from the hundred and to keep order ; his judicial position was not the same as that of our modern judge, for he merely acted as the mouthpiece of men qualified to attend the court — the priest, reeve, and four men from each town- ship or manor as well as all free landowners and the nobles or thegns of the hundred. The jurisdiction exercised was criminal as well as civil. In the beginning, we find the groups of kinsmen responsible for the conduct of their members ; in cases of murder or serious injury they had the privilege of waging, or the obligation of submitting to the feud or private warfare. But, before the end of the period, the community had established its position as arbiter, and an elaborate compensation had been arranged — " wergeld " for murder or injury, and " bot " for other damages. It was only when such satisfaction was refused that the kindred had a right to wage war or seize the possessions of the one who was at fault. For its share in secur- ing justice the State came to claim a fine, known asa" wite, " from the offender. Procedure in the Hundred Moot. — Procedure was as follows. The offended party made a formal demand before the public meeting or the presiding officer. The accused was obliged, under penalty, to answer the charge and had to deposit a pledge to abide by the decision of the court. If he admitted his guilt, it was the duty of the meeting to determine the penalty. If he wished to contest the accusation, he denied it with a formal oath, usually supported by a number of oath helpers, varying according to his rank or to the gravity of offense. Sometimes, in cases where land or cattle were involved, documents 1 Recently, however, some large boroughs where there are no cathedrals, have been given the honorary title of cities. STATE OF SOCIETY AT CLOSE OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 45 might be produced or witnesses to answer set questions. When the crime was too serious, or the accused was too notorious to find oath helpers, or when he was a foreigner, he had to proceed to the ordeal ; that is, submit his case to the judgment of God. In the fire ordeal the accused had to carry a piece of red-hot iron weighing one pound a distance of nine feet ; his hand was then bandaged, and if it healed in three days he was declared innocent. For especially grave cases there was the threefold ordeal, when the iron weighed three pounds. Another form of test was the hot water ordeal, where the accused had to plunge his arm up to the wrist in boiling water and remove a stone ; here, too, there was a threefold ordeal, where he had to plunge his arm in up to the elbow. The cold water ordeal is little heard of in Anglo-Saxon times, though it was much used later for trying witches. For this test the accused was bound and lowered into the water by a rope round his waist ; if he sank a certain depth, he was innocent, if he floated, he was guilty. The corsned or sacred morsel was the form usually applied in the case of a priest ; the person to be tried was given an ounce of consecrated cheese or bread to swallow — his guilt or inno- cence depending upon his ability to perform the feat. Since the people regarded the decision in each case as given by God, it partook of a religious ceremony ; for which the accused prepared himself by a three days' fast and by taking the sacrament. If the test failed, the as- sembled multitude declared the penalty — fine, slavery, outlawry, or death. Imprisonment was not used as a form of punishment. The Folkmoot and the Shire. — Before the union of the tribes the highest form of political and judicial organization was the folkmoot. At this assembly the great- landowners, the freemen, and the priest, reeve, and four men met twice a year under their Ealdorman or chief. After the tribal states had been united into kingdoms, districts began to appear midway between the hundred or smaller jurisdiction and the kingdom. These came to be called shires, and originated at different times in different parts of the country. In the south, the kingdom of Wessex was divided probably on the lines of the ancient tribal states, and after the smaller kingdoms, Kent, Essex, and Sussex, were incor- porated, they too were reduced to shires. North of the Thames the two kingdoms of East Anglia, Norfolk and Suffolk, were treated in the same way. The remainder of the midlands were artificially di- vided after the country had been won back from the Danes. Usually an important town or fortification was selected and the shire grouped around it ; for example, Leicester formed the nucleus of Leicestershire. The shires in the extreme north — Lancashire, Cumberland, West- moreland, Northumberland — were organized after the close of the 46 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Anglo-Saxon period. Besides transacting judicial business the shire moot collected revenues and raised military levies. At first, each shire was under the control of an Ealdorman, or Earl, chosen by the King with the consent of his Wisemen. As time went on, the shire moot came to be presided over by a shire reeve or sheriff, who levied the military forces as well. Originally, the sheriff was the king's bailiff or steward employed to collect the rents of his estates in the shire, and he continued to be appointed and dismissed by the King at pleas- ure. The Bishops represented the Church; and since they were the only learned men of the time, they were of great assistance, partici- pating in all business except trials where a death penalty was in- volved. The Witenagemot. — The highest body in the land was the Witena- gemot or moot of the Witan or Wisemen — the great officials whom the King assembled about him, — the Ealdormen, the Bishops, and the thegns or nobles. Their business was to assist and advise the King in devising such rude legal measures as were framed, to give their consent to land grants, and to the naming of Ealdormen and Bishops ; moreover it was the Witan who named the Kings — though they were limited in their choice to the ablest male next in descent in the royal family — and on rare occasions they even deposed an unworthy ruler. The King. — The King presided over the Witan and over the as- semblies or synods of the Church. He led the levy, or fyrd, in war ; he enforced the public peace, and he carried out the decrees which he made with the consent of his Witan. Bound to a considerable ex- tent by the recorded laws and the traditional customs of the people, and, to some degree, limited by the Witan, the Anglo-Saxon Kings, in general, enjoyed large powers without being absolute monarchs. Revenues in Anglo-Saxon Times. — In those simple days the ex- penses and income of the State were small and irregular, the latter chiefly paid in produce and personal services. The King and his officials had a right to maintenance for themselves and their retainers on their progress through the country, and goods could be seized for the royal needs. This right, known as feorum fultum, corresponded to the later purveyance. The most common form of public service was the trinoda necessitas, or threefold obligation of serving in the army, of repairing roads and bridges, and guarding fortresses. The King had rents and other dues from towns on the royal demesne, he received certain court fees and fines, and forfeitures of landed es- tates in case of lords who died without heirs or were guilty of grave offenses against his authority ; he was also entitled to harbor dues and STATE OF SOCIETY AT CLOSE OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 47 tolls on trade, to wreckage and treasure trove. The Danegeld has already been described. Ranks in Anglo-Saxon Society. — The question of ranks in Anglo- Saxon society is obscure and complicated. One thing is certain, that there were only a few of the very highest class — at the time of Edward the Confessor's death the Witan apparently consisted of less than sixty men. Next to the King, the Earl was the highest in rank ; while he was the lineal descendant of the ancient Ealdorman, he had come to rule over not one, but many shires. Next to the Earl was the thegn, who, originally a minister or servant in the household of a King or great lord, had received endowments of land and had risen to the dignity of a territorial noble himself. Thegnhood was open not only to this ministerial class, but even to a merchant, if he " throve so that he fared thrice over the wide sea by his own means." The ceorls, or simple freemen, who stood on the next lower rung in the social ladder, were a comparatively small class. They paid fixed rents and services for the lands which otherwise were theirs even to hand down to their heirs ; they served in the fyrd, and had a right to attend the various courts where justice was administered and business transacted. Below the ceorls were various classes of servile dependents, personally free, but debarred from political rights, generally bound to the estate of some lord by services — usually onerous and uncertain — for the lands that they held. The Rise and Decline of the Royal Power. — Many evidences of the growth of the royal power to the end of the tenth century can be traced ; for example, from the time of Alfred, plotting against the King's life became a capital offense. Then the " King's Peace, " at one time limited to special places and seasons — to certain Roman roads, to navigable rivers, and to Christmas and Easter — was extended over the whole country throughout the year. But as the Kingdom grew in size, the royal power, for reasons already stated, de- clined in strength, while the manors, the borough courts, and the jurisdictions of the territorial magnates came to be the real centers of power. Thus at the eve of the Conquest there were in conflict two opposing tendencies. On the military side, there were two armies, the shire levies under the King's representative, the sheriff, and the armies of the Earls and thegns, nominally the King's, but which could be used for private purposes ; on the judicial side, there were the popular courts of the hundred and shire, constantly encroached on by those of the borough and manor. While the Anglo-Saxons had con- tributed to those who came after, principles and methods of local self- government, they had failed to furnish the necessary complement, a strong central government without which local freedom could easily 48 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN degenerate into anarchy. It was reserved for their conquerors to supply what was lacking. Anglo-Saxon Literature. — The earliest literature among the Anglo- Saxons reflects the characteristics of the race and is profoundly in- fluenced by their surroundings. It is marked by love of the sea, a sense of gloom and mystery, by the fierceness and boastfulness of the primitive man, tempered and ennobled by courage and generosity. Their greatest achievements were in the form of the epic, where an action is narrated in poetic form, and sung by glee men in halls of thegns. Of these, Beowulf is the earliest and the only one which has survived in anything like completeness. The material — brought by the later Angles from their Continental homes but only worked up into enduring shape in the eighth century — recounts the glorious deeds of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, his slaying of Grendel, the marsh fiend, and his mother, the " she-wolf of the abyss," and of the fire-vomiting dragon. Beside the epics there are some lyrics, or poems, that deal with sentiments and feelings, softened by a melancholy which some have supposed due to Celtic or Christian influence. Contrasted with this poetry is that which owes its inspiration to the Church and the Scriptures. One of the most beautiful stories in Bede is that of Caedmon, a rude, unlearned cowherd attached to the monastery of Whitby. He had no gift of song, and often at the merry-makings of his companions, when the harp was passed to him, he would leave the table and return to his stable. On one such occa- sion a figure appeared to him in his sleep and bade him sing ; at first he said he could not, but, finally, at the bidding of the stranger he began to sing verses in the praise of God. The next morning he rose and told his dream to the steward of the abbey, who took him before the abbess and divers learned men. After repeating his story they explained to him a passage of the Bible which he rendered into wonder- ful verse. He was made a brother of the monastery, and, as Bede tells us, " he sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis: and made many verses on the departure of the children of Israel and their entering into the land of promise, with many other histories from Holy Writ." Another early Anglo-Saxon poet was Cynewulf . According to writings attributed to him, he was a wandering Northumbrian minstrel of the eighth century, who in his youth rejoiced in hunting, the bow, and the horse, who received many golden gifts for singing in the halls of the great. Turning in his old age to graver things, he wrote four poems on the lives of Christ and the Saints, and very possibly was the author of Riddles, and of the Phoenix, an allegory. Next to Bede the greatest prose work of the STATE OF SOCIETY AT CLOSE OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 49 period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. From King Alfred's time it was continued independently by at least half a dozen religious houses, one version reaching to 11 54, and its simple but. quaint and graphic en- tries furnish the chief source of information for much of the period. Art and Building. — The Anglo-Saxons were notable for their skill in illuminating manuscripts and in embroidery and weaving — we hear how the shuttle " filled not only with purple but with all other colors, flies now this way, now that, among the close spread threads," and how they " glorified the wool work with groups of pictures." Apparently they were unversed in the mason's art, for they seem to have built with wood. Except perhaps in the north no stone churches were constructed until Edward the Confessor, when, under Norman influence, those grand and stately edifices begin to appear which fill us with awe and reverence even to this present day. Westminster Abbey, though built on an earlier site, was Edward's peculiar creation. The simpler sort of houses consisted of a single room and were sur- rounded by a hedge. Sometimes they had an upper chamber, called a " solarium," though this was not common. The homes of the great- er folk consisted of a hall surrounded by separate buildings which were used for bed-chambers, or " bowers," as they were called, for household officers, and for the housing of cattle. The more preten- tious were roofed with tiles, and, inclosing the whole, was a wall usually of earth. The walls of the hall were usually covered with tapestry, and harps, armor, and weapons were hung about on pegs. The fire was in the middle of the floor and the smoke escaped through an open- ing in the roof. Benches, sometimes covered with carpets and cush- ions, constituted the chief furniture. At ©ne end of the hall was a raised platform where those of higher rank sat. Chairs were few and were generally the seats of Kings and great persons ; beds were usually mere sacks of straw laid on branches, and were often built in recesses and covered with a curtain. Since there was no sitting room but the hall, the chamber where the women sat, after they had served the cup to the lord's guests, was the bedroom. Here they spun and wove, here they sewed and embroidered. Manner of Living. — At a time when there was little to read and when means of communication were few and inadequate, the pleasures of feast and song bulked large. Bread was a great staple, and among their other articles of food were milk, butter, cheese, fish, poultry, and meat. Vegetables, on the other hand, were few, and in the winter there were none. For months in the year salt meat was the only kind to be had, since cattle could not be kept over the winter. Table manners were as yet very primitive, for there were no forks and few E 50 SIJORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN table knives ; after dinner the hands were washed, the tables, mere temporary affairs, were taken away, and drinking began. Ale, mead, or wine were passed about while the company listened to story-telling or music or danced. The common musical instruments were the harp (poetically known as the glee-wood), the cithern, the pipe, and the horn. Feasts often ended in quarrels. Games of chance were another source of diversion. Though singing and playing were re- garded as desirable accomplishments, wandering glee men did not en- joy a very high status, and besides singing and playing performed tricks and cracked jokes from hall to village. The villagers were sometimes regaled with exhibitions of dancing bears and on holidays made merry with games such as running, leaping, and wrestling. Hunt- ing and hawking were favorite pastimes even with the clergy and with Kings like Alfred and Edward the Confessor. Owing to the badness of the roads people went about mostly on horseback, though carts or chariots, usually two-wheeled, were sometimes used for traveling. Inns were so infrequent that halls and monasteries entertained freely and hospitality was enjoined even by ecclesiastical laws. Merchants, however, usually traveled in companies, and carried tents under which they stopped at night. Ale houses, on the other hand, which received no lodgers, were overcommon and were much sought by the humbler folk, who had little else to do during the long dark days. Public Health. — Plague, pestilence, and famine were dread visitants of early and medieval England, though not as frequent or destructive as on the Continent. Epidemics entered the land from time to time from the east, like the yellow plague which appeared in south England, in 664, and spread north. It later reappeared and so thinned the monks of Jarrow that the little boy Bede was the only one left to join the Abbot in the responses. Local epidemics — usually fevers due to famines from failure of crops and cattle — were more fre- quent and less destructive. Trade. — The early villages and manors were almost altogether self- sufficing, raising their own food and making their own clothes. At first there was little buying or selling ; each man worked for the other mem- bers of the community and was supplied by them in turn. The trade which gradually developed was at first largely domestic. Most little towns had a market, and, before the close of the period, fairs were coming to assume a position of importance. For some time after the coming of the Teutons, seafaring life ceased and there was in conse- quence little oversea trade. Although English merchants visited the Frankish Empire, in the time of Offa, it was the Danish invasions which first revived the art of ship-building. Alfred, says the Chroni- STATE OF SOCIETY AT CLOSE OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 51 cle for 897, " commanded long ships to be built to oppose the in- vaders." These ships were primarily for defense ; but their construc- tion stimulated the growth of trading vessels. 1 In Alfred's time the chief intercourse was with France and the Mediterranean, though the coming of the Danes opened communications with the trading settle- ments of the Northmen. Scattered indications occur from time to time of the growth of an import and export trade. By the close of the tenth and early part of the eleventh century, wine, fish, clothes, pepper, gloves, and glass were brought from France, Flanders, and the Empire. From the north and northeast came furs, skins, ropes, masts, weapons, and iron work. Many other commodities, such as brocades, silk, precious gems, gold, ointments, and ivory came from the Orient, whence they were conveyed overland to the Bosphorus, and shipped from there to Venice or some other Italian port. Thence they were taken overland to Flanders to be finally shipped across the Channel. In return the English exported mainly metals — such as tin and lead — wool, and slaves. The slave trade was carried on extensively in spite of the efforts of the Church to stop it, and it was near the close of the twelfth century before the iniquitous traffic was stamped out. Such was England on the eve of the Conquest. William who now entered as master was to inflict much misery ; but he was to contrib- ute much to its power and prosperity. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Political and legal institutions are treated in Taylor, Taswell-Langmead, and A. B. White. Pollock and Maitland's English Law (2 vols., 1898) is the authoritative work on the period up to Edward I. Traill's Social England, I, deals with all aspects of Anglo-Saxon history and life ; Ramsay treats briefly the same subject. W. J. Ashley, English Economic History (1892) I ; Wm. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (5th ed. 191 2) ; and E. Lipson, An Introduction to the Economic History of England (191 5) I, are devoted mainly to economic conditions, while more com- pendious accounts are F. W. Tickner, A Social and Industrial History of England (1916) and A. P. Usher, An Introduction to the Industrial History of England (1920), the latter of which is the more serious and scholarly. The daily life of the Anglo-Saxons is described in Thomas Wright's Homes of Other Days (187 1). For a brief account of Anglo-Saxon literature see Moody and Lovett, ' A History of English Literature (1908), perhaps the best one- volume work covering the whole period of English literature. H. A. Taine, History oj English Literature (tr. van Laun, 4 vols., 1873) is very stimulating ; but not 1 Indeed, England never had a permanent navy till the sixteenth century. 52 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN always to be relied upon. J. A. Jusserand, A Literary History of the English People (3 vols., 1006-1909) is a charming and scholarly treatment. The Cambridge History of Literature (vols. I-X, 1907-1913) is a cooperative work which contains a mine of information. Further references may be found in Moody and Lovett's reading guide, 385 ff. For selections from the Anglo-Saxon laws, chiefly in English translation, see Stubbs, Select Charters Illustrative of English Constitutional History (7th ed., 1890), pp. 60-76. CHAPTER VI THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS (1066-1154). THE STRENGTHENING OF THE CENTRAL POWER OF WILLIAM AND HIS SONS. THE INTERVAL OF ANARCHY IN THE REIGN OF STEPHEN William Secures London and is Crowned King of England. — After his victory at Hastings many weeks passed before William reached London. Those who held the City had elected Eadgar the ^Etheling to succeed Harold; but on William's approach they gave up all hope of resistance, went forth to meet him, and offered to take him for their King. The Conqueror was crowned on Christmas Day, 1066, in Edward's Abbey. William Redistributes the Lands of the Conquered. — Before pro- ceeding to extend his conquests, William took steps to organize what he already held. Courts were set up, a charter confirming ancient liberties was granted to the men of London, friends and supporters were rewarded, and foes punished. The lands of those who had fought against the Conqueror were seized and divided among himself and his followers, while those who submitted were allowed to keep their lands, but only on payment of heavy fines. Henceforth, there were to be no lands held in absolute ownership ; every landlord must hold directly or indirectly of the King. William Establishes His Power, Puts Down Risings (1067- 1075).— For the next four or five years after his accession, the Norman Con- queror was occupied in putting down risings and overcoming resist- ance to the extension of his authority. The North gave the most serious trouble, which began in 1068 and came to a head in a great rising in the following year. Eadgar the JEtheling, who had taken refuge in Scotland, was set up as King, and a body of Danes assisted the native English and Scots. When William was at length able to prevail over his enemies, he took care to stamp out all possibility of further resistance. Marching from the Ouse to the Tyne and back, he ruthlessly destroyed everything that lived or could sustain life, and every building, so that the vale of York was a waste and ruin 53 54 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN for years to come. From York he led his army across to Chester in the dead of winter. His pitiless devastation remains an indelible blot on his character ; but neither he nor his sons had to face another general rising of the English. A few of the more desperate, led by one Here ward the Wake, 1 made a final stand in the island of Ely in 1 07 1, where the dying resistance of the native English breathed its last gasp. William's future difficulties came from his own following. Most formidable, though he succeeded in suppressing it, was a rising attempted in 1075 by two of his Earls. Their pretext was that he was an usurper, their real grievance that he held them under too strict control. William's Method of Maintaining His Hold over the English. — Once his arms had triumphed, William had to solve the twofold prob- lem of holding the English in subjection and of keeping a check on his Norman followers. In the case of the English, he continued the practice of seizing the lands of those who resisted his authority and handing them over to Norman lords, each of whom had to furnish a contingent of soldiers in proportion to the size of his grant. Secondly, he secured every district which he conquered by a castle garrisoned with his own men. Moreover, instead of relying on force alone, he attached the English to himself by protecting them with good laws, and gradually they came to see that even stern rule and oppressive taxes accompanied by peace and prosperity were better than anarchy. Checks on the Baronage. — The baronage were held in check partly by force of circumstances, partly by William's courage, energy, and wise foresight. Though he granted enormous estates to some, the lands composing them were scattered throughout the land ; yet this was due to accident rather than to design — to the piecemeal character of the conquest and to the fact that they had been so held under their former owners. Intentionally, however, he broke up the four great earldoms which had been such a source of weakness to the Kings of the later Anglo-Saxon period. If he granted broad lands and quasi-regal or palatine rights to certain trusted officials such as the Earl of Chester, and the Bishop of Durham, this was for the defense of his borders. In general, it was his aim to keep the adminis- tration in the hands of the sheriff and to reduce the Earls to a merely titular position. By retaining control over the local machinery and also by keeping up the national militia, he held a strong counter- poise to baronial power. William and the Church. — Likewise, William attached to himself the Churchmen, and, so far as possible, he sought to detach them 1 Hero of a famous novel by Charles Kingsley. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 55 from secular interests. He took control of the appointment of great prelates, and he issued an ordinance providing that henceforth eccle- siastical persons and causes should not be tried in the secular courts, but in those of the Bishop. Thus, he hoped to free the clergy from the control of those whose lives they were seeking to reform and save, and, by drawing them away from the laity, to bind them more closely to him as King ; but the result, in the long run, was unfortunate, for it tended to foster an exclusive privileged class, and opened a quarrel between two conflicting jurisdictions which lasted for centuries. Clerical Appointments and Relations with the Papacy. — For his episcopal appointments William almost invariably chose Normans. As Archbishop of Canterbury he selected Lanfranc, a sagacious and learned Italian who had migrated to Normandy. While William favored his Norman supporters, his motives were by no means wholly political. The Anglo-Saxon Church had not kept pace with those of the Continent in learning, and was low in morals as well ; so, aided by the advice of his councilors, William worked sincerely, if not always successfully, to secure Bishops and Abbots who would strive for better things. Monasteries once more became the centers of learning and culture, and many new churches and abbeys were built in the Norman style of architecture. While William desired to be the Pope's cham- pion and friend, he was prepared to resist to the utmost any papal encroachment on his authority or independence. Accordingly, he laid down three principles which defined the position of English sovereigns for some time to come : that no Pope should be recognized or no papal letters should be received without his permission ; no decrees of ecclesiastical assemblies should be passed without his con- sent ; and no tenant-in-chief of the Crown should be excommunicated without his orders. Retention of the Old Anglo-Saxon Laws. — In fact a conqueror, William constantly asserted that he was the legitimate successor of Edward the Confessor, so, as far as possible, he allowed the English to retain their manners, customs, and institutions, and introduced but few innovations. He did away with death penalties, though the muti- lations he allowed in their stead must have been far more cruel. A new form of ordeal, the judicial combat, he introduced mainly for the benefit of his Normans. A curious device for their protection, later used as a means of royal extortion, was the responsibility of the hun- dred or presentment of Englishry, which provided that if a man were murdered, the hundred where it happened had to pay a heavy fine, unless they could find the assassin or prove that the victim was an Englishman. William's forest regulations were also an innovation. 56 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN While he and his sons, passionately fond of hunting, reserved large tracts of land for their pastime, 1 there were many considerations be- side mere love of sport that made him and his successors cling so tenaciously to their forest rights. They yielded the Crown a revenue — for rights of cutting wood and pasturing, chiefly of swine, were sold — they furnished an excuse for keeping a large force of armed men which could be used for a royal army in time of need ; finally, they offered a pretext for setting up arbitrary courts. William's penalty for hunting the royal deer was loss of eyes. The Domesday Survey (1085). — In order to estimate the resources of the country for purposes of taxation, we find William having " much thought and deep speech " with his Witan at Gloucester, in 1085, over the state of the country and its population. In consequence, he determined on a great survey or official inquiry known as the Domesday Survey. 2 The work was done by royal commissioners who went through the shires and hundreds and took testimony on oath from those best qualified to give it — the land-owners, the priests, the bailiffs, and six villeins from each township or manor — as to what property the inhabitants possessed in land and cattle and how much it was worth. The results were recorded in the Domesday Book, which gave " a great rate book or tax roll, a land register, . . . a census of population, and topographical dictionary " not only to the King, but to posterity as well. The Oath on Salisbury Plain (1086). — In the following year William held a great Gemot on Salisbury plain. We are told that " there came to him his Witan and all the landsittende (land owning) men of substance that were all over England, whosoever men they were, and all bowed down to him, and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him that they would be faithful to him against all men." Much has been made of this Salisbury Oath binding all the land- owners of England directly to the King as against all other lords ; but it represents no new departure ; for doubtless such oaths had been exacted, probably in the local courts, since the beginning of the reign. Moreover, it is most unlikely that all of the landowners of England could have been assembled at one time in one place. Last Years and Death (1087). — Of William's last years little re- mains to be said. He had to face revolts from Robert, his eldest son, who, discontented because his father denied him power corresponding to his station and expectations, was egged on by many unruly nobles 1 These lands were usually, though not necessarily, wooded, .but any tract of Crown land reserved for royal hunting was called a forest. 2 Probably so called, because, like the Day of Judgment, it would spare none. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 57 hoping to profit by discord, and by the King of France, always looking for a chance to extend his territories. After two or three years of desultory fighting, father and son were reconciled, but Robert was always ready when occasion offered to cause his father trouble. William, before his death, divided his kingdom, assigning Normandy to his eldest son Robert, and England to William Rufus, while to Henry he gave 5000 pounds of silver with the prophecy, it is said, that in due time he would get all his father had. Character and Rule. — William the Conqueror was a man to inspire awe. Harsh, despotic, and avaricious, he burdened his sub- jects with heavy exactions; yet, withal, he was "a very wise and a great man," and more honored and more powerful than any of his predecessors, " mild to those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure to those who withstood his will." Altogether, his rule was good for England, for he put an end to those disruptive ten- dencies which stood in the way of national organization, and laid the foundation of strong, orderly government which is the necessary basis of freedom, prosperity, and progress. Results of the Norman Conquest. — The Norman Conquest was deep and far-reaching in its results. In the first place, it brought in a new line of foreign kings who were, for three successive reigns, men of vigor and energy and who were supported by an armed force bound to them by close and special ties. Thus fortified they not only crushed out the local differences which had marked the earlier period, but, by preserving whatever was best in the old system, they paved the way for the combination of central unity and local independence which survives to-day as the most chracteristic feature of the English govern- ment. Although their aim was primarily to strengthen their own position, the peace and order which they preserved made for progress. Moreover, the infusion of a new racial element, combining the vigor of the primitive Northmen and the alertness of the Latinized French- men, tended to vivify and broaden the sluggish and narrow national character. Finally, by bringing remote England into closer con- nection with the Continent, the Conquest opened the way for the intellectual and cultivating influences of the centers of older and higher civilization. Anglo-Norman Feudalism. — Doubtless the most significant change of all was the introduction of a well-organized form of feudal tenure, where feudal tendencies only had hitherto existed. Feudalism is a greatly overworked word used to describe conditions, by no means identical, which prevailed in England, France, and Germany from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. In general " Feudalism com- 58 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN prises both a system of land tenure and a system of government," an arrangement by which the various relations between man and man were determined by the amount of land held by one of another. At the top of the scale stood the lord or suzereign in whom the title or ownership of the land was vested. Those to whom he gave the use of it were called vassals ; lord and vassal were each bound by specified obligations, the lord to protect and defend his vassal, the vassal to render service to his lord. The commonest form of service rendered was military, and usually there were several intermediate lords and vassals between the suzerain and the small cultivator. In a thoroughly feudalized State the King was at the top of the scale ; as a matter of fact, however, the greater lords held themselves inde- pendent of their nominal ruler and led their own army and judged and taxed their own dependents. The feudal elements had existed in Anglo-Saxon England, thegns or manorial lords were granted lands in return for service and exercised jurisdiction over their dependents, but their relation to the Crown was not feudal, for their ownership was absolute; although they furnished armies for their King, they did not do so by virtue of any contract or agreement based on their land grant. What William did was to fuse these elements into a single whole. He made himself the supreme landowner of every foot of English soil; every new grant was made conditional on service rendered, and every Englishman whom he allowed to remain in pos- session had to yield his title to the King and promise service likewise. Generally grants were made in return for an agreement on the part of the landlord to furnish the King with a specified number of fully armed knights to serve him in his foreign campaigns for a stated period each year — usually forty days. 1 Feudal Incidents and Other Obligations. — Certain obligations came to attach to all military tenures. The overlord had the right, known as wardship, of acting as guardian, and of collecting the rev- enues of the estate during the time when the heir was under age. When the young lord entered into possession he had to pay a fine known as relief. By the right of marriage, so called, the lord could determine when an heiress might marry and demand payment to allow her to take a husband of her own choice. By escheat and forfeiture the lord could recover the estate in case of failure of heirs, or for offenses against feudal law by the vassal. These obligations at- 1 The unit of service was called a knight's fee. It was usually five hides in ex- tent but might be larger or smaller, depending on the value of the land. In later times the knight's fee was estimated on the basis of its annual income, first £20 and then £40. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 59 tached to a military tenure were called incidents. Besides the inci- dents there were certain payments, known as aids, which the lord could claim at crises. Three of these became customary, one on knighting the King's son, another on his eldest daughter's marriage, and a third to ransom him in case he fell into captivity. 1 William, in carefully avoiding the evils of Continental feudalism, where the landlords were virtually independent rulers, was aided by the small size of the Island and the fact that every part was comparatively accessible from the center. By establishing feudalism as a form of land tenure and preventing it from 'becoming a system of government, he made it a source of strength rather than weakness ; for he was su- preme landowner as well as King, and got thereby much revenue 2 and an additional army. Magnum Concilium. — The old National Assembly continued to meet, usually three times a year, on Easter at Winchester, Whitsun- tide at Westminster, and Christmas at Gloucester. Now, however, it was called the Great Council (Magnum Concilium) or King's Court (Curia Regia) ; also where it formerly consisted of Englishmen, it now consisted largely of Normans; finally, the bishops and great landed nobles came, henceforth, not by virtue of their office, but as tenants-in-chief of the Crown. The Great Council dealt with judicial cases beyond the competence of the local and Church courts and with others where they failed to render justice. While the King professed to legislate and tax with the sanction of the Great Council, he was, like the stronger Anglo-Saxon monarchs, practically supreme. The Manor as a Judicial and Agrarian Unit. — After the Conquest there was a steady increase in the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor, who was represented in his judicial and administrative business by his steward or bailiff, and often did not live continuously on any one of his estates. The tenants rendered their services of labor and paid rents chiefly in produce, 3 for little or no money was yet in local cir- 1 Another result of feudalism was to develop a form of inheritance, known as primogeniture, by which the lands came'to descend to the eldest son. The prevail- ing Anglo-Saxon custom of equal division among heirs, known as gavelkind, prac- tically disappeared, except in Kent. 2 Besides the feudal revenues, and the Danegeld, revived in 1084, William had rents from the royal manors, fees from the courts of the hundreds and shires, as well as from cases settled in the Great Council, and various miscellaneous receipts, such as murder fines from the hundreds. 3 They were mostly of servile or villein states, for slavery did not long survive the Conquest. The influence of the Church must not be forgotten, particularly in improving the slave's lot and in doing away with traffic beyond the seas ; but the gradual disappearance of slavery itself was largely due to the feudal theory, which had no place for any being absolutely without rights. 60 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN culation. Methods of agriculture remained primitive; the system of scattered holdings and common cultivation still prevailed, marling was the only way of fertilizing the soil, and there was much unclaimed or waste land. The chief crop was wheat, though the product of oats and barley was considerable ; there were some vegetables, but no root crops. Orchards existed and at least a few vineyards, bees were raised to a considerable extent because the honey was used for sugar, and dairy produce and poultry formed staple articles of diet. The state of public health was probably better than on the Continent ; there was some leprosy, though not as much as is sometimes supposed, while skin diseases were common from the absence of fresh vegetables and the excessive use of fish and meat. Towns after the Conquest. — The great majority of the towns were agricultural, and the flourishing centers of trade as a rule were the seaports. From one point of view, the towns suffered, though tem- porarily, from the Conquest, because castles were established in their midst or rebuilt, the townsmen were burdened with garrisons, and often their houses were cleared away to make room for fortifications. Nevertheless, the ultimate result of the Conquest was favorable to town growth ; foreign commerce was extended by closer relations with the Continent and internal trade was fostered by the better peace that the strong Kings of the Norman lines were able to impose. The Population. — The population at the period of the Conquest was probably 300,000 families or 2,000,000 souls, of whom the great majority were serfs in varying degrees of dependence, and there were comparatively few freeholders or bondmen. Most of the tenants-in- chief and even the more considerable under-tenants were Frenchmen ; but the two races soon fused by intermarriage, and the distinction between Englishmen and Frenchmen came to be the one between the King's subjects on either side of the Channel rather than one between Saxons and Normans settled in England. Language and Literature. — French was chiefly spoken at the Royal Court, in the castle, and the manor house, while English was the tongue of the humbler folk. Laws, charters, records, and the writings of the learned were in Latin. The exclusion of the Anglo-Saxons from the higher offices checked the growth of a literature in the native tongue. Since the Normans were practical and serious rather than romantic, most of their writing in this period is either religious or historical, and a prevailing interest of the time is shown in the number of lives of saints which appeared. The historical writers were, in the main, mere annalists, copying their earlier matter from their predecessors, and chiefly valuable for their rather bald records of their own day. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 6 1 One happy exception is William of Malmesbury, who was the first writer since Bede to organize his material and to discuss cause and effect. Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welshman, collected old Celtic legends, and is the source of much medieval romance ; from him the stories of Arthur and Merlin were handed down and to him we owe the plot of Shakespeare's King Lear. Anglo-Norman Architecture. — The new architectural movement begun by Edward the Confessor received a marked impulse from the Conquest, and very generally the Normans started rebuilding the cathedrals and abbeys of the conquered Saxons. Both peoples em- ployed the so-called Romanesque style, but while the older edifices were of wood, the new church buildings in most instances were of stone. Decidedly simple, austere, and impressive they were, with their low square towers and round arches supported by heavy piers and columns, though early in the twelfth century a new style was introduced, known as the Gothic or Early English, characterized chiefly by the pointed arch. Even more notable was the develop- ment of castle building. In place of the Anglo-Saxon strongholds, which were simple mounds of earth surrounded by a moat and a pali- sade, the Normans introduced the square rectangular keep, or tower, of stone. Gradually, as the art of the defense progressed, outer walls were added and were strengthened by gate towers, projecting galleries were built with openings in the floor to command the ditch which was dug as a further defense, while, within the inclosure, other towers were constructed to sweep the invaders by a cross fire. Siege engines were at first very primitive and ineffective, so the chief way to reduce a castle was by starvation. The earliest castles, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were fortresses rather than places of resi- dence, and castle guard was an obligation due from lesser men to the barons and the King. William Rufus (i 087-1100). Character and Policy. — The new King, William II — known as Rufus, from his ruddy face — showed considerable abilities as a soldier, and in holding the people on his side ; he could be generous, on occasion, and was not very cruel for the age in which he lived. On the other hand, he was capricious, and inordi- nately wasteful ; and so great was his greediness in extorting money and supplies from his subjects that many fled to the woods when he drew near, to save what they could. Worst of all was the viciousness of his personal life and his blasphemy. Even the fashions indicate the departure from the simpler and soberer ideals of the past reign. The courtiers began to let their hair grow long, curled, and bound with ribbons ; they wore garments like women ; they affected a feminine 62 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN mincing gait, and adopted shoes with long curved points like rams' horns, or scorpions' tails ; they passed their nights in " drinking and revelry " ; and it was said of William that " he every morning got up a worse man than he lay down and every evening lay down a worse man than he got up," and that he " openly mocked at God and the saints." Resistance of the Norman Barons. — The English seemed to have welcomed him at his accession ; but the Norman lords who had estates on both sides of the water, preferring the rule of his weaker brother Robert, broke out in revolt early in 1088. William, partly by his energy, partly by the support of some of the barons in England, but chiefly with the aid of the lesser folk, to whom he promised " the best law that had ever been in this land," managed to overcome his ene- mies. Once triumphant he imitated the discretion of his father, wel- comed the submission of his enemies and was particularly mild to those who might be dangerous. Already at his coronation he had sought popularity in another quarter by gifts to the Church and poor. Ranulf Flambard. — When Lanfranc, who had a great influence over him, died in 1089, William's rule changed for the worse. He took as his chief adviser Ranulf, or Ralph, known as " Flambard," the " Fiery Torch that licked up everything." As Chief Minister he managed all the financial and judicial business of the realm, and his name is associated with systematically fleecing the estates of royal tenants. While he did not originate, he carried to greater lengths than ever before the exactions known as feudal incidents, re- quiring particularly exorbitant reliefs from incoming heirs. More- over, he extended his extortions to the possessions of the Church, shamelessly selling offices and keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant in order to collect the revenue for the King. Anselm made Archbishop of Canterbury (1093). — In 1093, William, overtaken by a serious illness and momentarily repenting of his evil ways, agreed to choose a successor to Lanfranc as Archbishop of Can- terbury. The man selected was Anselm — a good and an upright man, of great learning, so unwilling to accept that the pastoral staff was literally forced into his hands, and he was carried bodily into the chapel for consecration. Events proved that he had correctly fore- seen inevitable conflicts from which his gentle nature shrank. He cherished the high ideal that Churchmen, who stood for moral and spiritual betterment, should be absolutely independent of unscrupulous laymen. On the other hand, while William opposed him on unworthy grounds, there was a sound principle under- lying his opposition ; namely, that, since the Church officials pos- THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 63 sessed vast property and extensive temporal powers and were subject to a foreign master, they must, in the interest of law, order, and national unity, be subject to State control. Finally, Anselm did agree to observe the laws and customs of the realm in so far as he could without prejudicing his allegiance to the Holy See, and got the grudging permission of his Sovereign to go to Rome. With a pilgrim's scrip and staff he left the country never to return until a new King was on the throne. The First Crusade, 1096. — Meantime, a movement was on foot which relieved William of danger from his brother Robert during the remainder of his reign. Peter of Amiens and Urban II were preaching a crusade, the first of many, to recover the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem from the Turks who had taken the city in 1077. Among the nobles of western Europe who joined in this holy enterprise was Robert of Nor- mandy. Mortgaging his duchy to his brother Rufus for 10,000 marks, he took with him many younger sons and allies, who from lack of estates were likely to foment discord, and left William free to pursue his plans fairly undisturbed. His last years were spent mainly in try- ing to extend his power in the Norman duchy which he was holding in pawn ; but England, shocked by his wickedness and burdened by taxation, was growing weary of him. In August, 1100, he was shot by a favorite courtier, probably accidentally," while hunting in the New Forest. When it was found that he was really dead, the nobles of the hunting party fled to Winchester, each to look after his own in- terests, leaving the body to be brought to the city by the foresters. Henry I (1100-1135). His Charter of Liberties. — Henry, the Conqueror's youngest son, was one of those who hastened to Win- chester, where he managed to seize the keys of the royal hoard. In spite of the claims of his brother Robert, he was accepted by the lead- ing men on the spot and was crowned soon after at Westminster. As a means of attaching his people to him, the new King issued a Charter of Liberties in which he promised to do away with the evil customs of his brother's reign. No profit was to be taken from vacant bish- oprics and abbeys. Reliefs from lay barons were to be just and lawful and the King was to charge nothing for licenses to marry. Just fines were to be taken from offending tenants in place of the excessive exactions of the two Williams, and military tenants were to be freed from all payments and labor except armed service. The laws of Edward the Confessor, with the Conqueror's improvements, were to be retained, but the forests were to be kept as the old King had pos- sessed them. Such was " the parent of all later charters," which, although its promises were often broken, marks the first check on 64 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the absolutism founded by the Conqueror and carried to such a height by the Red King. As a further guarantee of his intention to undo the wrongs of his brother's reign, Henry recalled Anselm, filled vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and sent Flambard to the Tower. The year after his coronation Henry had to meet an invasion led by Robert who had, shortly before, returned from the Holy Land. Having made terms with him he proceeded to punish the Norman barons resident in England who had worked against him, and for " three and thirty years he ruled England in peace." But Normandy, ruled by the unstable Robert, formed a refuge for the disaffected who might at any time organize another invasion into England. Moreover, English subjects who had estates in Normandy were constantly ex-^ posed to attacks from Henry's enemies, and Robert was either unwill- ing or unable to protect them. So Henry finally led an expedition across the Channel in 1106, defeated his brother's Norman army at Tinchebrai, took Robert prisoner l and appropriated the Duchy, which remained an English possession for nearly a hundred years. Compromise with Anselm (1107). — The next year, 1107, was marked by a final agreement on the matter of filling episcopal offices. There were several stages in the process, election, homage to the King for temporal possessions, investiture — the conferring of the ring and the staff, which were spiritual symbols of the bishop's marriage to the Church and his assumption of the pastoral office — consecration, and enthronization. Anselm, on his return, had refused to repeat the homage for the lands of Canterbury which he had rendered to Rufus, and he also refused to consecrate bishops who had received investiture in his absence. Henry firmly insisted on lay investiture; but at length the Pope suggested a compromise by which the King agreed to allow the ring and staff to be conferred by the Church, on condition that each candidate render homage for his land. The victory was really the King's ; for, by refusing to receive homage, he might block any episcopal appointment that he chose. From this time, too, it came to be the custom for the clergy of each cathedral to elect its bishop, but, owing to the fact that elections had to take place in the royal chapel, the King really dictated the choice. Henry's Last Years. His Character and Policy. — During the remainder of the reign, Henry's chief interest was centered in notable improvements and innovations in the machinery of government and in an attempt to settle the succession. In 1 1 20 his son and heir was drowned, and the only heir left to him was his daughter Matilda. 1 He was taken to England and held a prisoner till he died in Cardiff Castle in 1 134. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 65 Although a woman had never ruled the land, Henry made the barons swear to accept her as his successor, a proceeding which resulted in years of strife. Henry I himself died in 1135. He was a man of scholarly tastes — from which he got his name Beauclerk — affable but cold and calcu- lating, who realized fully that he must hold down the turbulent barons, keep on good terms with the Church, and attach the people to himself if he was to rule as a strong King. In the orderly system of judicial and financial administration which he developed he was actuated by thrift and a desire to increase his resources, but he laid the foundation on which the wisest of his successors built and which has contributed so much to the stability of the English nation. He imposed heavy taxes and caused the laws to be administered with ferocious rigor, yet he gradually won for himself the name of the " Lion of Justice." Administrative Machinery. The Curia Regis and the Exchequer. — It was after Henry had got the baronage and Church in hand that he began to develop a system of transacting the business of government which did so much, not only to increase the wealth and power of the Crown but to improve the condition of the country and people as well. In this work he was greatly assisted by Roger,, created Bishop of Salis- bury, who, first as Chancellor and then as Justiciar, organized the Curia Regis, or King's Court, which served at once as an advisory body, a tribunal for important judicial decisions, and a treasury board. Smaller than the Great Council, sometimes called by the same name, the Curia Regis included the great officers of the royal house- hold : the Chamberlain, the Constable, the Butler, and the Steward, officers who had originally acted as servants to the King, had made his bed, had groomed his horses, poured his drink, and provided his meals, but whose duties became, in course of time, purely honorary, hereditary in certain great families. Another class of members were the chief Ministers of the Crown : the Justiciar, the Chancellor, and the Treasurer. The Justiciar acted as Regent during the King's absence, as his right-hand man when he was in the country, and pre- sided over the Curia Regis. The Chancellor, or royal secretary, was keeper of the records ; l gradually he became a very important official, was custodian of the Great Seal — which had to be affixed to all the most important documents — .and was consulted in the transaction of important business of State. The Treasurer kept the royal hoard. To these three offices men, usually of the clergy, were appointed and were looked at askance by the older nobility. In addition to these 1 He got his name from the fact that he originally sat behind the cancelli or bars of a screen. 66 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN two groups, certain important men were selected from time to time from the Great Council. The Curia Regis held two financial sessions a year, one at Easter and one at Michaelmas (29 September), when they met the sheriffs from the various counties, received their rents, and went over their accounts. For the sums paid in at Easter the sheriff received a tally, which was a stick 1 notched in the side and marked, each notch indi- cating a certain number of pounds, shillings, and pence : after notches had been cut, the stick was split lengthwise, the Government keeping one half as a check on the sheriff. The Court, in its financial sessions, was called the " Exchequer," from the Latin word for chequers, because the officials sat about a table making up their accounts by means of counters, and, in moving these counters to and fro, looked as if they were playing chequers. 2 As a further means of extending the royal power over the local districts, officials — called Itinerant Justices — were sent into the different counties, where they sat with the sheriffs in the cases in which the King was concerned, i.e. Crown pleas; 3 listened to complaints; conveyed the King's wishes to his people ; and, what was perhaps originally their most important duty, saw to it that the royal taxes were properly levied and collected. English Life in Henry's Time. — On the whole the life of the period seems to have been easy and joyous. Chivalry was coming in with its artificial distinctions ; but class feeling was much less marked than elsewhere, and the common people were contented with their lot. Hospitality, charity, and love of sport prevailed, so the country could with truth be called " Merry England." If London was small and unpretentious, it was the center of jolly pastimes, cockfights, foot- ball games, archery matches, foot races, water sports, and occasional skating. Hunting, feasting, and love of dress were a favorite theme of attack by austere ecclesiastics. For the small villagers pilgrimages to local shrines, the visits of wandering minstrels, and the numerous saints' days furnished constant occasion for merrymaking. In the monasteries there was much good cheer ; sometimes we hear of dinners with as many as sixteen courses washed down with copious draughts of wines, cider, and beer. The Monastic Revival. — In monastic life, however, this period witnessed the beginnings of an earnest revival. From the early part of the previous century new orders had come into being as vital pro- 1 Hence our term stock. 2 The name does not come, as some have said, from the fact that the table was covered with a checkered cloth. 3 Later used to designate serious offenses in which the State was prosecutor. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 67 tests against the declining ideals of the Benedictine and the Cluniac. Chief among these reformed orders was that of the Cistercians. Simplicity and austerity were its ideals, garments were of the plainest and coarsest sort, church ornaments were made of simple brass, iron, and painted wood, and its houses were to be in lonely and desolate places. The professed brethren were to devote themselves to study, while lay brothers were to do all the manual labor. In 1 128 the Cister- cians came to England, and, in the succeeding years, established many houses, chiefly in the north. Every one has heard of Melrose Abbey in Scotland and Fountains in Yorkshire. By the middle of the twelfth century there were fifty Cistercian houses in England. Their chief industrial pursuit was cattle and sheep raising, and the wool of the Cistercians became a famous article of export. Among others, military-religious orders — founded as a result of the crusading move- ment — also made their way into England, the Knights Hospitallers, who furnished succor to sick and needy pilgrims on their way to the Holy City, and the Knights Templars, who guarded the roads to the Holy Land. Altogether, well over two hundred new houses were established in the reigns of Henry and his two successors. With in- creasing wealth abuses crept in among these reformers in their turn. The Cistercians, for instance, are accused of avarice, idleness, luxury, but we must not forget the services they rendered in reclaiming waste lands, furthering useful arts and trades, preserving and spreading learning, in administering charity, and in setting up standards of living which, even if not always observed, were a protest against the brutality and coarseness which they saw about them. Stephen Received as King of England (1135). — On the death of Henry I the two chief candidates for the throne were Matilda, his daughter, and Stephen of Boulogne, his nephew. Matilda had un- questionably the better title, but her sex told against her, as did her marriage with the representative of the House of Anjou, long the de- clared enemy of Englishman and Norman. Stephen, who hastened to England, was promptly accepted by the citizens of London in return for his promises to maintain and to respect the liberties and privileges of the city. At Winchester, of which his brother was Bishop, he came to terms with the Church, granting concessions in the matter of elec- tions and jurisdiction greater than it had ever enjoyed on English soil. Then, by promises equally lavish, he sought the alliance of the King of Scotland, and of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, Matilda's half brother. His Character and Problems. — Personally Stephen was a man of the most engaging qualities, but totally incompetent to deal with 68 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the problems which confronted him. He was unable to fulfill the prom- ises which he had so rashly made, he was not keen and foreseeing enough to anticipate the opposition which the nobility, turbulent and self-seeking as ever, were bound to manifest. He excited animosity by bringing mercenaries into the land, and he weakened his position by creating new Earls and allowing them to build castles. " The more he gave them, the worse they always carried themselves toward him." Moreover, in the very first revolts directed against him he showed himself too easy to punish disaffections even after he had put them down. His Attacks on Roger of Salisbury and His Family (1139). — Like many mild men he was capable of sudden acts of violence and rash- ness. Such a blunder he committed by a foolhardy attack on Roger of Salisbury and his family, who between them controlled the financial and judicial business of the Government. Suddenly Stephen ordered them to surrender their castles into his hands, and when they refused, eventually arrested them all. He may have feared that they were combining against him in favor of Matilda, he may have been merely jealous of their increasing power and pretensions, which were truly regal, but his action was disastrous in its consequences. It threw the financial and judicial system into a confusion from which it did not recover till the next reign and it alienated most of the King's supporters in the Church. Even his own brother Bishop Henry declared against him. The situation was particularly critical. In 1138 an invasion of the Scots was only turned back by the dauntless efforts of the Archbishop of York, and, meanwhile, the southwestern counties had risen, at the instigation of Robert of Gloucester, who had thrown off his allegiance and fled abroad, alleging that Stephen was a usurper and had not kept his promises to him. The Coming of Matilda and the Civil War (1139-1148). — Such was the situation when, in the autumn of 1139, Robert and Matilda ap- peared in person. Their arrival converted the unrest, already mani- fest, into a civil war, which lasted for fourteen years. The disputed succession was only a pretext which the barons seized to foster disorder and thereby to gain power and profit for themselves. They built castles ; they " greatly oppressed the wretched people," and, to ex- tort their property from them, tortured them " with pains unspeak- able." Many fled and many starved, " The earth bare no corn, you might as well have tilled the sea, for the land was all ruined by such deeds, and it was said openly that Christ and his saints slept." The years following the arrival of Robert of Gloucester and Matilda were marked by a bewildering series of raids, sieges, and ravaging of towns, THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 69 with the balance swaying first on one side and then on the other. At length, however, Matilda began to lose ground ; the death of Robert, in 1147, deprived her of her chief support, and in the following year she retired to Anjou and gave up the struggle. Yet her retirement gave neither peace to England nor a clear title to Stephen ; for her son Henry, now fifteen years old, was soon to take up the fight for his heritage. Moreover, the barons, in their own interests, were de- termined to continue the carnival of misrule : " every lord of a castle was a petty king, ruling his own tenants, coining his own money, administering his own justice." One great source of encouragement to the party opposed to Stephen was the conquest of Normandy in 1 144 by Geoffrey of Anjou who, steadily refusing to take any part in the English complications, had been persistent in his attacks in the Duchy since the death of Henry I. Louis VII, King of France, recognized his victory by investing him with the Dukedom, and be- fore the close of another year, he had stamped out the last embers of resistance. Treaty of Wallingford (1153). — Geoffrey died in 1151. Already, some months before, he had handed over the Duchy of Normandy to his young son Henry, and his death added to Henry's possessions the lands of Anjou and Maine. By marrying, n 52, Eleanor, heiress of Aqui- taine, he acquired a vast addition of territory. Soon after his marriage Henry set out for England. Stephen fought doggedly for a time, but, in 1 1 53, the Treaty of Wallingford was arranged, by which Stephen was to continue as King during his lifetime, while Henry was recognized as his heir in order to put an end to the disorders which had so long prevailed. Crown lands were to be resumed, foreign mercenaries were to be banished, all castles built since the death of Henry I were to be destroyed and Stephen was to consult his prospective heir in all important acts. Stephen died in 11 54, and it was left to a young man of twenty-one to mend the evils which had come upon the land during the nineteen years' rule of a man who was as generous and kindly as he was weak. Results of Stephen's Reign. — At first sight the reign of Stephen appears to be nothing more than a period of anarchy and suffering, but it brought the people a useful lesson, or reenforced an old one, that the rule of a strong King, harsh and despotic though he might be, was to be preferred to the unrestricted sway of local magnates. Viewed in this light, the reign contributed as much to strengthen the central government against feudal independence as the work of a William the Conqueror or a Henry Beauclerk. On the other hand, the barons were not the only force that threatened the unity and security 70 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN of the land. The prevailing uncertainty, and the aim of the con- tending parties to secure the support of a powerful and influential institution brought the Church into a position of prominence that later Kings had to reckon with. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Freeman's Norman Conquest, IV, V, is still valuable for an exhaustive account of the events from 1060 to 11 54, though Freeman was inclined to minimize the effects of the Conquest and many of his findings have been reversed by recent investigators. Briefer and more modern narratives are to be found in Ramsay, Foundations of England, II ; H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (1905), and G. B. Adams, Po- litical History of England (1905). Both of the latter works embody the results of recent scholarship ; and Davis pays much attention to the non- political aspects of the period, presenting an interesting picture of con- ditions under the Anglo-Norman kings. For brief accounts of the constitutional aspects of the subject, see works already cited. A more detailed treatment will be found in Stubbs' Con- stitutional History, I. Good brief accounts of feudalism are given in E. Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages (1891) ; G. B. Adams, Civiliza- tion during the Middle Ages (1898) ch. IX, especially valuable; Seignobos (tr. E. W. Dow), Feudal Regime; and J. H. Robinson, History of Western Europe (1902). The feudal incidents are discussed in detail in Pollock and Maitland, English Law, I, bk. II, ch. I, and J. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (1913), pp. 52-77. Pollock and Maitland treat Norman and Anglo- Norman Law in I, bk. I, chs. Ill, IV. For the Church see Wakeman, Makower, and W. R. Stephens, English Church (1901). For social and industrial conditions, in addition to works already referred to, see Mary Bateson, Mediaeval England (1904) ; R. E. Prothero, English Farming Past and Present (1913), the most recent and authoritative work covering the whole period of English agriculture. References to sources and for further reading, Davis, 534-544 ; Adams, Political History, 448-458 ; and White, XXVI. Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History, nos. 1-11, especially 1 and 7. CHAPTER VII HENRY II (1154-1189). THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER AND THE RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW Henry II, Founder of the Angevin or Plantagenet Line. 1 — Henry II, a boy barely turned twenty-one, was the first representative of a new line which continued in unbroken succession for two hundred and forty-five years. Of feverish energy and uncommon endurance, he was, when not engaged in war or State business, either hunting or hawking or deep in a book or in conversation with some of the learned men whom he delighted to gather about him. Subject at times to ungovernable fits of passion, he was generally good-humored and easy of access. Resuming forthwith the good work begun by his grand- father, Henry I, which had been all undone by nineteen years of anarchy, it was his aim to subdue the barons, to check the growing power of the Church, to bring its members within the control of the State in worldly things, and to attach the people to their Sovereign by protecting them from oppression and by advancing their welfare. If he did not reach his goal he took the right road and set the course for the future. His Original Interests not Primarily English. — Henry came to the throne practically a foreigner and apparently never learned to speak the English language. Indeed, England was only a part of the nu- merous territories which he ruled. At first his only interest in the land was to use it as a source of supply in defending and rounding out his possessions across the Channel ; but, after he had undertaken the task of developing his English resources, he became more and more interested in the undertaking for its own sake. Nevertheless, cir- cumstances kept him abroad more than half his reign, which makes it all the more notable that his most enduring work was done in Eng- land. 1 It is sometimes known as the Angevin dynasty, from the fact that Henry on his father's side descended from the Counts of Anjou, sometimes as the Plan- tagenet, possibly from the emblem of Geoffrey of Anjou, a sprig of broom (Latin — planta genesta) which he wore in his hat. 7i 72 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Thomas Becket. — One of his first steps was to set in motion again the administrative machinery which had come to a standstill, and, of all the appointments which he made, that of Chancellor was fraught with the greatest consequences. Thomas Becket, whom he selected, was the son of a Norman merchant settled in London, and had been educated for the Church. Although he was a striking contrast to his master, fifteen years older and much more sumptuous in his tastes, he and Henry became fast friends ; they worked together, they hunted together, and on occasion they romped like schoolboys. But im- mersed as he was in worldly business and luxury and so martial that he more than once rode in the King's armies, the life of Thomas Becket was so pure that even his enemies found no word to say against him. The Opening of the Conflict between Becket and Henry (1163). — A time came when the firm friends were turned into bitter enemies. In 1 161, Henry determined to appoint Thomas Archbishop of Can- terbury. The Chancellor resisted stoutly, for it was his nature to champion to the utmost any cause which he undertook, and he realized that, as head of the English Church, he would be bound to come in conflict with the royal policy. His scruples, however, were overborne, and, in 1162, he assumed the office of Archbishop of Canterbury. Without delay, he resigned the Chancellorship and all his worldly interests and became an ascetic of the most extreme type as well as a most ardent defender of Church privilege. Not many months passed before he had broken with the King, though curiously enough, the first quarrel arose over a point which did not concern the Church at all. Henry demanded that the sheriffs should pay into the royal treasury a certain " aid " or fee which they had been accustomed to collect from the shires in payment for their work ; Thomas, at a coun- cil held in n 63, took the part of the sheriffs, thus becoming the first English subject on record to resist his Sovereign on a question of na- tional taxation. This breach was followed by many others in rapid succession, but the climax was reached in the struggle over criminous clerks. The Criminous Clerks. — William the Conqueror, in separating lay and spiritual jurisdiction, had failed to draw a definite line between the two classes of cases ; but he and his sons had apparently kept the clergy under the control of their courts in matters of temporal concern. In the troublous time of Stephen the Church courts had greatly ex- tended their powers, and, among other things, claimed the exclusive right to judge the offenses of clergymen even if committed against the law of the land. While the Church naturally wanted to protect its servants from profane hands, there was danger, since the sentences 2 Longitude from Greenwich 2 THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 73 of the ecclesiastical courts were extremely light, that evil doers, by claiming exemption from lay jurisdiction, might escape the conse- quences of their misdeeds and menace the security of the State. This was what King Henry was determined to prevent. Two or three cases arose at this time of clerks found to be guilty of murder and robbery, and Becket not only refused to have them retried in the King's courts, but even to allow adequate sentences to be pronounced against them. The King summoned a council and ordered the bishops to agree that clerks accused of crime should be called before the King's courts to answer the charges; if well grounded, they should be tried in their episcopal courts in the presence of a King's justice, and if guilty they should be handed over to the lay courts for punishment. The King did not ask that clerks should actually be tried in his courts. At first the bishops, led by Thomas, refused to concede, but they finally agreed, Thomas last of all, to obey the " customs of the realm." The Constitutions of Clarendon (1164). — Thereupon, Henry as- sembled a Great Council at Clarendon, in January, 1164, and directed some of the oldest barons of the realm to draw up the " customs " as they had existed in the reign of Henry I. These customs which Henry II presented to Becket and the bishops for acceptance are known as the " Constitutions of Clarendon," and aimed to settle all questions at issue between the King and the clergy. However, they went far beyond the original question in dispute, indeed far beyond any claim that Henry had ever made ; for their provisions not only brought the criminous clergy under the cognizance of the King's jus- tice, but fixed the relations between the royal and ecclesiastical courts, and drew into the King's tribunals many cases involving Church property and large court fees. Their general aim was to put the King at the head of the English Church and to subordinate the clergy to his will, to make the law of the land dominant over the law of the Church. Resistance and Flight of Becket (1164). — Eventually, Becket re- pudiated the Constitutions as contrary to the law of God and took refuge abroad to escape the wrath of the King. He sought an au- dience with Alexander III, but Henry's ambassadors had already preceded him. The Pope, who needed Henry's support against a rival anti-Pope, and who, at the same time, did not wish to repudiate Becket as a champion of the Church, was in a delicate situation. Fi- nally, after some hesitation, without formally condemning the Con- stitutions, he absolved Becket from observing them, except so far as was consistent with his holy orders. For six years, from 1164 to 1 1 70, the quarrel continued, Becket striving with might and main to force the King to recede from his position. 74 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Murder of Becket, 1170. — At length, in 11 70, in order to evade an interdict which the distracted Papacy had finally prepared against him, Henry met the Archbishop, promised amends for a recent dis- regard of his authority as primate of England, and Thomas agreed to return to Canterbury. As none of the essential points at issue were settled, the reconciliation proved a hollow one, and the Arch- bishop made matters worse by suspending and excommunicating a number of his opponents. Henry received the news with a furious outburst of passion. " My subjects are sluggards, men of no spirit," he roared, " they keep no faith with their lord, they allow me to be made the laughing stock of a low-born clerk." At once four knights hastened to Canterbury, and after a heated interview with Becket they murdered him within the precincts of the Cathedral. Almost immediately miracles began to be wrought at his burial place, in less than three years' time he was canonized, and his shrine became the most popular of English centers for pilgrims. Henry had persecuted him in mean and petty ways, even if he did not intentionally cause his death ; but the cause for which the Archbishop contended — the exemption of the clergy from State control and the supremacy of the Church in important matters of temporal concern — was a political, not a religious one, and his death brought to his cause a greater victory than he would ever have been able to gain had he lived. Public opin- ion held Henry accountable for the base deed for which he was only indirectly responsible, so that he was obliged to seek reconciliation with the Pope at the expense of humiliating concessions. Henry in Ireland. State of the Country. — While he was waiting to see what the Pope would do he turned his attention to Ireland, first granted as an English possession by Adrian IV in 1154. The Irish, developing in comparative isolation, had attained a degree of culture and a fervor of religious life far in advance of their social and political development. Their zealous missionaries had carried their faith even to wildest parts of the German lands, they had beautiful legends and sweet-tongued bards, they excelled in the illuminating of manuscripts ; but the people were still in the tribal stage, law and order were sadly lacking, while the kings and chiefs were constantly warring against one another. Cattle was the chief standard of value, houses were primitive, clothing was scanty, and there was a dearth of arable land. In 1166, when the King of Leinster, hard pressed by rivals, appealed to Henry for aid, the English King allowed him to en- list volunteers among his subjects. Chief of the recruits was Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as " Strongbow," who was fol- lowed by men from England, Wales, and from the Continent, restless THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 75 and needy adventurers, eager for any stirring or profitable undertaking. Henry went over in person largely from apprehension of the growing power of Scrongbow. During his stay in the country, from October, 1 1 71, to April, 1 1 72, he was able to secure the submission of most of the native rulers, and left officials to represent him; nevertheless, the English intervention, instead of bringing peace and order, added one more element of discord to the troubled country. Henry's Submission at Avranches. " Benefit of Clergy." — After leaving Ireland Henry crossed to Normandy, and at Avranches came to terms with the papal legates and received absolution. He swore that he had not instigated the murder of Becket, that he would sup- port Alexander III, and, without mentioning the Constitutions of Clarendon, agreed to do away with any customs introduced against the Church in his time. As a matter of fact, his courts continued to claim control over most of the property cases in which the Church was involved, though clergymen accused of criminal offenses claimed ex- emption from the lay courts — " benefit of clergy " it was called — for centuries. Henry's Remaining Years and Death. — Henry's remaining years continued to be clouded with difficulties. His sons were discontented with the niggardly revenues and small authority which he allowed them; he was on bad terms with his Queen, Eleanor; most of the barons were restive under his firm rule ; while Louis VII stirred up strife to increase his own possessions. Thanks to the selfish and con- flicting aims of his opponents and to his own promptitude, Henry was able, with the aid of mercenaries and a few faithful followers to sup- press a revolt which broke out, in 11 73, under the lead of his eldest son, Prince Henry. Yet, to the very end of his days, he had to contend against the feudal barons on the French side of the water, against the King of France, and against two of his sons, Richard and John. One fruitful source of difficulty was the redistribution of his lands, compli- cated by the death of Prince Henry, in 1 183. In 1 188, the two younger brothers joined Philip II, who had succeeded Louis VII as King of France, and Henry, old, discouraged, and sick, had to consent to their terms. Turning on his bed he muttered : " Now let all things go as they will, I care no more for myself, nor for the world." He died shortly after, in 1189, repeating in his last hours : " Shame, shame on a beaten King." Henry's Constitutional and Legal Reforms. — From this sad end to a still sadder struggle with treacherous and undutiful sons it is a relief to turn to a survey of those aspects of Henry's work which have given him deservedly a place among England's greater Kings. In 76 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the field of domestic legislation and preeminently in legal reform he marked an epoch in progress. His Norman ancestors had begun the work of shaping the law as it exists to-day in the English-speaking world : they had wrought to break down or prevent the growth of special privileges, to unify conflicting customs, to introduce trained judges, organize courts, improve methods of procedure; in short to construct that system of common law — or law based on custom, usages, and court decision — and the methods of administering it, which it has been the work of succeeding centuries to perfect in detail. So Henry II did not originate this work, but he contributed so much toward the process of development that his reign was truly " a crit- ical period in the history of English law." The legal and constitu- tional edifice begun by William I and Henry I was demolished during the anarchy of Stephen's reign, and Henry II had to rebuild prac- tically from the foundation. The Political and Legal Problem. — Although he had the interests of his subjects somewhat at heart, his foremost aim was political, to strengthen the royal powers at the expense of the Church and the barons. To this end he reorganized, strengthened, and consolidated the old courts, established new ones, and, as a means of outbidding his rivals, introduced novel and improved methods of procedure in criminal and civil causes. As a result, before the close of his reign the King's courts and judges, instead of being exceptional resorts for great men and great causes, had come to exercise, as a matter of course, a vast and steadily increasing jurisdiction. When Henry and his judges began their work, law and procedure were as yet confused, conflicting, and disorganized. Anglo-Saxon law was still administered in the hundred and county courts ; aside from private and inadequate com- pilations, the law was practically unwritten; the Anglo-Norman officials who administered it, even though they might be willing to respect local customs, understood them imperfectly at best. More- over, manorial, borough, and other special courts enjoyed great powers and privileges. Obviously, if the royal power continued to increase, it would seek to bring order out of this chaos. If a more logical and uniform system could not be fashioned out of the existing native ele- ments, help might be sought elsewhere. Henry II Prevents the Roman Law from Becoming the Law of England. — Beyond the Alps, just at this time, there was coming to life again a code admirably suited to meet the needs of western Europe. This was the law of the old Roman Empire or Roman law, codified by order of the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century — a fusion of the practice and principles of a people of unparalleled legal genius THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 77 and administrative experience. Although it had fallen into oblivion during the period of formation of the new Germanic states on the ruins of the Western Empire, the twelfth century witnessed its revival at the recently established University of Bologna. Students began to flock to Italy, and as time went on, doctors of law gradually made their way to France, England, and the Germanic Empire. The same century also marked an epoch in the development of the canon law, or law of the Church of Rome. In the thirteenth century the Roman civil law secured a permanent foothold in France, and in the fifteenth century we find it domiciled in Germany, but, except in the ecclesi- astical and chancery courts, it never obtained any considerable hold in England. It is due to the work of Henry II that it did not, for, while in other countries no single system existed able to dispute the superior claims of the intrusive guest, Henry II so simplified and unified divergent practices that by the time the Roman law was in a position to make itself felt in the Island, the common law was too wide- spread and too firmly founded to be supplanted by an alien rival. Henry II Brings the Jury into General Use. — Henry recognized that if his system of justice was to prevail it behooved him to intro- duce better methods than those already in vogue. His measures witness how completely he outbid his rivals. For instance, he brought into general use juries for accusing criminals and for deciding disputed points at law — the parents of our modern grand and petty juries. Curiously enough, this bulwark of English liberty, long re- garded as an Anglo-Saxon heritage, was of royal and foreign origin. Starting from the inquest, a device of the Frankish emperors who sent around officials to gather information on the sworn testimony of the communities they visited, the system, much developed on French soil, was brought to England by William the Conqueror from his Norman home. He and his sons employed it for various purposes, among other things to get information in judicial cases where the royal interest was involved. At first allowed for privileged subjects as an exceptional favor, Henry extended it to all. By the presentment jury, consisting usually of twelve men from each hundred, criminals were brought to account by men sworn to voice the common report of their vicinage. Inquisition or recognition juries, or assizes, 1 enabled men to determine their rights of possession against an intruder by forms of procedure juster and more summary than they had even before dreamed of. Moreover, by a royal decree it was first made possible to defend owner- ship by the testimony of those who knew the facts of the case, and to 1 The word "assize" has many meanings: a royal enactment, a form of trial, an early form of jury, a judicial session. 78 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN avoid the brutal and inconclusive trial by combat. Writs were de- vised by which such cases could be drawn into the royal courts which, in spite of their many shortcomings, gave speedier and more impartial hearings than those whose jurisdictions they invaded. The Development of the Jury. — Henry's juries were strikingly different from the bodies familiar to us. Members were at first chosen for their knowledge of the facts in the case to be decided, though grad- ually they came to supplement their personal knowledge by informa- tion acquired by a private examination of documents and men not in the panel. The separation of the witnesses from the jurors was a process of slow growth, for it was not till the fifteenth century that the former came to testify in open court. Moreover, the earliest trial juries — inquisition or recognition juries as they were then called — dealt only with civil cases ; in criminal cases the jury introduced by Henry II was concerned only with the presentment or accusation of offenders whose ultimate fate was still decided by the ordeal. But this form of test practically disappeared when Innocent III, in 121 5, forbade the clergy to participate in trials where it was used. So new juries were introduced to decide on the truth of the facts presented by the accusation jury. Oftentimes, however, the new jury might be the original body of accusers acting in the new capacity. Long practically obsolete, trial by battle was not abolished till 181 9 and compurgation not till 1833. Reorganization of the Courts and Administrative Reforms. — Aside from the introduction of the jury into general use there were many other instances of Henry's legal and administrative activity. He restored the Curia Regis and Exchequer founded by Henry I. In 1 1 78, he selected from the former body two clerks and three laymen to hear certain important cases, thus creating the parent of the later courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas. Then he marked Eng- land anew into circuits and sent out itinerant justices to represent him in the courts of the hundred and shire. In n 81, by his famous Assize of Arms, he took steps to reorganize the military forces in a more serviceable way by providing that every free subject of the realm should arm himself according to his property, and it is interesting to notice that, in determining each man's liability, he made use of the sworn testimony of neighbors. Revenue. — Though Henry II was always on the lookout for money, his income was barely adequate for his needs. One source of addi- tional revenue came from the increased royal courts. The old Dane- geld of two shillings a hide ceased to be levied soon after his accession, and in its place he imposed new levies in the counties and in the towns. THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 79 Scutage, a tax on each knight's fee which the King might impose in lieu of military service, originated under Henry I, but was greatly increased by Henry II, because it gave him funds for mercenaries to use in his Continental wars. One form of taxation first met in his reign is a tax on incomes and personal property. The first levy of this sort was imposed in n 88, and is known as the Saladin Tithe be- cause it called for a tenth of the revenues and goods of subjects to assist in the recovery of Jerusalem captured by the great Moham- medan warrior Saladin, in the previous year. As in the Assize of Arms the liability of each person assessed was determined by a jury of neighbors. Summary of the Work of Henry II. — Such was the work of Henry II. As a ruler of many peoples, French and English, he was able to hold together vast dominions against opposing forces. In England he achieved great and far-reaching results : he restored, extended, and defined the organs of central government and increased the power of the Crown against the barons and the Church, and instituted a series of legal reforms from which English-speaking people receive benefit even to-day. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay, The Angevin Empire (1903), and Kate Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (2 vols., 1887), the latter extremely full and interesting. Two very good brief biographies of Henry II are those by Mrs. J. R. Green (1892) and L. F. Salzmann (191 5). The best general works on Ireland are E. R. Turner, Ireland and England. In the Past and in the Present (1919) and P. W. Joyce, A Concise History of Ireland, to 1908 (20th ed., 1914) and the latter's Short History of Ireland, to 1608 (3d ed., 1904). John Morris, The Life and Martyrdom of St. Becket (2d ed., 1885) is the standard life of Becket. R. L. Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (191 2), the most recent and scholarly work on the subject. References for further reading same as ch. VI. Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 12-20. CHAPTER VIII RICHARD I (1189-1199) AND THE TRANSITION FROM ABSOLUTE TOWARD LIMITED MONARCHY. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY Twofold Nature of Richard's Reign. — In September, 1189, Richard, surnamed Coeur de Lion, or the Lion-Hearted, the eldest surviving son of Henry II, was crowned King of England. " A knight errant " had " succeeded a statesman," but the change was not at first very marked, because, with the exception of a few months in 1189 and 1194, the new King was absent from England throughout his reign of nearly ten years, and the Government was carried on by Ministers who sought, in the main, to continue the policy of Henry II. The reign then has to be considered from two points of view: one deals with personal exploit and adventures; the other with points of constitutional ad- vance, notably the growth of the representative principle in the system of administration employed by the central government in the local centers. His Personal Character. — Richard had many faults : he was an undutiful son, he was unscrupulous in extortion, and had little interest or capacity in problems of statesmanship. Yet he had his redeeming features: he was a " splendid savage " with the virtues and vices of the medieval hero ; he was warm-hearted, generous, and mag- nanimous toward his enemies ; moreover, much of the money which he squeezed from subjects he devoted to a cause that was regarded as the highest in which men could engage, the winning of the Holy City from the enemies of Christ. As a general he was the genius of his age. His romantic nature, his fondness for poetry and music mark him as a Frenchman rather than an Englishman. Departure for the Third Crusade. — Directly after his coronation Richard, having pledged himself to join Philip II of France in driving Saladin from the Holy Land, began to raise money for the Crusade and to provide for the government during his absence. William Long- champ, Chancellor and Justiciar, stood almost alone in representing the interests of the King ; on the other hand, he took with him some 80 CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 8 1 of his most trustworthy servants, leaving behind many disaffected, some of them naturally embittered, because he had confiscated their estates for alleged disloyalty — for adhering to him against the late King, his father. He excused men from accompanying him on the Crusade in return for money payments, and besides sold everything he could, offices, lands, privileges, and favors; some men paid to resign offices, others to acquire them. Richard left England in Decem- ber, 1 189 ; but, owing to delays, did not until June of 1191 reach the scene of the fighting, where the French King had arrived before him. Shortly after the capture of Acre in July, Philip returned home on the plea of illness, though his real reason was to take advantage of Rich- ard's absence to improve his own affairs. With his remaining allies the English King marched on Jerusalem, and though they managed twice to get within striking distance, they failed to capture the city, after which, much against Richard's will, they turned back. Meantime, very disquieting news arrived from England. Richard's younger brother John, crossing over from Normandy, had become involved in a war with Longchamp and had succeeded in getting the Great Council to depose the Justiciar and to declare him heir to the throne in the event of his brother's death without issue. Treachery of John. Capture and Imprisonment of Richard. — In October, n 92, Richard left Palestine never to return. On his voyage home he was captured and handed over to the Emperor, Henry VI, who, besides itching for ransom, nursed a number of grievances against the English King. Philip and John were overjoyed at the capture ; but the prospect of 150,000 marks and Richard's promise to do homage for England and his other lands induced the Emperor to agree to his release. Richard in England, March to May (1194). — John and Philip were baffled in their efforts to prolong Richard's captivity and seize his kingdom. Though he was received with greatest enthusiasm by his subjects, he only remained in the country from March to May, 1194, and employed most of his time in selling again the offices and honors already sold to provide for the third Crusade. Disloyalty furnished him a good pretext, though he spared the lands of John and rather contemptuously forgave him for his treachery. In addition to sales and confiscations, Richard levied heavy taxes to carry on a war of revenge against Philip, and departed, as it turned out, forever. The Administration of Hubert Walter (1194-1198). — For the next four years the government was in the hands of Hubert Walter, Arch- bishop of Canterbury and Justiciar, a man trained in the methods of Henry II. Intrusted with the task of keeping order and supplying Richard's constant demands for money, the credit for the constitu- te 82 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN tional and administrative progress of the period is due to him. Though charged with avarice and extortion he did much to conciliate the middle classes, to confer self-government on important towns, and to extend the jury system and make it more representative. His instructions to the itinerant justices in 1194 and in 1198 intro- duced important reforms. The justices in 1194 were ordered to provide for the election by the suitors, or those entitled to attend the court in each county, of four crowners or coroners to decide what were crown pleas and to reserve them for the royal judges. Both the in- structions for 1 194 and 1198 required that the presentment juries, hith- erto appointed by the sheriff, should be selected by four knights chosen in the county court. Moreover, these juries, who formerly confined their activities to criminal accusations, were instructed to report on all sorts of royal business. Certain of Hubert's measures miscarried. In 1197, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, refused in the Great Council to contribute to a sum for equipping three hundred knights to serve abroad for a year, thus establishing a precedent for resistance to an unpopular tax. Then in 1198, a new land tax, designed to re- place the old Danegeld, yielded very disappointing returns. Mean- time, in 1 196, William " Longbeard," a London alderman, when accused of stirring up the poor to sack the houses of the wealthy, took sanctuary in the Bow Church. Hubert smoked him out by setting the edifice on fire, whereupon the monks of Canterbury, who owned the Church, denounced the act to the Pope as sacrilege. The Pope demanded his removal from the Justiciar ship, and Richard, dis- appointed at his two recent failures to raise money, agreed. Hubert, however, retained his office of Archbishop and became Chancellor early in the next reign. Richard's Death (1199). Results of the Reign. — Richard, in 1 199, was mortally wounded during one of his many wars in France. Although the Crusade and his conflicts with Philip of France were nearer to his heart than the welfare of his English subjects, they really contributed to English constitutional development, since the money they necessitated developed the machinery of representation, and at the same time awakened forces of opposition which later made use of this machinery against the Crown. Secular Character of the Period. Learning at Henry's Court. — Perhaps the most striking feature of the age of Henry II and his sons is its worldly or secular character. The death of Becket brought to an abrupt pause an intellectual and moral revival which, under the influence of higher clergy and monks, had shown its force as early as the reign of Henry I. On the other hand, science was mainly sub- CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 8$ ordinated to theology and, for that reason, made little progress. Partly owing to the number of quacks, notably in medicine and astrology, but most of all because of the superstition of the age, men of science were under suspicion and justified their pursuit of forbidden knowledge by curious apologies, generally to the effect that it aided in the comprehension of theological subjects. Although Paris and Chartres were centers of classical learning, and John of Salisbury, the foremost scholar of his time, was an enthusiast on the subject, even the classics had to yield the palm to law and logic. However, in spite of the material and bigoted character of the age, Henry II and many of his family were well educated, alert, and interested in learning. This is true even of King John, the blackest of the dark sheep ; for the story that he got his reputation from having once borrowed a book of the Abbot of St. Albans is unjust. Many learned men, though more par- ticularly historians and legal scholars, surrounded the King, and there was much intercourse with foreign countries, diplomatic, ecclesiastical, and scholarly. Legal and Historical Writing. — As one might expect, the writings of the period were mainly of a legal and historical character. In the reign of Henry II appeared a Treatise Concerning the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England, notable as the first systematic treatment of the subject ever produced in the country. It was formerly ascribed to Henry's great Justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville, though it is quite possible that the author was his nephew Hubert Walter. To Richard Fitzneal, Treasurer, and Bishop of London, we owe the Dialogue of the Exchequer, describing the organization and procedure of that cele- brated financial body. The chronicles of the period differ greatly from the earlier ones ; while they are annals, bare notes of events, they are written by men in the midst of affairs, busy statesmen and diplo- mats and not by solitary monks ; moreover, they reach out beyond the boundaries of England and deal with what is going on in Europe and with the Orient which the Crusades had opened to western Christen- dom. One work that stands out as really historical, that tries to grasp events and to interpret their meaning, is William of Newburgh's History of English Things, the production of a canon of a remote priory in Yorkshire. Since too, he was the first to denounce the mass of fable which that unblushing romancer Geoffrey of Monmouth passed off as history, he has sometimes been called " the father of historical criticism." Walter Map and Giraldus Cambrensis. — Two writers throw vivid lights on the conditions in which they lived. One was Walter Map, a versatile, many-sided man of great learning. His only surviving 84 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN work, Courtiers' Triflings, is an interesting scrapbook on all sorts of subjects with the dominating aim of satirizing the Church and clergy and the follies and vices of the court. The other was Gerald the Welsh- man, or Giraldus Cambrensis as he is more commonly called, who wrote a valuable and lively account of the conquest of Ireland as well as topographical descriptions both of that country and of his native Wales. Although his Irish works are manifestly hostile to the natives and full of wild and horrible tales, they are among the few sources for the period. Gerald produced %iany other works on vari- ous subjects ; and has been characterized as " the father of English popular literature." These works were all in Latin. First in the reign of John, Layamon, a simple Worcestershire priest, in his Brut, or legendary history of Brutus and Britain, set himself " to tell the noble deeds of Englishmen " in the English tongue — the earliest seed of a noble national literary revival. The Rise of the Universities. — In the last years of Henry II England's most ancient seat of learning, Oxford, came into prominence, although it was not formally known as a " University " till the reign of his grandson Henry III. One of the most notable features of the twelfth century is the rise of the universities. The earliest teachers in England as elsewhere were in schools attached to monasteries, cathedrals, parish churches, and occasionally to a royal court. Grad- ually, however, groups of students began to gather in this place or that to hear some man famous for learning or eloquence ; then, as time went on, groups, sometimes of masters, sometimes of scholars, organized themselves into corporations or gilds called universities. Originally meaning any body of men in a collective capacity, the term universitas came at length to be restricted to those combined together for learn- ing or teaching, with the aim of regulating conditions of member- ship and methods of instruction. Oxford traces its origin to an ex- pulsion of English students from the University of Paris about 1167. There had been teachers at Oxford before this date, but they had taught merely in a private capacity. 1 The university of Cambridge apparently owes its origin to one of the town and gown conflicts common in early times, which led to a migration from Oxford in 1200, though it was not till 13 18 that the younger institution secured formal recognition. Conditions at the Universities. — Conditions were at first very primitive. The students lodged with the townsmen, and the masters lectured wherever they could, sometimes in the open air with their 1 There is a story that a famous canonist Vacarius, silenced by Stephen, lectured there, but it rests on no adequate evidence. He probably taught at Canterbury. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 85 classes sitting about them on the bare ground. During the course of the thirteenth century houses began to be established for communi- ties of poor scholars. These have developed into the modern colleges with organized bodies of masters, fellows, and scholars. Studies were grouped under various heads — liberal arts, theology, law, and, in some universities, medicine — each with its faculty or recognized hierarchy of teachers and governors. The faculty of arts gave instruction in the seven liberal arts, divided into the trivium, which included grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, and the quadrivium, including geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Growth of Towns since the Conquest. — The progress of boroughs and cities was marked by new and important stages during the reign of the sons of Henry II. It should be recalled that before the Conquest they were distinguished by certain well-recognized characteristics : they were walled, they were under a special peace, they enjoyed certain market rights, and they paid a lump sum known as firma burgi, or farm of the borough, in place of the dues and taxes custom- arily collected by the sheriff. Concessions purchased from Kings after the Conquest were recorded in charters, which either confirmed old liberties and privileges or allowed new ones. Those to London were the most important and were much in advance of the others, for which they served to a large extent as models. While that of William I was little more than a promise in general terms that the liberties and property of the City should not be disturbed, Henry I, in 1100, granted a charter containing distinct concessions : in return for £300 a year he abandoned all revenues from Middlesex; he allowed the citizens to appoint their sheriff and to hold their court ; he exempted them from trial by battle, from special tolls and exactions as well as from a number of general imposts ; and limited fines or amerce- ments in amount. No notable gains came under Henry II : he granted many charters ; but as a rule they did nothing more than to confirm liberties enjoyed in his grandfather's time. The reign of Richard I, however, marked a distinct stage in the progress of English municipal autonomy. The main aim was doubtless to get money, though some see in the royal policy an intelligent recognition of the signs of the times. Perhaps the most interesting concession — to London, in 1191 — was granted not by Richard, but by John to secure the aid of the city against William Longchamp. While some features of the grant have been variously interpreted, the right to have a mayor is clear enough, and in the Lord Mayor, together with the board of aldermen, and a common council subsequently added, the government of the City is vested to-day. 86 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Gilds. — Side by side with the municipal governments, other organizations grew up with the primary aim of controlling commerce, trade, and industry. These gilds, as they were called, were, in the original medieval sense, private voluntary societies for mutual help and pleasure. Some were merely social or religious in character. The merchant gilds, whose purpose was to further the trading privi- leges of members and to exclude from competition all non-members, date from the eleventh century and became very numerous in the twelfth. In course of time these gild merchants came to control a large number of the town governments and even in many cases to take their place. They were wealthy and exclusive bodies, a feature that led the handicraftsmen, according to a widely accepted view, to organize associations of their own, known as craft gilds. Of the latter sort, the earliest known is that of the weavers, who received a charter from Henry I, while, in the course of the twelfth and the following century, the bakers, the fullers, the grocers, the butchers, the clothiers, and many other mysteries, or crafts, came to have their separate organizations. The central government and the municipal authori- ties seem to have looked on their growth with some disfavor, or were, at least, very jealous in guarding their rights of granting them licenses. 1 It would seem that the opposition existing between the aristocratic merchants and the humbler craftsmen has been exaggerated. At any rate a common motive of the latter in organizing craft gilds was not so much hostility to the gild merchants as a desire to raise their own standards of production and conditions of labor. London never had a gild merchant ; but her craft gilds, growing in wealth and impor- tance, came to take an important share in the government of the City. Markets and Fairs. Foreign Trade. Growth of London. — With the growth of trade and industry there was also an increase in the number of markets, where local products were disposed of, and of fairs, held at less frequent intervals, to which people, foreigners as well as natives, came from far and near to buy and sell. Naturally there was much rivalry between neighboring markets, involving disputes as to their respective rights. Some were settled peaceably, in other cases the contending parties resorted to club law. London at this time was steadily increasing its trade relations with the mer- chant cities of northern Germany and the Low Countries. 2 With the 1 A c.urious case occurred in 1201 when the citizens of London bought from John the privilege of turning out the weavers' gild. Having received the money he turned to the weavers and got them to pay him to take them under the royal protection, thus nullifying the privilege which he had just sold. 2 In 1 194, Richard, supplementing an earlier concession of Henry II, granted to the citizens of Cologne a gild hall in the city, and probably the hall, known from CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 87 extension of trade and the increase of wealth considerable building was undertaken, which may explain an interesting ordinance of 121 2, framed by the common council to provide against fire. Wooden houses were to be replaced by stone at dangerous points such as the market place ; thenceforth no thatched roofs were allowed, only tiles, wooden shingles, and lead might be used ; a tub of water must be placed before each building ; and cooks and bakers might not work at night. Rural Life. — Among rural classes the customary services were apparently becoming lighter, with a consequently increasing tendency to substitute rents in money and kind in their place. Moreover, rents were rising, for the tillers of the soil were beginning to share in the general prosperity. Even at that, some payments were success- fully resisted, — as when the cellarer and the men of the Abbot of Bury, in a forcible attempt to collect reap-silver, were stopped by a body of old women who berated them with hard words and threatened them with saucepans. Some villeins rose from the ranks to become great scholars and prelates, yet, in general, the lot of the villein was a hard one and there was ordinarily little hope of bettering it. They were occasionally sold apart from the land as late as the thirteenth century ; toward the end of the twelfth the Canons of Osney bought one man for twenty shillings, another for four pounds and a horse. Living conditions were grievous: leprosy and skin diseases prevailed, while lack of drainage and ventilation, the difficulty of communication, and the necessity of subsisting on salted fish and meats made the winters cheerless and unhealthy. Fusion of Races. — In spite of serious obstacles, Henry II and the Ministers who carried on his work had wrought well ; their administra- tive and judicial reforms, aided by time, had welded Saxon and Norman into a united English people, while the foreign policy of the King and his son Richard had secured for England a recognized place among the powers of Europe. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Besides Ramsay, Davis, G. B. Adams, Norgate already mentioned, Stubbs, Historical Introductions to the Rolls Series (ed. Hassall 1902) — a volume made up of Bishop Stubbs's introductions to certain of the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain, commonly known as the "Rolls Series," and embodying some of the soundest work on the periods. the fourteenth century as the Steelyard, which came to be the headquarters of the Hanseatic merchants, dates from this period. 88 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Medley has a good brief account of the origin and development of bor- oughs; for a fuller treatment see A. Ballard, The English Boroughs in the Twelfth Century (1914). Stephens covers this period on the Church. For social and intellectual conditions, in addition to the works already cited, see two brilliant and learned lectures on "Learning and Literature at the Court of Henry II" in Stubbs, Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern History (1900). The standard work on the universities is H. Rashdall, The Uni- versities of the Middle Ages (2 vols., 1895). Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, no. 21. - CHAPTER IX THE REIGN OF JOHN (1199-1216). THE LOSS OF NORMANDY, THE QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH, THE BARONIAL REVOLT AND MAGNA CHARTA Reigns of John and Henry III. — In 1199, after years of intrigue against his brother Richard and against Richard's next lineal heir, his nephew Arthur, 1 John at length attained the Crown. His reign and that of his son Henry III mark the most important constitutional crisis in England's history ; they witnessed the first significant limi- tation of the royal absolutism since the Conquest, together with the rise of an institution that was gradually to voice the will of the nation in such limitation — sharing in the government and ultimately controlling it — the English Parliament. While the chief responsi- bility for precipitating the crisis by which these changes came about rests with John, circumstances were to some degree operative : the existing sources of supply were inadequate to meet the growing needs of the State, and, in order to secure sufficient revenues, it was neces- sary to demand more than the customary services and taxes, a demand that was bound to be resisted. To increase the revenues and meet the inevitable discontent, to mold the representatives of the subjects as willing instruments of the royal will would have been a critical problem for a capable and worthy ruler. Character of John. — Contemporary writers were almost unan- imous in their denunciation of John. Giraldus Cambrensis, for ex- ample, declared " that of all tyrants of history " he " was the very worst " ; truly he was " burdensome to rich and poor," there was no truth or sincerity in him, and " through thirty years of public life," it has been truly said, " we search in vain for any good deed, one kindly act to set against his countless offendings." A younger son, greedy of lands and power, he plotted against his father and against his brother ; he was ungrateful to them and to the Ministers who faithfully served him. Cruel, too, beyond measure, he is reported — to cite a single 1 See table in Introd. 89 90 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN instance — to have wrung 10,000 marks from a rich Jew of Bristol by causing a tooth to be drawn every day until the unfortunate yielded at the end of a week. Very extravagant and self-indulgent and sub- ject to spasms of furious rage, he led a sinful life and sought to atone for it by almsgiving. He manifested an ill-timed levity on solemn occasions and was often strangely apathetic at crises. Yet he was personally brave and not unskilled in arms, he showed moments of fitful energy and was possessed of a certain low cunning. But his lack of foresight, his neglect of opportunity, and his rashness led him to situations, political, diplomatic, and military, which almost in- variably ended in defeat. The Three Critical Events of John's Reign. — Almost at once a blending of impolicy and mishaps plunged the new King into difficul- ties, and the subsequent course of the reign is marked by three succes- sive crises which came to a head in a great combination of all classes, headed by the barons, resulting in the great charter of liberties known as Magna Carta. I. The French War and Loss of Normandy. — The first of these crises was the outcome of the war with France. Arthur, a lad of twelve, had been forced to do homage, but he was still not without supporters. Philip Augustus, one of the most astute kings who ever ruled France, wanted to extend his powers at John's expense and was quite ready to use the claims of his rival as a pretext ; moreover, there was a grow- ing sentiment in parts of northern France against continuing under English rule. In the face of all this, John committed the first of a series of blunders w T hich led to the triumph of Philip. In the year 1200 he divorced his wife Isabel (sometimes called Avice) of Glouces- ter and married Isabel of Angouleme, thereby antagonizing not only the powerful family of his discarded wife, but a large section of the Poitevin nobles as well ; for the new Isabel had been betrothed to Hugh of Lusignon, one of their number. In order to anticipate any resistance from the family of Hugh, John seized some of their castles and charged their supporters with treason, whereupon the Lusignons appealed to Philip, who, early in 1202, summoned John to appear before a court of his peers at Paris. On his disregard of the summons, Philip declared his fiefs forfeited, and proceeded to make war on his Norman possessions. John, in one of his spasmodic bursts of energy, captured Arthur, who had taken the field in Poitou, and then, so the story goes, went in person to the castle of Rouen whither Arthur had been removed, and had him stabbed and thrown into the Seine, April, 1203. Whether true or not, Arthur disappeared and rumor attributed the crime to John. Without formally charging him with the murder THE REIGN OF JOHN 91 of his nephew, Philip continued the war with added vigor. One by one John's strongholds opened their gates to him and one by one John's vassals came over to his side, and before the end of the year 1204, Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, indeed every one of John's French posses- sions except Aquitaine had passed out of his hands. Thus many of the barons, broken off from their Norman connections, were drawn more and more to make common cause with the English people, while for John the loss in prestige was immense, and had no small share in bringing to a head the movement resulting in the crowning event of his reign. II. The Disputed Archiepiscopal Election (1205). — The death of the great Archbishop Hubert Walter, in 1205, marked the next crisis, for the attempt to fill the vacant See gave rise to complications which led to the King's second great humiliation — the submission to the Papacy. In a conflict over the choice of Hubert's successor the dis- putants appealed to Rome. Innocent III, one of the greatest of Popes, was ever alert to extend the papal power, so instead of deciding between the rival candidates, he set aside both and ordered a fresh election, in 1206. The choice fell on the Pope's candidate, Stephen Langton, an English theologian, who, though he had lived long in Rome, later proved himself a sincere patriot. The Struggle between King and Pope. — John, beside himself with rage, refused to admit Stephen, seized much property of his clerical opponents, and forbade appeals to Rome. Thereupon, in 1208, the Pope laid the land under an interdict, 1 an impending blow which John sought to avert by vain bluster, threatening to drive all ecclesiastics out of the country and to tear out the eyes of the messengers from Rome. Many of the bishops found it safer to flee, leaving their property to be confiscated, and even the monks and lower clergy were, for a time at least, persecuted and pillaged. After a series of futile negotiations Innocent finally, in 1 209, declared John excommunicated, though the sentence was only proclaimed in France, not in England. John's Surrender to the Pope (1213). — With the King under the ban of the Church his subjects turned more and more against him, while John made matters worse by seizing the castles and hostages from those he suspected until he had almost as many enemies as he had barons. And it availed little that he succeeded, to some extent, in extending his royal power in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Then appeared a poor half-crazed hermit, Peter of Wakefield, prophesying 1 By this the church doors were closed, the dead could only be buried in uncon- secrated ground, and the performance of most of the rites of the Christian Church was withheld. 92 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN that by Ascension Day, 12 13, John would be no longer King. With his prospects steadily darkening John felt it necessary to resume negotiations with the Pope. Innocent's terms were, in substance, that he should accept Langton as Archbishop, that he should restore all bishops, monks, and others, clerk or lay, who had been deprived during the late struggle and make them full compensation. The alternative was deposition, but John held off, until Innocent, to bring pressure upon him, authorized Philip of France to invade England and deprive him of his kingdom. John made frantic efforts to meet the threatened attack, but, finding that he could count on little support from his subjects, decided to yield, and, 13 May, 1213, met the papal legate, Pandulf, at Dover and accepted the hard terms. Two days later, on his own accord, he took the further step of surrendering his kingdom to the Pope; he received it back as a fief, did homage to Pandulf, and promised, for himself and his heirs, to pay an annual tribute of 1000 marks. Doubtless he felt that nothing else would check the threatened invasion and counteract the growing disaffection of the barons, and while his action has often been denounced as ig- nominious, it must be remembered that the state of vassalage was not, in those times, regarded as degrading. English Kings since the Con- quest had held their continental possessions as fiefs of France, and even the lion-hearted Richard had agreed to yield all England in fief to the Emperor. It was the getting into the difficulty rather than the way he extricated himself that was most detrimental to King John, and, in some respects, to his successors: it furnished the Papacy with a precedent for interfering in disputed elections, while the ill-usage of the clergy alienated a class hitherto generally on the side of the Crown. Nevertheless his submission to Rome was a confession of defeat, and he had been forced to admit as Archbishop a man who shortly became the guiding spirit of the opposition. Still, Ascension Day passed safe- ly, and poor Peter was hanged. Now that John was a vassal of the Holy See, Innocent prohibited Philip from waging war on him, while Langton, arriving in July, solemnly absolved him from his excommu- nication, though the interdict was not yet lifted, since the vacant benefices were still unfilled and the compensation due the clergy had yet to be settled. III. The Opening of the Struggle with the Barons (12 13). — John's efforts to revenge himself against Philip brought to an issue the third and final crisis of the reign. Directly after his submission, he began to prepare an expedition to Poitou. Most of the barons refused to follow, mainly on the ground that he was excommunicated, and when the ban was removed they took the ground that their tenures did not THE REIGN OF JOHN 93 bind them to serve abroad. While there seems to have been no legal ground for this latter contention, they had many and excessive causes of discontent; they got promises in plenty, but little else. There were the grievances purely feudal, some dating from the past, such as forcing heiresses into unequal marriages, extorting excessive reliefs, and abusing the right of wardships. Others bore on the non-feudal classes as well : taxes were excessive and arbitrary, while assessments on lands and movables increased in frequency and amount, and there were exactions from the Jews, and fines, some without a shadow of justice. Demands for foreign service were not unusual, though Henry II had usually provided mercenaries paid from the scutage. Three reasons led to the resistance under John. In the first place, his demands were more frequent. In the second place, men were alienated by his capriciousness and futility. In 1201, and again in 1205, he had levied men for foreign service and then dismissed them with a fine ; in 1 202-1 203, he had failed to accomplish anything with the force he took abroad ; moreover, the interest of Englishmen in foreign service was growing less and less. Additional discontent arose from the fact that John had allowed his royal baronial supporters to oppress the people, while, in spite of the recent reconciliation with the Papacy, the Church could not forget what it had suffered while the fight was raging. In short, England was suffering under " all the evil customs which the King's father and brother had raised up for the oppression of the Church and the realm, together with that which the King him- self had added thereto." The Winning of Magna Carta. — Such was the situation when John, gathering such forces as would follow him, started, February, 12 14, to invade Poitou. After gaining a few momentary successes he was obliged to retreat before the French forces, since the Poitevin barons would not fight for him in the open field. While he was planning his next move his hopes were utterly dashed by the news that a great army, combined according to his plans under his nephew Otto, the German Emperor, had been met and defeated, 27 July, by Philip as it was hastening down to attack France on the northern border. John was obliged to make peace, 18 September, 1214, and, isolated and humiliated, he returned to England on the following month. Unmindful of his precarious situation he brought matters to an issue by demanding a scutage from the barons who had refused to accom- pany him to Poitou. Thereupon, the hardier spirits united, it is said, at St. Edmunds under pretense of a pilgrimage, demanded the confirma- tion of Henry I's Charter, and took an oath to wage war on the King in case he refused their terms. All through the winter the negotia- 94 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN tions went on. John put off a definite answer as long as he could and employed the interval in trying to circumvent his adversaries by vari- ous subterfuges ; but all his twistings and doublings availed him noth- ing. The barons, when he finally rejected their terms, decided to wage war and renounced their allegiance, on the ground that the King had ceased to observe his feudal obligations, and marched down and oc- cupied London. John, finding that almost no one but his mercenaries would stand by him and that Stephen Langton, really in sympathy with the baronial cause, would not excommunicate his enemies, was forced to yield. After some further parley the barons met him, 15 June, 1 21 5, at Runnymede, where he set his seal to the Great Charter. Magna Carta and Its Meaning. — The importance of Magna Carta is due rather to the use that was afterwards made of it by the cham- pions of popular rights than to what was actually desired by the men who framed it. Actually it was secured by the barons primarily in the interests of their own order, to safeguard their feudal privileges against the encroachments of John and his royal predecessors ; and many guarantees of popular government and popular liberty subse- quently traced back to it are not to be found among its provisions. For example, it does not say that there shall be no taxation, except by the voice of the people, because Parliament, as the representative of all classes of the realm, did not yet exist. Moreover, the two most effective means by which the common man is protected against legal injustice to-day, trial by jury and habeas corpus — the latter a device to prevent holding a man in prison without cause shown — are not worked out in anything like their modern form. Another notable fact is that although five sixths of the population at that time were villeins whose chief grievances were at the hands of the manorial lords, very little is done for them. Certain great general principles were indeed embedded in the momentous document, namely that property shall not be taken from the subject for public use without compensa- tion, that punishments shall not be cruel or unusual, that fines were not to be excessive, and that justice was to be open to all, freely and fairly administered ; nevertheless, machinery had later to be devised to make these principles operative, and there were long stretches when they were practically forgotten. 1 The Real Significance of Magna Carta. — In what then does its significance consist ? Not so much in any of its particular provisions as in imposing restrictions upon royal absolutism, and in establishing the principle that Kings must observe the law, even though the law 1 Shakespeare in his great drama King John does not mention Magna Carta at all. THE REIGN OF JOHN 95 which the barons had in mind was the feudal law, to which they and the King were the contracting parties. The principle of contract, or of reciprocal obligation definitely defined between the parties to an agreement, is an essentially feudal principle; and it is noteworthy that that dying feudalism left this priceless contribution to the cause of English liberty. While the barons led the movement primarily in their own interest, they united with them the Church, they kept the mass of freemen from supporting the Sovereign, and consequently, to some degree, undertook the business of these two classes as well as their own. Summary of the Provisions Relating to Each of the Three Estates Separately. — The provisions of Magna Carta have been most con- veniently grouped under two main heads : first, provisions relating to the rights and privileges of the three separate estates or political classes into which society was divided ; secondly, provisions relating to these classes as a whole. I. The following provisions relate to the Church, the barons, and the commons respectively. 1. The Church is to be free and to hold its rights entire and its liberties uninjured, particularly in the election of bishops. 2. The baronage are promised many concessions. Feudal abuses in the matter of reliefs, wardships, marriages, and the collection of debts shall be renounced. No scutage or aid beyond the three customary aids shall be imposed except by the Common Council of the tenant in chief. The same conditions which the King agrees to observe toward his immediate vassals shall be observed by them in dealing with their mesne or under-tenants. 3. Concessions to the commons 1 refer to all freemen or freeholders below baronial rank. Ancient liberties and free customs are guaranteed to London and other towns. The ancient rents of the counties were not to be increased. Merchants are to come in and go out of the kingdom, free from all evil tolls and by the ancient and rightful customs. All goods seized for the King's use are to be paid for. II. Summary of Provisions Relating to the Three Classes as a Whole. — The provisions relating to the kingdom as a whole have mainly to do with judicial reforms, of which the two most celebrated provisions are those contained in clauses xxxix and xl. The former provides that " no freeman shall be arrested, or detained in prison, or deprived of his freehold, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way molested, and we will not set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land." It is gen- 1 On the Continent the term was restricted to the members of organized civic communities. 96 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN erally thought by modern scholars that the provision concerning judg- ment of peers was introduced by the barons to secure their exemption from accountability to the King's judges. This has survived in the right of peers in certain cases to be tried by the law of the land, hence it was reactionary rather than progressive ; nor does the clause guarantee trial by jury, for the law of the land at that time recognized forms of trial other than and quite different from jury trial. Clause xl declares : " to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice" ; but was centuries before the writ of habeas corpus. which was to make this clause fully operative, was developed. Never- theless, the germ of great principles is to be found in this and the pre- ceding provisions. Means of Enforcement and Future Importance of Magna Carta. — To insure the enforcement of the terms of the Charter a committee of twenty-four barons and the Lord Mayor of London was appointed, who were authorized to levy war on the King until any transgression of which he may have been guilty should have been amended. This machinery for securing its observance was the weakest thing about Magna Carta, for there could be no peaceful progress under any such arrangement ; indeed, it was soon given up, and in due course of time the maintenance of the Charter's great principles was intrusted to Parliament. Such was Magna Carta : " in form a grant from the King to his people, in reality a treaty extorted from him by his barons, acting with the clergy and the commons." One great cause of its enduring significance is that it dealt with actual conditions, it aimed not so much to create new liberties and privileges as to define those already existent and to guard against their infraction. As a wise historian has said, the Great Charter is " not the foundation of English liberty but the first, clearest, and historically the most important enuncia- tion in it " and " the maintenance of the Charter was henceforth the watchword of English liberty." The Baronial War and the Death of John (12 16). — Although, for the moment, steps were taken to carry out its provisions, John had made concessions which he could not afford and did not intend to keep. Moreover, certain of the extremists among the northern barons had refused to enter into the agreement at Runnymede and continued in arms. In August John prepared to renew the war, whereupon the barons made ready to depose him. The Pope who, since John's submission, was on his side, had already, before the sealing of the Charter, ordered the excommunication of the disturbers of the king- dom : now, in August, he issued a bull declaring the Charter null and THE REIGN OF JOHN 97 void on the ground that it had been extorted by force. Also, he sus- pended Stephen Langton for refusing to carry out his sentence of ex- communication. The leaders of the baronial opposition thereupon took the extreme step of transferring their allegiance to Louis of France " begging him " to come and " pluck them out of the hand of the tyrant." This drove John into one of his spasms of energy, and during the winter of 1215-1216 he harried the land from the south of the Thames to the Scottish border. In spite of papal prohibition, Louis landed at Thanet, 21 May, while John, who had returned from the north, retreated before the invader to the borders of Wales where he remained inactive until the end of August, when he marched into the east midlands ravaging as he went. On 19 October, he died at Newark of an illness brought on partly by his recent exertion, partly by an excess of eating and drinking. No King of England has since borne his name, yet his very vices and incapacity precipitated the downfall of absolutism and the rise of constitutional liberty. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. The most recent detailed account of the reign of John is Kate Norgate, John Lackland (1902). Other accounts may be found in Ramsay, G. B. Adams, and Davis. For a discussion of the constitutional significance of the reign of John and Henry III, see G. B. Adams, "The Critical Period of English History," American Historical Review, July, 1900. This is developed in his Origin of the English Constitution (1902). Edward Jenks, "The Myth of Magna Carta," Independent Review, November, 1904, pp. 260-273, is stimulating but exaggerated. The standard work on Magna Carta is W. S. McKechnie's Magna Carta: A Commentary (1913). It contains an historical introduc- tion, also the text of the Great Charter, both in Latin and in English trans- lation, and an elaborate commentary on each clause. See also Magna Carta Commemoration Essays (191 7). The text of Magna Carta may be found also in translation in Adams and Stephens, no. 29. CHAPTER X HENRY m. THE STRUGGLE OF THE BARONS TO MAINTAIN THE CHARTER, TO EXPEL FOREIGN INFLUENCE, AND TO CONTROL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE KINGDOM. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN Henry's Minority (1216-1227). — Less than two weeks after his father's death, Henry, a boy of nine, was crowned at Gloucester. Under a capable Regent the new reign opened with the brightest of prospects. The King's very youth and innocence were a source of strength, for the barons had risen not against the royal office but against an un- popular and oppressive King, and now that he was no more, most of them turned gladly from a foreign invader to a native ruler. Louis' — against whom the papal legate proclaimed a crusade — was defeated and forced to leave the country. The fair prospects under which the new reign opened did not remain long unclouded. In 1219 the Regency ended with the death of William Marshall, a fine type of the medieval soldier-statesman, who had labored effectively to re- store peace and good government, and it fell to Hubert de Burgh, a faithful Minister and leader of the loyal English party, to combat on the one hand such of the barons as were still unreconciled to the Crown, on the other, foreign favorites and military adventurers. After some futile risings the restless barons were for the time being suppressed, and, in 1224, the most aspiring of the leaders of John's mercenary troops was forced to leave the country. However, Hubert had many other perplexing complications to face. In Gascony — a division of the ancient Aquitaine — the commons, although they preferred English to French rule, resented any inter- ference with their municipal liberties, and while they were unwilling to spend money on defense, expected the English governors to protect them in their quarrels with the neighboring barons who were very turbulent. One governor after another threw up the office in despair. Moreover, the young Henry was burning to retrieve the French pos- sessions which his father had yielded. After Hubert proclaimed him 98 HENRY III 99 of age, in 1227, he steadily lost control over his vain and unstable master. Thus, much against his will, he had to fit out an expedition which the King in person led, in 1230, to aid certain Norman barons who had risen in revolt. After an inglorious campaign, in which the English soldiers performed greater feats in deep drinking than in fight- ing, he returned home, in September, having accomplished nothing. Beginning of Henry's Personal Rule (1232). — Instigated by a wily foreign counselor, Henry made Hubert the scapegoat for all his troubles and miscarriages, as well as for the bad state of the finances — due to his own extravagance and military vainglory — and dismissed him in 1232. The common people were loud in their sympathy and a courageous smith, who was ordered to fetter him, refused to touch one to whom the country owed so much. But part of Hubert's property was taken from him and he had to spend some years in captivity. For the next quarter of a century Henry's personal government was un- hampered by any wise or effective control and was marked by favor- itism for foreigners and inept caprice. Increasing Abuses and Futile Opposition. — Henry's marriage to Eleanor of Provence, in 1236, brought swarms of foreigners to England including needy kinsmen to be provided for. Although more than one attempted the task, there seemed to be for many years no leader in England capable of withstanding these aliens. In addition, the country had to bear the burden of heavy papal exactions. At Henry's request the Pope, in 1237, sent a cardinal legate, who, it is said, during a four years' sojourn took away as much gold and silver as he left in the country, claiming besides for his master the right to fill three hun- dred livings with Italians, while the spiritless King declared : " I neither wish nor dare to oppose the lord Pope in anything." Truly " England was a like vineyard with a broken hedge so that all who went by could steal of her grapes." Finally, there arose as leader of a national clerical party one of the most notable men of the century — Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, whose first achievements were in theology, science, and, what was most rare in those days, in Greek. After he became Bishop, late in life, he turned his attention to politics, striving to unite the Church and the baronage in the defense of their common liberties and in resistance to papal encroachment. Particu- larly did he set himself against foreign nominees to English livings, whom he described as intruders " who not only strive to tear off the fleece, but do not even know the features of their flock." But, wedded to the theory of the superiority of the Church over the State and a stanch advocate of clerical immunity, he proved not to be the man to lead most effectively the popular cause. IOO SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Baronial Demand for Elected Ministers. — In April, 1243, after Henry had led a futile, expedition to assist the Poitevin barons and the Gascon towns in a rising against the French King, he was obliged to consent to the incorporation of Poitou into the French dominions. The situation grew steadily darker. London became disaffected and another papal agent came to glean after his predeces- sor's harvest. The King fell into sore financial straits, and the barons, taking advantage of his needs, began to demand that Ministers be appointed of native birth and acceptable to the country. Soon they went further, and, in 1244, as one of the conditions of a money grant, stipulated that the Justiciar, the Chancellor, and the Treasurer should be chosen in the Great Council. It was some years before they were able to carry their point. Henry might yield to the Pope but he maintained a lofty attitude toward his subjects. Since they persisted attaching conditions, which he would not accept, to all money grants, all sorts of expedients were resorted to for supplying the royal neces- sities. Curiously, the barons were at length to find a leader among the very foreigners they were seeking to oppose. Simon de Montfort Becomes Leader of the National Party. — Si- mon de Montfort was a Norman by birth who first came to England in 1229. Beginning as an adherent of the royal party, he married Henry's sister Eleanor, and, in 1248, was sent to rule Gascony on the express condition that he should enjoy full powers, including control of the Gascon revenue, for seven years. In the face of unrest, intrigue, and revolt he adopted such drastic methods in restoring order that he reaped a harvest of discontent, whereupon, yielding to bitter com- plaints, Henry, in spite of the Governor's protests, finally dismissed him. Whoever was at fault, the fact remains that on the eve of the great crisis of his reign, the King forced into the enemy's camp the most remarkable man of his generation, a man destined to become one of the most notable figures in English history. The Baronial Opposition Comes to a Head (1254). — In 1254, two years after this event, Henry culminated his impolicy by an act of extravagant folly which brought to a focus all the forms of opposition which had been slowly converging against his internal misgovernment, his futile foreign policy, and his abject submission to papal exaction. He accepted for his second son Edmund the crown of Sicily, which the Pope had long been striving to wrest from the Imperial house of Hohen- staufen. Edmund never attained the Sicilian throne but the efforts which his father made in his behalf were none the less momentous. He pledged himself to provide an army and 140,000 marks, and applied to his Great Council for supplies to redeem his bond. They refused, HENRY III IOI in 1255, and again in 1257, when Henry brought his little son before them, and sought to work on their sentiments. Everything combined to foster discontent. Rain, flood, bad harvests, cattle-murrain, and high prices were estranging the poor. In 1256 the Pope had added another exaction by demanding for the first time annates or first fruits — the first year's annual revenue from clergy newly inducted into benefices. Aside from the new grievances, old ones continued from the previous reign, for, although the charters had been frequently confirmed, their concessions had been disregarded. Many castles were in the hands of foreigners, sheriffs and itinerant judges were per- verting justice and levying excessive fines, and the forest laws were unmitigated in their severity. The storm burst in 1258. The Provisions of Oxford (1258).— On 28 April, 1258, a Great Council of magnates, reenforced by representative knights from the shires, assembled. When the King in the face of the gathering dis- content ventured again to ask for money for the Sicilian campaign, the barons and . knights in full armor, though they laid their swords aside, crowded into the royal presence chamber and presented their terms. They demanded the dismissal of all aliens and the appoint- ment of a committee of twenty-four — half from the royal party, half from the baronial — to draw up a scheme of reform to present at the next meeting of the Great Council. The King was forced to assent. To an assembly which met in June at Oxford, known as the " Mad Parliament," the committee submitted, not only a list of grievances, but a plan of government by which all authority was to be transferred from the Crown to representative bodies of the baronage. Chief among them was a permanent committee of fifteen which was to have complete control of the administration to which the King's Ministers were to be answerable. Three times a year it was to meet with another committee of twelve chosen from the Great Council to transact the business formerly in the hands of the latter body. Other committees still were to undertake the work of financial and Church reform. Such were the Provisions of Oxford. Their merit was in putting a check on the absolutism of an unpatriotic and incompetent King ; yet they are open to serious criticism in that they aimed to put in his place an oligarchy that would tend to become equally self-seeking and ineffec- tive and would be far more likely to hamper the executive and to fo- ment discord than to advance the welfare of the Kingdom. Preparation for War (1263). — No sooner were the Provisions ac- knowledged than the baronial party split into two factions. One was led by Simon de Montfort who seems to have been honestly de- sirous of securing the interests of all classes. The other was selfishly 102 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN concerned with the interests of its own order. Simon secured a mo- mentary ascendancy by attaching Prince Edward to his cause, and, in 1259, carried the passage of a series of measures known as the Pro- visions of Westminster, by which the powers and profits of the private feudal courts were greatly curtailed. For a time the King worked loyally with the new council ; nevertheless, before many months, he shook himself free from the baronial shackles, he made an alliance with Louis IX, King of France, he drew the baronial faction opposing Simon to his side, he reconciled himself with Edward, and, finally, appealed to Pope Alexander IV to release him from his oath to observe the Provisions. This last request was granted by a bull, dated 13 April, 1 261, which annulled the whole legislation of 1 258-1 259. With his hand thus strengthened, Henry returned to his old courses. The renewal of danger drew the two factions of the barons together again, and civil war broke out in 1263 ; but the opposing forces proved so evenly balanced that they decided to arbitrate and appealed to Louis IX to settle the points at issue. However, when the French King, in 1264, decided almost every question in favor of the Crown, Simon, whose chief following was now among the lesser folk, refused to be bound by the award. Simon's Victory at Lewes (1264). His Famous Parliament (1265). — In the civil war which followed he was able to win a great victory over the royal forces, 14 May, 1264, at Lewes, as a result of which Henry was forced to agree to uphold the Great Charter, the Charter of the Forests, and the Provisions of Oxford, while Edward was to be a hos- tage for the good behavior of the " Marchers," or men of the Welsh border who were bitterly hostile to the baronial leader for having called in the Welsh as allies. During the period of his triumph de Montfort had the King issue writs, summoning a notable assembly which sat from January to March, 1265. This has often been spoken of as the first Parliament in English history, because it was the first body in which both knights of the shire and representatives from the towns sat with the Great Council, but it was a partisan body and far from being completely representative in other respects. De Mont- fort's Parliament, however, is not without constitutional significance as a stage in the development from the Great Council to the institution which came to represent the three estates of the realm. More than once, already, knights from the shires had sat with the barons, but never before had they been reenforced by representatives from the towns. Defeat and Death of Simon (1265). His Character and Work. — In April, 1265, war broke out again, the standard of revolt being HENRY III 103 raised by the Marchers, whereupon discontented members of Simon's party and old royal adherents flocked to the western country. Prince Edward, who had escaped from his keepers while hunting, soon ap- peared as leader and, 4 August, he succeeded in entrapping the bar- onial army at Evesham, on a narrow tongue of land formed by an abrupt bend of the Stratford Avon, where Simon fell bravely fighting. By the victory of Evesham and the death of Simon the royal party was again triumphant. " Sir Simon the righteous " was not a hero without blemish ; he started life as an adventurer, nor did he begin his opposition as a disinterested advocate of popular liberty, but be- cause of quarrels with Henry, culminating in the Gascon affair. Even after he put himself at the head of the national party he was at times shifty and cruel, and always masterful and impatient of restraint; yet whether from interest or conviction, he threw himself on the sup- port of the people, worked sincerely for their interests, and secured them a more complete representation in the National Council than they had ever enjoyed. Consequently they adored their departed leader as a saint, and miracles were worked at his tomb. Final Submission of the Barons (1267). Results of the Struggle. — A fragment of the barons held out stubbornly at Kenilworth until December of 1266 when disease and famine compelled them to sur- render. By way of concession the reenactment of the Charters was promised, as well as the redress of some of the grievances mentioned in the Provisions of 1258 and 1259, but another revolt had to be faced, and some minor risings had to be put down before the country was really at peace. The barons had failed to secure the supremacy at which they aimed and it was well for England that they did ; but they had broken the power of absolutism, they had aroused and kept alive the national opposition against foreign favorites, they had made the Charters a reality, they had taken steps to make the Great Council a popular representative body. The result of their work was to mani- fest itself in the next reign and to live in time to come. Death of Henry (1272). —While his sons, Edward and Edmund, were away on a crusade Henry died, 16 November, 1272 in his sixty- sixth year. Personally he had many commendable qualities. His private life was blameless, he was religious, he had a refined mind and cultivated tastes. A generous patron of art, his most enduring monu- ment is Westminster Abbey, the foundation of Edward the Confessor which he caused to be rebuilt. As to his faults they are manifest in the history of his reign ; he lacked moral courage, he was timid, evasive, weak, and obstinate. Worst of all he had no talent for administration or grasp of politics, and was quite un-English in feeling. 104 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN England and the Intellectual and Religious Movements of the Time. — One good side there was. to the un-English policy of Henry III, it helped to open the country to the best fruits of Continental civiliza- tion. By a strange contradiction the period, in spite of maladminis- tration and turbulence, was one of high achievement in art, in reli- gious revival, and intellectual progress. In England, as elsewhere, two antagonistic tendencies were at work : politically there was a tend- ency to accentuate national differences, which ran counter to the other great tendency of the Middle Ages, that toward unity or uni- versality. The Catholic Church with the Pope at the head was the church of all Christendom, its clergy, its monks, and friars were sub- jects of no country, but citizens of heaven — as they sometimes pleased to call themselves. The academic system was a universal one, famous scholars were equally at home in England, France, and Italy, while Latin was the language of the learned in every Christian land. The Crusades, too, offered a common enterprise which brought to- gether men without distinction of boundary. The friar, the knight- errant, the scholar, and the merchant tended to maintain and foster a union which a growing sense of nationality threatened to break. The Franciscan and Dominican Friars. — Perhaps the most potent factor in the revised intellectual and religious life of the age is to be found in the new orders — the friars. Two of these orders of brothers (Latin fratres) came into being at about the same time, and they sup- plemented each other. That of the Spanish St. Dominic was strong in organization and the defense of orthodoxy, that of the Italian, St. Francis, in spiritual impulse and ideals of pure living. Shortly before Henry III of England was born, a young merchant of the little town of Assisi felt prompted by a divine voice to renounce his past life and to devote himself to the service of God and his fellow man. In one direction particularly there was an abundant field : the towns had scant regard for the poor who lived on their outskirts; the parish priest proved unequal to the situation, while the monk was a recluse and fled from the crowded haunts of men. St. Francis, for so he came to be known, taking literally the words of Christ : " provide neither gold nor silver ... in your purses, neither scrip for your journey," renounced his worldly prospects and went forth to teach and preach and minister to the simple and needy. After some years he went to Rome, hatless and barefoot, and obtained from Innocent III permis- sion to establish a rule of life from which grew his famous order of mendicant friars — formally recognized in 1223. In three respects the Franciscans grew away from the original intention of their founder : he started with the idea of wandering missionaries, with no formal HENRY III I05 organization, who should not concern themselves with theology; however, even in his own lifetime they came to center chiefly in cities, they were constituted into a regular order, and as time went on, they became famous for their learned scholars. Meantime, in southern France, the son of a noble Castilian house, trained in the best academic traditions of the day, was devoting his rare talents and pitiless zeal to combating heresy and schism. This was the redoubtable St. Dominic who founded the order of preaching friars which adopted the Franciscan principle of poverty, and was formally recognized in 1220. The Coming of the Friars to England. — In 1221 a band of thirteen Dominicans landed in England. Establishing themselves in London, they proceeded to Oxford, where they set up schools and gathered disciples about them whom they trained as preachers. The Domini- cans were followed two years later by a small group of nine Franciscans, who grew and spread until within five years they were domiciled in almost every considerable town in England; but their houses were held for them in trust, for they could possess no property. Settling down outside the city walls, among the destitute and lowly, they taught and ministered with heroic devotion, preaching to the people in a homely style and spicing their sermons with merry jests and tales. What with their humor and their zeal they gained a wonderful hold wherever they went. Moreover, the English Franciscans produced some of the most famous scholars of the age. 1 As time went on, how- ever, so many unworthy recruits entered the ranks that by Chaucer's day friars had come to be generally regarded as beggarly rogues. The Parish Priest. — The earlier friars, as well as doing their peculiar work in the towns and the universities, acted as evangelists conducting revivals in the rural districts. Nevertheless, the parish church was still the center of village life, though the gilds, too, had a very marked religious aspect, for they provided masses for the souls of deceased members and had their patron saints and funds for charity. The parish priests were simple men of very scanty learning, with just enough Latin to say mass. They were forbidden to accept any secular office, such as that of steward or bailiff, or any judicial function involving power to inflict capital punishment, and were also prohibited from dressing in military fashion or from taking part in " scot ales " or public feasts where there were competitions in drinking. While there were frequent complaints of ignorance, of negligence in teaching and in visiting the sick, of hurrying through the service, and of too fre- quent absence from the parish, some performed their duties excellently and many others did their best according to their lights. Riotous 1 The most famous Dominican scholars were not Englishmen. 106 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN sports, gluttony, and heavy drinking were among the chief offenses of the laity. The Popular Religion. — The religion of the age was very real. The people, though rude and boisterous, were simple and childlike and ready to atone for their sins by crusades and pilgrimages, by con- tributing to the building of churches and monasteries, and by gifts at shrines and altars. Anchorites, living in caves and on the banks of lonely streams, were visited by pilgrims marveling at their faith and holiness. Worship was chiefly a matter of outward form. Though the people were generally instructed in the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the ten commandments, they blindly worshiped images and relics and sought to approach God mainly through the medium of the saints. Belief in witchcraft, charms, and spells was practically universal. Some of their superstitions were very touching and pretty. A story is told of the appearance, one harvest time in East Anglia " no man knew whence," of a boy and girl " completely green in their person and clad in garments of strange color and unknown materials." These strange visitors were most kindly welcomed, baptized into the fellowship of the Church, and cherished, " till at length they changed their natural color through the natural effect of our food." The Universities. — At the beginning of Henry's reign the two essentials of a university were the masters and the scholars, who might migrate wherever they would. A great step in advance was taken when men began to found colleges, or houses with a master and scholars or fellows, with the object of providing shelter for poor students and of encouraging systematic study. John Balliol's foundation at Ox- ford, in 1260, was hardly more than an almshouse for needy scholars; but Walter de Merton's, three years later, was well organized and furnished a model for subsequent college benefactors. The univer- sities were far from being centers of secluded calm, for we hear of fre- quent riots among the students ; moreover, they exercised a profound and active influence on the politics and government of the time, and produced men who took prominent places at court or on the episcopal bench. Grosseteste and Adam Marsh, lecturers to the Franciscans, were famous scholars, but their fame has been eclipsed by that of Roger Bacon (12 14-1294). The prevailing interest of the learned had been, since the eleventh century, to elaborate the great philosophical, theological system known as Scholasticism, the aim of which was to defend the authority of the Church by weapons of logic supplied by Aristotle. There were two schools, the Realists who asserted that general ideas, " Universals " as they called them, alone were real; opposed to them were the Nominalists insisting that they had no real HENRY III 107 existence but were only names. The dominant method of the School- men was deductive, that is they proceeded from general principles to particular cases. Bacon, who mastered all the scientific learning of the time and who knew Greek and Hebrew as well, sought to in- troduce the experimental or inductive method by which general prin- ciples are discovered or framed from particular facts. Unfortunately he was ahead of his time, he was suspected of being a heretic and ma- gician, and spent years of his life in exile and confinement. Although the age was a learned one, the tendency was toward formalism and speculative philosophy rather than toward elegant culture, broad human interests, and graceful literary expression. Literature and Language. — In this period the only historian to compare with William of Malmesbury and William of Newburgh was Matthew Paris, who set himself not only to record events but to com- ment on their significance and to discuss the motives and character of the men who took part in them. Furthermore, his knowledge was not confined to purely English affairs, but included those of the Con- tinent as well. The chronicles were of course written in Latin which was still the language of the learned. French remained the elegant language of the Court and upper classes, and of the romances by which they were diverted. It was used, too, in pleadings in the law courts and in the debates in the Great Council. However, because of the growing national sentiment, English, the tongue of the yeoman and the lower classes, was steadily developing as a vehicle of literary ex- pression. There are a few fine poetic pieces, while, in village ale- houses and fairs, strolling minstrels sang of the early heroes, Arthur and Merlin, Alexander and Charlemagne. Architecture. — " Architecture, the great art of the Middle Ages, was in its perfection " in this reign. The transition from the Norman to the early English style with its delicate spires and pointed arches was complete by the reign of John and under his successor the latter style reached its maturity. King Henry's chief architectural interest was in the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, though, curiously enough, this national monument is French rather than English both in structure and in decoration. Very few castles were built in this period except along the frontier districts facing the Welsh border, and although increasing attempts were made to render them habitable by the addition of fireplaces and other comforts, the fortified manor houses were being more and more preferred as dwellings for the great, while the poor folk still lived in simple wooden houses. Foreign Trade. — Merchants, except during the intervals of war with France, were allowed to come and go freely. English staples 108 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN were mainly agricultural, grain, flesh, and dairy produce. Such sur- plus as was raised was sold at local markets and fairs. Wool, wool- fells, and hides had come to be the chief articles of export, along with tin, lead, and iron. The crusaders had given a great impulse to inter- course with the East, and the great nobles, lay and clerical, imported fine cloths, silks, furs, and jewels, wax, spices, and wines. While the best cloth came from the looms of Flanders and the north of France, where most of the English wool found a market, the Rhine cities sup- plemented the Gascon ports as sources for the wine supply, and the Hanseatic League controlled the Baltic trade and brought in furs, tar, and fish. The Italian cities were for two centuries to come the chief carriers for the Oriental traffic. Although the foreign trade was mainly in the hands of foreign merchants, English shipping was stead- ily increasing. The Cinque Ports 1 were coming into importance and securing peculiar privileges because of the ships which they furnished for the royal navy ; as a matter of fact they were still little better than " nests of chartered sea robbers " and many complaints were brought against them on this score; but they rendered indispensable serv- ice on more than one occasion. Henry's reign is notable in many ways as a stage in the progress of maritime affairs; for ex- ample, licenses to privateers were first issued, and the magnet began to be used. Internal Trade. Markets and Fairs. — The danger and difficulty of traveling, as well as the innumerable and vexatious charges for tolls and ferries, hampered internal trade. There were some good roads, the survival of Roman times, particularly that from Dover to London ; but many were almost impassable during certain seasons in the year, and off the beaten path the country was infested by robbers. Outside the local markets and the towns, trading centered in the great annual fairs, the most famous of which were at Stourbridge and Winchester. The Stourbridge fair — opening annually 18 September for three weeks — controlled the trade of the eastern counties and the Baltic Sea, though every trade and nationality was represented. More im- portant still was the Winchester fair. Lying between Southampton and London it was the great mart for the southeast, and opened every year on the eve of St. Giles (31 August) for sixteen days. During the session of the fair, all trade was suspended in the neighborhood and weights and measures were carefully scrutinized ; in return for priv- ileges and protection the merchants paid heavy toll to the lords who controlled the fairs. 1 Originally five port towns in Sussex and Kent (Hastings, Rommey, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich) to which two were subsequently added. HENRY III 109 Native Industries, Towns, and Gilds. — The progress of the native industries was not as yet very great. Agriculture, fishing, and mining were the chief pursuits. Such cloth as was manufactured went to supply the needs of the household, except in certain towns where the Flemish weavers, dyers, and fullers were established. Each village had its own tanner and bootmaker, smith, carpenter, and miller, and usually a professional hunter of wolves, cats, and otters, and moles whose skins were mainly used for hats. The towns, however, were developing steadily, even the smaller ones were no longer the homes of agriculturists but contained flourishing organizations of trade and handicraftsmen. A very pronounced feature was the division of labor. For instance, in connection with the production and distribution of each of the staple commodities, wood and leather, we find ten or a dozen separate gilds or companies, each with its special quarters or market. Houses were arranged with the dwelling rooms at the top, the workshop below, while the goods were exposed for sale under the overhanging porch on the edge of the street. The gilds were exercis- ing an increasing influence on the town government, for their members occupied the most important offices, and municipal affairs were regu- lated in their interests. Rural Life. — After all, however, England was still mainly an agri- cultural country. The long vacations of the universities and the law courts are a survival of this time when the students and the practi- tioners were needed at home to work on the harvest. All evidences point to a quiet steady improvement of conditions. Landlords de- voted more and more personal attention to their estates. Though the tenant farmer had appeared, he as yet played little part in rural economy. The status of the cultivator continued to improve and, more and more, serfs became free agricultural laborers. The clergy, however, were constantly preaching to the tillers of the soil to remain where God had placed them, comparing the ambitious to the worm that thought it had wings or the rat who wished to marry the sun's daughter. Owing to the faulty communications which made it nec- essary for each district to be so far as possible self-sufficing, the waste- ful system of mixed farming persisted. Wheat, rye, and stock were all raised together without regard to the fitness of the special locality for one or the other, except in certain parts of Yorkshire where the Cistercians devoted themselves to wool growing. Because of the difficulty of transportation, the lords and even the kings wandered about from manor to manor to consume the supplies belonging to them. Some magnates had as many as ten or eleven estates scattered over different counties, each with a bailiff to keep its accounts and under HO SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the general supervision of a steward whose duties were mainly legal. It was still practically impossible to keep any considerable amount of stock over the winter. Aside from a heavy famine, during the years 1 257-1 259, the period was, in general, one of plenty and prosperity. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Davis; Sir J. H. Ramsay, The Dawn of the Constitution (1908) ; and T. F. Tout, Political History of England (1905), an interesting and scholarly account of the period from the accession of Henry III to the death of Edward I. Stubbs, Early Plantagenets (1886), owing to its group- ing of topics, gives perhaps the best brief account of the reign of Henry III. Kate Norgate, The Minority of Henry III (191 2) is the fullest and most recent narrative of the early years of Henry III. Constitutional and Legal. Taylor; A. B. White; Taswell-Langmead ; Stubbs, Constitutional History; Pollock and Maitland. Social, industrial, and intellectual conditions. Traill ; Bateson ; Davis ; Moody and Lovett ; Taine; Cambridge History of Literature; Jusserand; and A. G. Little, Roger Bacon (1914). Biography. G. W. Prothero, Simon de Montfort (1877) ; F.S.Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste (1899), "the most complete life of Grosseteste " ; M. Creighton, Historical Lectures and Addresses (1903), three brief excellent lectures on Grosseteste and his times. The Church. Wakeman ; Stephens ; also F. A. Gasquet, Henry III and the English Church (1905), from the Roman Catholic standpoint; and A. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars (1890). Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 30-36. CHAPTER XI EDWARD I AND EDWARD II (1272-1327). THE COMPLETION OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM Edward I (1272-1307), Accession and Early Life. — Henry III had been dead for nearly two years before Edward I returned from the Holy Land, in the prime of his young manhood. The son of the pet- tiest of the Angevins and of a foreign mother, he seemed far from fitted to lead a people whose national and patriotic aspirations were rapidly awakening. Nor did his childhood or early youth promise much. At fifteen he was married to a foreign princess, Eleanor of Castile, and jousts, tournaments, and the pleasures of the chase caused him for a time to neglect graver occupations. The baronial revolt, however, brought him for a season under the influence of de Montfort : although his royal instincts and his affection for his father soon drew him from the ranks of revolt, he had learned lessons in military and political affairs which deeply influenced his future, and he came to be recognized as the first truly English King since the Norman Conquest. Personal Traits. — Yet, in spite of his ancestry and some unpromis- ing signs in his youth, Edward was well qualified both in mind and body to become the representative of English hopes. His fair hair and ruddy cheeks were typically Anglo-Saxon. So tall that he got the name of " Long-shanks," his commanding presence, united to skill in chivalrous exercises and military ability, were bound to impress the medieval Englishman. While prompt to resist encroachments of the Church or the Papacy, he was genuinely religious; he was devout in visiting shrines, he made vows in time of stress, and when delivered from danger and difficulty never failed to offer public thanks. Though he prided himself on his truthfulness, adopting as his motto, Pactum serva (" keep troth "), yet he was not above legal evasions when he kept the letter of his agreement at the expense of the spirit. The Subjugation of Wales (1277-1282). — The first serious problem that the King had to face was the conquest of Wales. The Celtic peoples occupying the strip of coast to the north and south of the in 112 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN peninsula now known as Wales had been isolated from their kinsmen and had been conquered and absorbed before the Conquest, and the Normans had set up earldoms to protect the Marches, or border, from the fierce mountaineers who remained unsubdued. During the reigns of John and Henry III, Llywelyn, and his grandson of the same name, succeeded in extending their authority over all Wales. The older Llywelyn by making common cause with the barons against John secured important concessions in Magna Carta. The younger, in alliance with Simon de Montfort, took an active part against Henry III during the Barons' war, at the close of which the English King granted him extremely liberal terms ; in return for homage and an indemnity he was to be recognized as Prince of Wales and immediate lord of all the Welsh chieftains outside the limits of the Marches. However, when Edward came to the throne, Llywelyn refused to per- form homage or to pay indemnity. A succession of invasions and more than five years of intermittent fighting were required — during which time the unscrupulousness and brutality of English administra- tive officials did much to keep resistance aflame — before the defeat and death in battle of Llywelyn, 1282, enabled the English King to complete the conquest of Wales. The Statute of Wales or Rhuddlan (1284). — In 1284 the Statute of Wales was issued at Rhuddlan to provide for governing the recent acquisitions, which were secured by fortresses. Wales was formally annexed to the English dominions and the English shire system was extended by the creation of four shires in the north and by the reorgan- ization of two already established in the south. English law admin- istered by English sheriffs was introduced, though, wherever possible, Welsh local customs were allowed to stand. In 1301 the title of Prince of Wales was conferred on Edward's oldest surviving son, born at Carnarvon in 1284. This has been the customary title of the heir apparent to the throne ever since. The French and Scotch Wars and Their Consequences. — Within a few years Edward involved himself in Scotch complications that, combined with a French war which followed, led to most significant consequences. Henceforth, English Kings were constantly inter- fering in Scotch affairs, a policy which threw Scotland into the arms of France and established a close association between the two coun- tries, with a consequent French influence on Scotch manners and cus- toms that left enduring marks. Also French intrigue so accentuated the natural hostility of the Scots that — to say nothing of persistent plundering raids — England had to reckon with her northern neigh- bors in every crisis, foreign and domestic, during the next four cen- BORMAY * CO.jENGR'SrN. EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 1 13 turies. Finally, the wars against the Scots and French forced Edward to make demands of money and service from his subjects which re- sulted in their securing from him constitutional concessions of great and enduring value. The Disputed Succession in Scotland. — The country ruled by the Scotch Kings in the thirteenth century was composed of many diverse elements. Although the Highlands and the royal race were Celtic, the Lowlands, forming the richest and most populous part of the realm, were inhabited by people of English blood with English institutions and bound to England by close feudal ties. Ever since the time of Edward the Elder, English Kings had claimed a shadowy overlordship over the Scots ; but its extent and character had never been clearly determined. Suddenly, in 1286, Alexander III, the reigning King, was killed by his horse falling, leaving as his only direct heir a little granddaughter, who died in 1290. In 1291 Edward ordered the Scottish barons and clergy to meet him, and announced his intention, as Superior and Lord Paramount, to settle the succession. There were no less than twelve claimants, of whom the two leading ones Were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. The law of the case was re- ferred to a body of commissioners, and as a result of their findings Edward pronounced in favor of Balliol, who swearing fealty to him was crowned in 1292 at Scone. The Conquest of Scotland (1296). The Deposition of John Bal- liol. — Edward had intervened in the interests of order, and he ob- served the law, as declared by the commissioners, in his award. At the same time he took advantage of the situation to press his claims to overlordship, and in pursuance of this policy demanded that English courts should decide cases which were appealed from the courts of Scotland. Balliol sought to evade this requirement, contracted, in 1295, an alliance with France, sent an expedition across the Border, and ended, in 1296, by renouncing his allegiance. Thereupon, Edward invaded Scotland, took Balliol prisoner, and forced him to renounce his claim to the kingship. Though far from harsh, many of Edward's measures galled the already irritated pride of the Scots. He made a triumphal march through the country, he declared the Kingdom forfeited, placed most of the great offices of State in English hands, and carried off the ancient coronation stone of Scone to Westminster Abbey where it has remained ever since. The War with France (1293). — A breach with France, beginning in 1293, arose out of quarrels between English and French sailors due to bitter commercial rivalry, and the wily Philip IV, now King of France, seized the pretext to pronounce the forfeiture of Edward's Gascon 114 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN possessions, a step which led the English King to declare war in June, 1294. In order to meet the Franco-Scottish alliance, concluded the fol- lowing year, he took the decisive step of appealing to the whole body of his subjects by summoning, in November, the Model Parliament, which marks the culmination of the growth of English representative government and perhaps the most important stage of its history. The Beginnings of Parliament to 1265. — The term " Parliament " means literally a speaking or conferring, and came to be applied to the body in which the speaking took place, a general council of the realm, summoned by the King, to consult on the affairs of the realm and to transact its business, to vote taxes, to enact and repeal laws. Matthew Paris first employed the name in connection with an as- sembly of the Magnates, in 1246, though that particular body was no more representative or elective than the Witan or the Great Council. The origin of the representative element may be traced to the juries first employed regularly under Henry II to bring criminals to justice, to decide suits at law, and to assess taxes, and who, during the time of Richard's able Minister, Hubert Walter, came to be more and more elective in character. As the lesser nobility came to count for less in the Great Council they began to identify themselves with the landed gentry and to serve on juries transacting local business. In the course of the conflicts under John and Henry III, sometimes the Crown and sometimes the barons called these local representatives to meet with the Great Council until gradually they came to form a part of the reg- ular machinery of central government. In 12 13 it is recorded that representatives from certain towns were summoned to meet at St. Albans in August, while, in November, four discreet knights of each shire were called to Oxford " to confer with the King on the affairs of the kingdom " ; but it is uncertain whether the local representatives appeared at either place, and taxes continued for many years to be voted in councils of great tenants-in-chief and assessed and collected in the separate shires by representative knights. The first clear case of a central assembly of representative knights came in 1254, when, upon the refusal of the bishops and barons to vote supplies during a Gascon campaign, two knights from each shire were sum- moned through the sheriff to declare what the electors were willing to grant. The Growth of Parliament from 1265 to 1295. — The next step was taken in 1265 when Simon de Montfort summoned to his Parliament not only two knights from each shire, but also two citizens or burgesses from each of twenty-one cities and boroughs which he selected. This has often been called the first English Parliament ; but, while Simon EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 115 deserves credit for first bringing together the two elements that make up the later House of Commons, his was not a completely representa- tive body. It .consisted exclusively of his own supporters, the lower clergy were not summoned at all ; only the barons of his following were present, and, in the case of the towns, the writs were directed to such mayors as were on his side, and not, as came to be the case later, to the sheriffs of the shires in which the towns were situated. All one can say is that the Parliament of 1265 represented more classes than any which had met up to that time. While, moreover, in all the Parlia- ments summoned during the next thirty years, some one of the three estates — nobles, clergy, commons — were either absent or incom- pletely represented, nevertheless, Simon de Montfort deserves credit for initiating a very important step in parliamentary progress. The Model Parliament (1295). — Edward's Parliament of 1295 was the first to represent all classes. Here were present representatives from the nobility, earls, and barons; from the clergy, archbishops and bishops, abbots, priors, heads of the military religious orders, deans of cathedrals, and proctors or delegates from the various chapters and dioceses ; from the commons, two knights from each shire and representatives from more than a hundred cities and boroughs. In spite of a reference in the writ of summons to the " most righteous law . . . that what touches all shall be approved by all," Edward was more interested in getting money for his wars with France and Scotland than in perfecting the constitution of Parliament. While some incomplete assemblies met after 1295, the assembly of that year furnished the model for time to come. It was the work of the next century to determine how the estates now represented should arrange themselves. The lower clergy soon dropped out and transacted their business in representative bodies of their own, known as Convocations, of which there were two, one under Canterbury and one under York, each divided into two houses, an upper and a lower. The higher clergy had seats both in the upper house of Convocation and in Parliament. In the latter body they soon came — in 1332 — to be organized, together with the temporal peers, into the House of Lords, while the knights of the shire and the representatives of the cities and boroughs united to form the House of Commons. 1 The Opposition of the Clergy, the Barons, and the Merchants 1 However, it was a long time before the Commons came to appreciate their privilege, and for various reasons : it was a hard and expensive journey to West- minster; they were usually called only to vote supplies, at first counting for little in the deliberations of the prelates and nobles ; and local centers had to pay the salaries of such representatives as they sent. Ii6 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN (1296). — From the money granted by the Model Parliament Edward was able to conquer Scotland in 1296, but an expedition to Gascony led by his brother Edmund was a dismal failure. While the barons, knights, and burgesses, assembled in a new Parliament, November, 1296, made liberal grants for another campaign against Philip the Fair, the clergy took their stand on a bull known as Clericis laicos recently issued by Boniface VIII, which forbade the lay authorities, under pain of excommunication, to collect taxes from the clergy without the Pope's consent. Edward replied by putting them out- side the protection of the law so that any man might plunder them at will, and all lay fiefs of clerks in the see of Canterbury who refused to pay were seized by royal order. Increased necessity soon forced Ed- ward into conflict with both the barons and the merchants. In a stormy baronial assembly, the former, led by the Marshal, the Earl of Norfolk, and the Constable, the Earl of Hereford, refused to serve in Gascony unless the King commanded in person, and collected men at arms to support their resistance. The King embittered the mer- chants by seizing a portion of their wool and subjecting the remainder to a heavy tax. Disaffection was further spread by requisitions for grain and salt throughout the Kingdom. Edward's Expedition to Flanders. Wallace's Rising in Scotland (1297). — Edward's courage and resource and the loyalty of his sub- jects in the face of danger enabled him to tide over the crisis. The clergy grudgingly yielded their quota; the merchants were satisfied with a promise that they would be compensated for their wool when peace was restored ; while the King paid for his requisitions and agreed to pay for the services of all who would respond to his " affec- tionate request." Leaving Prince Edward as Regent, he departed for Flanders in the summer of 1297 with a goodly following. Though the Gascon expedition was dropped, Norfolk and Hereford resigned their offices and held sullenly aloof. Meantime, a formidable rising broke out in Scotland headed by Sir William Wallace, one of the Low- land knights. Edward refused to be diverted from Flanders, though he sent some of his best warriors to the North ; but the English forces were overcome at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, n September, and Scotland passed for the moment out of English hands. The Confirmation of the Charters (1 297) . — After Edward's departure for Flanders, those barons who still remained disaffected took advan- tage of the Scotch crisis to renew their demands. Coming to Parlia- ment armed, they threatened to vote no more supplies and, 12 Octo- ber, the Regency was forced to give way. The concessions were em- bodied in a famous document known as the Confirmatio Cartarutn, EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 117 providing that the Charter of Liberties and tie Forests should be confirmed, that the King's recent exactions should not be made prece- dents, and, most important of all, it was enacted that, " no aids, tasks or prises were to be taken, but by the common consent of the realm and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed." 1 The Conjirmatio was ratified by the King at Ghent. By specifying "aids, tasks, and prises" the barons sought to cover all forms of taxes known to them, and the King recognized the principle that no new or extraordinary taxes should be levied without the consent of Parliament. At least twice afterwards Edward evaded the spirit of his concessions ; moreover, in 1305, he secured from the Pope a solemn absolution from the engagement of 1297. Yet, in spite of all wriggling, a principle had been formulated and recognized which was to influence profoundly the course of English constitutional history. Peace with France (1299). Defeat and Execution of Wallace (1305). — Edward accomplished little in Flanders, and, as Philip IV was not anxious to continue fighting, a peace was arranged in 1297 — concluded in 1299 — by which each party was to retain what he had at the beginning of the war. Thus the English King was free to take the field against the Scots, and, 22 July, 1298, met and defeated the forces of Wallace at Falkirk. In spite of his victory, Edward, owing to desertions, and the scarcity of provisions, had to march south in the early winter of 1299, leaving southern Scotland still unconquered. Two campaigns, in 1300 and 1301, were equally inconclusive, indeed, it was not till 1304 that Edward was able to strike a decisive blow. William Wallace, who held out after the bulk of his countrymen had submitted, was betrayed by a Scot in the King's service, was taken to London, and executed. Robert Bruce. Edward's Last Campaign against the Scots (1307). — In spite of wise laws which Edward framed for them, the Scots remained unreconciled. A leader arose in Robert Bruce, the grandson of Balliol's old rival, who was crowned at Scone, 25 March, 1306. 2 Edward, regardless of the infirmities of age, hastily made preparation and started north ; but died, 7 July, 1307, before he reached the Border. The approach of death did not diminish his hatred toward his opponents. By his order, Edwardus Primus, Scotorum Malleus, Pactum Serva, was inscribed on his tomb, while he further ordered 1 The Statutum De Tallagio non concedendo, formerly accepted as a statute, was probably a preliminary draft of the baronial demands. 2 Every one has heard how in one of his discouraging moments when he was a fugitive in the lonely wastes a spider taught him patience. Il8 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN that his bones should be carried with the army whenever the Scots rebelled, and only buried after their defeat. His was a noble idea to unite the various races of Britain into a single nation ; but to seek to carry it out in the teeth of such intense opposition was criminal folly and involved England and Scotland in untold losses of men and money. Elsewhere, beyond the English borders, Edward's management of affairs was not unsuccessful. He had reduced Wales ; to Ireland, in spite of bristling difficulties, he was able to give a fairly satisfactory rule ; also he frustrated Philip's attempt to seize Gascony, and admin- istered the country with few complaints from either barons or com- mons. His Work as Administrative Organizer and Lawgiver. — It was as an administrative organizer and lawgiver that Edward did his most enduring work. His task was to resume what Henry II had begun, to preserve what was best and adapt it to new conditions, to accept at the same time the most beneficial and necessary of the reforms which had been forced on the Crown under John and Henry III, and to fuse the old and the new into the structure of the Constitution. Although he adapted and supplemented rather than originated, he completed the ground plan of the English government as it exists to-day. Those who came after had only to complete the edifice on the foundations which he had reared. By the end of his reign the principle was ac- cepted that the King was in general bound to respect the privileges of his subjects and to observe the laws of the land ; that the voice of the people should be declared in Parliament, a body, which for the first time completely represented all three classes of the realm, and that all taxes, except those sanctioned by custom, should be granted by this body. 1 Moreover, the common man was protected more securely than ever before by the law of the land against the feudal lord ; the three common law courts, the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer, had taken shape each with its distinct records; the circuits and functions of the itinerant justices had been carefully marked out, and the Council, to assist the King in his deliberations, had become a recognized institution ; and a body of officials under the Chancellor was emerging which was to judge suits on their merits by right or " equity " when the common law was too inelastic to meet the requirements of an individual case. All this and more was brought about largely by a series of laws or statutes so comprehensive, and so superior in numbers and importance that the reign can almost be said to mark the beginnings of English legislation. 1 These principles were often violated in subsequent centuries to come ; but it was much to have secured their recognition thus early. EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 1 19 The First and Second Statutes of Westminster (1275, 1285). — Edward was determined to correct the abuses of officials acting in his name, as well as to enforce the royal rights : to that end, ordinances were issued to prevent extortion. The royal attitude is manifest too, in the first and second Statutes of Westminster, enacted in 1275 and 1285 respectively, which aimed " to redress the state of the Realm in such things as required amendment . . . that Common Right be done to all, as well Poor as Rich, without respect to Persons." These two Statutes are mainly a summary restatement of previous enact- ments such as Magna Carta and the Provisions of Westminster, and of the best features of the administrative measures of Henry II, and his successors. While their main aim is to deal with existing abuses in royal and feudal jurisdiction and to regulate the procedure of the courts rather than to formulate new general principles, the second Statute contains one important new provision — " concerning con- ditional gifts," de donis conditionalibus. It established entailed estates ; that is, estates that should be handed down in an order of succession established by the original donor, failing which they should go back to him and his heirs. The measure was acceptable both to the King and to the great nobles, to the former because it enabled him, when the conditions were not fulfilled, to get back lands originally granted by the Crown, to the latter because it prevented their estates from being diminished by division among heirs or in payment of debt. The Statute of " Mortmain" or de Religiosis (1279). — In 1279 Edward attempted to deal with another grievance. The Church had gradually absorbed fully a third of the lands of the kingdom, and these Church lands were said to be held in "Mortmain," as if by a dead hand that never relaxes its grasp, for corporations, unlike fam- ilies, never died. Moreover, ecclesiastical holdings were exempt from most of the military obligations and other services, such as wardships, marriages, and reliefs. In consequence, the custom arose for those who wished to evade those obligations to grant their lands to the Church on condition of enjoying part of the income. In order to check this abuse Edward enacted his famous statute De Religiosis, or Mort- main, prohibiting such grants without royal license. 1 The Statute of Winchester (1285). — By the Statute of Winchester the King sought to revive and reorganize the old institutions of na- tional police and defense. Every district was to be responsible for the robberies, murders, burnings, thefts, and other crimes committed within its borders. In walled towns the gates were to be shut from 1 The effect was regulative rather than prohibitive, for many licenses for aliena- tion were given. 120 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN sunset to sunrise, and during the summer months the inhabitants were to set a watch at each gate, strangers were to be arrested and examined, and those who escaped were to be followed by the watch, with hue and cry, " from town to town until that they be taken and delivered to the sheriff." It was further enacted that every man, in proportion to his lands and goods, was to provide himself with arms and armor, according to the ancient Assize of Henry II. View of armor was to be made twice every year, and in every hundred and franchise two constables were to be chosen to perform this task, and, likewise, to report to the justices all failures, in their district, to keep arms and armor, to punish crime, to follow the hue and cry, as well as all illegal harboring of strangers, while the justices were in their turn to report such information to the King at every Parliament. Expulsion of the Jews (1290). — One step backward taken by Ed- ward was his expulsion of the Jews, in 1290. Welcomed by the Con- queror and his sons as agents for extorting money from their subjects, they were carefully protected by Henry II. Although legally chattels of the Crown, practically they became masters of the resources of the kingdom. Especially, since usury, or the taking of interest, was for- bidden by the law of the Church, the bulk of the business of money lending fell into Jewish hands. Cruel massacres at the opening of Richard's reign indicate the popular hatred against them, due to their exemption from the laws of the land, and to their extortion for which they were not altogether to blame. Also they were accused of openly mocking at the belief and ceremonies of the Church, and wild stories were circulated of their buying Christian boys to crucify them. The old accusations were repeated in the reign of Edward with many more besides ; for example, they were charged with playing into the hands of the rich by making over small mortgages to great landowners and even of forgery and money clipping. Edward was prejudiced against them, and his mother and the clergy were even more so ; consequently, he readily agreed to drive them out in return for a parliamentary grant. By his bigotry he deprived himself of useful servants, and, no doubt, seriously retarded the financial development of the country. It was centuries before the Jews were allowed to return to England. The Statute of Westminster III. Quia Emptor es, 1290. — The same year, 1290, is notable for the passing of the third Statute of West- minster, otherwise known as Quia Emptores, from the opening words : " For as much as purchasers of land." It aimed to prevent the pro- cess of increasing sub-infeudation, whereby services due to great land- EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 121 owners were becoming so divided and confused that it was difficult to keep track of them. Henceforth, lands granted by a tenant ceased to be under his control and passed to that of his lord. In other words, the grantee was not the vassal of the grantor ; but of the grantor's lord. As the Statute expressly authorized the sale or alienation of lands under such conditions, many landowners from financial necessity took advantage of the authorization, in spite of the restriction, and since the King was in many cases the overlord, the number of small freeholders was greatly increased. Edward as a Ruler. Significance of his Reign. — Edward I was a masterful man who sought to be every inch a King, but he had the good of his subjects at heart and spent his life in their service. While claiming all that was due him, he was wise enough to recognize the limitations put upon the royal authority in the struggles of the century by admitting the two great principles that Parliament should represent all classes and that it should have a voice in granting all revenues over and above those belonging to the King by law and ancient usage. When, in addition, his legislative activity, his judicial and administrative reforms and all his other work is taken into account, it is evident that his reign is one of the most notable in the annals of the country. Edward II (1307-1327). The Ordinances of 1311. — Edward of Carnarvon, the unworthy son of a worthy father, had been carefully trained in the business of war and state ; he had acted as Regent in 1297, and accompanied his father on his later Scotch campaigns; nevertheless, he had no inclination or aptitude for business, and was so yielding in temper that he was the victim of unscrupulous favorites, unhappily choosing the worst when he needed the best. In the in- cessant conflicts which plagued the country from his very accession, the political issues, if they can be called such, were on a distinctly lower level than those of the last. The King was opposed, not as a strong man seeking to solve national problems in his own way, but because he was extravagant, frivolous, and incapable, while on the other hand, the men who led the fight against him were, even more than those of the preceding generation, seeking personal and class privileges. Edward's heavy exactions and misgovernment received their first check and the first acute crisis came to a head, when in March, 13 10, the barons, in the teeth of the royal prohibition, assembled fully armed, and forced the King to assent to the appointment of a body of twenty- one commissioners to reform the administration. These Lords Ordainers, as they were called, drew up a body of " Ordinances " which aimed not only to reform the whole system of finance and ad- 122 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN ministration of justice, but to transfer the governing power from the Crown to a narrow baronial oligarchy. In a frantic effort to save his favorite, Piers Gaveston — a greedy adventurer and trifler whose mocking tongue had contributed to estrange many of the royal oppo- nents Edward put off ratifying the Ordinances till October, 1311, and then broke his pledge. Thereupon the barons took up arms, captured Gaveston and, after a trial which was but a farce, beheaded him, 19 May, 131 2. The Scotch Victory at Bannockburn (1314). — Although this brought him to time, Edward failed to profit by the lesson. In con- sequence of his inability to attach his opponents to his service, the Scots were able to inflict on the English the most disastrous defeat in the centuries of conflict between the two countries. In the early summer of 13 14 Edward marched to relieve Stirling Castle which the Scots were besieging. Though the hostile barons refused to follow in person and only grudgingly sent their legal contingents, the English army was the greatest ever yet sent to invade the north and outnum- bered the enemy more than two to one. The battle, fought 24 June, in the royal park between Bannockburn and Stirling Castle ended in a complete rout for the English. Edward fled to Dunbar, whence he took to the sea and never stopped until he reached his own kingdom. During the remainder of the reign the northern border suffered one inroad after another. In 1323 Edward, though he still refused to acknowledge Bruce as King of the Scots, concluded a truce which was still in force at the close of the reign. Temporary Triumph and the Declaration of 1322. — Edward subsequently found new favorites in the two Despensers, father and son, who although " neither foreigners nor upstarts," were regarded with envy by the barons because of their greed and ambition. Even- tually they broke into armed revolt in 1322; but this time Edward was able to raise a force strong enough to gain a victory. As a result, the Ordinances were revoked in a Parliament held the same year and the important principle enunciated that : " matters which are to be established for the estate of our Lord the King and his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliament by the King and by the Council of the prel- ates, earls, and barons, and the commonality of the realm." How- ever, nothing came of this bid for popular support; the flighty Ed- ward proved incapable of winning the people anymore than the barons. For four years, from 1322 to 1326, he ruled completely subject to the Despensers. Disorder, failure, treachery were the results. To cap all, the Despensers affronted Queen Isabella, a passionate, unscrupu- EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 123 lous woman embittered by humiliation and neglect, who eagerly seized an opportunity which presented itself to overthrow the hated coun- selors, and, as it turned out, her Consort as well. Overthrow and Deposition of the King (1326-1327). — In 1325 Isabella found a pretext for going to France, where, aided by Roger Mortimer, one of the disaffected lords, she gathered a party about her. In September she invaded England, and before the close of the year both the Despensers, against whom she had proclaimed war, fell into her hands and were put to death. For the King, who was also taken prisoner, a longer period of debasement and suffering was reserved. Parliament assembled, January, 1327. In a tumultuous meeting Prince Edward, a boy of fourteen, was chosen King. Then six articles were framed to justify the deposition of his father. They declared in substance : " that he was incompetent to govern, that he had neglected the business of the kingdom for unbecoming occupations, that he had lost Scotland . . . that he had imprisoned, exiled, and put to death many of the noble men of the land, that he had broken his coronation oath, especially in the matter of doing justice to all, that he had ruined the realm, and there was no hope of his correction." After he had, with much weeping, accepted the decree, homage and fealty were solemnly renounced. Even yet, the furious Queen pursued him with unrelenting ferocity until finally he was murdered, at Berkeley Castle, 21 September, 1327. The folly of Edward of Carnarvon brought upon him a terrible retribution, though the instruments of his downfall were most unworthy. Yet one step in their procedure was fraught with significance. They took a long stride in the direction of popular liberty when they called upon Parliament, as the voice of the people, to declare the great principle that allegiance to a King, who had ceased to govern in the interest of his subjects, might be renounced. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Tout; Ramsay, The Dawn of the Constitution and The Genesis of Lancaster (1913) ; K. H. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages (1913) ; and E. Jenks, Edward Plantagenet (1902), particularly good for the legislation of Edward I. Constitutional. White, Taylor; Taswell-Langmead ; and Stubbs, Constitutional History; Maitland, Constitutional History of England (1908) gives (pp. 18-164) an excellent account of the public law in the time of Edward I ; Medley's Manual contains a good summary of the origin and development of Parliament. C. S. Mcllwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (19 10) is an able discussion of the boundaries between legislative and judicial powers. L. O. Pike, The Constitutional History of 124 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the House of Lords (1894) the standard work on the subject. For a full account of the origin and development of the law courts, see W. S. Holds- worth, History of English Law (1903), I. Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 37-55. Scotland. P. H. Brown, History of Scotland (3 vols., 1899-1909) is the best brief history. CHAPTER XII THE REIGN OF EDWARD III (1327-1377)- THE BEGINNING OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. CHIVALRY AT ITS HEIGHT. THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF THE COMMONS. THE IN- CREASE OF NATIONAL SENTIMENT. FIRST ATTACKS ON THE POWER OF ROME The Misgovernment of Isabella and Mortimer (1327-1330). — Al- though Parliament appointed a guardian for young Edward and a Council to carry on the government during his minority, the real power was in the hands of the Queen Mother and Mortimer, who shamelessly appropriated two thirds of the royal revenue and were so high-handed that " no one dared to open his mouth for the good of the King or of the kingdom." This continued till 1330, when Edward, now eight- een, determined to put an end to their intolerable rule. With a trusty follower and a body of men-at-arms he seized the guilty pair, and issued a proclamation that henceforth he would govern himself. Heavy charges were framed in Parliament against Mortimer, who was condemned without a hearing, and hanged 29 November, while Isabella was allowed to live in honorable retirement till her death, assuming a nun's habit in her later years. Character of the New King. — Edward, now truly King, shone dur- ing most of a long and eventful reign as the typical hero of chivalry. Generous to a fault, with a bearing at once courtly and winning, he excelled in " beautiful feats of arms," both in the tournament and in war. On the other hand, he was ambitious, prodigal, and ostentatious, having no interest in his people except in so far as they contributed resources for his pleasures and his warlike designs. Hence, while he dazzled them for a time by the glories he achieved, he failed in the long run to win their hearts, and reverses in his later years left him a broken, deserted man. Spending most of his life fighting, now with France, now with Scotland, he brought England into a prominence that she had never before enjoyed, but the price was a heavy one, and the ultimate result was failure. Other aspects of his reign, less dra- 125 126 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN matic, were enduring. Parliament shaped itself into the modern House of Lords and House of Commons, while the Lower House began to assert rights which point the way to its later position as mouthpiece of the nation. Commerce advanced with tremendous strides, feu- dalism and chivalry yielded to the rising importance of the middle class, and a new literature in the national tongue made its appearance. Significant religious changes manifested themselves, forerunners of a movement which was, in less than two centuries, to overthrow the universal supremacy of the Church of Rome. Finally, labor and capital began a conflict which has continued with varying intensity even to this day. The Hundred Years' War and its Significance. — In April, 1328, Robert Bruce died, leaving a little son David as his heir. Thereupon, Edward Balliol set himself up as king, and, with the support of an expedition sent by Edward III, overcame the party of Bruce at Hali- don Hill. The little David was sent to France, and the determination of Philip IV to assist him plunged England into a war which lasted well into the next century. " The Hundred Years' War," as it is called, profoundly affected many aspects of English history. Socially, it brought the middle and lower classes to the front, for it demonstrated in battle the su- periority of the yeoman archer over the mailed knight, and it pro- duced poverty and discontent which contributed much to labor risings of peasants against their lords. Politically, it resulted in notable concessions wrung from the King as a result of his need of money for carrying on campaigns. Moreover, owing to a considerable degree to the fact that the Papacy fell temporarily under the control of France, a conflict with Rome was developed which culminated in the Reforma- tion. Finally, the war created a spirit of nationality in the two coun- tries ; England as purely English and France as purely French are a product of this struggle. Causes of the Hundred Years' War. — In the first year of the war, 7 October, 1337, Edward assumed the title of King of France. Al- though this was a mere pretext, although other and more complex causes made the conflict inevitable, it is necessary to understand the grounds on which he based his claims. On the death of Charles IV, in 1328, it was maintained, in behalf of Edward, that his mother, sister of the late King, was the next lineal heir. The peers of France, how- ever, decided in favor of Philip, an uncle of Charles IV, on the ground that, by the law of the Salian Franks — one of the ancestral tribes of the modern Frenchmen — women could neither inherit estates nor transmit them to a son. After some negotiations, Edward accepted THE REIGN OF EDWARD III (1327-1377) 127 the situation and did homage to the new monarch, Philip VI, for his possessions in France. Philip, however, burning to extend his sway over Guyenne, irritated him by constant encroachments. Then came Philip's espousal of the cause of the Scots. While these were the two main causes which led to Edward's resumption of his pretensions to the French succession and his subsequent invasion, other reasons contributed to urge him on. Chief among them was the English King's desire to get a foothold in the County of Flanders where the Flemings, the great cloth makers of the period, had recently revolted against their overlord, Count Louis, who suppressed them with French aid, and sought to prevent Edward from entering into negotiations with his disaffected cities by prohibiting all commercial intercourse with the English, and by seizing their merchants and confiscating their goods. The Opening of the War (1337), and Edward's First Campaigns (1338-1340). — Before embarking on a campaign Edward sought alli- ances abroad, of which the most imposing was with the Emperor Louis, the Bavarian. Philip VI, who formed counter-alliances, began war, 24 May, 1337, by pronouncing the seizure of Guyenne where several castles were besieged and capitulated. The people of Ghent, embittered by the interference with their trade, put at their head Jacques Van Arte- veld, a rich cloth merchant. The leading Flemish cities joined with Ghent, and, in June, 1338, concluded a treaty of commerce. In July Edward sailed for Flanders ; but while the Emperor Louis, as temporal head of Christendom, solemnly guaranteed his title to the crown of France, his allies were slow in coming to his aid, his finances were in- adequate, and it was months before he was ready to face his enemy. Finally, in October, 1339, he invaded France. Philip, who had a glori- ous array, sent a herald with a formal challenge to a pitched battle ; yet when the English King eagerly accepted his challenge, he sud- denly turned about and started for Paris. Edward returned to Flan- ders, and, in February 1340, crossed over to England leaving hostages to the Flemings for his enormous debts. The campaign had been little more than a grand parade, though the poor folk along his line of march suffered bitterly, for flaming towns and villages marked the wake of his progress through a fertile and populous district. To the knightly class war was a noble pastime; to the peasantry it was a gruesome reality. Equipped with new supplies, Edward started on a second expedition 22 June, 1340. Brushing aside the French fleet lurking to intercept him along the Flemish coast, he made himself master of the narrow seas ; but the land campaign was fully as futile and inglorious as that of the previous year. Philip cautiously refused to fight ; Ed- ward's allies proved as apathetic as ever, and his debts accumulated 128 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN steadily. So he patched up a truce, and, in November, stole " away privately for England to elude his creditors." One by one his allies dropped off, the last to go being the Flemish cities, after the murder of their leader, Van Arteveld, in a popular rising in 1345. The Campaign of 1346 and the Battle of Crecy (26 August). — Largely owing to lack of funds, Edward was unable to resume active hostilities till 1346, when the first notable triumph in the Hundred Years' War was achieved. Landing on the Norman coast, 12 July, he had intended to march south and join another English force which had been operating in Gascony since the previous year, but finding that the main French army under Philip's son John blocked his way, he turned north and made for the Flemish coast. Philip, who had hastily gath- ered additional forces, sent detachments ahead and made vain efforts to intercept him first at the Seine and then at the Somme. Edward, having successfully forded the latter river — for the bridges were all destroyed or securely guarded — halted at Crecy and disposed his forces on the slope of a hillside, his men-at-arms dismounted and pro- tected on both flanks by archers, to give battle to Philip and the bulk of his army hurrying in pursuit. There Philip attacked, 26 August, with a force estimated at 60,000, or three times the number of the English. However, his crossbowmen, his men-at-arms and, finally, his mailed knights in successive charges were stopped, riddled, and routed by the deadly flight of the arrows of the English longbowmen. Night ended the carnage, when Philip, after leading a final vain charge, was persuaded to withdraw. Edward's son, the Black Prince, a youth of sixteen, won his spurs in the brunt of the battle. At Crecy, Edward completed successfully a foolhardy campaign by a victory due to splen- did tactics, to the choice of a strong position, and a skillful combination of archers and men-at-arms. The ultimate consequences were mo- mentous ; for the very foundations of medieval society were shaken when the flower of French mailed knighthood had to yield to yeomen archers, and to Welsh and Irish serfs armed with knives and spears. It was a mortal blow at the old system of warfare and the social and political structure built on it. The Siege and Capture of Calais (1346-1347). — On 28 August, Edward started for Calais, which he was anxious to secure. Not only was it a refuge for pirates and privateers who devastated English shipping, but it commanded the Channel, and offered an easy means of communication with Flanders as well as a basis of operations against France. Finding the place too strong to carry by assault, he prepared for a siege. Throughout the long winter, and until well into the fol- lowing summer, the inhabitants held out. Efforts to relieve them by sea THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 129 failed, and finally Philip appeared with an army ; but he suddenly de- parted, declaring it was better to lose the town than to put the lives of his men in jeopardy. Thus deserted and with the garrison starving the Governor consented to treat. According to a familiar story, Ed- ward required six leading burgesses to come forth with halters around their necks and the keys of the town in their hands, and was only persuaded from putting them to death by the tears of his Queen. At any rate, he did spare the lives of the whole garrison, though he replaced the old population by English settlers. For two hundred years Calais was held as an English market and fortress. English Magnificence and Ostentation. — The capture of Calais was the turning point in the career of Edward III. Although only thirty-five years old he withdrew almost entirely from the war, and occupied himself with domestic concerns, with hunting and hawking tournaments. For eight years hostilities were nominally suspended ; but, while the truce was frequently renewed, it was frequently broken in Guyenne where the " unhappy citizens had hardly more quiet in peace than in war." In England, on the other hand, it seemed as if a " new sun had risen on account of the abundance of peace, the plenty, and the glory of the victories." What with constant plays and tourna- ments the upper classes seemed to live only for pleasure. 1 Dress was gorgeous and extravagant ; that of the women is described "as diverse and wonderful," even the clergy adorned themselves magnificently, more like soldiers and men of fashion than servants of God. Causes for Popular Discontent. — However, the picture had its reverse side. While the war brought much booty it involved great expense, and the exactions levied to meet it aroused stout opposition. Edward was ever copious with promises which he did not observe. When he sought the advice of the Commons it was only to put them under the obligation of paying for the policy in which they acquiesced. In order to evade responsibility, they professed themselves, in 1348, too ignorant and simple to advise him in military affairs ; at the same time they presented no less than sixty petitions complaining of abuses, such as monopolies of wool and tin, and an unauthorized impost on manufactured cloth. In view of the King's usual assurances, they granted supplies ; but the growing discontent was to come to a head before the close of the reign. The Black Death (1348-1349). — Moreover, the country was visited by a frightful scourge from which it was never again wholly free for 1 It was probably in this period that Edward founded the celebrated Order of the Garter, in imitation or memory of King Arthur's Round Table, an order which still remains the most exalted in England. 130 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN more than three centuries. The Black Death, as it was called, ap- peared first in Asia, whence it spread along the trade routes to Europe, reaching England in the late summer of 1348. While its appearance was foretold by all manner of signs and wonders : "an extraordinary dreadful comet"; showers of blood, and the appearance of strange monsters, as a matter of fact famine — due to floods, droughts, and the devastations of war — and the unhealthful conditions of ventilation and drainage prepared the way for ravages of the plague. It was a most loathsome and contagious disease. Among its symptoms were boils, vomiting of blood, fever, and black patches all over the body — whence its name; it created the greatest havoc in the overcrowded parts of cities, but there was little chance of escape for such as had once breathed the tainted air. Those who fled to the fields and woods fell dead and spread the contagion on the way, and ships were found at sea with not a living soul on board. The administration of justice ceased for lack of judges ; and, in many places, divine service stopped because the priests had died or fled. Numbers of villages were wholly deserted, and the grass grew long in the flourishing port of Bristol. The Scots, who mocked at the "foul death" of the English, caught the infection and lost a third of their population. Moral and Religious Effects of the Black Death. — The approach- ing end of the world was predicted. Some gave themselves over to excesses of drinking and reveling ; but the greater number, regarding the plague as a divine visitation for their sins, sought to avert the wrath of God by exaggerated religious observances. For example, a queer sect known as the " Brotherhood of the Flagellants " (the " whippers ") was revived ; passing over to England from Hungary and Germany they went about from town to town scourging one another with iron- tipped scourges and chanting mournful hymns. Multitudes on the Continent and not a few in England joined their ranks. The Pope, who regarded such fanatical excitement as dangerous to established order, issued a bull, in 1349, for their suppression, though it was only with the return of quieter times that they gradually disappeared. Social and Economic Effects. — In England the Black Death pre- cipitated a social and industrial crisis. Losing, it is estimated, from a third to a half of its population, the number of laborers in the country was so diminished that they began to demand excessive wages and the value of land fell steadily from lack of cultivation. "Sheep and cattle strayed through the fields and corn, and there was none who could drive them " ; harvests rotted on the ground ; then, to make matters worse, a murrain among the cattle accompanied the plague. While some landlords remitted rents of their tenants and actually re- THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 131 duced the service due from villeins to hold them on the land, others sought vainly to get their lands cultivated by resorting to all sorts of antiquated claims of service, or at least by claiming strictly such as were actually due. On 18 June, 1349, the King issued an Ordinance ordering that all unemployed persons should be compelled to work at wages prevalent before the recent calamity. Penalties were fixed for those who refused, and also for those who offered higher wages, or gave anything by way of charity to idle beggars. As an offset, it was pro- vided that fish, flesh, and fowl should be sold at a reasonable price. The Ordinance proved ineffective, and, in 13 51, Parliament reenacted its measures in the Statute of Laborers, one of the long series to follow. The laborers, however, were so " puffed up and quarrelsome " that they would not obey, and the landlords had to leave their crops un- gathered or violate the law by paying increased rates. It must be said that the laws of supply and demand and the decreased purchasing power of money to some extent justify the laborers. The result of the new conditions was to change the whole system of farming ; great landlords ceased to farm their estates with the aid of stewards, and leased them to tenant cultivators or else turned them into sheep pas- tures. Still it should be emphasized that the Black Death only accentuated changes already in progress, for the growth of manufac- tures, the spread of commerce, and the attraction of military service drew many from the land, and the landlords would have suffered had there been no plague. Laws to turn back the hands of the clock were unavailing. A Decade of Important Legislation. — Parliament, during the dec- ade following the Black Death, was uncommonly active. In 135 1 it passed the celebrated Statute of Provisors, which declared invalid all appointments or provisions made by the Pope to English benefices, and punished with imprisonment all who accepted such appoint- ments. Two years later, 1353, the Statute of Praemunire l enacted, that any one carrying suits to foreign courts should be liable to for- feiture of lands and chattels, imprisonment of person, and outlawry, though the Pope and clergy, against whom these provisions are clearly aimed, are not mentioned in the Act. 2 More than once reenacted, neither of the two above Statutes were obeyed during the fourteenth century. The Act of Treasons, 1352, is important as the first legis- lative attempt to define the crime. Seven offenses were enumerated — including the compassing the death of the King or his consort or 1 A corruption of the Latin praemonere — to be forewarned. 2 In the reenactments of these respective Statutes in 1391 and 1393, however, they are distinctly mentioned. 132 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN his heir ; adhering to his enemies ; slaying his Ministers or his judges ; and counterfeiting the Great Seal or the royal coins. In 1363 the Chancellor opened Parliament with a speech in English. In the pre- vious year it had been enacted that English should be the language of the law courts, for the reason that the "people have no knowledge nor understanding of that which is said for or against them," and that the court records should be in Latin. 1 By an act of 1362, renewed in 1371, it was provided that no subsidy on wool should be laid without the consent of Parliament. In 1363 a sumptuary law regulated very minutely matters of diet and dress to prevent the impoverishment of the country exhausted by plague and war. If part of the people were intent on fighting and display, there was a class who were grappling with the realities of life. The Battle of Poitiers (16 September, 1356). — In 1355 war was re- newed in real earnest. When, July, 1356, the Black Prince, who had been in Aquitaine since the previous year, started from Bordeaux for a raid through central France, King John, who had suceeded his father Philip VI, in 1350, marched south to defend his threatened territories. Eventually the two armies met near the town of Poitiers, and, in the battle which followed, as at Crecy, the French outnumbered the Eng- lish three to one. Again the mailed knight was overcome by the Eng- lish longbow, while King John, struggling manfully, was taken prisoner, together with his young son Philip. The Black Prince, however, was able to make little immediate use of his victory in a military way. Too weak to attempt to capture the city whither most of the vanquished fled for refuge, he hurried on to Bordeaux with his booty and his more important prisoners. On 23 March, 1357, a truce was arranged for two years, and, in May, John was taken a captive to London. While his people were ground with taxes and pillaged by roving soldiery, both English and French, he spent his captivity pleasantly in the chase and tournament. The Peace of Bretigny (1360). — Another invasion led by King Ed- ward and his four sons failed to achieve any notable success, since the French shut themselves up in their strong towns and castles and it was practically impossible to support the English army in the wasted country. Accordingly, terms of peace were finally arranged in 1360. By the Treaty of Bretigny it was tacitly understood that Edward should renounce his claims to the French throne. In return he re- 1 As a matter of fact, however, cases continued to be argued and reported in French till well into the seventeenth century ; the language of the Statutes was French till Henry VII, and Latin did not cease to be the language of writs, charters, and records until 1731. THE REIGN OF EDWARD III *33 ceived all of the ancient Aquitaine, 1 with many smaller districts in the south, and certain territories including Calais in the north. Also the French renounced their alliance with the Scots and the English renounced theirs with the Flemings. " Good brother France," said Edward, "you and I are now, thank God, of good accord." Such rejoicings proved premature, for in spite of the sincere efforts of King John, the French nobles in the ceded districts stoutly resisted the trans- fer of their allegiance, and towns were even more stubborn. Some districts refused to submit at all. Moreover, the French were unable to pay the installments of John's ransom, whereupon he re- turned to England, where he died in 1364. The Tide Begins to Turn against England. — Two years before, King Edward had erected Gascony and Guyenne into a separate prin- cipality and conferred it upon the Black Prince. In view of the Prince's past successes and the disordered condition of France, the prospects of the English seemed as bright as those of the French seemed dark ; but the tide was on the turn. John's successor, Charles V, greatly aided by Bertrand du Guesclin, who came to be recognized as the greatest general of the age, was able to win back ground that his more martial father had lost. Moreover, the Black Prince played into his hands by taking up the cause of Pedro the Cruel, a faithless and blood- thirsty creature, who had been driven from the throne of Castile. The Prince afterwards complained that the devil had dragged him into mixing in the affair — and well he might ; for it involved fighting in Spain where he contracted a disease that caused his premature death, and it compelled him to levy taxes from his Gascon subjects which aroused them to revolt. Renewal of the War (1369). — Charles V had taken advantage of the situation to make ready for war and to cultivate the disaffected among the Gascon nobles. When they appealed to him against the burden of taxation, he seized the opportunity, although he had no right to interfere in the affairs of Aquitaine, and actually, 15 January, 1369, summoned the Prince to Paris to answer the complaints of his own sub- jects. A defiant refusal, which he received, together with the con- tinued pillaging of his territories by English companies, prompted him to send the King of England a formal declaration of war, 29 April, and Edward replied by resuming the arms and title of the King of France. The war which followed " never rose above a series of raids, skirmishes, and sieges," in which the English, notwithstanding a few successes, met with one reverse after another and continually lost ground. Many causes contributed to this result. Edward III, 1 It included Guyenne and Gascony. 134 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN grown prematurely old, had withdrawn from active fighting, the Black Prince was suffering grievously from dropsy, and, at the same time, the English army had deteriorated owing to the fact that the depleted ranks of the archers, who had won the earlier battles, were filled by a motley throng of foreign auxiliaries. Moreover, the French tactics steadily exhausted their adversaries. On the English approach they wasted the land round about and took refuge in a castle or walled town, while Bertrand du Guesclin, constantly appearing and attacking re- mote and ill-defended garrisons, never stayed to face a relieving force and wore out the defenders of the land in futile marches and pursuits. In January, 137 1, the Black Prince, completely shattered in health, was succeeded by his brother John of Gaunt, 1 who, however, was unable to improve the situation. At length a truce was concluded which, by renewal, lasted till the end of the reign, when all that remained of the former vast conquests of the English were Bordeaux, Bayonne, Calais, and Brest. The Good Parliament (1376). — Owing to the burden of taxation, the ill success of the war, and general maladministration, public dis- content grew steadily. The Black Prince recovered his health suffi- ciently to head the opposition, which was directed against the Court party, particularly against John of Gaunt and Alice Perrers, an un- worthy favorite, to whom the King was devoted. The crisis came to a head in the " Good Parliament," called, in 1376, to obtain money for continuing the war. For the first time the House of Commons strik- ingly asserted their growing power — they demanded an audit of accounts, and proceeded to lay bare the iniquities of the King's coun- selors, to whom they attributed the national poverty. The leading offenders were mentioned by name and brought to account. Lord Latimer, the King's chamberlain, was accused of buying up debts, of extorting huge sums, of selling strong places to the enemy, and of intercepting fines which should have been paid into the royal treasury. Richard Lyons, a London merchant and former farmer of the customs, had been associated with him in various frauds — lending the King money at a usurious rate, forestalling the markets at ports, and raising the price of foreign imports. In bringing them to account a new process was employed, impeachment, which consists of a trial by the House of Lords on the basis of an accusation brought by the Commons against a public official for a public offense. Both were convicted and were sentenced to imprisonment and forfeiture, though Latimer, released on bail, managed to elude the execution of his sentence. 1 So called from Ghent, his birthplace. THE REIGN OF EDWARD in 135 The Reforms of the Good Parliament Frustrated by John of Gaunt. — Although the reform party attempted some important work during the remaining weeks of the session, the work of the Good Parliament practically terminated with the death of the Black Prince, 6 June, 1376. His chivalry was of the prevailing artificial type, without real gentle- ness or humanity ; he had little military genius, but he was a brave dashing leader, and his patience in suffering and his manful fight against corruption and misgovernment, even if impelled by hostility against his brother, made him deservedly popular. John of Gaunt gained the ascendancy, and caused the late Parliament to be declared no Parliament. A new one, which met 27 January, 1377, wholly under his influence, was the first of the "packed parliaments," so called be- cause composed largely of members pledged to do the will of the Gov- ernment, the necessity of such an expedient being a striking evi- dence of the growing power of the Commons. Alice Perrers, who had been driven from Court, was allowed to return and the acts against her and Lord Latimer were reversed. John Wiclif (?-i384). — John of Gaunt, head of a corrupt Court clique, was opposed to clerical ascendancy, and, in his struggle against it, took to himself a curious ally — John Wiclif, the first English re- former. Born sometime about 1324, in Yorkshire, Wiclif had passed most of his life at Oxford as a student and teacher of theology, though, in course of time, he came to supplement his academic work with that of a parish priest. John of Gaunt, finding that Wiclif, whom he first came to know in 1374, had been for some time occupied in framing views on the relations between the spiritual and the temporal power of the Church, undertook to make use of him in his battle against ec- clesiastical influence in political affairs. Wiclif's first appearance in public affairs was shortly before the meeting of the Good Parliament, when he published a treatise against the papal claim to collect arrears of the annual tribute promised by King John. However, no payment had been made since the accession of Edward III, and he was but voic- ing protests made in Parliament as early as 1366 against its renewal. Convocation, which met with Parliament in the winter, determined to call the reformer to account, primarily to strike a blow at his champion. On 19 February, 1377, he appeared before the assembled Bishops at St. Paul's accompanied by Duke John and the Earl Marshal; but the trial broke up owing to a fierce quarrel between his notable sup- porters and the Bishop of London ; the London mob, who hated John and the Marshal because of encroachments on the privileges of the City, taking the side of their Bishop. The next day the uproar be- came so great that John of Gaunt had to flee. The enemies of Wiclif 136 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN then applied to the Pope, who, in May, issued a series of bulls against him, but they did not arrive till the beginning of the new reign. Death of Edward III (1377). — Since Christmas, 1376, the old King had remained in retirement. When it was certain that the end was near, Alice Perrers stripped the rings from his fingers and fled, the cour- tiers about him followed suit, and Edward III, once the glory of his generation, passed away 21 June, deserted except for a single priest, who remained out of compassion to minister the last offices of the Church. The pomp and circumstance, the chivalrous ideal, the strong personal power of the Monarch had faded away before Edward's body passed to the grave. New forces, economic discontent, political op- position, religious revolt, and the birth of a new literature were already struggling into being ; but how they grew and what they meant was not left for him to see. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. In addition to Tout, Ramsay, Vickers and Stubbs, William Longman, The Life and Times of Edward III (2 vols., 1869) ; James Mac- kinnon, The History of Edward III (1900) ; and C. H. Pearson, English History in the Fourteenth Century (1876). A good brief account of the period is William Warburton, Edward III (1887). S. Armitage Smith, John of Gaunt (1904) and R. P. Dunn-Pattison, The Black Prince (1910) are both scholarly biographies. G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe (1899) gives an interesting survey of political, social, and religious history in the last years of Edward III and the early years of Richard II. There are various translations of Froissart's famous chronicle ; the best is that of Lord Berners (Tudor translations, 1901) and there is a useful abridg- ment by G. C. Macaulay and another in Everyman's Library (1906). Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 56-83. CHAPTER XIII LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS (1272-1377) Parliamentary Gains in the Fourteenth Century. — Before the end of the thirteenth century the two principles had been recognized that the three estates of the realm should be represented in Parliament, and that all taxes, except those sanctioned by custom, should be granted by the representative body. In the fourteenth century the estates were grouped into two houses, and steps were taken to prevent the King from evading the general limitations placed on his taxing power and to assert the rights of Parliament in legislation. The prevention of the royal practice of collecting tallages and subsidies on wool has already been noted. Other gains remain to be pointed out. In 1373 Parliament began to grant the King tonnage and poundage, i. e. customs on wine and merchandise, which for nearly three centuries furnished an important supplement to tenths and fifteenths, 1 the usual direct taxes, also granted by Parliament. By a tight hold on the purse-strings Parliament managed to secure many liberties and privi- leges, since, even in ordinary times, — to say nothing of war and other crises — the regular Crown revenues were insufficient without special grants. While the King, after his immediate need was supplied, repudiated many concessions that were wrung from him, they never- theless furnished valuable precedents in future struggles. One great step in advance was the share which the Commons gained in making the laws. At first they were only asked to give their consent to bills framed by the King and Council, and not infrequently, royal ordi- nances were issued which had the force of law without Parliamentary sanction. However, since subjects, either individually or collectively, enjoyed the right of presenting petitions, such petitions began to be framed and presented by their representatives in Parliament. The 1 So called because originally they consisted of a tenth of the revenues or chattels from burgesses and a fifteenth of those from the landholders of shires. After 1334 the amount of a tenth and fifteenth was a fixed sum — £39,000. 137 138 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN advantage was twofold : action was concerted, and Parliament could enforce its demands by its control over money grants. By the be- ginning of the fifteenth century it had become a fixed practice for the Commons to vote supplies only at the end of the session. Less than fifty years later, their claim, asserted in the previous century, was finally recognized, that answers to petitions should be enacted as law in the exact words in which they were first presented. Altogether, the fourteenth century was a time of great advance for Parliament. Its form of organization was determined ; it had greatly curtailed the right of arbitrary taxation; it had come to be consulted in public business ; it had claimed a voice in the appointment of Ministers and the right to call them to account ; it had deposed one King ; before the close of the century it deposed another and even established a new line of succession. Later events were to show that most of the gains were premature, but as precedents they, nevertheless, contributed powerfully to the ultimate progress of the English Constitution. Trade and Industry. Passage from Local to Central Control. — The commercial and industrial advance of this period is equally note- worthy, in the growth of the wool trade, in English shipping, and in the remarkable development of the English cloth manufacture. Up to the time of Edward I, regulation and control of trade were largely local, and were hampered by vexatious restrictions. Privileged towns and local magnates levied tolls on all goods bought and sold at markets and fairs that entered city gates, that unloaded at wharves, or that passed along certain roads. Merchants of chartered boroughs, banded together in their gilds, enjoyed exclusive privileges of trading within their district, while alien merchants, in addition to other handicaps, were forbidden to engage in retail trade at all. Aside from certain royal enactments regulating the price of bread, ale, and cloth there was no central control whatever. The regulations of Edward I, made " with the counsel and consent of the Commons of England," mark an epoch ; for the towns, which had hitherto treated separately with the Crown, were now united in Parliament to secure measures for their class as a whole. Edward " laid the foundations of a system of na- tional regulation of commerce and industry," and by his work made it possible for his grandson to develop an international commerce. In 1275 he agreed with his Parliament to accept a fixed toll on wools, wool-fells, leather, and upon wine; he appointed officers called cus- tomers to collect revenue and to put down smuggling, and, to aid in this work, he named certain staple towns to which all trade in wool, the chief commodity of the kingdom, should be confined. In order to encourage and protect those engaged in traffic, he enacted better LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 139 and more general police regulations, and by the Statute of Merchants provided security for creditors. Finally, he took measures for a purer and more reliable currency, and had tables set up at Dover where all merchants and pilgrims should exchange the money and plate they brought in for the coin of the realm. Edward III supplemented these efforts by selecting twenty ports where such exchanges could be made. Both Edward I and his grandson favored the Gascon merchants who imported wine and the Flemings who exported wool. While the ex- pulsion of the Jews by Edward I and the ruin of the Italians under the burden of Edward Ill's debts threw much business into the hands of the natives, and while great efforts were made to exclude foreigners from the English retail trade, the bulk of the foreign commerce was carried on by the latter till the reign of Richard II. There is much confusion and contradiction in the commerce legislation of the period, owing to the fact that as yet no general theories on the subject had been evolved and each measure enacted was largely experimental. The main aim, however, was to make exports dear and imports cheap rather than to build up English shipping and industry. The Y/ool Trade and Shipping. — By the close of the thirteenth century England had come to be the great wool producing country of Europe, with her chief market among the Flemish weavers. Various attempts were made to fix the towns or staples where the wool should be sold; sometimes they were in England, sometimes in the Low Countries, while, for a short period in the reign, trade was free and the staple towns were done away with altogether. In 1362 the staple was removed to Calais, where it remained, except for short intervals, till the town passed back to the French, in 1558. The native shipper in the early part of the reign of Edward III had to contend against great obstacles. The foreigner and the King's agent were greatly favored at his expense and he was generally prohibited from exporting wool out of the country ; even when the staple was fixed at Calais he could only as a rule take it across the Channel. Moreover, the North Sea was swarming with pirates and the coast towns were frequently subject to hostile raids. Indeed the bold seamen of the Cinque Ports when not engaged in the royal service often preyed on the commerce of their countrymen. But the sovereignty of the narrow seas asserted by Edward I was, for a time at least, made a reality by Edward III in consequence of his naval victories and the capture of Calais. For a while the seas were better policed than ever before. Piracy, however, did not altogether disappear. With the decline cf Edward's vigor the navy fell into decay, and the English shipping and port towns be- gan once more to suffer. The reign of Richard II was even more dis- I 4 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN astrous from the naval and commercial point of view. An attempt to build up English shipping by Navigation Acts came to nothing. The ships of merchants were seized for the royal necessities, yet the navy was even more neglected than in the last years of Edward III. Dis- cipline was lax, trade was unprotected, the country was in constant danger of invasion, and the most brilliant achievements on the sea were due to the patriotism and gallantry of individuals. Regulation of Native Industry and the Advent of New Industries. — Careful provision was made to prevent fraud in particular callings ; for instance, a royal proclamation of 1340 prohibited the London butchers from sewing the fat of good beef on joints of lean. In 1363 merchants were required to deal in one sort of merchandise only, and handicraftmen to keep to one " mystery " or craft, except women who were engaged in such callings as brewing, baking, spinning, and the like. Edward's frequent prohibition of the export of wool did much to en- courage the native manufacture, which he fostered also by encourag- ing the Flemish weavers to come over to exercise their craft and to teach others. There had been migrations from Flanders ever since the Conquest, but the weavers now came in such numbers as to mark a new era in the development of English cloth manufacture. Sumptuary Legislation. — Edward III enacted various sumptuary laws which were aimed partly to protect native industries against foreign importations, partly to check extravagance and promote thrift, and had reference particularly to the lesser folk who had begun to imitate the upper classes in elaborate dress and costly meats, even before the temporary enrichment of the country from the loot of the French wars. Such excesses " sore grieved " the great men of the realm, who saw " evil therein ... as well to the souls as bodies " — a most serious one in their eyes, no doubt, was that it impoverished the subjects so that they were " not able to aid themselves nor their liege lord in time of need." Sumptuary laws were as old as the Romans, and were not unprecedented in England ; but Edward's were frequent and far reaching. They regulated the amount and quality of food a man should eat, they forbade any but members of the royal family to wear cloth except of English manufacture, and regulated the apparel of every class in the community from the servant and the handicrafts- man to the noble. Gilds. — The artisan in the fourteenth century seems to have been in a very prosperous state. To a considerable degree this was due to the protection of the Crown and Parliament, faulty and inadequate as it was. Concurrently with this central regulation that of the local organizations survived to some extent. But the gild merchants were LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 141 gradually disappearing, either by merging with the municipal organi- zation or with the various craft gilds. Division of labor was still highly developed. In this period London alone had some fifty separate mysteries. The bow maker could not make arrows ; the cordwainer made shoes while the cobbler patched them. Each gild had its mas- ters, its journeymen who worked by the day, and its apprentices who paid a sum of money in return for which they were taught the trade and supplied with food, drink, and clothing. Every craft had a court with elected officers to regulate trade disputes. In the craft as well as in the older merchant gilds the religious, benevolent, and social aspects were prominent : they had patron saints and processions on holy days ; they provided money for masses for the souls of dead members ; they maintained altar lights at the parish church and often supported a chaplain ; they relieved the poverty of their poorer brethren and their families ; and they contributed money for the marriage portion of the daughters of members or for sending them into nunneries ; moreover, periodical feasts were an essential part of their organization. In a word "the gild in its various forms supplied to the people of the four- teenth century local clubs, local trade unions, and local friendly societies." Ordinances against Usury. — A striking feature of medieval eco- nomics is the sentiment against " usury," as any lending of money at interest was called. An Ordinance of 1363 denounces it as a " false and abominable contract, under colour and cover of good and lawful trading," which "ruins the honour and soul of the agent, and sweeps away the goods and property of him who appears to be accommodated." To understand this attitude it must be borne in mind that business conditions were quite different from those of later times. There were no credit systems, or banks in the modern sense ; indeed, money was seldom borrowed except for emergencies — to build a church or a monastery, to pay taxes suddenly imposed, to go on a pilgrimage or crusade, to fit out a military expedition. Rates were too high to make borrowing for commercial purposes profitable, and the usual practice for a man without capital who wanted to embark on a venture was to form a partnership with another to furnish the money and share the risk. The nearest approach to bankers were brokers who brought the borrowers and lenders together, and law and public opinion long frowned upon them. The medieval borrower could not see why, if he furnished security and paid his loan at the appointed time, he should render more than he had received to one who had incurred no risk. Had he caused his creditor inconvenience by failing to keep his agreement, then, and then only, was he prepared to pay interest. 142 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Money lending, then, was regarded as a barren employment of funds which the lender ought more properly to invest in a partnership where he shared in the legitimate gains and risks. Agriculture and Enclosures. — The tendency to commute the per- sonal services of villein cultivators into money rents, already evident in the thirteenth century, became marked in the fourteenth. Lords and bailiffs preferred to hire laborers rather than to depend upon un- willing service. Moreover, the pomp and ceremony of chivalry, the increasing luxury, and the demands of building called for ready money. More and more, too, sheep raising began to be substituted for tillage. This was due to two causes : to the widening market for wool both at home and abroad ; and to the scarcity of labor after the Black Death. The process is known as "enclosing" from the means taken to prevent the sheep from straying. Both arable land and the old common fields were appropriated by the lords for their purpose. As the population began to recover during the next two centuries, enclosing began to be regarded as a hardship because it required much land and few laborers. Life of the People. Lawlessness. Justices of the Peace. — Con- ditions were still primitive when cows could be strangled by wolves in Lincolnshire. The state of the country was so lawless that merchants had to travel in large parties accompanied by armed horsemen for security. The woods were full of outlaws who robbed all who came their way, and even, on occasion, seized the King's judges and held them for ransom. Some were even bold enough to force their way into the law courts and overawe the justices. Moreover, the nobles often kept such ruffians in their pay and protected them, a custom which soon became widespread under the name of livery and maintenance. 1 One means of keeping order was the establishment of the justices of the peace ; in 1344 any two or more were intrusted with limited judical functions, while, in 1362, all from the county were empowered to hold four sessions a year, known as " quarter sessions," to try certain cases less serious than those reserved for the King's judges. They were chosen from the best county families and from the borough magistrates and served without pay. Besides keeping the peace and trying smaller offenders all the duties of local administration came to be loaded upon them, such as carrying out the statutes of Laborers and the later Poor Laws. Punishments were barbarous, aiming at retribution and ven- geance rather than prevention of crime. Prisoners were thrown, some- 1 "Livery" comes from the provisions and clothes which were delivered as pay; it was later applied to the badge worn by such retainers and has survived in the modern servants' uniforms. "Maintenance" comes from the lord's custom of "maintaining" the suits of his servants in Court. LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 143 times naked, into horrible dungeons, dark, damp, indescribably filthy, often partly rilled with water and swarming with rats and vermin, and their usual fare was moldy bread and stagnant water. Lesser offenders were put in the stocks. Torture was common to make the accused con- fess, or to make him submit to jury trial. The horrible practice of breaking on the wheel, where a man was stretched out and his limbs broken with an iron bar, was not unknown, hanging was most common, and, as towns and local lords had this right, gallows were often seen, gruesome spots on the landscape. In cases of treason a man was cut down while his body was still warm, he was drawn and quartered, and his bowels were taken out and burned. Lack of Individual Freedom. — What with royal regulation, town and gild, and Church regulation, the individual had very little free- dom. It was natural that children should not escape. " A child were better to be unborn," it was said, "than to be untaught," and numer- ous rhymed treatises were composed for their guidance. The boy was directed what to do from the time he got up in the morning till he went to bed at night ; how he should dress ; how he should eat ; how he should act on his way to school — he was to greet passersby, not to throw stones at hogs and dogs, not to run away birds-nesting — how he should act in school if he got there. Equally minute were the di- rections to girls. Eating and Drinking and Recreations. — Eating and drinking were most immoderate, and only the open-air life and exercise made it possible for medieval English folk to digest the huge quantities they consumed. They had no tea or coffee and little fresh meat or vege- tables, now regarded as necessities. Yet their fare was not coarse and simple. Medieval cookbooks and kitchen utensils show that there were all sorts of dishes highly spiced, complicated, and delicate. Nevertheless, they relished many things that would hardly tempt the modern palate, such as hedgehogs, swans, peacocks, rooks, porpoises, and sparrows. Fast days meant merely a change from meat to fish. Ale was the drink of the lower classes, while kings and nobles regaled themselves on costly wines from abroad, varied by numerous elaborate concoctions such as mead and posset. Because of defective means of lighting, meals were still very early, and owing to the heavy drinking, not infrequently were nothing more than carousals which broke up in fighting that sometimes proved fatal. Yet there were many peace- ful diversions : the tales of knights who had journeyed or fought in France or the Holy Land, songs of minstrels, feats of jugglers, and dancing. There were games too for young and old, though the chief resource of women was spinning, weaving, embroidery, and sewing, 144 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN while the men devoted much of their time to hunting and hawking. Chivalry was greatly fostered by the custom of sending young boys and girls to serve as pages or maids at Court or at the castles of great nobles. There the page learned the code of gentleness and courtesy which were the ideal of the medieval knight. Warfare. — The two great innovations in the method of conducting war under the Edwards were the long bow and cannon with gunpow- der : the former, first used in the Welsh and Scotch wars of Edward 1 , won a European renown at Crecy and Poitiers. The fatal cloth-yard shaft could not only break up a charging squadron by killing or wound- ing the imperfectly protected horses, but penetrated the joints of the horseman's armor or, if it struck fair, even the plate itself. In seeking to meet this danger by thickening the plate, the armor became so unwieldy as to incapacitate the wearer, for an unhorsed knight could not rise without help and often he was stifled by the sheer weight of his own defense. Gunpowder supplemented the long bow in over- throwing the old system. While the assertion that cannons were used by the English at Crecy has not passed without question, Edward III probably employed them at Calais, though it was some time before they became effective in sieges, and still longer before they played any part in field engagements. Travel. — In spite of the badness of roads and bridges there was much traveling in fourteenth-century England. The King, the nobles, and bishops made stately progresses, accompanied by imposing reti- nues of horsemen, and dealt havoc with the goods of the lesser folk, who at their approach fled to hide their fowls and eggs and such other produce as their lords might seize. Merchants traveled about to buy and sell at the various fairs and staple towns, and abbots and monks journeyed from monastery to monastery on business connected with their orders. Most of the better sort rode on horseback. Luggage and goods too were carried on horses and mules, though great ladies were beginning to use litters and carriages, cumbersome and gorgeously ornamented, while the mass of the people traveled on foot. There were peddlers who supplied the country folk, there were strolling players, minstrels, and jugglers. On great occasions the minstrels flocked together from every part of western Christendom : at the marriage of Edward I's daughter, for instance, no less than four hundred and twenty-six were present. Some, of course, were regularly attached to royal and baronial households, and in many cities there were gilds or brotherhoods, formed for " well-ordered gaity," with rules for mem- bership, singing contests, and processions. Most of the singers, however, were wandering vagabonds who combined tumbling and LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 145 sleight-of-hand performances with minstrelsy, and were often news- mongers, spies, and stirrers up of revolt. Beggars, Friars, and Pilgrims. — In addition, there were hosts of beggars and wandering laborers whom the statutes failed to check. More numerous still were those who claimed to be servants of God and the Church ; even the hermits no longer sought solitary places but settled along frequented roads to ask alms of the passersby. The strolling friars were as great a nuisance as any. Once they had ren- dered manful service in the care of the poor and the formation of educa- tion ; but the majority had become lazy and corrupt : they thrust themselves as guests on the houses they passed, eating and drinking, immoderately ; they acted as venders of news and small wares ; and encroached upon the parish priest by assuming the right to confess members of their flocks. Besides the friars there were the pardoners who sold remission of sins and supported their claims by exhibiting curious relics of doubtful pedigree. The roads were also crowded with pilgrims on their way to or from some holy place. The most popular shrine in England was that of St. Thomas at Canterbury; but many went even to Rome or the Holy Land. While the profes- sional pilgrim or palmer enjoyed various privileges beside the hope of divine favor — he was exempt from tolls, his person was protected, and he received free food and shelter along the road — others in course of time joined in pilgrimages from varying motives. " Some went like gypsies to a fair, to gather money; some went for the pleasure of the journey, and the merriment of the road." They told of the marvelous relics they had seen ; furthermore, like other strollers they were welcomed as bringers of news and letters. In spite of the super- stition and trickery which they fostered, pilgrimages were of intense value — they drew people together, broke down local prejudice, spread news and civilization, fostered commerce, and gave a holiday to many who would have got it in no other way. Accommodation for Travelers. — Travelers were accommodated in different ways. The King and his retinue might be billeted on the inhabitants of places along their road. Monasteries dispensed hos- pitality to all classes, frequently having a guest house outside the walls for the humbler folk. In many towns there were lodgings, the keepers of which were employed by the burghers to lure customers to them. In the country there were vacant buildings where merchants got shel- ter for the night, providing their own food and bedding — hence called " cold harbors." The inns were patronized chiefly by merchants. Although numerous enough they were not overcomfortable or clean. Moreover, the landlords were not infrequently suspected of being in 146 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN league with robbers, and, when not so bad as that, were often guilty of trickery and extortion, a favorite device being to draw guests into ordering more than they had money to pay for and then to seize their baggage and clothes. The inns were favorite resorts for the less repu- table classes who spent their time drinking, gossiping, and gaming. By the roadside and in the smaller villages were alehouses, advertised by a stake or a bush projecting over the door. They furnished no lodg- ing, and were often kept by women — " ale wives " — who had a bad reputation for cheating both in money and measure. Under such conditions hospitality was regarded as a great virtue, and was general, from the lord of the manor to the poorest cotter. Public Health, Medicine and Surgery. — As in the past, lack of fresh food, unsanitary conditions, and inadequacy of transportation were the cause of famine and epidemics. In 13 15 heavy rains wrought destruction with the harvest, causing such pressure of hunger that not only horses and dogs but, it is said, children were eaten, and felons in jail tore one another to pieces, while, in 1322, there was another visi- tation of famine and disease when fifty-rive poor persons in London were crushed to death in a scramble for food distributed at a rich man's funeral. All this occurred while the upper classes were living in luxury, though there was more splendor than comfort ; for example, Edward III dismissed his Constable of the Tower because he had so neglected repairs that the rain came in on the bed of his sick Queen, and, in 1357, when his dead mother was brought to London for burial, the streets had to be cleared of filth for the passage of the body. Although the Black Death started a movement for better sanitation, the plague came back at least six times before the close of the century, causing the greatest destruction and demoralization, and preventing the natu- ral recovery from the devastation of 1 348-1 349. The science of medicine and surgery was still in a primitive state, even if some prog- ress was made during the century. Monks and Jews had been the first to practice the art of healing in England, and after the expulsion of the Jews the bulk of the practice fell to the monks, in' spite of pro- hibition of papal bulls. Prayers, ceremonies, visits to shrines, astrol- ogy, charms, and spells were the commonly accepted means for curing ills; and were sometimes employed as adjuncts by the practitioner. The incorporation of the Barber Surgeons as gilds at London and York, toward the end of the century, worked an era in surgery. Military and Domestic Architecture. — Castles, while they reached their highest degree of development in the time of the Edwards, came to be employed more and more exclusively as governmental and mili- LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 147 tary fortresses; yet, curiously enough, by the time the art of building them had been perfected, the introduction of cannon and gunpowder rendered them useless. Fortified manor houses largely replaced the old private castles, though the causes making for this change were at work long before the new implements of war were generally adopted. Since the time of Stephen the Crown had refused to tolerate private castles, except in rare instances, and had usually been strong enough to enforce its prohibitions. Moreover, the cessation of feudal warfare made them no longer necessary, and the upper classes preferred more comfortable dwelling places just strong enough to protect them against robbers and occasional disorders, although these manor houses were bare and inconvenient enough according to modern standards. Ecclesiastical Architecture. — The prevailing style of church architecture during the period of the three Edwards was the so-called " decorated," an elaboration of the pointed Gothic or early English, distinguished particularly by the ornateness of its window traceries, but, with all its warmth and richness, lacking the dignified simplicity of the style which it displaced. In the reign of Edward III a new style began to appear, the perpendicular, which became dominant during the following century. In general, it was stiff, formal, and unadorned ; nevertheless, while beautiful curves gave way to straight lines and angularity, elements of beauty were not wholly lacking. Two notable features which did much to relieve the prosaic bareness of the perpendicular were the magnificent roofs, both open timbered and vaulted, and the fine towers, even though they do not equal the spires which they replaced. The Universities. — Following the trend of the times, the univer- sities became more and more national, and English scholars ceased to migrate to the Continent in any considerable numbers. Oxford, though it long maintained its ascendancy over its younger rival, Cam- bridge, had troubles of its own to contend with. Friction with the townsmen was intense, often leading to open fighting; the faculty were often at odds among themselves; and the ill-feeling between students from different parts of the country, particularly north and south, was so acute as to lead to frequent secessions. While the higher ranks were represented the majority were from the lower walks of life, the poorest of whom supported themselves by the work of their hands or even begged on occasion. Below the universities there were, in connection with convents, grammar schools presided over by secular clerks, the convents receiving the fees and paying the teacher a stipend. The Inns of Court at London furnished training for the common lawyer. 148 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Literature : Chronicles and Romances. — History was still mainly in the hands of the monastic chronicles ; but the man who best voiced the chivalrous and martial ideals of the age of Edward III was Jean Froissart (1337-1410), whose Chronicle tells the story of the English feats in the Hundred Years' War with a richness and vividness of detail that has made the book a joy for all time. French metrical romances, telling of the wanderings of knights, good and valiant, of their deeds of daring in overcoming giants and paynims, of their succoring ladies in distress, and of their service to religion, continued to be very popular. Legends which had clustered about the names of mighty men of old time, Alexander, Charlemagne, and King Arthur, and the beautiful story of the search for the Holy Grail were among their chief subjects, most of them worked over from French originals in the new English speech which was shaping itself during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Religious Literature and Plays. Ballads. — Alongside the knightly romance there grew up a mass of religious literature, mostly in verse, lives of saints, sermons, tracts, and epics, some of which aimed to en- tertain as well as to instruct and edify. More popular still were the religious plays. The earliest were the miracle plays — which drama- tized Bible stories and the wonders wrought by saints. Beginning in certain ceremonies in the Church on such feast days as Easter, the mysteries were soon transferred to the churchyard and then to the town square, while, by the fourteenth century, they had passed from the hands of the priests to the gilds who gave annual exhibitions on Corpus Christi day. Usually each gild had a cart, drawn by appren- tices, with a stage erected upon it. Each of these moving stages — known as " pageants " l — represented one scene of the story, and the whole sequence was known as a cycle. Somewhat later appeared the morality plays which dealt with the strife between good and evil rather than with theology. Vice, greed, innocence, indeed all sorts of human traits were personified. To these plays and to the royal pageants representing scenes from classic and medieval legend, such as the fight between St. George and the Dragon, may be traced the beginnings of the later drama. Christmas " mummings," too, were very popular, in which Old Father Christmas, Old King Cole, and the Merry Andrew came to be well-known figures ; though, on other occa- sions, as well, mummers paraded the streets in grotesque masks, rep- resenting various animals, or dressed in the garb of beasts or satyrs with men's heads. Among a mass of ballads, many of them political in character, the best known are those which relate the deeds of the 1 From this original meaning the term came to be applied to the play and then to any imposing spectacle. LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 149 legendary outlaw Robin Hood, who was supposed to have dwelt in Sherwood Forest, in the later twelfth century, protecting the poor and robbing their oppressors. His many adventures and those of Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian were also worked up into plays. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1403). — The great name in the literature of the age, indeed one of the great names in the literature of the world, was that of Geoffrey Chaucer, " the father of English poetry." The son of a London vintner, he began life as a page in a princely household. His residence at the English court, the most brilliant in Europe, his travels in many lands, his associations with all sorts and conditions of men gave him rare opportunities of which his genius made the fullest use. Chaucer's early literary products appeared under the spell of the old French courtly romances. A diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372-1373 marked a crisis in the poet's life, for it was then that he came into the world of the Renascence, that marvelous revival of learning and outburst of literary and artistic creations which came to birth in Italian soil. There he learned to know the sublime vision of Dante, the exquisite poetic forms of Petrarch, and the tales of Boccac- cio. It was the latter which may have determined the form of Chau- cer's masterpiece and furnished him with some of the stories which he included in it. The result of his Italian sojourn is seen in various works which he produced after his return, among them Troilus and Creseide, described as " the first analytical novel in the English lan- guage." In his third or English period came the crowning achieve- ment of Chaucer's life, the Canterbury Tales, told through the mouths of a body of pilgrims journeying from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The poet completed less than a quarter of his projected work ; but he depicted the pecul- iarities of individuals representing various walks of life, the knight, the friar, the nun, the franklin, the physician, the Oxford scholar, the merchant, the miller, and many more, with a fidelity, a vividness, and a humor unsurpassed by any writer before or since. Writing in the tongue of the southeast Midlands he stamped that form upon the Eng- lish to the very borders of Scotland and Wales ; spreading as England grew into an Empire, the speech and writing of a considerable part of the world's population owes more to Chaucer than to any other single man. John Gower and William Langland. — Of the works of John Gower, a contemporary of lesser note, the Vox Clamantis, containing an ac- count of the Peasant Revolt, in 138 1, and a severe denunciation of government and society of the time, is of the most historic interest. But the social unrest of this age and the outcry against the oppression, 150 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN folly, and vices of the ruling classes is best voiced in the Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, sometimes attributed to William Langland. In the form of an allegory, written in a revival of the native alliterative verse, the Vision traces the exaltation of the common man, pictured as a simple rustic, until he becomes a mystical type of Christ. It lashes the sins of society and the individual, and preaches the gospel of man and the glory of work. In spite of its allegorical and abstract form, the descriptions are so concrete and vital that men and women seem to live and breathe before the reader. Wiclif a National Champion. — While Piers Plowman aimed chiefly at men Wiclif struck at a system. It was his work to mold the griev- ances against the Church and the Papacy into tangible form. Since the Popes from 1305 to 1378 were settled at Avignon under French control, his opposition had a popular national color. Not only, how- ever, did he oppose papal demands for money and papal claims to provide for English benefices, but he maintained that the Church should hold no property, because it hindered truly spiritual work. Hence, it was the duty of the State to take land and revenues which hampered the Church in the performance of its proper duties. More- over, he contended that a Pope, if unrighteous or unworthy, lost his right to rule ; and his decrees, if against the will of God, were of no binding force. When asked by Parliament whether, when the Kingdom was in. danger of invasion, it could refuse, even against a papal order, to send money out of the realm, he replied that the Pope could only ask for money as charity, and, since charity begins at home, it would be folly to give in the present juncture. Early in 1378, shortly after the arrival of the papal bulls against him, he was brought before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, acting as papal commissioners ; but the Queen Mother, widow of the Black Prince, who had taken up his cause, sent a message for- bidding them to pass sentence on him, while a body of London citizens, accompanied by a disorderly rabble, now that his unpopular champion, John of Gaunt, was no longer in power to support him, appeared menacingly before the archiepiscopal palace. The upshot was a simple request from his judges that Wiclif desist from discussing the points enumerated in bulls. The Development of Wiclif's Views after 1378. — This very year, 1378, marked an advance far beyond his original position. Gregory XI had moved back to Rome from Avignon, and, on his death, two rival Popes were elected, one by the Roman party, and one by the French. The resulting struggle, known as the Great Schism, which rent the Church in twain, led Wiclif to question the authority of the Papacy LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 1 51 altogether. Nor did he stop with attacking the Church's form of government ; but proceeded to strike a blow at her most central dogma, the doctrine of transubstantiation. According to the orthodox belief the bread and wine used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper were transformed by the consecrating words of the priest into the very body and blood of Christ. 1 Wiclif did not go so far as some of the later Protestants and deny the Real Presence altogether; he maintained that after the bread and wine were consecrated they did not disappear, but that the body and blood of Christ came and dwelt in them. In other words, for transubstantiation he substituted consubstantiation. His doctrines, now too extreme for many, were twice condemned, and, though he was spared, his followers were persecuted rigorously. Dur- ing his last years, spent in peaceful retirement, he wrote nearly all of his English works and revised his Latin works, which fill together nearly thirty printed volumes. He died 30 December, 1384. 2 The Two Channels of Wiclif's Teachings. — Some years before his death Wiclif had devised two agencies to spread his teaching among the humbler folk. One was his " poor preachers," sent out, staff in hand and clad in coarse russet gown, to preach the simple truths of the Gospel. Those who accepted his teachings came to be known as Lollards. As an organized sect they did not long survive Wiclif's death : they were accused of socialism and held responsible for the Peasant Revolt ; their doctrines shocked the orthodox; and the lowly character of their following excited the contempt of the great. Never- theless, their work lived after them : they struck the first mortal blow at the Church of Rome in England, and they infused a spirit of earnest- ness into English life which reached its fruition in the Puritan Revolu- tion nearly three centuries later ; and the Queen of Richard II carried their teachings to Bohemia, where John Huss, the forerunner of Martin Luther, felt their influence. Wiclif's second agency was the transla- tion of the Bible which he perfected, supervised, and assisted to carry out, though the bulk of the work was done by an associate, and after 1 From the point of view of medieval "realist" philosophers the doctrine was more rational than it might seem to a modern Protestant ; in their minds the reality or substance of a thing was not the visible attributes which could be seen, touched and handled, but an inner invisible essence. That was what was believed to change. Two good reasons explain why the Church fostered the belief in transubstantiation. It emphasized the human side of Christ, which certain of the early sects denied ; and it exalted the priesthood, who were held in higher reverence from their ability to perform the miracle. It was to combat the sacerdotal power that Wiclif framed his view. 2 In 1428, in accordance with a decree of the Council of Constance passed in 141 5, his remains were dug up, burned, and cast into a neighboring brook. 152 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Wiclif's death was revised and reissued in a completer form. Al- though not a stylist, Wiclif's achievements in spreading the Bible among the people exerted an influence which entitle him to be called the " father of English prose," for Chaucer wrote in verse. By sup- pressing the Bible the Government not only arrested the program of true religious thought, but the growth of English prose as well. England a National State. — In the wars against France, in the struggle to control its own commerce and to develop native industries, in the conflict against the power of Rome, in the rise of a purely English literature, one great fact is evident ; England had become a nation. As the barons, who, in the time of John and Henry III, fought selfishly against royal despotism and the exploitation of their country by foreigners, had unconsciously prepared the way for a constitutional monarchy, so they had, again unwittingly, taken the first steps to awaken a national spirit which first came to a full, conscious realiza- tion in the England of Edward III. FOR ADDITIONAL READING For the constitutional aspects of the period the works already cited. Medley is particularly good on the development of Parliament. For social, industrial and intellectual conditions in addition to the works already cited, e.g. in chs. V, X, J. E. T. Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices (6 vols., 1866-1867) and his Six Centuries of Work and Wages (1890) based upon it, both valuable but not to be relied upon implicitly. G. G. Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (1918) ; G. E. Unwin, ed., Finance and Trade wider Edward III (1918) ; L. F. Salzmann, English Industries of the Middle Ages (1914) ; E. L. Cutts, Scenes and Characters in the Middle Ages (1872) ; Jusserand, English Way- faring Life in the Middle Ages (2d ed., 1889) ; Gasquet, The Great Pestilence (1893) ; Charles Creighton, History of Epidemics in Britain (2 vols., 1891- 1894) ; R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought (1884) ; A. F. Leach, The Schools of Mediaeval England (191 5) ; E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (1903) ; Robert Withington, English Pageantry (vol. I, 1919) ; W. H. Schofield, Chivalry in English Literature (191 5). For the Church see, W. W. Capes, History of the English Church (1903) and G. V. Lechler, John Wiclif and his English Precursors (2 vols., 1881- 1884). CHAPTER XIV RICHARD II (1377-1399). THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY A Boy King. Unsatisfactory State of the Country. — On 16 July, 1377, a boy of ten, Richard, son of the Black Prince, was crowned King. Although the reign began with a prospect of conciliation beween contending factions, nevertheless, Piers Plowman had prophesied truly that " where the cat is a kitten, the kingdom is full miserable." The pestilence and the long war had thinned the population and bur- dened the country with heavy taxes, while the English possessions in France had been reduced to marsh-girdled Calais and a portion of Aquitaine. Bands of armed men, wearing the livery of one or another great lord, roamed through England, plundering and disturbing the peace. In the face of suffering, danger, and disorder the Commons viewed with increasing resentment the luxury at court. The Poll Taxes of 1379 and 1380. — The Government, chosen by the Parliament to act for the little King, proved ineffective and un- popular. Its war measures were particularly unsuccessful, yet in order to meet the expenses which they involved, poll taxes were de- vised. The first, levied in 1379, was carefully graduated according to wealth, but in a new assessment, imposed the following year, the bur- den fell more heavily on the lower classes, causing great " dismay and woe," and furnishing the occasion for a revolt which had been brewing for years. Conditions Leading to the Peasant Revolt. — The widespread discontent was social and industrial as well as political. The peas- antry were infuriated at the attempts since the Black Death to revive old villein services, and joined the artisans in strenuous opposition to the Statutes of Laborers. In the towns, the lesser folk chafed also at the selfish, arbitrary policy of the ruling bodies. Very generally municipal governments had passed into the hands of little oligarchies who governed with a total disregard of their unprivileged fellow- townsmen. Another grievance was the restrictive gild regulation which 153 154 SHORTER ■ HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN bore with peculiar harshness on the unskilled laborers in preventing them from passing from one employment to another. Among other uneasy and discontented elements were soldiers released from the war and disinclined to work, while fugitive villeins, idlers, and criminals swelled the throng. Then there were the more extreme among the followers of Wiclif, though he himself had not sanctioned force. A " mad priest," John Ball, went about teaching that goods should be held in common and the distinction between lord and serf wiped away. However, the poll tax, received with " great grudging and many a bitter curse," was the spark that fired the train. The Peasant Revolt (1381). — While the chief centers of disturbance were in the south and east, the revolt broke out nearly simultaneously in almost every part of the country. The name " Peasant Revolt," by which it was commonly known, is misleading. In Kent, for example, where no villeinage existed, the chief grievances were the poll tax and the maladministration. The plan was to kill all lords and gentlemen and great churchmen, to burn tax rolls and title deeds, to secure pos- session of the King, and to take the government into their own hands. Outbreak in Essex and Kent. The March on London. — The first outbreak occurred in Essex, late in May, with the stoning of the royal tax commissioners. Within a few days the Kentishmen rose, choosing as leader one Wat Tyler, an obscure adventurer of ready wit and sharp tongue. Rapidly swelling in numbers the rioters started for London, burning houses of royal officials, lawyers, and unpopular landlords as they proceeded. On the evening of 12 June, they encamped on Black- heath; the same night the Essex insurgents, who had been busy destroying court and manorial rolls, reached Mile End ; thus London was threatened from the north and east. The next morning John Ball preached a fiery sermon, declaring that in the beginning all men were equal, that the wicked had reduced them to servitude and that the time had come to shake off the yoke. Stimulated by his words, the insurgents streamed into the City, though with wise moderation they spared the property of all except their chief enemies. The Conference at Mile End. — On the morning of the 14th, young Richard rode out to Mile End, northeast of the City walls, entering the howling mob^ as a " lamb among wolves." However, they re- ceived him joyfully on bended knees, crying: " Welcome, our Lord King Richard, an it please you we desire no other King than you," whereupon, he heard their petition, presented by Wat Tyler, and granted every article. Their chief demands were : abolition of serf- dom, full pardon to all insurgents, the right to buy and sell freely, fixed rents, and adjustment of wages by mutual agreement. THE END OF THE PLANTA GENET DYNASTY 155 Excesses of the Rioters. Murder of Wat Tyler. — In spite of the royal concessions — which, as a matter of fact, Richard's councilors had no intention of carrying out — Wat Tyler led a band of rioters from the conference and sought out and cruelly murdered the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and the Treasurer, together with a few others whom they specially hated. Satisfied with what Richard had granted them, " the simple and honest folk " departed to their homes, while the extremists, the criminal, and the disorderly spent the night in slaughter, plundering, and burning. At a meeting, held next day to placate Tyler with further concessions, he was provoked into drawing his dagger and surrounded and cut down so promptly that it seemed as if the whole thing had been planned. When straightway the in- surgents began to draw their bows, little Richard, so the story goes, showed himself a worthy son of the Black Prince ; speeding toward them and waving them back he cried : " Sirs, will you shoot your King ? I will be your chief and captain, you shall have from me all that you seek." While he delayed them in parley the Lord Mayor hastened to rally the citizens, and, with their aid, the King was more than a match for the rabble, demoralized by the loss of their chief. Yet he was wise enough to let them depart in peace, though he ordered Tyler's head to be fixed on London Bridge. Suppression of the Revolt. Results. — The backbone of the re- sistance in London was broken. Kent submitted without fighting. The Essex insurgents demanded the confirmation of Mile End con- cessions ; but King Richard led an army against them and put them down, declaring, regardless of his promises : " Villeins ye are still, and villeins ye shall remain." About a hundred of the rebels were tried and put to death, among them John Ball. Outside of Kent and Essex, risings in East Anglia caused the most trouble, those in other parts of the country were scattered and were suppressed by September. Parliament met in November. While all the King's promises were revoked, a general amnesty, excepting almost two hundred names, was proclaimed. Thus encouraged, many lords not only reasserted their rights, but tightened the bonds. While it is notable as the first great struggle of labor against capital, the Revolt of 1381 led to no startling changes. Serfdom, for example, was only gradually abolished, and this was due mainly to substitution of pasture for arable, and of leasehold farming for direct cultivation by manorial lords. Royal Favorites and the Opposition (1382-1386). — Richard's edu- cation was very defective, awakening in him a love of luxury rather than of work. While Parliament sought to hold him in leading strings, self-seeking courtiers fed him with exalted notions of the royal powers 156 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and urged him to throw off the parliamentary yoke. His chief favorites were, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and Michael de la Pole, later Earl of Suffolk — the former a person of mean attainments, the latter a trained general and diplomat whose aim was to make peace with France and to restore order by strengthening the royal authority. War with France dragged on languidly and fitfully, for Parliament would neither grant money for an adequate expedition led by the King in person, nor, though an occasional truce was made, would they accept peace on French terms. The conflict between the King and the Opposition was an unedifying one. While the issue was again raised of control of royal expenditure and the appointment of Ministers, the anti-Court party, among them two of the King's uncles, was more anxious for power than reform of abuses ; on the other hand, Richard developed a fiery, headstrong temper and heaped favors upon his favorites. In 1386 he was forced to dismiss Suffolk, who, though the charges against him of subverting the laws and enriching himself with public money could not be sustained, was impeached and temporarily imprisoned. The Lords Appellant (1387) and the Merciless Parliament (1388).— Richard refused to recognize a Council of Eleven set up by the baronial opposition in Parliament, and secured from the judges an opinion that such attempts to interfere with his prerogative were treasonable and that Parliament had no right to impeach his Ministers without his consent. Thereupon, both parties prepared for war, and, 14 Novem- ber, 1387, a group of the opposition lords, 1 headed by Richard's uncle Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, " appealed of " or personally charged with treason five of the royal favorites, including de Vere and Suffolk. Richard, seeing that resistance was useless, advised them to save themselves and ultimately they all took flight. When a new Parlia- ment met, in February, they ordered the arrest of the judges who had signed the opinion in favor of the King, and the " Lords Appellant " repeated their original appeal against the royal favorites supporting it by formal charges, which were, in substance : that the accused had conspired to estrange the King from his proper councilors, that they had raised an armed force, and had sought to massacre their opponents in Parliament. Suffolk and de Vere, beyond reach, died in exile, but two of the remaining three were executed, while a number of others, whose only crime was their faithful support of King Richard, were sentenced to death by this " Merciless Parliament " as it came to be called. The leaders enriched themselves with the offices and estates of their fallen enemies, and the Lords Appellant, who had been 1 The accusing lords were known as the "Lords Appellant." THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 157 preaching economy all along, actually wrung a grant of £20,000 from Parliament for their services. With the appointment of Ministers from their own party and a Council to control the King their victory seemed complete. Richard's Eight Years of Good Rule (1387-1396). — After less than a year of the new regime, Richard, by a sudden stroke, May, 1389, took over the government into his own hands. He was wise enough, however, not to put in office any of his old favorites and even to take no vengeance against the members of the Merciless Parliament. For eight years he ruled as a constitutional and popular King. Richard in Ireland (1394-1395). — In 1394 Richard went to Ireland, the first King to visit the country since the time of John. There was much to demand his attention, for conditions were growing steadily worse. The "Pale" 1 had shrunk to a small bit of country about Dublin, and the other districts under English rule " were mere patches," cut off from it by native tribes who were constantly in re- volt. In spite of the Statute of Kilkenny — passed in 1366, prohibit- ing the English from intermarrying with the Irish or adopting their language and dress — many of the original English settlers lived like the native Irish and their leaders ruled as independent tribal chiefs. Since Richard was accompanied by a large army, the Anglo-Irish and the Irish chiefs as well, thinking they could resume their old courses again after his departure, readily made their submission. He sought at once to dazzle them by his splendor and to attach them by his generosity : he published an amnesty for all past treasons both of the Englishry and the Irishry, he acknowledged that the harshness and corruption of his officials had caused much of the rebellion and dis- order of the past, and took steps to reform the judiciary and general administration of the country. Richard's Attempt to Rule as an Absolute King (1396-1398). — The death of Richard's Queen, Anne of Bohemia, in 1394, deprived him of a gentle restraining influence. In 1396 peace for thirty years was made with France and, in November of the same year, he married Isa- bella, the daughter of Charles VI. From the moment of this French alliance Richard began to throw aside all his recent caution and to nourish the most unrestrained ambitions — he increased the magnif- icence of his court, borrowed money right and left, resorted to all sorts of irregular and oppressive means to support his growing lavishness, and resisted with fury attempts at remonstrance. Suspecting that Lords Appellant were plotting against him, he had them seized and — in a packed Parliament which met in September, 1397 — " ap- 1 The name of the area under English control. 158 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN pealed " them of treason for their acts of 1387-1388. All of them were speedily punished; their leader, Gloucester, shipped off to Calais, met his death on the way, probably murdered by royal order. Richard rewarded his supporters with unsparing hand, creating no less than five dukes and one marquis and four earls, and, before he allowed the members of Parliament to separate, he made them take an oath to maintain all the acts of the session. Richard's Absolutism at Its Height. — The next year a new session was held at Shrewsbury, in which Parliament, overawed, it is said, by an armed force, passed measures that made Richard practically abso- lute. The acts of the " Merciless Parliament " were annulled ; a sub- sidy on wool was granted him for life ; and, this subservient body agreed to delegate its authority to a commission of eighteen for hearing petitions and transacting all undetermined business. Further- more, Richard offended his subjects by the wildest statements : " The laws were in his mouth and in his breast," he declared, " not in any statute books," and " the lives and lands of his subjects were his own, to be dealt with according to his good pleasure, despite all legal forms." His foolhardiness during the next few months almost passes belief : he not only increased his exactions, but he accused whole counties of treason, he browbeat judges, and imprisoned hosts of persons on the slightest pretext. To cap his folly, he seized, on the death of John of Gaunt, the enormous estates of the family in defiance of a promise to Henry, John's eldest son, whom Richard, in consequence of a pending duel with another noble, had recently banished for ten years with the assurance that his rights of inheritance would be in no wise diminished. Indeed, he went further and exiled for life this man who stood next but one in line of succession to the throne. The Landing of Henry of Lancaster 4 July (1399). — Having thus wronged his rival beyond endurance and fanned the anger of his subjects to a white heat, Richard departed for Ireland to chastise a rebel chief who had slain the Lord Lieutenant. While he was thus occupied, Henry of Lancaster landed, 4 July, 1399, at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. His following was small, but half of England had sent assurances that they were prepared to take up his cause. With solemn assurances he declared that he was not a traitor aiming at the throne ; but that he came only to recover his paternal heritage and to drive away the " King's mischievous councilors and Ministers." Directly he heard the news Richard hastened back from Ireland, but his king- dom was practically lost before his arrival, and almost no one would fight for him. At length, in despair, he consented to surrender, and even to abdicate, on condition that his life should be spared and THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 159 that the followers who had stood by him should be given a safe conduct. Amid the hoots of the multitude he rode into London a prisoner. The " Abdication " and Deposition of Richard (1399). — A Parlia- ment was summoned, in his name, to meet 30 September, 1399 ; but before it came together he had read before Lancaster and other witnesses a document in which he declared himself, " insufficient and useless," and unworthy to reign. This abdication was repeated before Parliament, together with a list of articles setting forth at length the acts by which Richard had violated the constitution and oppressed individuals, among them the murder of Gloucester and the banishment and disinheriting of Henry of Lancaster. After the articles had been recited, both Houses voted that Richard should be deposed. Henry of Lancaster Gucceeds to the Throne. A Parliamentary Dynasty. — Thereupon, Henry qi Lancaster rose and claimed the vacant throne — basing his clairri on two grounds, right of descent from Henry III and right of conquest. As a matter of fact Henry's claim of descent was merely a pretext. 1 His second claim was the decisive one. Parliament chose him because, as the ablest male of the royal house, he had overcome a King who had defied the laws and oppressed the subjects. This action was fraught with the deepest con- stitutional significance. It confirmed the precedent, in the case of Edward II, that kings could be deposed for misrule, and established a new one — that Parliament could choose a successor not necessarily the next in blood. The further fact that, as elective kings, the Lan- castrians made a bargain to govern in accord with the will of Parlia- ment was also of the profoundest importance. End of Richard. Final Estimate. — Richard, in February, 1400, was reported dead. According to some accounts he declined food and pined away, though more likely he was starved to death by his captors. Little fitted by training and disposition for his royal duties, his heritage from his grandfather had been a burdensome one, " debt, unlucky wars, popular discontent"; but he lived all that down and ruled for years as a constitutional and popular King. Then he suddenly plunged into a mad career of violence against his enemies, of extravagance, " vain boasting," " and freakish tyranny." His 1 The Earl of March (see table, introd.) was actually the nearest lineal heir, since his grandfather had married Philippa, daughter of Lionel, Duke Clarence, second son of Edward III, while Henry by blood was one degree removed from the line of descent, since his father, John of Gaunt, was a younger brother of Lionel. In going back to Henry III, Lancaster was impliedly making use of a rumor spread by his followers that Edmund of Lancaster, the founder of his house, was really Henry Ill's eldest son whom Edward I had supplanted. l6o SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN wrongs to Lancaster merely furnished the occasion and the leader to overthrow him. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay; Yickers ; and C. W. Oman, Political History of England (1906), a good clear account but marred by many inaccuracies of detail. For the Peasant Revolt see Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381 (1906) ; and G. Kriehn, "Studies in the Sources of the Social Revolt of 1381," Ameri- can Historical Review, VII, 254-285, 458-484. Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 84-103. CHAPTER XV THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER IN TrfE ASCENDANT. HENRY IV (1399-1413). HENRY V (1413-1422) AND THE "CONSTITU- TIONAL EXPERIMENT" IN GOVERNMENT The Lancastrian Period. Its Constitutional Importance. — The Lancastrian regime of over sixty years was a period of wars at home and abroad, lightened by picturesque incidents, but, in general, dreary and inglorious. Yet this half century is notable for something more than the rise and fall of a royal family. Its real significance lies in the fact that Parliament, having put this family on the throne, exercised control over the affairs of the Kingdom all through the reign of Henry IV, Henry V, and well into the reign of Henry VI. Privi- leges which had been only occasionally asserted under previous Kings were now recognized, exercised, and extended. The parliamentary experiment proved premature ; nevertheless, the experience was a valuable one which later bore enduring fruit. Henry IV (1399-1413). Character and Problems. — Henry IV, sometimes known as Henry of Bolingbroke, from the place of his birth, was brave, active, temperate. By nature merciful, the bitter experiences of his later years made him suspicious and calculating, and when goaded by resistance and rebellion, cruel in retaliation. A good soldier, he was also a careful administrator and a wise states- man. The reign opened full of promise. Henry was welcomed by all classes, he was related to most of the great barons of the Kingdom, he was in close alliance with the Church and clergy, and pledged him- self " to abandon the evil ways of Richard II," and to govern, not by his own " singular opinion," but " by common counsel and con- sent." Notwithstanding his seeming popularity his position was insecure and trying. His title might be taken away by those who gave it, and there were such demands upon his resources that he was always in debt. The French refused to recognize him as Sovereign and coveted the English possessions on their soil ; Scotland was restless and Wales soon broke out into revolt. In addition, Henry was teased by his Parliaments and harassed by risings of the dis- m ■ 161 1 62 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN affected ; he was the prey of factions ; attempts were made on his life ; and his last years were darkened by efforts of his son to supplant him, by the pains of illness, and by stings of conscience over his usurpation. Shakespeare could make him say with truth : " Un- easy lies the head that wears a crown." The Beginning of a Welsh Revolt under Glendower (1400). — In the first year of his reign, besides an abortive plot to restore Richard, who soon ceased to live, and an ineffectual rising of the Scots, insti- gated by France, there was'a more dangerous movement in Wales led by Owen Glendower, a Welsh squire, who, stung to revolt by failure to secure redress from the King against a grasping neighbor, obtained a great following of his countrymen, moved by resentment against English rule, the oppression of English officials, and the arrogance of the Lords Marchers. Year after year English armies marched against him, but Owen always eluded them. Fie nourished vast plans for setting up a great Celtic empire ; to that end he nego- tiated on all sides — with the Irish, the Scots, the French, the Pope, and with disaffected English barons who wanted to seat the young Earl of March, Richard's next heir, on the throne. All his ambitious designs came to naught, though for years he lived as an outlaw, a local terror to the Lords Marchers. He finally died, in 141 5 ; but the common people, among whom he was reputed to be a wizard, long dreamed that Owen Glendower only slept and would finally awake to deliver them from the English yoke. The Risings in the North. — In the early stages of his revolt he had counted on the Percies who ruled in the north with almost kingly power. Henry, the elder, Earl of Northumberland, who with his fiery son Sir Henry, known as " Hotspur," had aided to put the King on the throne, were richly rewarded and intrusted with the defense of the Scotch and Welsh borders. In spite of scanty supplies from the royal purse, they executed their duties effectively, and inflicted a crushing defeat on an army of Scotch invaders in 1402. The re- sult, however, was a deadly quarrel with their Sovereign over the payment of expenses incurred and the disposal of the prisoners. Hotspur opened communications with Glendower, and marched an army to join his Welsh ally. Hastily levying an army, the King marched to the Welsh border, and, 20 July, 1403, attacked his enemies at Shrewsbury before they could effect a junction with Glendower. The rebel forces were routed and Hotspur was killed. Northumber- land, who had been raising an army in Yorkshire, disbanded it on the news of the royal victory and begged for pardon. Very foolishly the King let him off with a short imprisonment ; whereupon, in 1405, THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER IN THE ASCENDANT 163 the unquiet Earl united with a number of great lords in another rising, eluded capture, and was a constant source of trouble until, in 1408, he was defeated and slain in leading a raid from Scotland across the Border. England had no occasion to fight another battle on her own soil for forty years. Henry's Last Years (1408-1412). — Henry was now supreme. Owing to the efficient campaigns of his son, Prince Hal, the Welsh from this time ceased to be dangerous ; James, King of Scotland, captured by English privateers on his way to France, was a prisoner ; while France — under Charles VI, a King subject to frequent fits of insanity and torn by party strife between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy — was only too glad to keep peace. Still Henry's last years were not happy. He suffered from grievous bodily infirmities, his usurpation and the deaths of Richard and of Archbishop Scrope — whom, against his better judgment, he allowed to be tried and executed for joining in the rising of 1405 — weighed heavily on his conscience, and he was much distressed at the impatience of Prince Hal, egged on by his ambitious uncles, to grasp the reins of govern- ment. Nevertheless, at his death, 20 March, 14 13, this much-tried King left behind him a strong government and an uncontested title. Constitutional and Parliamentary Gains. — However, it is from the constitutional point of view that the reign is most significant, for owing to Henry's necessities, Parliament secured the dominance in public affairs which they retained during the greater part of the Lancastrian period and which furnished a model to future genera- tions. In successive sessions they established the principle that redress of grievances should precede supply, that moneys should be voted only on the last day of the session after their petitions had been answered; they asserted successfully the right of freedom of debate ; and — often with scant justice — they cut down or revised the expenditures. For example, in 1406, we find them demanding redress of " good and abundant grievance " and telling their Sover- eign that his household was composed not of " valiant and sufficient men but of rascalry " ; they appointed a commission to audit all public accounts, while, furthermore, they forced the King to agree that he would do nothing without the consent of a continual Council of their own choosing. 1 In 1407 they secured recognition of the important principle that money grants should originate in the Com- mons. 1 Had this scheme remained permanent the present Cabinet system would have been anticipated by many centuries. 1 64 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Measures against the Lollards. — Parliament, too, passed cruel and searching acts against the Lollards, though the initiative came from the clergy and the King, for Henry IV, from policy, and his son, from conviction, were both very orthodox. In 1401 the important statute de haeretico comburendo was enacted, providing that impenitent heretics, after conviction -by the ecclesiastical courts, should be handed over to the lay authorities to be burned, " in order to strike terror into the minds of others." An Act passed in 1406 accused the Lollards of denying rights of property and of preparing men's minds for rebellion, and provided that all who were detected teaching or defending any Lollard doctrine were to be arrested as public enemies. In 1409 the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a series of constitutions condemning the doctrines of Wiclif, forbidding the translation of the Bible without authority, and prohibiting all discussion upon points determined by the Church. " An execrable crowd of Lollard knights," " true satellites of Pontius Pilate," in the Parliament of 1410, replied with a petition that the enactments against heretics might be softened, and even proposed a complete disendowment of the Church. As might be expected, the King refused to listen, and Prince Henry " bade them never for the future dare to put such stuff together." Parliament was progressive in politics, in religion the orthodox party was in the majority. The King identified himself with both tenden- cies. Henry V (1413-1422). Accession and Character. — Henry V, while he had already distinguished himself in the Welsh wars and had had considerable experience in government, had been a wild and boisterous youth. His accession changed him into another man, reputed the " most virtuous and prudent of all the princes reigning in his time." Rigidly attached to the Church, he has been blamed for his relentless persecution, but he believed, with the best minds of the age, that heretics should be made to recant for their own salvation or disposed of to prevent them from contaminating others. Moreover, the Lollards menaced the existing social order, joined in conspiracies against him, and leagued with his enemies. 1 He lived in a grim age, and when he awoke to his responsibilities, became frugal, cautious 1 The suppression, in 1414, of a rising by Sir John Oldcastle, persecuted for hold- ing Lollard opinions, was followed by the hanging of thirty of his adherents as traitors and the burning of seven as heretics. Parliament, in the same year, passed an- other heresy act providing that any of the King's officers might seize suspected persons and hand them over to the Church courts for trial. Oldcastle escaped and wandered about as a proscribed outlaw, intriguing with the King's enemies, until 141 7, when he was captured and burned. The failure of his efforts marked the end of Lollaidry as a political and social force. THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER IN THE ASCENDANT 165 and active, devoid of geniality and gentleness, though not of justice, a man to follow and obey, not to love. It was from his exploits in the struggle against France that Henry V achieved his greatest fame. To recover English prestige and to regain territory which he believed to be rightfully his, as well as to unite his subjects in a common undertaking, he renewed the war with France. All that he set out to do he accomplished ; he not only made himself supreme in France and awakened a genuine national enthusiasm at home, but came to be regarded as the first Monarch in Europe. His success, however, rested on foundations that could not prove lasting, on his personal prowess, and on the temporary weakness of France. Henry Resumes the War with France (1414). — Taking advantage of the disordered mental condition of Charles VI and of the factional strife in France, Henry V undertook to restore the English prestige in France to the highest point which it had reached under Edward III, and if possible to recover all the territory which his predecessors had possessed. Furthermore, he concluded to reassert Edward Ill's claim to the French crown, or, as an alternative, to demand in mar- riage Katherine, daughter of Charles VI. As the Orleanists, led by the Count of Armagnac, were momentarily in control of the French King, he allied himself with the rival Burgundian faction, and, 31 May, 1414, sent ambassadors to demand the " restitution of his ancient rights." Since, however, the French could concede no terms which he would accept, he made ready to invade their country. The Invasion of France (1415). Agincourt (25 October). After he had completed his preparations, Henry was delayed by the discovery of a new plot to put the Earl of March on the throne during his ab- sence. Having made an example of the chief conspirator, 1 he set sail, 10 August, 141 5, with an army consisting of about 2000 men at arms and 6000 archers. Owing to the coldness of the season and the fact that nearly half his forces fell sick, he was obliged to give up his original plan of systematically conquering Normandy, and decided to return home by way of Calais, hoping to overawe the inhabitants along the march and to tempt the enemy to battle. At Agincourt a force three or four times his own assembled to block his advance ; again, as at Crecy and Poitiers the French were overcome by deadly clouds of arrows shot from the English long bows, and Henry, after three or four hours, gained an overwhelming victory with a loss of little more than 100, while the French left nearly 6000 dead on the field. In November he sailed from Calais. Aside from impressing his opponents with his daring and skill as a general, and 1 March, himself, who disclosed the plot, was spared. 166 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN reviving the glory of English arms, he had gained little from his costly expedition. Henry's Second Expedition to France (1417). — On 2$ July, 1417, Henry embarked on his second expedition to France with an army twice the size of his first. He spent more than a year in reducing the strong places of Normandy ; Rouen, which offered the most obstinate resistance, holding out from 29 July, 1418, to 19 January, 1419. Al- though he entered into negotiations with both the Orleanists and the Burgundians, his terms were so extreme that the two factions patched up a peace " to resist the damnable enterprises of our ancient enemies, the English." But the Dauphin, Charles, a boy of sixteen, underthe thumb of the Orleanists, used' this agreement merely as a decoy for the destruction of the Burgundian leader, John the Fearless, who was lured to a conference and slain as he was kneeling to do homage to his royal cousin. The result of this base crime was to throw the Bur- gundian party in the arms of the English, and to make effective resistance out of the question. So, 21 May, 1420, Charles VI, who was momentarily lucid, signed the " very marvelous and shameful " Treaty of Troyes, by which Henry V was recognized as heir of the King of France and Regent, and was promised the Princess Katherine in marriage, while " Charles, who calls himself the Dauphin," was formally disinherited "for his enormous crimes." Henry, who spent the next few months in reducing Orleanist strongholds, marred his triumph by steadily increasing cruelty and arrogance — he deliber- ately put prisoners to death to terrify those still in arms, and, on his entry into Paris, in December, he alienated the citizens by his over- bearing manners. Late in the same month he returned to England after an absence of three and a half years, but the brief time that he remained in the country he devoted more to pageants and progresses than to affairs of State. Henry's Third and Final Expedition to France (1421-1422). — Henry departed, 10 June, 142 1, on his third and final expedition to France, with the object of crushing the Dauphin and his Orleanist adherents. He drove the Dauphin south of the Loire ; and then undertook the reduction of the few strongholds which still held out ; but the strain and hardship of the winter were too much for his already overtaxed strength. In July he was obliged to take to his bed and died 31 August, 1422. Before his death he made arrangements for carry- ing on the government during the minority of his infant son, born to him 6 December, 142 1. He appointed his brother, John of Bed- ford, Regent of France, and Humphrey of Gloucester, his younger brother, Regent of England. These arrangements proved no more THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER IN THE ASCENDANT 167 stable than his conquest of France. The glamour of his military achievements must not blind us to the fact that Henry V had plunged his country into a war in which permanent success was hopeless, and which was largely responsible for the disorders and confusion in which his royal line went down to destruction. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See Chapter XVI below. CHAPTER XVI THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. HENRY VI (1422-1461) The Council and the Parliament Set Aside the Will of Henry V. — There was the greatest difference imaginable between the two brothers to whom Henry V had intrusted the government of England and France. Bedford was a high-minded man, devoted to public duty, while Gloucester, clever and cultivated, the patron of scholars, and at the same time master of the arts which please the people, was self-seek- ing and unprincipled, constantly stirring up dissension at home and abroad. Distrusting him from the start, the Council and Parliament set aside the will of the late King and declared Bedford Protector of the Realm, though they allowed Humphrey to act in that capacity during his elder brother's absence. As a matter of fact, however, the real powers of government were exercised by the Council, which was nominated by Parliament. Two Kings of France. — On 21 October, 1422, the poor mad King Charles VI followed Henry V to the grave. The party of the Dauphin at once proclaimed him King as Charles VII, while the English party proclaimed little Henry. France was exhausted and demoralized, and Charles, weak and pleasure loving, the tool of worthless and ruffianly councilors, seemed totally unequal to the great task imposed upon him. Slowly, however, national sentiment was gathering against the foreign conquerors who had brought so much misery upon the land. The Siege of Orleans (1428-1429). Jeanne d'Arc. — In the late summer of 1428 Bedford sent an army against Orleans, the chief stronghold which acknowledged Charles VII. Having failed to take the town by assault, the English determined to reduce it by famine, and a siege began which lasted from October, 1428, to April, 1429. For the French the outlook was of the gloomiest ; their armies had been driven off the field and a complete triumph for the English seemed assured. Suddenly, 6 March, 1429, a simple maid, barely turned seventeen, appeared before the French King at Chinon, in- spired, she told the doubting and astonished Court, by a divine com- 168 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 169 mission to relieve the sorely pressed Orleans and to lead her royal master to Rheims to be crowned. Jeanne d'Arc was a peasant girl of Domremy, who, always devout and imaginative, had begun about her thirteenth year to see visions of saints and angels, and to hear mysterious voices which at length directed her to go forth and save France. Securing the 'half-willing support of the commander of a neighboring garrison, she put on a man's doublet and hose, mounted a horse, and- rode straight to Chinon, where she easily singled out the King from a group of courtiers, and, in a secret interview, told him things that made him trust her mission. Clad in armor and girt with a " miraculous, holy sword," the " Maid of God " went forth to raise the siege of Orleans. Inspired by her advent, the garrison put the besiegers to flight, and defeated the forces sent to support them. To the French she was a God-given deliverer, to Bedford " a disciple and limb of the fiend . . . that used false enchantments and sorcery." Two Coronations (1429). — Having raised the siege of Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc led Charles to Rheims, and his coronation, 17 July, 1429, marked the height of her meteoric achievement. From now on voices ceased to guide her, and she devoutly wished that the Lord " would take her back to her father's sheep " ; nevertheless, she advised an immediate advance on Paris and demanded that Burgundy make peace with his King. The Duke refused to comply, a belated and ill-considered attack on the city was repulsed, and the self-seeking courtiers were able to recover their ascendancy over the feeble-minded Charles. As a reply to the coronation at Rheims, little Henry, al- though not eight years old, was crowned at Westminster, 8 November, and, during the ceremony, " beheld the people all about sadly and wisely," and behaved with " great humility and devotion." The Burning of Jeanne d'Arc (1431). — In May, 1430, Jeanne d'Arc was captured by the Burgundians. Sold to the English, she was taken to Rouen and tried in February of the following year. In vain she protested that " she had done nothing save by the command of God." For three months she was bullied and ill-treated by judges and jailers, to whom her simple courage and transparent honesty made no appeal, until finally, worn out by suffering, she was forced to declare that " her voices were delusions and that she had sinned in putting on men's clothes and going to war." She was burned in the market place at Rouen, 29 May, 143 1. Yet, thanks to her in- spired leadership, France was startled from her lethargy, and the " Maid of God " had been in her grave scarcely more than twenty years before her countrymen had driven the English from the land. 170 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Turn of the Tide in France. Death of Bedford (1435)- — For the moment Bedford seemed triumphant. In December, 143 1, Henry was taken to Paris and crowned ; but one reverse after another fol- lowed, far from balanced by occasional gains. Bedford, whose last years were plagued by efforts to hold Burgundy to the English alliance and to quiet strife stirred up by his uneasy brother Humphrey in England, died in 1435, worn out by his arduous duties. Although stout and experienced generals survived him and young leaders of promise were coming to the front, his death was an irreparable loss to the English. Burgundy now finally went over to the French side, while the English, fighting with stubborn courage and persistency, steadily lost ground, until, in November, 1437, the French King once more entered Paris which his forces had recovered the previous year. Humphrey of Gloucester, free from his brother's restraint, led the English war party, while his uncle, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, led those who favored peace ; but, in 1441, the waning influence of the latter abruptly ceased when his wife, Eleanor, was arrested, together with an astrologer and a woman, known as the Witch of Eye, on charges of reading the stars to determine the life of the young King, and then of endeavoring to destroy him by melting over a slow fire a waxen image made in his likeness. Her accomplices were put to death and the Duchess Eleanor was made to do penance by walking for three days about the City robed in a sheet and bearing a candle in her hand, and also sentenced to imprisonment for life. Absurd as these charges now seem, she was doubtless guilty of aiming to secure the succession of her husband, who was Henry's next heir in the Lancastrian line. Gloucester, who lacked courage to take any part in the affair, had to yield to the Beaufort faction, and, aside from obstructing them whenever he could, spent most of the remaining six years of his life collecting books and posing as a patron of learning. Henry's Marriage to Margaret of Anjou (1444). — As Cardinal Beaufort was growing old, the conduct of affairs fell more and more into the hands of his nephew Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and of the Duke of Suffolk, the latter of whom, in 1444, at the cost of a secret truce ceding Maine and Anjou, negotiated a marriage between Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, niece of Charles VII. This fiery young woman, an absolute contrast to her pious, kindly, and weak consort, joined the Beaufort-Suffolk faction, and accumulated a host of enemies, almost from the moment of arrival in England. Richard, Duke of York. His Claim to the Throne. — Richard, Duke of York, who came to the front about this time as the leader THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 171 of the party opposed to the Queen, derived his dukedom through his father, from one of the younger sons of Edward III. From his mother he inherited a title to the Crown better than that of King Henry, since he was descended from Lionel, Duke Clarence, an elder brother of John of Gaunt. 1 Parliament, however, had declared for the younger line which had the further advantage of unbroken descent through males. In spite of his political activity, it was some years before Richard asserted his claims to the throne ; indeed, he might never have done so, but for Henry's inability and misfortunes. The Impeachment of Suffolk (1450). — As soon as the news of the cession of Maine and Anjou became known, a storm of abuse de- scended on the head of Suffolk, and when Somerset, sent over as Commander in 1448, was forced within two years to yield the whole of Normandy, the opposing faction in England, who attributed his continued ill success to treason, vented their fury by impeaching Suffolk. He threw himself on the King's mercy, and Henry ordered him to leave the kingdom for five years. On his way abroad his ship was intercepted and he was murdered by persons unknown. Jack Cade's Rebellion (1450). — Popular discontent was mani- fested in " Jack Cade's Rebellion," which broke out in Kent and Sussex in May and lasted for six weeks. The grievances complained of were mainly political, the losses in France, the miscarriage of jus- tice, and the wasting of the King's treasure. One social grievance alone was mentioned, the Statute of Laborers, and this was probably to secure the lower classes. The insurgents, who, having taken possession of London, put some of the officials to death and sacked the houses of the leading citizens, were soon driven from the City and induced to disband by false promises of pardon. Cade, their leader, was killed in struggling against arrest ; many of those who had risen with him were executed, and various scattered revolts were crushed. Richard of York and the War of the Roses. — Richard became a popular champion in consequence of his opposition to the unpopular Somerset, whom Henry had made Constable on his return from his disastrous campaign in France, and a proposal to declare him heir to the throne, which resulted in a speedy dissolution of Parliament by royal command, was the first intimation of the dynastic struggle between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, known as the War of the Roses. 2 Yet some time elapsed before Richard himself asserted 1 See table, introd. 2 The name is not strictly correct, however, for while the white rose was the symbol of the Yorkists, the red rose was not a Lancastrian symbol. It was first used by Henry Tudor at Bosworth, in 1485. 172 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN his claims, and the actual war did not break out till 1455. Although the question of the succession came to be the most prominent issue, other causes contributed to bring it forward and to determine the final result : Henry's incapacity ; the masterful intriguing character of his wife ; the ill success of the war ; the acute financial situation ; the discontent and disorder throughout the land ; and the jealousies cf the great nobles who ranged themselves on the side cf Somerset and Yorkist families respectively. The Critical Year (1453). End of the Hundred Years' War.— The year 1453 witnessed events of the greatest consequence. Turning their armies south from Normandy, the French — although the English fought valiantly and were loyally supported by the Gascons — conquered Guyenne, and the Hundred Years' War was over. The impossible task of conquering France, begun by Edward III, and revived so brilliantly by Henry V, was at length abandoned, and England retired from the contest retaining only Calais of her former broad territories across the Channel. In August, King Henry was suddenly bereft of his faculties, and for sixteen months he con- tinued in a helpless state. Although Richard's prospects of succes- sion were dashed by the news that Margaret, 13 October, had given birth to a son, he managed to get control of the government ; for Parliament, which met attended by armed retainers of the rival factions, declared him " Protector and Defender of the Realm," with all the powers of Regent. The Battle of St. Alban's and the Beginning of the War of the Roses (1455). — When all seemed going well, the King's recovery of his reason, on Christmas Day, 1454, reopened the eld strife. Richard and his supporters were removed from office and Somerset gained the ascendancy. The Yorkists submitted to all this and retired quietly to their estates ; but, when a Council was summoned to provide " for the safety of the King's person against his enemies," Richard gathered a following and marched toward London. Pro- fessing their loyalty, they demanded an audience with their Sovereign and the arrest of certain councilors of the opposite party, but they were refused a hearing, and 21 May, 1455, Somerset marched from the City with the King and a great following of lords. The two armies met in the ancient monastic town of St. Albans. The encounter which followed was little more than a street fight, but it was big in consequence, for it opened the War of the Roses. The Duke of Somerset was killed, and the Queen now came forward as the head of the royal party. The civil war, thus begun, waged intermittently for fifteen years. S H C H * 4 We3t 3 Longitude 2 Greenwich East 1 BQRMAY & C3.,£NiS'S,Mjt, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 173 The Yorkists in Exile. — The " ill-day of St. Albans," however, was followed by more than four years of comparative peace, though hatreds were bitter, private feuds were waged unsuppressed, and the Queen was busily courting the aid of the Scots and the French. By the summer of 1459, both parties were again arrayed in arms; but, for the time being, the royalist forces were too strong for the Yorkists, most of whom either disbanded or deserted to the enemy. Richard fled to Ireland, while his son Edward, Earl of March, together with a faithful supporter, the Earl of Warwick, risked a wild ride through a hostile country and crossed over to Calais. However, the govern- ment of the triumphant Lancastrians, with the poor King dominated by Margaret and a " covetous Council," proved weak and ineffective, and more and more in the face of poverty, disorder, and selfish faction, the hearts of the people were turned to the leaders in exile who might bring them relief. Return of the Yorkists. Richard's Death at Wakefield (1463).— In June, 1460, Warwick and the Earl of March landed in Kent. Having issued a manifesto in which they set forth their grievances and the distempers of the realm, they proceeded to London, 2 July, whence, reenforced by musters streaming in from every side, they passed north and, at Northampton, defeated Henry VI and made him prisoner. Making no effort to crush Margaret, engaged in rousing the northern lords, they returned to London. Here they were joined by Richard, who had returned from Ireland in royal state, and who formally in Parliament claimed the crown as " heir of Richard II." Since this claim to succeed forthwith proved unac- ceptable even to his champion, Warwick, a compromise was arranged by which Henry was to remain King for life and Richard was to be recognized as his heir. Meanwhile, Margaret, after distressing hard- ships and harrowing adventures, had mustered a strong force in the north. Richard, underestimating her strength, marched against her with a small army and was defeated and slain at the battle of Wake- field, 29 December, 1460. Warwick, the Kingmaker. — On the death of Richard of York, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, became the leader of the Yorkists, for the Duke's son, Edward, Earl of March, a youth of eighteen, was as yet distinguished for nothing save his strength, his beauty, and his great bravery. Warwick, though by no means preeminent as a general or as a statesman, was a skilled diplomatist and politician ; moreover, he was first cousin to Edward, he was the greatest land- owner in England, and dispensed lavish hospitality. Regarded as the leader of the party cf reform and good government, he has, how- 174 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN ever, been very appropriately styled " the last of the barons " ; for he was the last representative of a great noble family to exercise almost royal powers and powerfully to influence English history with hordes of armed retainers. Nor was he above the ambitions of his class, and the cry of reform which he raised and the movement which he led was really to secure more power for himself and his house. For that reason he ingratiated himself with the people by fair promises, and for that reason he now made, and strove later to unmake, a King. Edward Becomes King of England (4 March, 1461). — After Richard's defeat and death, Margaret marched south to release her husband. While Edward was occupied with the Lancastrians in the west, she inflicted an overwhelming defeat on Warwick at the second battle of St. Albans, 17 February, 146 1. Henry was rescued from his enemies ; but, owing to his persuasions — for he was anxious to avoid more pillaging and bloodshed — Margaret did not march at once on London. While she was negotiating for its capitulation, Warwick and Edward, who had at length joined forces, pressed into the City and seized the fruits of her victory. Edward was declared King by a mass meeting of the citizens and the Yorkist lords. Though he was not legally elected, he took his seat on the throne at West- minster, 4 March, 1461, with the crown on his head and the scepter in his hand and received the homage of the magnates. FOR ADDITIONAL READING (Chapters XV and XVI) Mainly narrative. Sir James H. Ramsay, Lancaster and York (2 vols., 1892), pays particular attention to military and financial history; Oman, Vickers, and Stubbs, Constitutional History, previously cited. J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV (4 vols., 1884-1898) is a scholarly ex- haustive study. C. L. Kingsford's Henry V (1901) is a good brief biography. Kriehn, The English Rising of 1450 (1892) throws new light on Cade's rebellion. K. H. Vickers, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1907) is a full and scholarly account. An authoritative work on an important aspect of constitutional develop- ment is J. F. Baldwin, The King's Council in England during the Middle Ages (1913)- Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 104-128. - CHAPTER XVII THE YORKIST KINGS AND THE END OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. EDWARD IV (1461-1483) ; EDWARD V (1483) ; RICHARD III (1483-1485) The New King, Edward IV. — Margaret's army was so embittered and so discouraged that she was obliged to retreat northward. Edward and Warwick started in pursuit, and near Towton, on the high road to York, they overtook and defeated the Lancastrian forces in a bloody battle, 29 March, 146 1. Henry and the Queen fled across the Scotch border, while Edward returned to London where he was formally crowned, 28 June. The Yorkist line had at length displaced its rival, and with its baronial supporters — whatever their motives as a self- styled party of reform — had overthrown a regime incompetent and corrupt enough in all conscience. The people, weary of disorder at home and disgusted at the losses in France, eagerly accepted a change in hopes of better things. Poor Henry had to give way to a stronger and more spirited ruler. Edward Plantagenet was described as the handsomest prince in Europe. He was jovial, hearty, and familiar with all sorts and conditions of people. Fond of pleasure and naturally indolent he was prone to trust to others. On the other hand, he had a streak of thrift which led him to keep his coffers filled by heavy exac- tions and profitable private trading, and likewise to foster the commerce and general prosperity of the country. At crises, too, he could rouse himself and act with great decision and vigor. As time went on, his worst qualities became more pronounced ; his love of pleasure turned to viciousness and dissipation ; he became cruel, bloodthirsty, and extortionate, and died at forty, worn out by self-indulgence. Edward's Estrangement from Warwick (1464). — It was not till 1464 that Edward was fully master of England. In that same year he married Elizabeth, a widowed daughter of Richard Woodville. This step estranged the King's chief supporter, Warwick, for the Wood- villes were of the Lancastrian connection, and Edward, under the in- fluence of his beautiful, ambitious wife, began to heap favors on her relatives at the expense of the Nevilles and other families who had 175 176 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN set the House of York on the throne. Moreover, Edward's unexpected action frustrated a plan which Warwick had had all but completed for marrying the English Monarch to the sister of Louis XI, who had succeeded Charles VII, in 146 1. For the moment, however, the Earl swallowed his wrath. King Henry Again a Prisoner (1465). — Meantime, the Scots had concluded a truce with England, and poor Henry, deprived of this asylum, had been lurking in one after another of the Lancastrian strongholds in the wild hill country between Yorkshire and Lancashire. In July of 1465 he was betrayed by one of his entertainers and taken to London. For five years he was kept a prisoner in the Tower, where, although neglected he was not really abused ; for Edward was anxious to keep him alive as a hostage. Edward Driven out of England. — Relations between Edward and Warwick — still further strained from the fact that, while the Earl adhered to Louis XI, the English King allied himself with Louis's arch- enemy Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to whom he gave his sister in marriage — reached a breaking point in 1469. Then a recon- ciliation took place which lasted less than a year. In 1470 a Lan- castrian rising in Lincolnshire gave the King a chance to raise a great levy, to rout the insurgents, and to proclaim Warwick a traitor. Whether he was leagued with the insurgents is uncertain; but he had certainly promoted a revolt in Yorkshire the previous year, he resented Edward's refusal to follow his counsels, and may have nour- ished designs to seat the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, on the throne. Hotly pursued he took refuge in France, where Louis XI succeeded in reconciling him to Margaret of Anjou, the Earl marrying his daughter Ann to Margaret's son, Prince Edward. Supported by the French King, Warwick landed on the south coast of England ; the Nevilles rose in the north, and, deserted by the bulk of his forces, King Edward fled to Holland in October. Warwick marched to London and released Henry VI from the Tower. Bewildered, the half -de- mented King meekly assented to all that the Earl was pleased to do. While the people, as a rule, looked on with apathy, the majority ac- cepted Warwick, though London resisted, under the lead of the mer- chants who were attached to Edward because he owed them money and because of their interest in the Flemish trade. The Return of Edward and His Victory at Tewkesbury (1471). — A combination between Warwick and Louis XI against Burgundy forced Charles to equip Edward for an expedition to recover his throne. Landing on the east coast he hurried to London, secured the City, made Henry a prisoner again, and marched forth to attack Warwick THE YORKIST KINGS 1 77 in a battle fought at Barnet, eleven miles north of London, 14 April, 147 1, where the Earl's forces were defeated and he was slain as he attempted to flee. Forthwith Edward hastened west to intercept Margaret and her son, who, recently landed in Dorset, were marching up the Severn Valley gathering recruits. At Tewkesbury the Lancas- trians were overwhelmingly crushed, 4 May, Margaret was taken prisoner, 1 and the Prince was either killed as he sought to escape or brought before the King and slain by his orders. On 21 May, Edward reached London in triumph, and shortly after, it was reported that Henry had died " of pure displeasure and melancholy," but there is little doubt that he was murdered in accordance with the royal will. Lacking in resolution and knowledge of human nature, he was ever the puppet of stronger natures, including his wife who contributed to his undoing, and his mind, always weak, broke down under the strain of the disorders of his kingdom that he was unable to avert. Pure, honest, merciful, and wholly deserving a more happy fate, he was long worshiped in the north country as a saint and martyr. Edward's Rule after Tewkesbury and His Expedition to France. — Edward's restoration, due largely to his own remarkable generalship, was marred by extortion and cruelty : " the rich were hanged by the purse and the poor by the neck," while none dared oppose him. After having spent a large part of the confiscations wrung from his van- quished enemies, Edward called a Parliament. To secure grants he declared his intention of renewing war on France, and, in addition, exacted " benevolences," supposed to be voluntary, but usually forced from the unwilling subject. Although extravagant, he was careful enough not to exceed his revenues, and politic enough to pay his bills. After concluding a treaty of alliance with Charles of Burgundy, with the avowed object of recovering his " rightful inheritance " from the " usurper Louis " he led an army to France of nearly 15,000 men. On landing at Calais he found that Charles was not able to render him any assistance. However, Louis was willing to treat, and the two Kings met on the bridge of Pecquiny, near Amiens, separated from one another by a grating of trellis work. Louis agreed to pay down to Edward 75,000 gold crowns together with an annual pension of 50,000, also, a truce of seven years was arranged and a league of amity during life, each King binding himself to assist the other against his rebellious subjects. Attainder and Execution of Clarence (1478). — Edward's brother, the Duke of Clarence, who had married a daughter of Warwick and 1 She was later released on payment of a ransom by France and died in 1482. 178 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN had been the latter's tool from 1469 to ,1471, when he finally deserted the Earl's cause, was constantly involved in quarrels with the King and with his other brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Edward had never trusted him after his attempted treachery, and, as the years went on, various causes of friction developed. In 1478 he was seized and thrown into the Tower and an act of attainder was passed, in a subservient Parliament, acccusing him of spreading scandalous tales about the King, of compassing his death by necromancy, and of plotting an armed rebellion. Sentence was passed on him by a court of Peers. Worthless and false as Clarence was, the proceeding was a mere travesty on justice. Shortly after his condemnation he perished in the Tower, no one knows how, but the common story is that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Although it rid him of a troublesome rival, the tragic fate of Clarence seems to have embittered the remainder of Edward's life. Edward's Last Years. — After his profitable peace with France the King gave himself over more and more to his ease and pleasure, though he still kept a sharp eye on his revenues and was rigorous in the execution of justice. His confiscations, his French pension, his private trading ventures, particularly in wool, made him prac- tically independent of Parliament. Alien merchants were obliged to invest their gains from imports in English commodities, and in- formers were encouraged by dividing among them the proceeds of fines. The severe administration of the laws, though employed as a means of swelling the revenues, was necessary after the weakness and disorder which had prevailed so long. Edward was too wise, however, to damage his popularity by systematic oppression^, and to the last he was a favorite with the people of London and the other great towns. The foreign relations of his later years may be dis- missed very briefly. Charles the Bold, who had proved a broken reed in 1475, perished two years later in a rash war against the Swiss ; but though the Duchy was ruled by his widow Margaret, a ■ sister of Edward, he had little further connection with Burgundy, ex- cept to negotiate a commercial treaty, providing for unrestricted trade, on payment of " ancient dues and customs." As to Louis XI he repudiated an agreement which he had made to marry the Dauphin to Edward's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and Edward's rage at this treachery was a fatal shock to his constitution already undermined by debauchery. He was making great preparations for revenge when death put an end to his plans, 9 April, 1483. Nominal Reign of Edward V (9 April to 25 June, 1483). — Edward left two little sons, the eldest of whom was not yet thirteen years old. THE YORKIST KINGS 1 79 The few short weeks during which this unhappy boy Edward was nominally King were merely a scramble for supremacy between the relatives of his Queen Mother and his uncle Richard who had been intrusted with the care of the King and kingdom. Richard forcibly secured possession of his young charge, and, 4 May, 1483, was formally proclaimed Protector by the Council, while Edward was lodged in the royal apartments in the Tower. Queen Elizabeth, who had been scheming to make herself Regent, at once took sanctuary in West- minster Abbey with her daughter and her other son Richard, Duke of York. Richard of Gloucester, His Character and Policy. — Gloucester, while pretending to secure his position as Protector, was really aiming to make himself King. Truly he had grown up in troublous times ; his father had been killed before he was nine years old ; he had shared his brother's brief exile, in 1470, and had fought valiantly at Barnet and Tewkesbury. Whether justly or not, he was suspected of the murder of Henry's son, of Henry himself, and of procuring the death of his own brother Clarence ; yet, if these charges be true, he had acted primarily as the agent of the King in revenging enemies of the Crown. He was sober and industrious, and Edward trusted him and rewarded him liberally for his faithful service. The designs of the Queen's family stirred him to action ; but, when he saw a chance to make him- self King, he was unable to resist the temptation and hesitated at no fraud or bloodshed to attain his end. Doubtless, however, he intended, once he got to power, to rule as a strong just Monarch. Richard Proclaimed King (26 June, 1483). — Bribing all the sup- porters he could, he set out to dispose of all persons of influence whom he could not win over. On 13 June, 1483, he appeared at the Tower with an armed force and, with pretended rage, accused the Queen and her party of working spells upon him. Three days later, he terrified the Queen into sending Richard to join his brother in the Tower. An assembly which met in place of the Parliament summoned in the name of Edward IV, offered the crown to Richard, 25 June, and, in a strange petition, exalted his princely virtues, praying that " after great clouds . . . the sun of justice and grace may shine upon us." Accepting with a show of reluctance, Richard was proclaimed King the next day and crowned, 6 July. Richard's Crimes Undo His Attempts to Win His Subjects. — Once on the throne, Richard sought by various means to make himself popular. He went on a progress soon after his coronation, he helped the poor, he issued proclamations to suppress immorality, he .ordered the judges to judge justly, and he even refused gifts from London and 180 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN other towns saying he would rather have the hearts of his subjects than their money. But he undid any possible effects of his good works by ruthless bloodshed. Several of his opponents were put to death after the barest pretense of a trial or without being tried at all, while, shortly after his coronation, Richard sent a trusted henchman, with orders to kill the two innocent little princes in the Tower, and it is probable that they were smothered while they slept. The alleged de- struction of these harmless lads caused all right-thinking men to turn from Richard with loathing, while it gave others a handle to turn against him when the fitting time came. Yet he continued his vain efforts to win the hearts of his subjects, striving to do away with extor- tion, to reform justice, and to promote trade. In 1484 he abolished the hated benevolences of which his brother had made such use ; but the necessities of military preparation forced him to counteract this meas- ure by levying large loans. Nobody resisted him, but he could trust no one, he lived in constant disquiet and alarm, and in vain, when the hour of danger came, did he appeal to his subjects " like good and true Englishmen." The Landing of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (1485) . — Meantime, Henry Tudor, the nearest male representative of the Lancastrians, 1 who had escaped to France after Tewkesbury, having secured supplies of men and money, issued a manifesto to his English supporters against the " unnatural tyrant who bore rule over them." Then he crossed the Channel, landed at Milford Haven, 7 August, 1485, and calling on all true subjects to support him as he went, marched eastward to the Severn. Richard, advancing westward from Northampton, which he had chosen as a central point whence he could march readily in any direction, met the invaders at Bosworth near Leicester. Supporters had been flocking enthusiastically to join Richmond; the forces of Richard, on the other hand, were lukewarm and suspected of treason. The Battle of Bosworth (22 August, 1485). — While he trusted in his valor, Richard, haunted by dismal forebodings, passed a sleepless night. Yet on the morning of the fray, he addressed his captains in a fiery speech : he would triumph, he declared, " by glorious victory or suffer death for immortal fame." Henry's speech was equally stirring : he came, he said, to vindicate justice and avenge murder against a tyrant whose forces served him from fear rather than love, and who at the test would prove friends rather than adversaries. And so the event proved, for many went over to Henry's side, and more with- drew from the combat. Richard fought manfully, and sought to en- gage Henry himself in a hand to hand encounter. Wearing his crown 1 See table, introd. THE YORKIST KINGS l8l on his head, he cried, " I will die King of England," and deserted and surrounded by his enemies, he struggled shouting " treason ! treason ! " until he fell pierced by deadly wounds, while the victorious troops of the Tudor leader hailed him as Henry VII. Reasons for the Failure of the Lancastrian and Yorkist Dynasties. — Richard's usurpation merely hastened a crisis that seemed inevitable. The situation under Henry VI had proved that England was not ready for the liberties fostered by his father and grandfather. On the other hand, the rule of Edward and Richard had shown that the country had outgrown the age when it would submit to violence and despotism. The first two Lancastrian Henrys had done much for England ; they had nurtured parliamentary government, and for a time at least re- vived English prestige abroad. But wars, famine, pestilence, and chief est of all, want of governance, administrative feebleness, de- stroyed the last of the line. The Crown and the treasury were con- stantly in need of money ; individual life and property were never secure ; robbery, riot, and factional strife kept the country in continual turmoil. The remedies sought — more power to Parliament, remodel- ing the Council , and reforming statutes — proved of no avail. A strong hand was necessary ; that was why Henry VI was set aside, otherwise his adversaries would never have established their title, nearer in descent though they were. The Yorkists' rule, though stronger, failed to remedy the evils, to secure peace, or to inspire national confidence. The perversion of justice, robbery, violence, and factional struggles were still rife. A new man and a new policy were needed. As Henry VII united the dynastic claims of the two Houses, so he combined their policies. Observing the' forms of constitutional liberty accepted by the Lancastrians, he ruled with a strong hand like the Yorkists. What the country wanted most was peace and prosperity under rulers who could keep order. The line of Henry VII gave them that. It erected a new absolutism, but an absolutism based on popularity. This new absolutism prevailed until the country had recovered from exhaustion, emancipated itself from the bonds of the Middle Ages, and was pre- pared to make use of the liberty which it had at an earlier time pre- maturely acquired. It has been said that the result of the struggle between Lancaster and York was to arrest the progress of English freedom for more than a century. At its beginning, Parliament had established freedom from arbitrary taxation, legislation, and imprison- ment, and the responsibility of even the highest servants of the Crown to itself and the law. From the time of Edward IV parliamentary life was checked, suspended, or turned into a mere form. The legislative powers were usurped by the royal Council, parliamentary taxation gave 182 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN way to forced loans and benevolences, personal liberty was encroached on by a searching spy system and arbitrary imprisonment, justice was degraded by bills of attainder, by the extension of the powers of the Council, by the subservience of judges and the coercion of juries. It required a revolution in the seventeenth century to recover from the Crown what had been recognized and observed in the early part of the fifteenth. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Ramsay ; Vickers ; Oman ; and Stubbs all deal in more or less detail with the period covered by this chapter. The Paston Letters, 1422-1509 (6 vols., 1904) throw a flood of light on the public life of the fifteenth century, and the introduction by the editor, James Gairdner, is a valuable commentary. C. R. Markham in "Richard III : A Doubtful Verdict Reviewed," English Historical Review, VI, 250-283, 806-813, took the ground that Henry VII,, rather than Richard III, was the murderer of the sons of Edward IV ; but his contention was effectually answered by James Gairdner, "Did Henry VII Murder the Princes?" English Historical Review, VI, 444-464, 813-815. Gairdner's Life and Reign of Richard III (1898) is the best account of that reign. Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 129-133. CHAPTER XVIII THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM. HENRY VH (1485-1509) The New Absolutism. — The victory of Henry Tudor brought England peace and a strong settled government which endured for over a century, while the growth of parliamentary power was checked. Revival of absolutism was due to two causes — to the personal char- acter of the Tudor sovereigns, and to the situation of the country. The three notable rulers of this line, Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, were alike in many ways ; possessed of unbounded courage, physical and moral, they were also keen politicians in discerning the needs and temper of the people. Usually able to get things done as they wished, when they saw that a measure was going to be resisted they drew back, but their wishes and those of their subjects were in most respects the same. So they were absolute, not because they had a standing army, or any other of the common props of despotism, but because they were popular, they were needed. Henry VII, founder of the line, though extortionate, was frugal and politic. He fostered trade and industry ; he maintained peace abroad and order at home, and kept the country out of debt. Consequently he left a strong central government, a large treasure, and a people attached to the Crown. However, the revival of monarchial power was not due solely to the personal qualities of the Tudors. Much was due to conditions which had affected seriously the three political classes of the realm, the Nobles, the Clergy, and the Commons. The Nobles were no longer, in a position seriously to menace the Crown. Since the introduction of the longbow, and more particularly of gunpowder, their armor had ceased to be invulnerable, while their castles were not impregnable against cannon. Moreover, the strain of the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses 1 had reduced their numbers and wealth, while, at the same time, they had discredited themselves by their turbulence, extravagance, and self-seeking. The Church, 1 It is no longer believed that the bulk of the nobility were killed off in the Wars of the Roses. 183 1 84 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN too, was losing the assured position it had once held. It had indeed survived the attacks of Wiclif and the Lollards; but its influence had been threatened, and covetous eyes had been more than once cast on its vast wealth, and although it still retained a strong hold on the lesser folk, they counted for little, and it had to look to the Mon- archy for support. The Commons, the middle classes in town and country, busy in accumulating material resources, wanted peace and protection rather than liberty. 1 As the Nobility and the Church were unable, so the Commons were unwilling to oppose the new Tudor absolutism in which they saw a friend and protector. Henry's Problems. — Henry VII, therefore, found himself in a situation most favorable to the reestablishment of the royal power on a secure basis. He was confronted by many problems and he dealt with them prudently and skillfully : he had to establish his title, to dispose of rival claimants, to suppress disorder, to come to terms with Scotland, to settle conditions in Ireland, and to secure England's position abroad. Each of these problems must be con- sidered in turn. Henry's Means of Securing His Title. — Henry's first need was to secure his title. If he based his claim solely on right of conquest, he might have to yield to any one strong enough to drive him out ; furthermore, even though he was the nearest male representative of the Lancastrians, the legitimacy of title of his line of descent could be contested on various grounds. So, quite wisely, he secured from Parliament, in 1485, an Act vesting the royal inheritance in him and his heirs without stating any reasons. This done, he married, in i486, Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, thus uniting the claims of the two rival Houses. His next step was to secure from the Pope, in the same year, a bull recognizing his title. Finally, he made Parlia- ment pass an Act, in 1495, that it was no treason to obey a de facto king. Royal Pretenders. Lambert Simnel (1487) ; Perkin Warbeck (1492-1499). — There were, however, male representatives of the Yorkist line still living, and many doubted whether the young sons of Edward IV were actually dead, and naturally the enemies of Henry VII were glad to make use of such opportunities to rise against him. In 1487 they put forward one Lambert Simnel, son of an Ox- ford organ maker, as the Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence, although the real Earl 2 was a prisoner in the Tower. Crowned in 1 In Shakespeare's King John, produced in the reign of Elizabeth, Magna Carta is not even mentioned. 2 He was subsequently drawn into a plot, which furnished a pretext for putting him to death. THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 185 Ireland, where the sentiment was strongly Yorkist, Simnel invaded England, at the head of a body of supporters which included some of the English nobility and a force of German mercenaries sent over by Margaret of Burgundy. However, the invaders were received with scant favor, and were easily routed by Henry's troops. The Yorkist nobles were mostly killed or disappeared, and the mock king was made a turnspit in the royal kitchen, and later a royal falconer. Another pretender bothered King Henry for nearly eight years. This was Perkin Warbeck, son of a Flemish boatman, put forward as Richard, Duke of York. Receiving support in Ireland, Flanders, and Scotland, he finally landed, August, 1497, in southwest England, after two previous unsuccessful attempts at invasion. The King's army, however, was too much for him, and giving himself up, he was finally hanged, November, 1499. Henry's Exactions. — Henry VII turned most of the plots and risings against him to his own advantage. Refraining so far as possible from shedding blood, he contented himself with the safer and more profitable method of levying fines on those implicated. Another of his many devices to fill his coffers is known as " Morton's Fork," because its invention was attributed to his Chancellor, Thomas Morton. Persons who lived in great magnificence were forced to yield large sums on the ground of their manifest wealth, while those who lived plainly were subjected to equal burdens on the ground of their supposed savings. The royal extortion increased as the years went on. The Court of Star Chamber (1487). — Neither the Lancastrians nor the Yorkists had been able to suppress disorder, and statutes of " livery and maintenance " x had been directed in vain against law- less nobles and their retainers. In 1487 Henry VII devised a new expedient. Selecting certain great officers of State from the Privy Council, together with two judges, he gave them a special juris- diction, not only over livery and maintenance, but over misconduct of sheriffs, over riots and unlawful assemblies. They constituted a court, known as the Star Chamber probably from the room where the meetings were held, which, since it sat in London and had very summary jurisdiction, was able to act more effectively than any of the existing tribunals. 2 Poynings's Law (1494). — Ireland was a serious problem. The only place where the English possessed a shadow of authority was 1 See above, p. 142. 2 Later, more and more members were added till it came to be a judicial session of the whole Privy Council plus two judges. Subsequently used as an engine of oppression, political and ecclesiastical, it was suppressed in 1641. 1 86 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN in the Pale, and attempts to prevent the Anglo-Irish lords from identi- fying themselves with the natives had proven futile. Moreover, many of them were Yorkists. So, in 1494, Henry sent over Sir Edward Poynings and a body of English officials with the object of establishing and extending English rule. The new Lord Deputy secured the passage of " Poynings 's Law " providing that no Parliament should meet or pass any act without the consent of the King in Council, and that all English statutes should be in force in Ireland. Although these enactments put a check on Irish legislation they had the merit of protecting the colonists against the arbitrariness of the English officials. The Scotch and Spanish Marriage Alliances. — In accordance with his economical and peace-loving character, Henry VII preferred to avoid war and to secure his relations with other countries by treaties and marriage alliances. Two of the latter were fraught with conse- quences. James IV, King of Scotland since 1488, had caused much trouble by taking up the cause of Perkin Warbeck, so Henry sought to meet danger from this quarter by marrying James to his daughter Margaret. On 7 August, 1502, the wedding took place at Edinburgh, the gayest and most splendid the poor northern capital had ever witnessed. In years to come, many wars and rumors of wars followed ; but within a century a descendant of this marriage became King of England. Mean- time, 15 November, 1501, Henry had married his eldest son Arthur to Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, those celebrated monarchs who sent Columbus on his voyages of discovery to our western world. Arthur, however, died less than six months after his marriage, and eventually — by virtue of a papal dispensation, since it was against the law of the Church for a man to marry his deceased brother's widow — Catharine became, in 1509, the bride of Henry's second son, the future Henry VIII. The Transition from the Medieval to the Modern World. — During the reign of the thrifty and sagacious Henry VII, England was in a period of transition from the medieval to the modern world. New tendencies were in the making, but the eld had not been al- together discarded. Diverse characteristics are manifest both in the King and his age. Henry, businesslike and unheroic, absorbed in amassing treasure and avoiding war, was the direct contrast of the medieval knight, but, on the other hand, he chose Churchmen for councilors and founded religious houses with true medieval piety ; he gave John Cabot a patent to search for a northwest passage, but he contributed to a papal crusade against the Turks ; he negotiated free THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 187 trade treaties, but he also enacted a law against usury. 1 While English ships began to make their way to the western world, England was not yet a recognized sea power ; the New Learning was being introduced from Italy, though its effects were still unforeseen ; the old fighting nobility had been crushed, but the new nobility of wealth had not yet risen. In international affairs a new policy — balance of power — was just emerging, but it had not yet developed into a fixed principle. State of the Country. Agriculture. — Agriculture was in a back- ward state. No improved methods had been introduced since the Peasant Revolt ; the soil was exhausted, for draining and fertilizing were little practiced and artificial grass and clover were unknown ; cattle could not be kept over the winter to any extent, for turnips, later used for fodder, had not yet been introduced ; oxen were still used as draught animals, since they were cheaper than horses to feed and their flesh could be eaten when killed. Many things contributed to retard the progress of agriculture. Owing to the Black Death and other plagues, the supply of labor had been greatly reduced. Then the wars, foreign and civil, had further drained the population and discouraged and unsettled the surviving cultivators. Also, the monasteries, which had once taken the lead in clearing the wastes, building roads, and improving farming, had fallen off in wealth and energy. The increasing bareness of the soil, the scarcity of labor, and the growing demand for wool turned a steadily increasing number to sheep raising. Both common pastures and tenant holdings were enclosed for grazing lands, and, as sheep raising became more and more profitable, more and more farms were taken, which caused much hardship as the population began to recover again, for lands that furnished sustenance and employment to many tenants and laborers required only a few shepherds. Great outcry was made and laws were passed to check the practice, but without avail, and a chaplain of Henry VIII complained that " where hath been many houses and churches to the honour of God, now you shall find nothing but shepe- cotes and stables to the ruin of man." Nor did enactments to en- courage the exportation of corn, to raise the price, and to prevent import until the cost was so high as to cause hardship, materially help the situation. It was not until decades later, after the laborers driven from the soil had found a new occupation in manufacturing and a new demand arose for food to supply them, that agricultural prosperity revived. 1 In the third year of his reign he declared "usurious bargains" (i.e. all lending at interest) null and void, provided that the lender should be heavily fined, and further punished for his soul's good by the church authorities. 1 88 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Condition of the Agricultural Laborer. — The condition of the lower classes would seem insupportable now. Their homes were mere hovels with walls of clay and reeds, with floors of mud strewn with rushes, and fires were built in a cleared space in the middle of the floor, the smoke escaping through the door or a hole in the roof after half choking the occupants. It is small wonder that even women left these " dark, cheerless, and unhealthy dwellings " to seek company and diversion in the neighboring ale-house. Tea, coffee, and wheaten bread were luxuries yet undreamed of, though meat, beer, house rent, and fuel were cheap. Foreigners were struck by the quantities of meat consumed by the English ; but they saw only the tables of the gentry, the city folk, and the inns. The remote rural classes seem to have lived largely on peas, beans, and suchlike food in summer, while the salt meat and fish consumed in winter, together with bad air, lack of drainage, and stagnant water were fruitful sources of all manner of ills, such as scurvy and typhoid. The lot of the poorer classes in towns was just as bad. Infant mor- tality was appalling, and, what with the continuing ravages of the plague, it has been estimated that "as large a number of persons now live to seventy years as lived to forty " in the year 1500. Each little community still lived, for the most part, isolated and self- sufficing, making its own clothes and providing its own food. Roads were foul and miry during a greater part of the year, and infested by thieves, bridges were few and badly kept, and those who controlled river commerce were opposed to their increase. This lack of means of communication accounts for many of the famines, and was another cause for retarding the progress of agriculture, since no one cared to raise a surplus which could not easily be transported for sale. Yet there are some rays of light in the prevailing darkness. Even the lower classes were better off than they had been in the previous cen- tury and better off than their neighbors in France. The monks were easy landlords who seldom pressed for their rent from poor tenants and sometimes even remitted it in the hard seasons, and a number of the lay landlords seem to have followed the monastic example. The small farmers or yeomen were reasonably prosperous. Moreover, there was a chance for peasants to rise from their lowly station not only through the Church but by other avenues as well. Still the laborer's lot was, on the whole, a hard one ; he might have a piece of ground to till and a share in a common pasture, but, what with irregular work, poor food, unhealthy homes, wars, riot, famine, and pestilence he was ever so much worse off than he would be to-day. THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 189 The Nobles. — The nobility lived in rude magnificence with huge bands of household men : the Earl of Warwick, for example, had six hundred liveried servants in his train; the flesh of six entire oxen was sometimes consumed at a single meal, while visitors, always welcome, often carried off meat from the table. When a nobleman passed through a parish, bells were rung, caps were doffed in rever- ences, indeed, even in great towns burghers and journeymen flocked to see them as they stalked or rode along the streets. Yet most of them had been living from hand to mouth for a long time on the produce of -their estates and their plunder from war. Since their silks, satins, furs, jewels, and plate represented unproductive capital, they were often hard put to it for ready money and borrowed in all directions. When they could no longer carry their debts, their fine things were scattered and sold. The Tudors cut down their retinues and excluded them from their councilors, but the advent of peace and new conditions made their decline inevitable. Living isolated on their country estates they rarely possessed sufficient knowledge or training to participate in public business; consequently, with no wars to occupy them any longer, they devoted themselves to dress, cards, and dice, and steadily declined not only in wealth, but in character and physical vigor. The Middle Class. — As a result of increasing industrial develop- ment the middle classes were growing steadily better off, and many a yeoman and merchant became a landed gentleman. A new aris- tocracy arose — of energy and skill, of material prosperity — ulti- mately to be a power in politics and society. Possessed of lands and fine raiment, the new men were hard to distinguish from the old whom in a measure they were supplanting. The rich merchant princes kept houses of great magnificence. There was, however, more pomp and show than real comfort. Great houses had rarely more than two or three beds, and bare benches and window seats generally did duty for chairs. Distribution of Population and Industry. — The total population of England at the end of the fifteenth century has been estimated at 2,500,000, not much over a third of present-day London. In spite of a steady influx of laborers to the towns, London did not in all likelihood contain over 50,000 inhabitants, and there were probably not ten communities with more than 10,000. The poorest districts were in the north, though Yorkshire, as a wool-producing district, was forging ahead. The Decline of the Gilds. The Domestic System. — England's chief industry was the raising of wool and its manufacture into cloth I go SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN — the latter still mainly in the hands of the gilds, who continued to enjoy a practical monopoly of trade and industry, though various indications show that they were on the decline. They became entangled in frequent and acute struggles with the municipal organi- zations where the two were not identical. They were accused by the journeymen of oppression, of extravagance in pageantry and feasting, and they stifled even healthy competition. A particular cause, however, for their downfall was the fact that their organization was too narrow and exclusive to meet the needs of the widening markets. So merchants began to send wool to farmers and villagers to be worked up into cloth. The " domestic system," as it was called, which began to be employed in the fifteenth century, had the twofold advantage of more adequately supplying the growing demand for cloth, and of opening a new field of occupation for the agricultural laborers and small farmers, suffering from the sub- stitution of sheep raising for tillage. Trade and Commerce. " Mercantilism." — Business, both com- mercial and financial, was, by the close of the reign of Henry VII, in the hands of Englishmen. While Edward I had expelled the Jews and Edward III had ruined his Lombard and Tuscan creditors, foreign trade, nevertheless, remained chiefly in the hands of Continental merchants all through the Yorkist period. Under Henry VII, how- ever, natives largely superseded foreigners, while even aliens, who had once been welcomed to teach Continental handicrafts, were jealously excluded. The fifteenth-century sovereigns continued to regulate commerce, though with an object quite different from that of their predecessors. A new policy, while it did not originate with him, was most effectively and extensively carried out by Henry VII. The aim of Edward III had been, in general, to encourage the foreigner in the interests of the consumer at the expense of native producers and merchants. Under Richard II the policy was initiated of build- ing up native trade and industry, of developing English shipping, and of accumulating treasure in the realm by excess of exports over imports, although this often meant higher prices to the consumer. If concessions were from time to time made to foreigners, it was only to secure some reciprocal advantage. The new policy — money is wealth, sell more than you buy to preserve a " balance of trade " and so bring treasure into the realm, develop resources at the ex- pense of cheapness, aim at power rather than plenty — was called " mercantilism," and resembles the modern doctrine of protection. Measures to Encourage English Shipping, and to Protect English Manufactures. — At the opening of the reign of Henry VII there THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 191 was great complaint of the decay of English shipping and the lack of employment of English mariners. In consequence, the King established bounties for large ships, he prohibited foreigners exporting wool to the Netherlands, and, in 1489, passed an Act that wines and woad from Gascony must be imported in English ships, manned by English sailors. Following a protective policy begun by Edward IV, Henry VII strove to encourage the manufacture of wool and to develop English capital by discouraging the importation of luxuries and the export of gold. Parliament was directed to set the people on " works and handicrafts " in order that " the realm might subsist of itself " and so stop the draining of. " our treasure for manufacturers." And in the nineteenth year of the reign, an Act was passed prohibiting the import of silks wrought in forms that the English were beginning to manufacture. As the sixteenth century advanced, English artisans made cloth in increasing quantities so that the export of wool de- clined while that of cloth took its place. While efforts were thus made to encourage English shipping and manufactures, commercial treaties were made with various foreign countries. The most im- portant of them all was concluded with the Netherlands, in 1496. By the " Great Intercourse," or Interciirsus Magnus, the merchants of the respective countries were to have the unrestricted right of buying and selling at rates of duty which had prevailed when inter- course was freest, and, ten years later, Henry secured large concessions for the sale of English woolens in those dominions. England and the New World. The Cabots. — An outstanding result of the discovery of America and the new ocean routes was the supremacy of the Atlantic seaboard states over the Italian cities of the Mediterranean. England, which emerged supreme over the others as a sea power, only slowly secured her position. None of the medieval explorers were Englishmen. Norsemen, Spaniards, Portuguese, all won distinction before England entered the field. The first momentous step was taken when Henry, 5 March, 1495, issued a patent to John Cabot and his sons, Venetians residing in Bristol, to sail forth in search of a northwest passage and for the discovery and annexation of heathen lands. In May, 1497, they started on their first voyage. Sailing north so far that they found " monstrous great lumps of ice swimming in the sea and continual daylight," they reached what was probably the coast of Labrador, and brought home " three islanders in skins," whom they presented to the King. They made two or three subsequent voyages, ex- ploring the coast southward, possibly as far as Florida. Such were the beginnings of England's share in the discovery of the 192 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN north continent of America, a continent which they were after- wards to dominate. The Literature of the Fifteenth Century and the Introduction of Printing into England. — The transitional character of the age is manifest in the literature and learning. The foreign wars, the do- mestic turmoil, and the absorption of the best minds in material pursuits were unfavorable to literary or scholarly productiveness. The " one great oasis " in this period so barren of literary creation is Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d' Arthur, finished in 1470. Relating in simple but graphic language the stirring adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, scholars value it as one of the earliest examples of English prose, while the stories which it preserves have been a source of delight for those who prize beautiful lessons of knightly courtesy and daring. In this period, too, the English lan- guage and literature are immeasurably indebted to William Caxton, who, by introducing the art of printing into England, in 1476, first brought books within the reach of the common man. For two cen- turies, already, a primitive form of printing had been in use : letters were cut on a block of wood, inked, and stamped on paper ; but it was only with the invention of movable type that the real revolution began. The inventor was probably John Gutenberg (1400-1481) of Mainz. Caxton learned the art at Cologne, practiced it at Bruges, and brought it thence to his native land. Not only did he print existing English poetry of value, as well as chronicles and tales, all with careful revision,. but he also rendered selected classical works into English. Building on Chaucer in his revisions and translations, he made the dialect of London the literary language of all England, and, by reducing it to print, gave it not only extent of circulation, but also permanence. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. H. A. L. Fisher, Political History of England, 148 5-1 547 (1906), a scholarly work brilliantly written. A. D. Innes, England under the Tudor s (1905). Cambridge Modern History (vol. I, 1903), a coopera- tive work in 14 vols, containing a number of chapters on England ; extensive lists of authorities, without comments, are to be found at the end of each volume. Legal and Constitutional. In addition to the general works already cited, Maitland, English Law and the Renaissance (1901), reprinted in Essays in Anglo-American Legal History (3 vols., 1907-1909). Henry Hallam, English Constitutional History (3 vols., 1855), dry and to some de- gree out of date, but still indispensable for the period from 1485 to '1760. THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 193 Biography. Francis Bacon, History of the Reign of Henry VII (162 1, in Spedding and Ellis' edition of Bacon's works, vol. VI, 1861). James Gairdner. Henry VII (1889) and Gladys Temperley, Henry VII (191 5) are good brief accounts. Conditions, social, industrial, and intellectual. In addition to the works already cited: W. Denton, Life in the Fifteenth Century (1888); Alice S. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols., 1894) ; A. Abram, English Life and Manners in the Middle Ages (1913) ; Fisher, ch. VI, "The Dawn of the English Renaissance"; Innes, ch. IV; Vickers, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, chs. IX, X, "The Italian Renaissance in England" and "The Revolution in English Scholarship"; Creighton, "The Early Renaissance in England" in Historical Lectures, pp. 188-212 ; F. A. Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation in England (1899) from the Roman Catholic standpoint ; Stubbs, Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern History, two schol- arly and brilliant lectures, XV, XVI, on "The Reign of Henry VII"; F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, 1877. Selections from the sources, Adams and Stephens, nos. 134-140. CHAPTER XIX THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII (1509-1529). THE EVE OF THE SEPARATION FROM ROME The New Reign and the Young Henry VIII. — Henry, eighth of the name, became King, 22 April, 1509. The new reign began with the happiest prospects. Crabbed age had made way to youthful ardor and enthusiasm ; for the new ruler was barely eighteen. Enter- ing into the reward of the labors of the " Solomon of England," his sagacious and thrifty father, he soon exhausted the treasure which he inherited ; but without an independent revenue, without a standing army, and without openly violating constitutional forms, he was able to work his will, to wrench the Church of England free from the juris- diction of the Pope, and to end his days as an absolute King. How- ever, many years were to elapse before Henry's subjects were to realize what a masterful man he was. The young Henry was de- scribed as the handsomest prince in Europe ; tall and well propor- tioned, with a fair, ruddy complexion, he was in his youth a striking contrast to the huge, bloated figure of mature manhood. While he excelled in strength and athletic skill and was a tireless hunter, he was also, like most of his family, both accomplished and learned. Not only was he an accomplished musician and linguist, but he gave much attention to theology as well, and his Defense of the Seven Sacraments, published against Luther in 1521 — a work in which, perhaps, he was not unassisted — earned for English Sovereigns the title "Defender of the Faith," which they still bear. Contempo- raries were loud in their praise of his beauty and talents, and in their hopefulness of what he was to achieve ; yet while the heavens might " laugh," the " earth exult," and " all things be full of mirth at his coming," more and more the mailed fist was to appear from under the velvet glove. Three or four summary executions early in the reign only faintly foreshadow his later ruthlessness. Until his passions and his political ambitions called forth his strength, Henry occupied himself mainly with masks and revels, tine clothes, dancing and 194 THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 195 music, hunting and birding, and the excitement of war and diplo- macy. , Henry's Plunge into Foreign Struggles (1511-1514). — The leading Continental Sovereigns with whom Henry VIII had to cope at the beginning of the reign were all men of years and experience. He made his appearance in European politics by joining, in 15 11, the Holy League, formed by Pope Julius II for the purpose of expelling the French King from Italy, where he had obtained a dangerous ascendancy. Ferdinand of Spain, the astutest of the papal allies, determined to use the high-spirited Henry for his own designs. So, when an English force was sent, in May, 15 12, to cooperate with a Spanish force in an attack on Guyenne, he contributed no contin- gents, but, instead, profited by the diversion against the French to conquer the little kingdom of Navarre, which he had long coveted. Thus deserted, the English expedition, in spite of gallant work on the part of the fleet, accomplished nothing. Then, anxious to restore the English prestige, Henry led in person a large army across to Calais, in 1 5 13. Proceeding with all the pomp and magnificence of a royal progress, he overcame the French forces, 16 August, at Guinegate in the " Battle of the Spurs," so called from the panic of the enemies , horsemen, and followed up his victory by the capture of two fortified towns. Meanwhile, taking advantage of Henry's absence, the Scotch King, James IV, yielded to the entreaties of Louis XII and led an army across the Border in August. Queen Catharine promptly hurried levies to the threatened district and placed the Earl of Surrey in command, who, 9 September, 15 13, overcame the invaders at Flodden, where James fell, " riddled with arrows and gashed with bows and bills." Before his return, in October, 1513, Henry con- cluded a treaty with Ferdinand and Maximilian, Emperor of the Germans, for a joint invasion of France the following year. Dis- covering, however, that, all the while, they were treacherously making their own terms with their professed enemy Louis, he declared that he saw no faith in the world, and, in August, 15 14, made a treaty of his own with France. The Rise of Thomas Wolsey. — Such success as Henry's arms and diplomacy achieved at this time was due chiefly to one remarkable man, Thomas Wolsey, who was destined, for over a decade, to shape England's policy abroad, and to be the leading figure in Church and State at home. Educated for the Church, he entered the royal service in 1506, forging rapidly to the front. The work of equipping the expeditions of 15 12-15 13 an d the negotiation of the French peace of 15 14 fell to him. All sorts of offices and honors were showered 196 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN upon him. In 15 14 he was made Archbishop of York, in 1515, Car- dinal and Lord Chancellor, and, in 15 18, Papal Legate, though these were only the most important of the many positions, ecclesiastical and secular, which he held. His income was enormous and came from manifold sources; he received, for example, revenues from France, Spain, and the Emperor, all of whom sought his favor. The " proudest prelate that ever breathed," he lived in magnificent state, with a household of five hundred men, keeping a bountiful table for rich and poor alike, and also dispensing charity at his gates. During the period of his ascendancy Henry gave him a free hand in all matters domestic and foreign ; and he was so " lofty and sour " to those who withstood his will that ambassadors preferred to neglect the King rather than risk the Cardinal's resentment. Very generally feared or envied, there were few who loved him. Although he did some- thing to reform the Church by suppressing a few of the smaller monas- teries, his aim was primarily to get money for his educational founda- tions — Cardinal's College (later Christ Church) at Oxford, and a projected grammar school at Ipswich, his native town. Indeed, his life was quite opposite to that of a truly spiritual pastor ; he was lax in visiting his dioceses, he did not preach, he rarely said mass, and he was a pluralist to an extent unusual even for those times. Yet, in spite of his faults, his great qualities were preeminent: he was thoroughly devoted to his master's interests; he was just, except where his personal enemies were concerned, and a good friend to the poor. While his abilities were vast and his industry prodigious, he devoted them to administration and particularly to diplomacy, aspiring to be arbitrator of Christendom. The Struggle for the Imperial Crown (1519). — Louis XII was succeeded, in 151 5, by Francis I. In January of the following year the veteran intriguer Ferdinand died, and the crown of Spain passed to his grandson Charles, ruler of the Netherlands and prospective heir to the Hapsburg dominions. After three years of negotiations, Wolsey succeeded, 15 18, in including England, France, Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy in a treaty of universal peace, which was scarcely completed when an event occurred which set the three great Powers by the ears. On 19 January, 15 19, the gay, needy, and erratic old adventurer, Emperor Maximilian, died. Francis set him- self up as a candidate and showered gold upon the electors, and Henry, too, made his bid. The prize, however, went to Charles of Spain, who was elected 28 June, 1519. This youth of nineteen — at once irresolute and obstinate, and the champion of the Church — was already possessed of vast territories, including Spain, the Austrian THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII x 197 dominions, and the Netherlands, the heritage of a succession of notable marriages, 1 while his recent election placed him at the head of the mass of states which made up the German Empire and gave him a claim on Milan, as a fief of that Empire. The Alliance of Henry and Wolsey with the Emperor (1520). — For over a quarter of a century Charles V and Francis I struggled for the balance of power in western Europe. At first, various reasons inclined England to support the Emperor. As ruler of the Nether- lands he controlled the chief market for English wool, he was the nephew of Catharine, consort of Henry VIII, and, finally, because, as Emperor, he had a voice in swaying papal elections. Wclsey was anxious to be Pope, possibly as a means of reforming the existing Church system, but more especially to strengthen the hands of him- self and his master in foreign affairs. In order to attach Henry more closely to France, Francis I met him, 7 June, 1520, in a valley not far from Calais, the celebrated Field of Cloth of Gold, where for nearly three weeks the two Monarchs and their wives held interviews, feasts, jousts, and attended solemn masses. But no substantial result followed this belated outburst of medieval splendor. Before crossing the Channel, Henry had received a visit from Charles V, and the two Sovereigns had arranged a treaty of alliance which was concluded in later interviews after the magnificent fooling at the Field of Cloth of Gold was over. When the inevitable war broke out between Francis and Charles, England was on the side of the Emperor. Wolsey 's idea was to crush France, but did he not foresee that an all- powerful Emperor would be as dangerous to the balance of power as an all-powerful King of France? Moreover, when, in 1521, Leo X died, the Cardinals, contrary to promises which the Emperor had made, chose, not Wolsey, but Charles's old tutor, Adrian of Utrecht. Nevertheless, in consequence of another Imperial visit, June, 1522, Henry sent a new expedition to ravage the French coast, the only result of which was a further drain on English men and money and increased loss and suffering for the French peasantry. The Triumph of the Emperor. English Resistance to Taxation. — Need of supply forced Henry, for the first time in eight years, to call a Parliament, which met 15 April, 1523, with Sir Thomas More as 1 In 1477 his grandfather Maximilian, then heir to the Austrian possessions, had married Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, from whom she inherited the Nether- lands and a claim on Burgundy. Philip the Fair, son of Maximilian and Mary, married the mad Joanna of Castile, heiress to the Spanish lands of Ferdinand and Isabella and to claims on Naples and Sicily. Charles was born of the marriage of Philip and Joanna. 198 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Speaker of the Commons, and reluctantly granted about half the subsidies which Wolsey ardently demanded. With this partial grant supplemented by a tax from the clergy, Henry and the Cardinal undertook to carry out a scheme arranged with the Emperor and the Duke of Bourbon for the dismemberment of the French kingdom of Francis. An English expedition, sent out under the Duke of Suffolk in the late summer of 1523, was unable to accomplish anything, be- cause the Emperor, opposing Henry's plan of campaign, failed to furnish the requisite support. Moreover, on the death of Adrian VI, 14 September, Charles again played Wolsey false by throwing the weight of his influence to elect a reserved, irresolute Italian whom he thought would do his bidding. However, the new Pope, Clem- ent VII, formed a league with Francis I, with Venice and other Italian states, to drive the Emperor, who had recently recovered Milan, out of northern Italy. When the Imperial army, defeating the French, 24 February, 1525, had taken Francis prisoner, Henry VIII, in spite of recent rebuffs, at once prepared to join Charles V in dismembering the realms of the vanquished. To supply the necessary funds, Wolsey devised the " amicable loan " of a sixth from lay and a fourth from ecclesiastical property, which was in reality a tax, for it was assessed by royal commissioners, and men were to be forced to pay. Resistance was stubborn and widespread. In Suffolk an armed revolt was only narrowly averted, while in London, where a benevolence was demanded in place of the loan, the Lord Mayor declared that it would cost him his life if he agreed to such a grant, In the face of such manifestations, Henry gave way, and Wolsey, who had only acted by his master's command, bore the brunt of the unpopularity. In August a truce was arranged with France and it was nearly twenty years before another English army crossed the Channel. Francis, having gained his freedom by agreeing to terms, which he forthwith repudiated, Clement VII formed with him, and various of the Italian states, a new Holy League ; Charles's response was to send, May, 1527, an Imperial army into Italy, which seized and sacked Rome and besieged the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo. The Preparation for the Separation from Rome. — Such was the situation at the moment when Henry had come to the point of seek- ing papal aid in nullifying his marriage with Catharine. Since she was the aunt of Charles V, the timid, shifty Clement VII was in no position, even had he wished, to grant Henry's request. As a result, Henry, after futile negotiations, threw off the papal authority and made himself head of the English Church. This he was strong THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 1 99 enough to do because of the weakness of the nobles and clergy, and because of the support of the middle classes, whose material interests were dependent on royal favor. Moreover, many forces were work- ing against the old ecclesiastical order : a new intellectual spirit was making its way into the country, bound to shake the bases of authori- tative tradition ; also, there was much in the existing Church system open to attack — its vast possessions, burdensome taxation, and extensive jurisdiction. Even though the mass of the common people were still under the authority of their priests, and had shown no open hostility to ancient beliefs and practices, nevertheless, the Lollard tradition had not wholly died out, while their social and industrial condition filled them with a real if vague discontent. So they were ready to welcome any change that promised relief. The New Learning, or Renascence. — Already that wonderful intellectual and spiritual movement known as the " Renascence " had penetrated into England. Meaning literally " re -birth,"" the term is applied to the revival of classical learning which began in Italy in the fourteenth century. All through the Middle Ages clerks had studied certain Latin authors 1 simply as a means of training in language and argumentation, not for any human or literary interest ; but the men of the Renascence began to study them for their own sake, and the Greek authors as well. Receiving a great impetus from the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453, which resulted in driving Greek scholars westward, chiefly to Italy, bringing their manuscripts with them and spreading their learning, there arose a new spirit, a new attitude toward life. The medieval man, at least in ideal, was mainly concerned with God and his Church and the hereafter. The prevailing principle was received authority, and the individual was absorbed into one or more great systems, outside of which his thoughts and actions had no play : his theology and philos- ophy were fettered by the traditions of the Schoolmen ; his religious life was comprehended in the universal Church under the Pope; if a monk, he was bound by the rules of his order ; if he tilled the soil, he was enchained by the feudal system ; if an artisan, his industrial activity was cramped by the gild organization ; and the dominant art — church building — was a collective, not an individual art. With the Renascence came a revival of interest in this life, with all its joy and beauty, for itself alone. A new ideal, fitly called " hu- manism," arose. The humanists shook themselves free from medieval received authority and the once accepted systems ; they were impelled by a novel spirit of curiosity, by an irresistible impulse to assert their 1 And Aristotle in Latin translations. 200 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN individualism. As time went, on this humanism, this curiosity, this individualism manifested itself in all fields in literature, in art, in science, in religion. Its Manifestations and Achievements. — Boccaccio, Chaucer, and those who followed told tales of real men and women. Painters and sculptors arose who drew and fashioned beautiful human forms. Columbus, Cabot, and Vasco da Gama sought new trade routes to enrich the world, and discovered and explored unknown seas and unknown lands. The Prussian Copernicus 'overthrew the old Ptole- maic astronomy, and made it known that the earth was not the center of the universe but only a member of a vast planetary system that revolved about the sun. Finally, the New Learning furnished Mar- tin Luther with the means by which he could put the papal claims to the test of Scripture and the practices of the primitive Church, though in Italy the attitude of the New Learning to the Church was generally contemptuous and indifferent rather than hostile; for the Italian humanists were pagans, unreligious rather than irreligious, and more- over, their hands were stayed from attacking the existing system because most of them drew their living from ecclesiastical revenues. England and the Oxford Reformers. — As in most northern lands, English interest in the New Learning was primarily religious. Far removed from the center of things, torn by wars, and occupied mainly with material progress, Englishmen paid scanty attention to the Italian Renascence before the advent of the Tudors. Chaucer had visited Italy manifesting the result in much of his later work; a few of the fifteenth-century nobles were patrons of the new learning, chief among them Humphrey of Gloucester; also, some lesser men went to Italy and an occasional Italian came to England ; but the real influence began with the Oxford Reformers, who took up the study of Greek mainly as a means of becoming more closely acquainted with the origins of the Church and the sources of the Christian faith. William Selling, who went to Italy and brought back Greek manu- cripts, was the pioneer, while Greek lectures at Oxford were initiated by William Grocyn (1446-15 19). An outstanding figure among the Oxford group was John Colet (1466-15 19), who later became Dean of St. Paul's. Applying himself to study for the purpose of under- standing the Bible better, he devoted the whole force of his fervid personality to raising the standards of scholarship and life of his time, and was unsparing in his denunciation of the worldliness and greed of the Church and clergy. Erasmus (1465-1536). — Erasmus, who visited England for the first time in 1498-1499, was unstinted in his praises of these men. THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 201 This alert little Dutchman, rebelling from the bleak and narrow monastic training of his youth, turned into a wandering scholar, became the most learned man of his time, and labored for the reforma- tion of society, religious, moral and intellectual. He attacked the monks and he attacked the scholastic theologians, whom he measured by the standards of the Bible and of rational thinking and learning ; he fought for the abolition of glaring abuses and superstitious observ- ances, for the limitation of papal power by general councils, and, above all, he worked for the wider diffusion of education. His Praise of Folly, 15 1 1, is a famous satire in which he scored the men and tend- encies of the age ; yet Erasmus was no mere scolder. He wrote a stirring devotional manual and he prepared an edition of the New Testament in Greek with a Latin translation which was used as a source for later English and German renderings of the Gospel. A curious combination of boldness in speech and of timidity in action, he aimed rather at abuses in the administration of the Church than at the system, thus forging weapons for more uncompromising fighters ; in other words : " He laid the egg of the Reformation and Luther hatched it." Thomas More (1478-1535) and His Utopia. — Doubtless the most charming of the Oxford set was Thomas More, whose piety was brightened by his warm affections and his cheerful wit. The pupil of Grocyn and the friend of Colet and Erasmus, he thought of studying for the priesthood, but finally chose the law and public life, and, while he always courageously opposed absolutism, was for many years a trusted and intimate associate of his Sovereign. In many respects a lofty-minded reformer, Protestantism and extreme anti-papal meas- ures appalled him ; he became a persecutor of heretics, and finally lost his life for opposing Henry's will. More's greatest work is his Utopia 1 which appeared in Latin, in 1516. In the form of a satire, it exposes the evils of contemporary England with an unsparing hand, contrasting conditions with those in an ideal community, Utopia, where all goods were in common, where every one was obliged to work, and where the welfare of the community was supreme over that of the individual. A public system of education was provided for all, work being limited to six hours a day to leave time for study. Crime was punished for prevention and reformation rather than for retribution, there were to be no wars except for self-defense, and the Utopian sovereign was " removable on mere suspicion of a design to enslave his people." Toleration was provided for every form of belief and worship; there was a common public worship in which all partici- 1 Meaning, literally, "no place." 202 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN pated, though each family was allowed to have its own private form as well — an ideal combination of religious unity and liberty of conscience, which proved impossible for a man of More's intense nature in the unsettled times which followed. Patrons of the New Learning. Its Early Conservatism. — Chief among the patrons of the New Learning in high places was the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, whose house was freely open to scholars and his purse to the needy among them. Wolsey, so far as his absorbing administrative duties would permit, was interested in the movement, while Henry showed his zeal for scholarship by assembling many of the Oxford set about him, employing his intervals of leisure in reading and scholastic disputation, which latter, according to Erasmus, he conducted " with remarkable courtesy and unruffled temper." As yet, however, the New Learning was confined to a small circle. The attitude of the nobility was doubtless voiced by one of its members who declared : " By the body of God I would sooner have my son hanged than a bookworm. It is a gentleman's calling to be able to blow the horn to hunt and to hawk. He should leave learning to the clod-hoppers." Moreover, the Oxford Reformers were essentially religious, and, however vigorously they might tilt against its abuses, they were all sincerely attached to the Church, which they desired to restore to its primitive purity ; nevertheless, the studies which they fostered were bound to lead to a probing of the foundations on which the old established order rested. In 15 17 Martin Luther struck the first mortal blow at the dominant system by denying the papal power to remit sin for money payments. Very soon he developed his revolu- tionary view of justification by faith, according to which the salva- tion of the individual depends upon his own attitude to God and not on works prescribed by the Church, and began for the German people his remarkable translation of the Bible into their native tongue. Swit- zerland, too, had a reformer in the person of Zwingli. Lutheran and Zwinglian tracts were launched into England, though for a long time their effect was slight. Henry himself was the soul of orthodoxy, and, until his purposes were crossed, a stanch supporter of the Papacy. The Origin of the "Divorce." 1 — In 1527 the question of Henry's " divorce " began to be openly discussed. Over twenty years previously when Julius II issued the dispensation authorizing the Prince's marriage with the widow of his deceased brother Arthur, some doubt was expressed as to whether the Pope was not exceeding his powers. Nevertheless, the young King married Catharine ; and 1 Although ordinarily referred to as a divorce, what was really sought was a ruling that the marriage had been invalid from the beginning. THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY Vin 203 apparently they lived happily together for some years. Although there was a rumor that Henry, some years earlier, intended to break with Catharine and marry again, apparently he did not take up the project seriously till after 1520. Of their several children, only one, the Princess Mary, survived, and the time had come when there was little hope that Catharine would bear any more. However, even yet the crisis was slow in developing. Reasons for the "Divorce." — The triumph of the Imperial arms in Italy, in 1527, convinced France and England that they could not be too closely united. So negotiations were undertaken to marry the Princess Mary to a French prince, during which queries were raised as to his daughter's legitimacy that, according to Henry, strengthened doubts he himself had long entertained as to the validity of his marriage. Most likely it was the need for a male heir which really set the King's thoughts working in this direction. One pretext for excluding the Yorkists had been the fact of their descent through the female line, while the efforts of Matilda, daughter of Henry I, the only woman since the Conquest to claim the Crown, had desolated England with nine- teen years of anarchy. It is barely possible, too, that Henry may have persuaded himself that Providence, in withholding the male heir so essential to the dynasty and the State, was pointing a warning against the sinfulness of his uncanonical marriage. Before long he fell violently in love with Anne Boleyn, a bright-eyed girl, who came to court in 1522. Just when he determined to marry her is uncertain, though it is most likely that it was after he determined to break with Catharine and that his passion for Anne rather strengthened his de- termination than caused it. The Opening of the Proceedings (1527), and the Trial of Queen Catharine (1529). — At any rate, in May, 1527, Wolsey, after an under- standing with the King, summoned him to appear before his legatine court to answer to a charge of living in pretended marriage with his late brother's wife. Divining from Catharine's stiff and obstinate attitude that she would most certainly lodge an appeal, the Cardinal speedily referred to the Pope for authority, thinking it better to act with papal sanction forthwith. And, realizing that his very existence was at stake, he strove with might and main to secure the divorce, though his plan was that Henry should marry, not Anne, but a daugh- ter of Louis XII. Henry himself, without consulting Wolsey, sent an agent cf his own to procure from the Holy See a nullification of his marriage and a dispensation to marry Anne. After he was granted a document which proved to be worthless he turned again to the Car- dinal, and in February, 1528, they sent new agents to Rome, who in- 204 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN duced the Pope to intrust Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio with lega- tine powers to try the case in England. But, fearing the Emperor and having no inclination to declare invalid the act of a predecessor, he instructed Campeggio to try to divert the King from his purpose, and, failing in that, to urge the Queen to enter a nunnery. Only as a last resort was he to allow the trial to proceed. At the same time Clement sent assurances to Charles V that nothing would be done to the detriment of Catharine and that the whole case would finally be re- ferred to Rome. Campeggio traveled so slowly that he only arrived in England in October, 1528. A winter of negotiations and wrangling only proved that neither Henry nor Catharine would give way an inch, consequently Campeggio had to consent to a trial. The court was opened 31 May, 1529, though the King and Queen were not cited to appear till 18 June. Whatever the royal motives or State necessities may have been, Catharine's situation was pitiful, and she showed the courage of a noble and injured woman. Denying her feeling protests against the competence of the Court, the Legates continued the case without her ; but, on 23 July, after a series of fruitless sessions, Cam- peggio, using as a pretext the custom of the Roman Curia, which did not sit during the hot Italian summer, adjourned the hearings till 1 October. By that time Clement VII had called the case to Rome, and all hope of securing his sanction was passed. The Fall of Wolsey (1529). — Henry now saw that the only way to gain his end was to settle the matter in his own courts. Moreover, he determined to assume control of the State himself. So Wolsey, who had ruled as more than King and who had advised the futile appeal to the Pope, was sacrificed to the royal wrath and to the new royal policy. He fell amidst the rejoicings of all classes. The courtiers were jealous of the man whom the King had delighted to honor ; the monks were embittered by his attacks on their establishments ; while the secular clergy and the laity grudged the taxes which his public policy involved, and the trading classes were soured by his recent French alliance which threatened their trade in the Netherlands. His Death (1530). — Early in October, 1529, the Cardinal was charged with praemunire, under the old Statutes of 1353 and 1393, on the ground that he had exercised legatine powers contrary to law, quite regardless of the fact that he had done this not only with the King's knowledge and consent, but in attempt to further the royal interests. The Great Seal was taken from him and given to Sir Thomas More, while Wolsey himself was ordered to retire to a manor belonging to Winchester, one of his various bishoprics. Offices, lands, practically everything that had once been his own were taken from him. Subse- THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 205 quently, however, the Archbishopric of York, together with a small sum of money, was restored and he was ordered to his archdiocese to get him out of the way. Early in November, 1530, doubtless because of his growing popularity, he was arrested on a charge of treasonable correspondence with the French ambassador, though he had merely sought the latter' s aid in trying to get Francis I to intercede for him with Henry. On his way to London, Wolsey, much broken in health since his disgrace, was taken with his final illness, and had to stop at Leicester Abbey. " I am come to leave my bones among you," he said to the Abbot, and there he died on St. Andrew's Eve, 29 November. With a small army and navy, mainly by his diplomatic skill, he had gained for England a leading place in the councils of Europe. It may be questioned whether the country was the gainer; for it took re- sources and energy which might better have been devoted to pressing problems at home ; moreover, the Emperor made use of the English hostility to France to establish his own supremacy on the Continent, though, sometime before that happened, Wolsey had seen the wisdom of shifting over to the side of France, and was prevented by Henry from breaking off the Imperial alliance until it was too late. What- ever his achievements, in all that he undertook, Wolsey's devotion to Henry's interests can scarcely be questioned. " If I had served my God," he said as he lay dying, " as diligently as I have done the King, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs." FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Fisher ; Innes ; and Cambridge Modern History, II. John Lingard, History of England (1st ed., 1819-1830, reprint of 1902, 10 vols.), the general authority on the Reformation from the moderate Roman Catholic point of view. J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII (2 vols., 1884) reprinted from his introductions to the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Creighton, Cardinal Wolsey (1888), is a good brief account of this part of the reign, but overfavorable to Wolsey. G. Cavendish's Life (written in 1557, first published in 181 5 and available in many editions), is a beautiful tribute by a faithful follower. E. L. Taunton, Thomas Wolsey, Legate and Reformer (1902), is an estimate mainly of Wolsey's ecclesiastical work from the Roman Catholic standpoint. A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII (1905), is the most recent and scholarly biography, rather favorable to Henry. CHAPTER XX HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME (1529-1547) Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) and Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540). — Although Henry appointed More Chancellor he made use of two other men as his chief councilors. Thomas Cranmer was a young Cambridge divine who gained the royal ear by his suggestion that the question of the validity of the marriage might be submitted to the learned men of the universities of Europe, and that, if they decided against it, the case might be settled in the King's own courts. To Cranmer, who was taken into the royal service and rose to be Arch- bishop of Canterbury, we owe the lofty and beautiful language of the Book of Common Prayer, and he had a large share in shaping the articles of faith for the Church of England, though he was too gentle a soul to fill the duties of his high office with vigor and independence, especially under a master so self-willed as Henry VIII. Thomas Cromwell, who for ten years acted as Henry's right-hand man, sug- gested most of the fertile expedients for increasing the royal power and swelling the royal revenue. After spending his early years as a soldier and trader in Italy and Flanders, he returned to his native land where he set up as a scrivener 1 and merchant. Wolsey, recognizing his abil- ity, made him his secretary and chief agent, where he showed himself so devoted and capable that Henry shrewdly concluded he would be in- valuable in the royal service. Cromwell advised the King to settle the divorce in his own courts by another means than that advocated by Cranmer, namely, by discarding the authority of the Pope and declaring himself supreme head of the Church of England. Rising steadily until finally he became Vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs, Cromwell possessed remarkable qualities ; he had a wide knowledge of men, extraordinary business skill, and was thoroughly unscrupulous. While he took the extreme Protestant side, he apparently had no real religious feeling ; for he died professing himself a true Catholic. Indispensable as he was to the King, he maintained his position only by extreme servility 1 A combination of lawyer and money lender. 206 HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 207 and patience under insult, and even knocks on the pate from the royal knuckles. The Reformation Parliament (1529-1536). — When Clement VII revoked the divorce suit to Rome, Henry appealed to English national sentiment by calling a Parliament to meet, 3 November, 1529. Com- bining force and management, he carried through a series of measures which, beginning with a design of forcing the Pope's hand, culminated in annihilating his authority in England. The manipulation consisted in bringing to expression sentiments against clerical privileges and exactions which, hitherto, had not been widely or openly voiced. The work of the " Reformation Parliament," extending over seven years, is most significant. Beside putting Henry in place of the Pope as head of the English Church, it increased vastly the royal powers : it decreed the dissolution of the monasteries, which not only greatly augmented the royal revenue, but provided resources to bind a large class to the royal policy ; it deprived the clergy of independent powers of legisla- tion in Convocation, and broke the power of the bishops by making them practically nominees of the Crown. Nor was Parliament as subservient as it seems at first sight. It indorsed the royal will in legislation against the Church and clergy because it suited the interest and inclination of the majority ; in more than one case, however, es- pecially those touching the pocket of the subject, it stood out against the royal dictation. The work of Henry in this Parliament was in- directly productive of results far beyond anything he may have con- templated; by breaking the spell of the ancient traditional Church he started forces of opposition, which, not content with mere separation from Rome, came to assert successfully the principle that the Reforma- tion should be moral and religious as well as political, and that extremer forms of Protestantism than that provided in the Church established by law should receive recognition. Parliament Storms the Outworks (1529). — In the very first session, as the result of an understanding by which the King and Cromwell agreed to help the laity against the clergy in return for parliamentary aid against the Pope, bills were passed restricting excessive fees and curtailing the secular pursuits of priests and monks. The clerical outworks were thus successfully stormed. Yet Henry continued to pose as the orthodox Defender of the Faith. Heretics were compelled to abjure, while those who refused were burned, or hanged in chains. The Universities and Convocation. Following Cranmer's sugges- tion, the " King's matter " was referred to the universities. The opinions returned had little to do with the merits of the case ; it re- quired manipulation to secure a scant majority at Oxford and Cam- 2o8 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN bridge, while, on the Continent, decisions were determined by the influence which Henry and Francis or Charles V and the Pope were able to exert. At the meeting of Convocation, in 1531, -Henry threatened the whole body of the clergy with the penalties of prae- munire for having submitted to Wolsey's legatine jurisdiction, so, as the price for pardon from forfeiture and imprisonment, they were obliged to grant him £118,000 and to acknowledge him as their Su- preme Head, " so far as the law of Christ allows." In 1532 Convoca- tion was forced a step further, and, by the " submission of the clergy " agreed to make no laws without royal consent, and to submit the exist- ing ecclesiastical laws to a committee of clergy and laity for revision. This was too much for Sir Thomas More, who resigned the Chancellor- ship the next day. Anti-Papal Legislation and the "Divorce" of Catharine (1533). — On 25 January, 1533, Henry was secretly married to Anne Boleyn, and, in February, he appointed Cranmer to the Archbishopric of Canter- bury — recently fallen vacant — with the aim of employing the new Primate to declare against the validity of his first marriage and for the legality of his second. This done, he strengthened his hand by various high-handed enactments. By the Act of Appeals, Parliament pro- vided that all spiritual cases should be finally determined within the King's jurisdiction and not elsewhere, while Convocation was forced to declare that Henry's marriage with Catharine was against divine law. Thus fortified, Cranmer, in a court held in Dunstable, at which Catharine refused to appear, pronounced the final sentence which de- prived her of her position as Queen, 23 April, 1533. Her rival Anne was crowned 1 June ; in September a child was born, though, to the infinite disappointment of the King, it proved to be a girl. The Pope's reply to the new marriage was to draw up a bull of excommunication against the royal couple, 1 and to issue a formal decision that Catharine was Henry's lawful wife and that he should take her back. But, some- time before, Henry had declared that if the Pope launched ten thousand excommunications, he would not care a straw for them. The Memorable Sessions of 1534. — In the year 1534 Parliament held two sessions and passed a series of Acts by which the authority of the Pope in England was completely abolished and that of the King set up in its place. During the first session, ending 30 March, an Act providing that henceforth no more annates, or first fruits, should be paid to the Pope, originally passed in 1532, was confirmed and extended, and all other payments to Rome, including Peter's Pence, were for- 1 The excommunication was drawn up 11 July, 1533, but was not published till December, 1538. A bull of deposition drawn up in 1535 was never published. HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 209 bidden. Also, an Act of Succession settled the succession, to the throne on the heirs of Henry by Anne Boleyn ; moreover, it was declared high treason to slander their marriage, " by writing, print, deed, or act " and an oath was imposed on all subjects to observe the whole contents of the Statute upon pain of misprision of treason. 1 Prosecutions and Persecutions in 1534. — During the summer, commissioners went about administering the Oath of Succession, and many who withstood the royal will paid dearly, even with their lives. Some, however, were put to death on other grounds. The first to suffer was " the Nun of Kent," a poor hysterical servant girl, who pre- tended to foretell the future, and in an evil moment was led to declare against Henry's treatment of Catharine, and to prophesy his speedy death. A confession of fraud was extorted from her, a Bill of Attain- der was drawn up, and 20 April, 1534, she and five companions were put to death at Tyburn. Among those who stood out against the Oath of Succession were More and Fisher, the saintly Bishop of Roch- ester, the latter of whom had already been fined £300 for accepting the " Nun's " revelations. Although they were willing to accept the line of succession as regulated in the Act, they refused the oath, be- cause it repudiated the primacy of the Pope and involved an acknowl- edgment that the marriage of Henry and Catharine had been unlaw- ful from the first and that the Princess Mary was illegitimate. For their refusal both were sent to the Tower. The royal commissioners for imposing the oath also busied themselves silencing preachers, both papal and Lutheran. While the King's orders were generally obeyed by the secular clergy and some of the regular, the friars resisted unan- imously, and 17 June, two cartloads were driven to the Tower. The refusal of two communities of Observants " offered an excuse for sup- pressing the Order throughout England. Their houses were seized and such of their members as had not already been imprisoned were distributed among various monasteries, loaded in chains, and subjected to other harsh treatment. Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England (i534-i535)- — On 3 November, the Parliament of 1534 reassembled for its second session, during which an Act was passed declaring Henry " Supreme Head of the Church of England " ; a new Treason Act imposed the death penalty on any one who called the King a " heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper " ; and an Act of Attainder was drawn up against More and Fisher. Henry, who formally assumed the title 1 Complicity involving penalties less severe than those visited on the main offenders. 2 They were the Franciscans of the stricter branch. p 210 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN of Supreme Head, 15 January, 1535, was now absolute ruler over Church as well as State in his own land. The Executions of More and Fisher (1535). — The Prior of Charter- house, a community of London Carthusians, noted for their sanctity and self-denial, had reluctantly accepted the Oath of Succession, but, refus- ing a new oath tendered him after the passage of the Act of Supreme Head, was ruthlessly executed, 4 May, together with three others. More, confronted with the Act of Supreme Head, declined to accept or deny it ; for, he declared, it was like a two-edged sword, " if he said it were good, he would imperil his soul, if he said contrary to the Statute, it was death to the body." Yet he professed himself a faithful subject. Although Fisher was old and broken in health the case against him was clearer. He had fought Catharine's cause valiantly in the lega- tine court ; he would not accept the Act of Supreme Head ; and to crown all, the Pope created him a cardinal. Fisher was beheaded, 22 June, declaring that he died contentedly for the honor of God and the Holy See. More, having in a final examination denounced the Act of Supreme Head as contrary to the laws of God and the Holy Church, and a violation of Magna Carta, perished 6 July. More and Fisher died martyrs to their faith, though, in Henry's opin- ion, they merited death because they defied his authority, thereby threatening the stability of the system he had set up and the unity of his Kingdom. The executions which sent a shock through Catholic Europe put an end to the last hope of a settlement with the Pope. Death of Catharine (8 January, 1536). — Poor Queen Catharine, who, since her unmerited disgrace had been living in retirement, was finally released by death, 8 January, 1536. It is now believed that she died from cancer of the heart, but the event was so welcome to Henry that many have suspected that she was poisoned. " God be praised ! " cried the King when he heard the news, and the next day he appeared at a ball with a white feather in his hat and clad from head to foot in festive yellow. The Monasteries on the Eve of Their Dissolution. — Having made himself supreme head of Church as well as State, Henry's next step was to secure resources to maintain his absolutism and to guard against a return to the old order by a judicious distribution of bribes. A way was discovered in the dissolution of the monasteries, which offered the further attraction of crushing a class which contained many op- ponents to the royal policy. These were the real reasons for the step, suggested, no doubt, by the resourceful' Cromwell, who, 21 January, 1535, received a commission as Vicar-General and Vicegerent, to hold a general ecclesiastical visitation. The King and his supporters rep- HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 211 resented to Parliament that they were proceeding against the mon- asteries because of the " slothful and ungodly lives " led by the in- mates. This was largely a pretext, and the charges brought forward to support it were doubtless greatly exaggerated. Moreover, the manner in which the work was carried out cannot be justified. On the other hand, the condition of the monasteries was such as to lend at least a color of justice to the movement against them. Formerly they had been the pioneers in husbandry and sheep raising, they had served as inns for travelers, they had cared for the poor, and had fostered learning and education. But they no longer filled the place which they had in the past. Their agricultural methods were lax and anti- quated, their promiscuous almsgiving tended to nourish poverty rather than to check it, and their scholastic and educational system was antagonistic to the New Learning. For some time their numbers had been steadily falling off, while, as their influence declined, the mer- chant and agricultural classes began more and more to hunger after their vast wealth, 1 and they had been subjected to intermittent at- tacks culminating in Wolsey's suppression of some of the smaller monasteries. Cromwell's Monastic Visitors (1535-1536). — In July, 1535, visi- tors appointed by Cromwell began their rounds. Armed with articles of inquiry, they hurried from house to house asking all sorts of ques- tions about revenues and debts, about relics, pilgrimages, supersti- tions, and immoralities. They were a greedy and unscrupulous set, chiefly bent on securing information that would suit their purpose. The reports or " comperts " which they sent to the Vicegerent seem to have been based upon the scantiest as well as the most partial in- vestigation, for they moved with furious haste to prevent the monks from disposing of their plate and jewels. Besides the articles of in- quiry they carried with them a series of injunctions which they were authorized to impose upon the monasteries which they visited. Some provided for salutary reforms, while others were obviously designed to destroy the communities against which they should be enforced : monks were not only to accept, but to teach royal supremacy and re- pudiation of papal claims, and they were ordered to spy on and report their disobedient superiors, thus subverting all discipline. The Act Suppressing the Smaller Monasteries (1536). — When Par- liament met, 4 February, 1536, popular feeling in the City was in- flamed by means of sermons, caricatures, and pamphlets, while Cran- 1 The extent of the monastic wealth was doubtless exaggerated. According to some accounts it amounted to at least a quarter of that of the realm, but more sober and reliable estimates put it at about one tenth. 212 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN mer proclaimed at Paul's Cross that the destruction of the monasteries would relieve the people of a great burden of taxation. After the reports of the enormities had been read in Parliament an Act was carried suppressing all monastic houses with an income under £200 a year or with less than twelve inmates. Henry is said to have pressed the measure by summoning the Commons and announcing that he would have its passage or some of their heads. Not a few of the monasteries bore a good repute, yet all too many sorely needed re- form ; moreover, there were good economic reasons for suppressing or consolidating the smaller and poorer communities, but it seems very strange to have drawn the line between virtue and vice at £200 a year or at groups of twelve. All together, nearly four hundred monasteries were dissolved, some cf their inmates going into larger houses, or re- ceiving scanty pensions. Execution of Anne Eoleyn (1536). — On 14 April, 1536, the Reforma- tion Parliament, after nearly seven years of epoch-making legislation, was dissolved. Within a month that " principal nurse of all heresies," Anne Boleyn, about which so many of its measures centered, had ceased to live. Monstrous charges of infidelity were brought against her, which, because of her growing unpopularity and her failure to bring forth a male heir, Henry was all too ready to believe. After con- demnation by a body of peers summoned by the King, her marriage was dissolved by an ecclesiastical court presided over by the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. She was beheaded 19 May, and on the 30th of the same month Henry married Jane Seymour. A week later a new Parliament, packed in the King's interest, met, declared Anne's daughter illegitimate, and settled the succession upon Henry's issue by his new marriage. Need for a Doctrinal Settlement. — Religious belief was in a state o of ferment. An extreme Protestant wing was forming, favored by leaders like Cranmer and Bishop Latimer, the greatest preacher of his day. Extremists were giving vent to the most extravagant views. One said that goods should be in common, another that priests and churches were unnecessary, another that the singing the service was but, " roaring, howling, whining, juggling," while still another de- clared that it was of no more use to pray to the saints than to hurl a stone against the wind. On the other hand, the Catholics were raising their heads once more. In June a book against the King, entitled Liber de Unitatc Ecclesiae, arrived in England, written by Reginald Pole — a grandson of the Yorkist Duke of Clarence — who from his re- treat in Italy was busy striving to unite the Catholic powers against his former Sovereign. HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 213 The Ten Articles "for Establishing Christian Quietness" (1536). — Convocation met 9 June, 1536, where, with a view to establishing order, Henry caused a body of articles to be introduced, adopted, and imposed on the whole country. Five dealt with matters of faith, which, it was stated, were ordained of God, and hence necessary to salvation; live dealt with matters instituted by the Church, which were to be observed, though not essential to salvation. In the first group were all the things contained in the Bible and the Three Creeds 1 ; together with three of the seven sacraments : baptism, penance, and the Holy Eucharist. 2 Luther's doctrine of justification by faith was also included in this first group. Passing to the second group, prayers to saints were permitted, though they were not to receive the honor due to God ; prayers for departed souls were also retained as a good and charitable custom, though the claim of the Church of Rome to deliver souls from purgatory was rejected. As a supplement to the articles, royal injunctions were issued which suppressed pilgrimages, curtailed the excessive number of holy days, and forbade the worship of images and relics. Many of the latter were destroyed, partly to weaken the hold of the ancient Church over superstitious minds, and partly to swell the Crown revenues. However, Henry still aimed to preserve the Catholic faith, merely purged of what he regarded as glaring immoralities. 3 The Pilgrimage of Grace and Its Causes (1536). — The recent changes produced a serious revolt in the North Country. There the people, much under the influence of the priests and nobles, clung to the old forms, and their natural hostility to innovations was fanned into flame by the dispossessed monks, who wandered about pouring complaints into their willing ears. The primary cause of the " Pilgrimage of Grace " was religious, but political and social factors contributed to make the rising a complex and general manifestation of discontent. All classes had grievances. The nobles were jealous of the preference given to " base born councilors " like Cromwell. The country gentry were especially aggrieved at the dispossession of the monks, to whom they were indebted for jovial hospitality and for the education of their 1 The three fundamental creeds of the Christian Church were the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian. 2 A sacrament was denned as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The seven which the Roman Catholic Church had adopted were : baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, ordination, marriage, and extreme unction. 3 Yet it should be borne in mind that certain superstitions, such as worship of images and pilgrimages to shrines, had long been discontinued by many devout and orthodox men. 214 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN children. 1 Many, too, were put to much inconvenience and expense by a recent enactment which removed to Westminster certain cases which had been formerly tried in the Northern courts. The sparks which kindled the name were three commissions sent out to collect a subsidy, to supervise the dissolution of the monasteries, and to inquire into the character and competence of the parish clergy. All sorts of rumors were afloat ; for example, that Cromwell, who was planning an excellent system of parish registers, was to impose a tax on baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The Risings in Lincolnshire and the Northern Counties. — The first outbreak occurred at Louth in Lincolnshire, i October, 1536. Thence the revolt spread rapidly, many being forced to join by threats of hanging, though there was astonishingly little violence. In a petition to the King the insurgents demanded that : religious houses be re- stored; the subsidy be remitted; the Statute of Uses be repealed; and villein blood be removed from the Council. Within a week 40,000 men had flocked to Lincoln, where they received a reply from the King, scornfully repudiating their demands ; and shire levies together with a royal army soon dispersed the ill-organized rebel forces. Meanwhile, under one Robert Aske, the rising spread through Yorkshire, Cumber- land, and Westmoreland, drawing most of the great Northern families in its toils. The Duke of Norfolk, sent against the rebels, finding himself outnumbered four to one, promised a pardon for all and a free Parliament if they would disband. However, Henry found a pretext for a bloody reprisal in the unauthorized outbreak of certain rash spirits. Aske and the other leaders, in spite of their efforts in subduing the new rising, were convicted of treason. Aske was hanged in chains at York, and many more were hanged or beheaded. The Dissolution of the Larger Monasteries (1536-1539). — A num- ber of abbots in the disturbed districts were attainted of treason, and their houses were suppressed. The remaining larger monasteries, not involved in the rebellion and which the Act of 1536 had spared, Henry proceeded to dispose of by exacting what was pleasantly called " vol- untary surrenders." Those heads who consented to yield were prom- ised pensions and other rewards, while such benefits were withheld from those who proved "willful and obstinate." Thus, chiefly during 1 Another grievance which the gentry felt with particular keenness was the Statute of Uses, just passed. In those days the law did not permit the devising of lands by will, and it had been the custom to evade this restriction by leaving them to the use of another. The Statute of 1536 — aimed against this practice — worked a great hardship to the landowner, for it prevented him from providing for his younger sons or from raising money by mortgages hitherto secured by the use of their lands. HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 215 the years 1538 and 1539, some hundred and fifty monasteries and fifty convents of women were surrendered into the royal hands. Also, the various orders of friars, who had thus far escaped the fate of the Observants, were now suppressed. Parliament, in 1539, dealt the final blow by passing an Act vesting in Henry and his heirs all the mon- asteries which had already surrendered or should surrender for the future — victims mainly to the royal rapacity and the irresistible assertion of supremacy, though the pretext that their inmates led " slothful and ungodly lives " was still insisted on. The War on Ecclesiastical Frauds and Shrines. — In order to make the proceedings acceptable to the people that did not share in the spoils, efforts were made to reach out and expose frauds and deceptions. A famous opportunity was found in the " Rood of Grace " at Boxley in Kent — a figure on a cross which had amazed and edified thousands by moving its eyes and lips. It was discovered that the miraculous effects were produced by concealed wires, whereupon, although its use had apparently been discontinued for some time, the rood was taken up to London and exhibited to the populace. During this same year, 1538, the papal world was shocked in proportion to the swelling of the royal coffers by the spoliation of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, whence wagonloads of gold, silver, and precious stones and richly embroidered vestments were carried off, while the bones and relics of the Saint were contemptuously burned. Results of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. — It has been esti- mated that at least 8000 monks and friars were dispossessed, while about ten times that number of dependents were affected. Of their property the King retained not more than a third. From the balance a very small proportion was given in pensions to the dispossessed monks ; some was devoted to the erection of new bishoprics, and some was applied to coast defenses. The greater part, however, was given or sold to certain favored nobles and gentry, whereby some of the best known of the present English families started on their upward road. The purpose and effect of the King's seeming generosity was to insure the permanence of the separation from Rome ; for men gorged with Church plunder would never return to the fold. Another result of the dissolution was to weaken the spiritual power of the House of Lords, since the bishops were no longer reenforced by abbots and priors. Finally, the economic and social situation was profoundly affected, since a further impulse to enclosures was given, and the State was forced to devote immediate attention to education and poor relief. Although the monasteries had outlived their usefulness and had ceased to make the best use of their resources, the method employed 2l6 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN by Henry and his agents to suppress them was marked by great cruelty and injustice and caused much innocent suffering. The Translation of the Bible, and the King's Primer. — In spite of Henry's attachment to old forms, something was done with his sanction toward putting the Bible and portions of the service into English. The version of the Scriptures due to Wiclif was not reprinted, for it was antiquated in language, it savored of Lollardy, and it was based on the Vulgate. William Tyndale of Cambridge was the first to take up the work anew. He began with the New Testament, basing his translation on the Greek text of Erasmus. Obliged, owing to his extreme Protestant views, to leave the country, he finally brought his translation to Worms, in 1525 ; whence copies were secretly in- troduced into England; but while at work, in the Netherlands, on the Old Testament, Tyndale was seized and burned as a heretic. After one or two attempts to produce a satisfactory edition, the so-called Great Bible, based on a revision of so much of Tyndale's translation as had already appeared, was published about 1538, and remained the standard work for some years. From the fact that Cranmer wrote the prefaces to some of the editions, it frequently bears his name. The placing of the Bible before the people in their own tongue had a profound effect : it opened to them a wonderful litera- ture expressed in language of unequaled beauty and strength, and first enabled them to compare the religion founded by Christ and his Apostles with that of their own day. The English Book of Common Prayer dates from the next reign, though portions of the service were translated into English in the time of Henry VIII, notably a manual of devotion known as the King's Primer, printed in 1545. The Six Articles (1539). — Nevertheless, not only was Henry too orthodox and conservative to permit any decided departures toward Protestantism, but the extravagance of the extremists served to strengthen his antipathy to innovation. This explains the passage, in 1539, of an Act for " abolishing diversity of opinion in certain articles concerning Christian religion," commonly known as " The Six Articles," or " The Whip with Six Strings," which affirmed, among other things, that: after consecration of the elements in the Holy Eucharist, the bread and wine disappeared and the body and blood of Christ entered in their place ; communion in both kinds was not essential to salvation ; by the law of God priests could not marry ; and monastic vows must be observed. The penalty for denying the first article, i.e. the doctrine of transubstantiation, was death by burn- ing, with forfeiture of goods. In the case of the others, the penalty HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 217 for the first offense was forfeiture and imprisonment, for the second offense, death as a felon. The Fall of Cromwell (1540). — In October, 1537, a male heir, the future Edward VI, had been born to Henry, while Jane Seymour's death, a few weeks later, left the King free to marry a new wife. His position at this time was menaced by plots from within and invasion from without. First, he sought to avert the latter danger, which came from a combination of Francis I and the Emperor Charles V, by negotiating with each Power in turn for a matrimonial alliance ; but his failure in each case induced him to listen to Cromwell, who advocated a Protestant marriage and a league with the Protestant princes. The bride selected was Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and Holbein, dispatched to paint her portrait, at a hint from Cromwell, it is said, produced most flattering results. Moreover, the Vicegerent and the courtiers sent to arrange the match were lavish in praising her charms. Unhappily for all concerned, Henry committed himself on these representations and the marriage treaty was signed, 6 October, 1539. Directly he beheld her — a plain, ungainly creature — "he became very sorrowful and amazed," and turned away " very sad and pensive." Yet he saw nothing for it except to go on with the marriage, and to make matters worse, nothing came of the projected alliance. Cromwell, who had already served his turn, paid the penalty with his head. He was arrested 10 June, 1540, and a Bill of Attainder was framed against him, charging him with favoring Protestants, obtaining money by bribery and extortion, and usurping royal powers. No doubt all this was true ; but, as in the case of Wolsey, his main fault was that, by miscarriage of his policy, he had incurred the royal displeasure. He was executed 28 July. Henry's Designs on Scotland. — In June, 1542, Francis I, ambitious to recover the French ascendancy in Italy, declared war on the Emperor, and Henry seized the opportunity which he had long coveted, to undertake to extend his sway over Scotland. The death of James IV at Flodden, in 15 13, had left the country a prey to another of those long minorities which had been its bane for a century. In 1528, however, James V, at the age of sixteen, made himself master of the distracted Kingdom and sought to restore peace ; to that end he put down the Highland chiefs and the Lowland earls, and, as a counterpoise to these turbulent elements, sought alliance with the Church and strengthened the clergy with increased powers and privileges. This and the fact that he clung to the French alliance, marrying two French wives in succession, kept him at swords points 2l8 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN with his uncle, Henry VIII, to whom he attributed designs of fostering disorders along the Border and broils among the nobility. Fearing to be kidnaped, he twice refused Henry's proposal to meet for a conference, he harbored refugees from the Pilgrimage of Grace, and intrigued both with Charles V and Francis I. Such was the situation when, in October, 1542, Henry sent an invasion into Scotland, which after some harrying and burning returned home. The Scotch King retaliated by throwing a force across the Western border. Through the bungling of its leaders it was defeated at Solway Moss, 24 Novem- ber, 1542, with a heavy loss, and James V, heartbroken at the news, died less than a month afterwards, leaving, as his heir, a week old baby, later known as Mary, Queen of Scots. Henry now asserted the English sovereignty over Scotland in stronger terms than ever, and proposed to bind the two countries by marrying Edward and Mary when they came of age. A treaty was arranged; but, ere long, the party attached to France secured the little Princess, crowned her Queen, and assembled a Parliament which annulled the marriage treaty. War with France (1 543-1 546). — To forestall aid from across the Channel to this Catholic party, Henry concluded a treaty with Charles V, plunged into war with France, and, in July, 1544, crossed over to Calais with the design of joining forces with the Emperor for a march on Paris. Since, however, the two rulers could not work in harmony, Charles, contrary to agreement, concluded a separate peace with Francis. Freed from their enemy in the rear, the French sent a fleet to attack the English coast, but twice repulsed and much thinned by plague it was obliged to turnback, August, 1545. Hert- ford l averted the danger from the Border by leading two destructive but inconclusive expeditions into Scotland. At length, in June, 1546, Henry and Francis made peace, in which Scotland was not included. Relations with Ireland. — Henry's Irish policy proved in the long run to be no more successful. The. petty chiefs outside the Pale fought constantly among themselves, but were united in their hostility to English rule. Since it would have been well-nigh impossible to conquer and hold down such wild folk in a country of impenetrable forests and trackless bogs, Henry, who had few troops, preferred a drifting policy of " politic drifts and amiable persuasion." How- ever, the Earl of Kildare — head of the powerful Fitzgerald family — who became Lord Deputy in 15 13, used his power chiefly to fight his personal enemies, and grew so shaky in his loyalty that, in 1534, he 1 Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Henry's third wife. HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 219 was seized, taken to England, and thrown in the Tower. On a rumoi of his death, his son broke out in revolt. After hard fighting he was reduced to submission, and, in 1534, was hanged, together with five uncles, leaving only a small child to represent the line. Then Henry attempted to resume his policy of conciliation; in 1541 he sub- stituted the title of King for that of Lord of Ireland; and, one by one, the chiefs agreed to acknowledge his supremacy in Church and State, to hold their lands of him for an annual rent, to renounce all illegal exactions, and to serve in his army. Yet the fair hopes of peace proved delusive. Though the new rebellion did not come in Henry's time he was in no small degree to blame. His fatal mistake was that he thought in conciliating the chiefs to bind the clans, whereas he really antagonized the latter bodies by enriching their leaders with lands claimed by the tribes as a whole. So, in his re- ligious arrangements, he might bribe the chiefs to abjure the Pope and consent to dissolution of the monasteries by handing them a share of the spoils ; but the lesser folk who saw the shrines and relics demolished, the pilgrimages suppressed, the sacred buildings defaced, and the familiar Latin replaced by the alien English service were- bound to nourish sullen resentment. Thus Henry ruthlessly trampled upon the superstitions and sentiments of Irishmen. Moreover, the leaders of the Anglican Church in Ireland aimed rather at establishing English ascendancy and accumulating wealth and power than at advancing' the cause of religion. Henry's Closing Years. — After the passing of Cromwell Henry acted as his own chief Minister. In spite of increasing bulk, and of an ulcer on his leg causing intense pain, he was constantly occupied and watchful. While he insisted that the doctrine and Church system which he defined and organized should be strictly obeyed, the penalties attached to the Six Articles served mainly as a ferocious warning and were only fitfully enforced, largely owing to the moderat- ing influence of Cranmer and of Henry's sixth wife, 1 Catharine Parr, whom he married in 1543. The religious unrest was so great as to draw from Henry at his last appearance in Parliament, December, 1545, an eloquent and characteristic reproof: "lam very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that precious jewel, the word of God, is disputed and rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. ... Of this I am sure, that charity was never so faint among you, and God himself among Christians was never less rever- 1 In 1540 the compliant Convocation had annulled the marriage with Anne on the pretext that she had been precontracted to another. Catharine Howard, whom Henry next married, was executed, in 1542, on charges of grave misconduct. 2 20 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER' BRITAIN enced, honored, and served." Protestantism was spreading and Cranmer and the Queen favored it; yet the old faith was gaining ground again. The King had " destroyed the Pope, but not Popery." Henry's Stormy and Wrathful Exit (1547). — -At the close of Henry's life, the heir of the greatest conservative family in England brought the progress of the Catholic party to an abrupt check. On 12 Decem- ber, 1546, the Duke of Norfolk, and his son the Earl of Surrey, were rudely thrown into the Tower. Surrey was a gifted poet, but he was headstrong, aspiring, and indiscreet. On the discovery that he had quartered the royal arms with his own on an escutcheon in his private chamber, and had boasted that his father would one day be Regent, he was tried before a special commission, and was beheaded, 19 Janu- ary, 1547. A Bill of Attainder was passed against Norfolk, who con- fessed to concealing his son's acts, and received the royal assent, but before it could be carried out Henry was dead. He had of late be- come so unwieldy that he could neither walk nor stand, and, 28 Janu- ary, 1547, he passed away, masterful against opposition to the last. A selfish, ruthless despot, he had accomplished a momentous work. He had transformed the whole ecclesiastical system without a civil war, he had established a National Church free from the dominion of the Pope ; he had given his subjects the Scriptures in their native tongue; he had secured for England a recognized position among foreign Powers ; he worked his will unopposed ; and he died in his bed stanchly supported by the majority of his subjects. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Fisher ; Innes ; Cambridge Modern History, II ; Lingard ; and Pollard, Henry VIII. J. A. Froude, History of England from the Death of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (12 vols., 1870-1872) is the most complete work on the period and a masterpiece of style, but strongly biased, especially in favor of Henry VIII. Biography. P. Friedmann, Anne Boleyne (2 vols., 1884). R. B. Mcrri- man, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (2 vols., 1902) is the standard biography. W. Roper, Biography of Sir Thomas More (first printed in 1626, many later editions) is a classic ; Roper was More's son-in-law. A. F. Pollard, Life of Cranmer (1904) is perhaps the most scholarly life of the Archbishop. A. D. Innes, Ten Tudor Statesmen (1906) and M. A. S. Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII (1905) are both useful. Dom Bede Camm, Lives of the English Martyrs (1904) is from the Romanist standpoint. Ecclesiastical. F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (1902), the most exhaustive work on the subject, manifestly sympathetic with the monasteries. James Gairdner, History of the Church of England HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 221 (1904) is a brief treatment by an acknowledged authority on the period. R. W. Dixon, History of the Church of England (6 vols., 1 878-1902) covers the period 1 529-1 570, thorough and scholarly — from the High Church standpoint. B. F. Westcott, History of the English Bible (1868). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 141-158, for the whole reign. CHAPTER XXI THE HENRICIAN REGIME (1509-1547) Distinctive Features of Henry's Absolutism. — While Henry owed much to his father, he succeeded in carrying royal absolutism far beyond the point which it had reached at his succession. The Church was reduced by his measures to a mere creature of the Crown. The old nobility were pushed further along the road to ruin by the extravagance of Henry's Court, while his hostile watchfulness pre- vented their leaders from recovering their old position in public affairs. Several who aspired to raise their heads were ruthlessly put to death. Almost invariably he chose new men to sit in his councils and carry out his policy ; to them he gave offices, revenues, and lands ; and he had an eye for picking competent Ministers from the ranks of obscurity. Wolsey and Cromwell are merely the best known of many. By such agents, by the spoils of the monasteries, by checking glaring abuses, and by the maintenance of stable government, the middle class, already closely attached to the father, were bound still more closely to the son. Henry's Management of Parliament. — Henry's adroit manipu- lation of Parliament was another means by which he strengthened his absolutism. During the first part of the reign, before he had exhausted the inherited royal treasure and before he embarked on his peculiar policy, he followed Wolsey 's advice and rarely called a Parliament; from 1529, however, he made use of frequent Parlia- ments to give a color of popular sanction to his measures. While there are evidences of coercion and corruption, of interference with elections, bribery, creation of new boroughs, and pressure on mem- bers, the amount has been exaggerated, and it was mainly employed by Cromwell to maintain his own ascendancy. Such methods were scarcely necessary in the royal behalf ; for the representation was mainly in the hands of the landed gentry and the prosperous com- mercial classes, whose interests in general were identical with Henry's, though on the rare occasions when these interests clashed, Parliament THE HENRICIAN REGIME 223 did not hesitate to resist stoutly. Henry professed to be a champion of parliamentary privilege, but he employed blandishments, bargain- ing, or even trickery as need arose ; when important measures were being discussed he generally visited both Houses in person, and, if the terror of his presence was not enough, even resorted to dire threats to secure their passage. As a means of blocking legislation which he opposed he could always resort to the veto, though, as a matter of fact, most of the legislation was initiated by Henry or his Ministers. Summary of Henry's Methods. — Altogether Henry's power was acquired, not so much by juggling with the representation * as by the identity of interest between him and the dominant classes, by his force of will, and by his dextrous politics. He had the tact and foresight to draw back when he saw that he was going too far. More- over, he had the unscrupulous cunning to intrust great powers to his principal agents, and to make them the scapegoats for his unpopular policies. Finally, he had the wisdom not to demand excessive- taxes. He called upon Parliament primarily to sanction grants which he had extorted from some other quarters ; forced loans, for instance, which were remitted by Statute, in 1529 and 1543, forfeitures, papal fees, and the spoils from monasteries and shrines. He borrowed and extorted so long as he could, and only applied to Parliament when it was absolutely necessary. The Royal Extravagance. — Henry dissipated his father's savings with lavish hand. Much went for costly raiment ; more was consumed in revels, feasts, tournaments, and other ornate displays. When he took the field, in 15 13, he had an enormous train of hundreds of wagons and thousands of horses to carry his tents, his wardrobe, his cooks, his confectioners, and, most amazing of all, the choir of his chapel royal, consisting of 115 chaplains and singers. The splendors of the later meeting at the Field of Cloth of Gold were the wonder of the age and of generations to come. The sumptuousness of Henry and his courtiers stimulated trade, furnished employment for many, and opened up many new industries ; yet in the long run, the effect was injurious, since the example was ruinous to the lesser folk, and it raised the prices out of all proportion to the increase of wages — the cost of agricultural products nearly doubled from 1495 to 1533, while wages rose only 25 per cent. Moreover, the King was in constant need of money to support such extravagances, and taxes were only kept within the normal limits by loans, confiscations, and other irreg- 1 The chief changes in the composition came from the exclusion of abbots and priors from the Lords, and granting representation to Wales, Chester, and Calais in the Commons. 224 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN ular methods. One of the most baneful means employed was the debasement of the coinage, a process which Henry began as early as 1526, and which went on until, in 1551, a silver coin contained only a seventh of the pure metal of one issued twenty-five years before. During the two previous centuries there had been several such de- basements, but with less injurious effects; because of the constant drain of money to the Orient for the purchase of goods and to Rome for the payment of papal dues, causing a scarcity of specie which lowered prices and thus counteracted the upward trend due to debase- ment. In Henry's time trade was more evenly balanced and papal dues ceased, 1 therefore, since debased coins circulated at their face value, good coin was hoarded or exported, and prices went on soaring without a check. The Laboring Classes in Town and Country. — While the pro- ducers, the manufacturers, and the exporters of wool and cloth were waxing fat, the condition of the mass of the small farmers and agri- cultural laborers was growing steadily worse. Enclosing went on increasing, and not only leaseholders but copyholders and even free- holders were evicted from their tenements. The process received a fresh impulse from the dissolution of the monasteries, which trans- ferred great estates from the easy-going monks to the hands of keen, greedy capitalists. Multitudes were thrown out of work, the land was overrun with beggars, and disorder multiplied to a degree that taxed even the iron rule of Henry. In order to check enclosures, measures were enacted limiting the number of sheep that a single owner could hold, and ordering a return to tillage under penalty of forfeiture till the law was obeyed. But since profits from wool were tempting and since the King needed the support of the class against which the measures were framed, the legislation proved futile. Similar disturbing conditions prevailed in the towns, the rich were growing richer and the poor poorer. The restrictive policy of the gilds was only slowly breaking down and remained a great clog on trade. Labor and capital withdrew from the old towns where the system was intrenched and poured into the smaller places, which grew as their ancient rivals declined, though the competition of those displaced from agricultural pursuits and the increase of population 2 largely offset the benefits which the proletariat gained from their migration. 1 Although money was growing steadily more plentiful, owing to the treasure brought by the Spanish from the New World, England was little affected during Henry's reign. 2 It is estimated that the population increased from 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. THE HENRICIAN REGIME 225 Public Health and Sanitation. — The plague, which continued a frequent and destructive visitor, was not an unmixed evil ; flourishing chiefly in the miserable and crowded centers, it checked the natural increase of population among the poorer classes, and thus worked in favor of a higher standard of well-being. In London various steps were taken to prevent the spread of the epidemic. Enactments were passed requiring that infected houses be marked with wisps of straw and that exposed persons carry a white rod in their hands. Grad- ually, rules for isolating plague-stricken houses became more rigid, searchers were appointed to give notice of the presence of the disease, and severe penalties were imposed for concealment. Measures for disposing of the refuse of shambles, against stray dogs and cats, and for cleansing filthy streets are not unheard of, though they were apparently not enforced till Elizabeth's time. Poor Relief. — Among the most interesting measures of Henry's reign were those taken to relieve the deserving poor and to put a check on the idle and disorderly beggars. During the Middle Ages the care of the destitute was left to private persons and institu- tions — to voluntary alms, to hospitals * and gilds, and, most of all, to monasteries. This medieval system was very inadequate. The monks, in particular, gave in pursuance of the divine command to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry : since they did not inquire sharply into the needs of applicants they were often imposed upon by the unscrupulous; and, by their indiscriminate almsgiving, tended to foster poverty beyond the point where they could deal with it. Already, some time before the Reformation and the consequent destruction of ecclesiastical foundations, certain Continental munici- palities had taken up the problem and devised measures of public relief. In England, too, new methods would soon have been neces- sary in any event. The dissolution of the monasteries made them immediately imperative. Great numbers of needy persons were suddenly thrown upon the country, and at the same time the chief means of providing for them, ineffective as it had been, was cut off. The year in which the first attack on the monasteries was opened marked the beginning of a new policy, quite at variance with that initiated by the Statute of Laborers and succeeding measures, provid- ing that sturdy beggars should be put to work at a fixed wage and the impotent should be licensed to beg. By an Act of 1536 the dis- pensing of private alms was forbidden. In each parish a fund for the 1 A hospital was originally a place for the aged and destitute as well as the sick. A few parishes had poor funds, and so had some of the towns by the fifteenth century, but these were rare exceptions. Q 226 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN relief of the poor was to be collected on Sundays and festival days by the churchwardens and other parish officials, and the clergy were enjoined to stir up the congregation to give freely, but no means of compulsion was provided for. Also, sturdy beggars were to be set to work, though the law did not state how. This Act, while the principles were not yet worked out in detail, foreshadows the prin- ciples of the more famous laws of Elizabeth which remained in force down to the nineteenth century — the responsibility of the parish for the relief of those unable to work and for the employment of the able-bodied. The Navy. — Henry VII had fostered the navy, directly, to some extent, by building ships of war, and indirectly by developing the merchant marine, but it was Henry VIII who marked a real ad- vance. Up to his reign there had been only a few ships owned by the Sovereign, which in time of peace were either used for police purposes or let out to merchants. At his death there was a royal fleet of 71 vessels; moreover he organized the navy into a standing force and placed it under a separate Government Department. A portion of the spoils of the monasteries was devoted to ship- building and coast defense ; the southeastern shore was studded with castles provided with permanent garrisons, reenforced by local levies in time of need ; the King did much, too, for making rivers navigable, and harbors safer and more accessible ; he founded dockyards on the Thames, and organized the pilots into the cor- poration of Trinity House. Although exploration was still largely a monopoly of the Spanish and Portuguese, a few Western voy- ages were undertaken. Trade to the Levant flourished lustily, and tall ships carried English cloths and hides to the ports of the Mediterranean and brought back the wines, oils, carpets, and spices of the East to English markets. Learning and Education. — Scholars of Henry's day were turning their backs on the old learning and pursuing the new, they were devising more rational systems of education to replace the worn-out medieval methods, and the King encouraged them by his enlightened zeal, by his studious pursuits, and by the training of his children. Colet's foundation, St. Paul's, was a model of what a boys' school should be ; Wolsey's school at Ipswich perished with him, but before the close of the reign some fifty others were founded, including five attached to Henry's new bishoprics. Yet it was in the theory of education that the real strides of progress were taken. Erasmus left England for the last time in 15 14, but his later writings must have penetrated and influenced the circle in which he had lived and worked, THE HENRICIAN REGIME 227 particularly his First Liberal Education for Boys (1529) which, with its sage precepts and recommendations, marks a shining contrast to the prevailing mechanical methods in which flogging was employed as the chief incentive. Best known among the men of recognized capacity selected as tutors for the royal children was Roger Ascham. His famous treatise The Scholemaster was not printed till 1570, but already,ini545,hewas putting in practice the broad and liberal views therein advocated. Although this book, on account of its learning, kindly humor, appreciation of boy nature, and rational views has deservedly become an English classic, its methods involved too much pains and patience on the part of the teacher to make it acceptable at the time. Nevertheless, while Henry's reign marks an epoch in the theory of education, and while the King deserves much credit for his encourage- ment of education and for the example which he himself set, he con- tributed little material aid in the way of money and endowment, especially in view of what he took from the monastic institutions. Their schools and those of the chantry priests 1 were inadequate and out of date, but their destruction was serious when Henry devoted a major part of their resources to rewarding his greedy supporters instead of establishing new schools. At Oxford and Cambridge, after scholasticism and its teachers had been expelled, provision was made for regular lectures on the ancient languages and the Scriptures, while, in 1540, a few Regius professorships were endowed, yet the total expenditure was small and Henry founded only one new college. Altogether, in education it was a time of great promise but scanty achievement. Literature. — So it was in literature. Few notable works were produced, but the reign marks the transition from a bygone period to the wonderful Elizabethan Age. Breaking away from the influence of the French medieval romance, the men of Henry's day began to study the classics, both directly, and indirectly through the Re- nascence writers, chiefly those of Italy. Much of the writing of the period can be passed by with a mere allusion. The disordered social conditions and the break from Rome produced a mass of controversial pamphlets which, valuable as they are to the historian, hardly rank as literature. Latimer's sermons are vivid and eloquent, but he was a preacher rather than an author. Cranmer was a master of the art of expression; but his greatest achievement, the English Book of Common Prayer, was the work of the next reign. Four men only 1 A chantry was a place where a priest was appointed to sing masses for the souls of pious contributors. Often he acted as schoolmaster in addition. 2 28 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN stand above their contemporaries, and herald the coming age — Roger Ascham, who did his earliest writing in Henry's reign, Sir Thomas More, the Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. More's most notable production was his Utopia, one of those rare books which, primarily written as a protest against existing abuses, has survived as a classic. An Elizabethan critic refers quaintly to Surrey and Wyatt as " two courtly makers, who having traveled into Italy and there tasted the sweet and stately measures of Italian poesy, greatly polished our rude and homely manner." It is unlikely that Surrey ever went to Italy, but Wyatt did. The two introduced the sonnet into English speech, and their joint production, Songs and Sonates, was published in 1557. Moreover, Surrey in his translation of two books of the JEneid marked an epoch by employing blank verse for the first time in English. So the Henrician era, if the writers were few and their product inconsiderable, was significant in literary development. The King and the Age. — The age, like many another, has its grim and unlovely and its gracious heroic sides. Henry and his officials were self-seeking, ruthless, regardless of human life and suffering. The merchants, the wool growers, and the cloth makers, intent on gain, were content to let the King have his will and joined in the op- pression of the lesser folk. Callousness to pain and lack of pity were all too general in those times ; every class flocked to a cockfight, to a bear baiting, or to witness a martyr burning at the stake with equal alacrity. On the other hand, there were strong earnest men and women who were content to suffer rather than to sacrifice their faith, were it Protestant or Roman Catholic. There were those who had prophetic visions of a new era in literature, in education, in religion, in industry, and did their part in pulling down the old medieval edifice. There was much hardship and misery while the new structure was a-building; but there was sound and vigorous health in the workers who were striving for better things. In the midst of this complex age^ Henry VIII stands out as the great commanding figure, embodying its most striking tendencies, good and bad. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Constitutional. Taylor; Hallam: and Taswell-Langmead. A. F. Pollard, Factors in Modem History (1907) on the "New Monarchy," the "Reformation" and the "Composition of Parliament." Stubbs, Lectures. General Conditions. Traill, and the other works cited in chs. V, XIII, etc. ; Froude, History of England, I, ch. I ; Innes, ch. XL Thomas More, • THE HENRICIAN REGIME 2 2Q Utopia (first published in Latin, 1516, later translated and often reprinted. R. H. Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (191 2). E. P. Cheney, Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century (1895)' D. Hannay, A Short History of the English Navy (1898) ; H. Oppenheim^ A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy (1897) ' W. L. Clowes' The Royal Navy (vol. 1, 1897). J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army (vols. I-VII, 1899-1912), the standard work on the subject. Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, I, II; A. G. Richey, Short History of the Irish People (1887) ; R. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (1885), I ; J. E. Morris, Great Britain and Ireland, 1485-1910 (1914), besides Joyce and Turner. CHAPTER XXII THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER. EDWARD VI (1547-1553) The Situation at Henry's Death. — Henry left as his successor a child not yet ten years old when the situation demanded a strong man of ripe wisdom and tried capacity. " Abroad Paul III was scheming to recover the schismatic realm ; the Emperor was slowly crushing England's national allies in Germany; France was watching her op- portunity . . . ; and England herself was committed to hazardous designs on Scotland. At home there was religious revolution half accomplished and a social revolution in ferment ; evicted tenants and ejected monks infested the land, centers of disorder and raw material for revolt ; the treasury was empty, the kingdom in debt, the coinage debased. In place of the old nobility of blood stood a new peerage raised on the ruins and debauched by the spoils of the Church, and created to be docile tools in the work of revolution." Hertford Becomes Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset. — Before his death, Henry had named sixteen executors as a Council of Regency during Edward's minority. This body was composed mainly of men of much ambition and little scruple, and under the influence of Hert- ford, whom they chose Governor and Protector of the Realm, they gave full rein to the policy of reform which the conservative Henry had held in check. At the same time, they did not neglect their own interests, one of their first acts being to secure for themselves a number of new peerages. Hertford the Protector, who became Duke of Somer- set, was already known as a dashing and successful general. While greedy of power, he meant to serve his country well ; in addition to carrying the Protestant Revolution to its extreme limits, he strove to unite England and Scotland, and labored to alleviate the wretchedness of the poor. But he was a dreamer rather than a practical ruler of men. He was unable to comprehend that the consent of the Scots was essential to any real union, and, by attempting to carry it at the point of the sword, he inflamed their already bitter opposition. In seeking to befriend the poor he excited hopes which he was unable to 230 THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 231 satisfy, he alienated the landed interests and widened the breach be- tween the classes. He was arrogant, impatient of advice, and, un- fortunately, prejudiced his reputation for disinterestedness by his rapacity and display ; he enriched himself with the spoils of the Church, and applied the fabric of consecrated edifices to build a magnificent palace. The Protector's First Parliament (1 547-1 548) . — The first Parliament of the new reign passed a series of measures, all important and many of them praiseworthy. The bulk of the Treason Acts since the famous 25 Edward III were done away with, and it was enacted that, henceforth, charges of treason should be preferred within thirty days after the offense and supported by two sufficient witnesses. Also the heresy laws of Henry V and the savage Six Articles were repealed. On the other hand, a bill, passed in 1545, granting to the Crown chantries and hospitals, was renewed and enforced, and the fruits of their sup- pression, together with the religious property of gilds, were turned over to the Council ; some was appropriated by those in control, and a very inadequate portion was later applied to the founding of schools. Protestant Excesses. — The greatest confusion, license, and profanity prevailed. Each parish became a law unto itself, and individuals like- wise threw off all restraint. Some were honest zealots, others made war on the ancient order solely for gain. Foreigners poured in : Lu- therans from Germany, Calvinists from Geneva, Zwinglians from Zurich, as well as " heretics of every hue," so that England was re- garded by horrified orthodoxy as " the harbor of all infidelity." l During the summer and autumn of 1547 agents were sent out by the Council, under color of royal authority, to enforce the use of English in the services ; the destruction of images, stained glass windows, paintings, and carvings; and the acknowledgment of the royal su- premacy. Various ceremonies were done away with, such as the creep- ing to the cross on Good Friday, the use of ashes, palms, candles, and holy water, while the clergy of the old faith were checked in their preach- ing activities. These measures were resisted so stoutly by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Bonner, Bishop of London, that they were imprisoned, and Bonner was soon deprived of his See. This was the farthest the Protector ever went in religious persecution. The First Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer (1549). — In January, 1549, Parliament passed an Act of Uniformity which 1 Neither Lutheranism nor Zwinglianism exercised any abiding influence, nor was the Church organization of Calvin ever generally accepted; but his theology, especially his doctrine of predestination, and his political principles came to affect Englishmen profoundly. 232 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN imposed on all subjects the form of service contained in a Book of Com- mon Prayer drawn up by a commission headed by Cranmer. This book was an English version, somewhat simplified, of the old Latin ritual. The Act of 1549 was mild compared with the later acts; for it was limited to the clergy, it insisted only upon uniformity of outward ob- servance, and no attempt was made to impose a doctrinal test. Prin- cess Mary, who refused to conform, was allowed by the Protector to hear mass in her own house. Yet the new arrangement satisfied nei- ther of the extreme parties. It still savored too much of Rome for the " hotgospellers," while the country folk, under the influence of the parish priests, resisted even the moderate changes which it in- troduced. However, the men of Devon and Cornwall, who arose in revolt in July, were suppressed before the end of August by a Govern- ment force assisted by mercenaries. Kett's Rebellion (1549). — While the mainspring of the revolt in the Southwest was religious, discontent existed throughout the country, due to agrarian distress, to the steady rise of prices resulting from the debased currency, and to the repressive vagrancy laws. Somerset caused remedial measures to be framed which were rejected by Parlia- ment. The result was a rising in the Eastern counties led by one Robert Kett. Though he set up a court before which offending land- lords were summoned, he kept his forces in good order, prohibited all bloodshed, had prayers morning and evening and frequent addresses from preachers. A petition was drawn up, very moderate in tone, begging that enclosures and other oppressive practices might be di- minished. " We pray," it plaintively declared, " that all bondmen be made free ; for God made all free with his precious blood-shedding." The insurgents having rejected a pardon on the ground that " Kings were wont to pardon wicked persons and not innocent and just men," were finally defeated by a force under John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, made up partly of foreign mercenaries, while Kett was captured and later executed. Somerset had been obliged to employ force against the very class whose hopes he had raised, and Warwick saw the opportunity which he had long sought for overthrowing his rival. Many other things besides had contributed to discredit the Pro- tector. Failure of Somerset's Scotch and French Policy. — In May, 1546, a body of the anti-French, anti-Catholic nobles had murdered Cardinal Beaton and seized the castle of St. Andrew's. Somerset, failing either to make an alliance with the French King or to prevent him from send- ing assistance to the Government whereby the insurgents were over- come, lost a chance of building up a strong native Protestant party. THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 233 He offered to give up the English claims to sovereignty and urged a union, but he insisted that the marriage treaty of 1 543 should be carried out : when the Scots refused, he crossed the border and inflicted a de- feat on them at Pinkie, 10 September, 1547. The infuriated Scots forthwith proposed a marriage between the Princess Mary and the Dauphin Francis. Mary was taken to France, and the marriage, con- cluded in course of time, drew still closer England's two most danger- ous enemies. The Fall of Somerset (1549). — Another handle against the Pro- tector was found in the summary execution, following a Bill of Attainder, of his brother Thomas, the Lord High Admiral, an unscrupulous man of boundless ambitions, who plotted to make himself the supreme power in the State. Although he richly deserved his fate, the Protector was blamed for thus arbitrarily disposing of his own flesh and blood. So Warwick and the other leaders of the Council, who nourished griev- ances or hoped for gain and power, had many charges to bring for- ward against the Protector : the strife engendered by his religious, social, and agrarian policy ; his mismanagement of foreign affairs ; his treatment of his brother; his arrogance and heedlessness of advice; and his profuseness and greed. After a vain effort, by means of in- flammatory pamphlets, to rouse the lesser folk to rise in his defense, Somerset fled from London, taking the young King with him. In- duced by fair promises to surrender, 10 October, he was nevertheless imprisoned in the Tower. Warwick Supreme in the Council. His Protestant Zeal. — The control of affairs now passed into the hands of Warwick, a brilliant soldier, a cunning diplomat, utterly unscrupulous, masking religious indifference under a pretended zeal for the Protestant cause. His first step was to secure from Parliament a series of Acts making it trea- son to assemble for the purpose of killing or imprisoning a member of the Privy Council, or to meet with a view for breaking down enclosures. Thus strengthened he proceeded to act his part of advanced Protestant reformer with fervid zeal. Not only did he keep Norfolk, Bonner, and Gardiner in prison, but he deprived the latter of his See, and imprisoned and deprived half a dozen more of the bishops as well. With the bishoprics thus acquired he rewarded the leaders of the reform party. The destruction of the altars, images, and painted windows went on merrily, and the ecclesiastical lawlessness increased, though for the sake of balance, one Anabaptist and another extremist were burned. Warwick's adherents were as greedy of pelf as ever Somerset had been : they gorged themselves with such church plate as remained unappropriated, and with proceeds from chantry lands 234 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN reserved for the support of dispossessed priests, for the education of the youth, and the support of the poor. The " Judicial Murder " of Somerset (1552). — From 1550 to 1552, Warwick got on without a Parliament. He packed the Council with his own followers, he made himself its president, he had himself created Duke of Northumberland, but he did not venture to assume the title of Lord Protector. His old rival was released from the Tower, 6 Feb- ruary, 1550, and re-admitted to the Council in April. When he nat- urally sought to recover his lost power he was once more arrested, 16 October, 1551, and tried by a court selected by Northumberland from his satellites, in which, after much stretching of evidence, he was finally convicted of felony for inciting an unlawful assembly. He was executed 22 January, 1552, by a royal order fraudulently obtained for the purpose. The popular indignation almost provoked a riot, while strong opposition manifested itself in Parliament, which met the fol- lowing day. The Second Act of the Uniformity (1552). — Yet, voicing the increas- ing Protestant sentiment, this same Parliament sanctioned a revised edition of the Book of Common Prayer, in which the priest was called a " minister " and the altar a " table." Though the Holy Communion was still to be received kneeling, it was declared that the posture meant " no adoration to any Real Presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood." A second Act of Uniformity enjoining the use of the Book thus revised also imposed penalties for non-observance upon the laity as well as the clergy. Any one neglecting to attend service on Sunday and holidays was liable to excommunication, and the penalty for attending any other form was six months' imprisonment for the first offense, a year for the second, and life for the third. Cranmer, who had been in charge of the work of revision, also drew up a series of forty- two articles de- fining the faith, which were sanctioned by a royal proclamation in June, 1553, without being submitted to Parliament. Northumberland's Plot (1553) . — As his arbitrariness and self-seeking became increasingly evident, the Duke lost ground steadily ; even the preachers who had hailed him as a new Moses or a new Joshua, began to denounce him. Realizing that Edward's brief and sickly life was drawing to a close, he devised his last and most daring scheme, de- signed to secure a successor over whom he might exercise control. By promises and threats he got the Council and the judges to pass over the King's two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, who were the next heirs, and to vest the succession in a grandniece of Henry VIII — Lady Jane Grey — whom he married to his fourth son Guilford Dudley. This was in June, 1553. On 6 July, King Edward VI died in his six- THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 235 teenth year. The matter was kept secret as long as possible, and 10 July, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed in London. Edward's Characteristics. His Foundations. — Edward was a frail sedate youth, devoted to his books, who, as he grew older, began to exhibit more and more his father's masterful temper and regal dignity, and had he lived would probably ere long have shaken off the ascendancy which Northumberland managed to gain over him. To precocity of intellect he united an intense religious ardor; even when a lad of fourteen he was, we are told, " exerting all his powers for the restoration of God's kingdom," and his premature death from consumption was a sudden check on the course of the Reformation. In spite of the greedy adventurers who surrounded him, he was able to do something for learning and charity. From the sale of chapels, chantries, and other Church property he endowed, or re-endowed, upwards of thirty grammar schools. Christ's Hospital, founded for the sons of the poor, formerly the Grey Friars monastery, became the famous Bluecoat School. Funds were given to two hospitals for the medical treatment of the indigent, and one palace was turned into an institution of the same sort. The royal palace of Bridewell became a workhouse or a house of correction for " ramblers, dissolute and sturdy beggars." Inadequate as all this was, it was more than Henry VIII had attempted. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. A. F. Pollard, History of England, from the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of Elizabeth (1910), together with Innes, Lingard, Froude, and Cambridge Modern History. A. F. Pollard, England under Protector Somerset (1900), the standard work on the Protector, rather in the nature of an apology. Constitutional and ecclesiastical : the works already cited. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 159-162. CHAPTER XXIII THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION. MARY (1553-1558) Defeat of the Northumberland Plot (1553). —When Mary learned of the events in London she took refuge in a fortified manor house in Suffolk. At once, loyal gentlemen and their retainers nocked to her support. On the other hand, London showed no enthusiasm for Lady Jane Grey, and the citizens, alienated by the religious excesses of the late reign and the attempt to deprive the rightful heir, pre- served an ominous silence as Northumberland led forth an army against the Marian forces. When, after his departure, Lady Jane's own father proclaimed Mary as Queen, 19 July, they responded joyously by ringing bells, lighting bonfires, and shouting applause. Northumberland's troops dropped away as he marched, so, 20 July, he declared for Mary himself, protesting tearfully that -he knew her to be a merciful woman. Ordered to disband his army, he was arrested and taken to London, and, 3 August, 1553, the new Queen, accompanied by a glittering escort, rode into the City. Her first act was to release Norfolk, Gardiner, and various other prisoners. Of those who had plotted against her accession seven were tried and condemned, though only three were executed ; even Lady Jane Grey was only imprisoned ; but Northumberland tried in vain to avert his richly deserved fate by professing himself a Catholic. Mary's Character and Policy. First Measures of the Reign. — In spite of contemporary accounts of her beauty, portraits of Queen Mary represent her. as prim and unprepossessing. Because of her unflinching loyalty to her mother and to the old religion, she had suffered much in her youth from the harshness of Henry VIII and his agents; yet she was highly educated, and not only her mental endowments but her accomplishments were uncommon, while, not- withstanding flurries of temper due to her joyless existence and constant ill-health, she was much loved by her servitors and ministers for her generosity and kindness. Her dearest wish was to restore England to the Catholic fold ; for that she had embittered her life and all but lost her birthright. Almost directly upon her accession 236 THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 237 she issued a proclamation urging all men to return to the old faith, she ordered the restoration of much of the stolen church plate, and she gave warning to " busy meddlers in religion," though the formal settlement of the religious problem was reserved to Parliament. The System of Henry VIII Restored by Parliament (1553). — Par- liament, which met 5 October, 1553, went no farther than to pass an act repealing all laws of Edward's reign affecting religion and the Church and restoring the service as it was in the last year of Henry VIII. Most of the members had no desire to reverse Henry's policy and again to accept papal rule. There was a general desire to have the Queen marry and settle the succession, though a considerable majority opposed a plan to unite her with Philip, son of the Emperor Charles V and heir to his Spanish dominions, a plan designed to counter- act the Franco-Scot alliance and to restore the power of the Pope with Imperial aid. As a protest against the projected Spanish match, the Commons prepared an address praying the Queen to marry an English noble ; but Mary, who had determined on Philip, rebuked them sharply. In January, 1554, the marriage articles were arranged, and upon terms most favorable to England. If the Queen should die without issue her husband was to make no claim on the succession. On the other hand, any child born of the marriage would succeed both to the English Kingdom and to Philip's inheritance in the Low Countries. Also, Philip agreed not to engage England in his father's wars with France. Wyatt's Rebellion (1554). — Popular opposition was aroused to a pitch sufficient to give Mary's enemies a chance to plan a wide- spread rebellion, which, while professing to free her from her evil councilors and to prevent the Spanish marriage, really aimed, with French help, to depose the Queen and- to set up Lady Jane Grey or Elizabeth in her place. But the design leaked out prematurely and a complete confession was wrung from one of the leaders. Three separate outbreaks had been planned. One in Devon and one in the Midlands were easily suppressed, but the third, starting in Kent, under Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1 a young Catholic, was serious ; for he succeeded in marching his forces into the heart of London before he could be overcome. About sixty of the insurgent leaders, including Wyatt, were put to death, and Lady Jane Grey and her husband were now executed for their part in the old Northumberland plot. An effort to implicate Elizabeth failed from lack of evidence. The Arrival of Philip and the Return to Rome (1554). —Wyatt's rebellion was followed by more rigorous measures against Protestants. 1 He was a son of the poet, v. p. 228. 238 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Foreign congregations were ordered to quit the realm, married clergy were forced to give up their wives or to leave their benefices, and altars were erected in the village churches. On 20 July Philip landed in England. Mary met him at Winchester, where, on the 25th, they were married. After a month of festivities the royal pair journeyed to London with a stately train, including twenty-eight carts filled with bullion. But Philip was unable to overcome the general aversion with which he was regarded, and his attendants were hustled and beaten in the streets. Parliament met again, 12 November, 1554, the sheriffs had been ordered to return men of " a wise, grave, and Catholic sort," and, 29 November, in answer to their petition, Cardinal Pole, who had recently arrived as papal legate, solemnly received the realm " again into the unity of our own Mother the Holy Church." This reunion, however, even with a packed Parliament, would never have come to pass but for his assurance that the Pope had consented to waive the restoration of the Church lands. Parliament then completed the revival of the old order by repealing all measures " against the See Apostolic of Rome since the twentieth year of King Henry VIII," and restoring all the heresy laws. The Marian Persecutions (1555-1558). — Then began four horrible years of persecution which have stained indelibly the memory of the Queen and fastened upon her the name of " Bloody Mary." Up to this time comparatively lenient, the national opposition, which had manifested itself in armed rebellion, really marked the turning point in her reign. Other causes, however, contributed to change her policy. Philip, who had married her purely for reasons of State, grew colder and colder, and soon left the country, to return only once again when he wanted aid ; then Mary was denied what she most desired, an heir to perpetuate her name ; and, finally, her health, never robust, grew steadily worse. While these facts help to explain the cruelty of her methods, it must not be forgotten that Mary re- garded it as her supreme duty to extirpate heresy and restore the purity of the faith. Moreover, the reformers were violently abusive ; there was no idea of toleration in those days, for heresy was regarded as a loathsome disease to be stamped out at all costs ; thousands on the Continent suffered for their faith, and disregard of human life and suffering were everywhere a feature of the age. Mary was not alone in thinking that obstinate heretics should suffer death for " the great horror of their offense and the manifest example of other Christians " ; still, if her lot had been a happier one and her subjects had not risen against her, she might have softened her stern sense of duty by considerations of policy and humanity. THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 239 Parliament shares the blame for the persecutions which followed. Gardiner, the Queen's chief Minister, advised the step ; but he hoped that a few examples would be sufficient, and he died less than a year after the persecutions had begun. Pole was too gentle a spirit to enter into heresy-hunting with any zeal ; although Mary forced him into line, he more than once admonished the bishops to moderation. Philip, keen scenter and torturer of heretics in his own dominions, for reasons of policy took no share in the proceedings in England. Bishop Bonne: has often been charged with exceptional activity and cruelty, but he seldom spoke at the examinations, while, after an accused person had been condemned, he often worked secretly to make him recant. Furthermore, the Queen frequently had to spur his lagging zeal. His reputation seems to have been due to the fact that there were more executions in his diocese than elsewhere, but it con- tained the bulk of the heretics ; and, when he felt duty bound to pro- ceed with energy, he was hot-tempered and treated prisoners roughly, but more likely to frighten them into recanting than because he was bloodthirsty. The Martyrs. — Mary's victims numbered nearly 300, a total greater than that in Henry VIII's reign of thirty-eight years or Elizabeth's of forty-five. At the stake many faithful ministers of devoted flocks, and humble artisans and tillers of the soil as well, showed unflinching courage and serene imperviousness to frightful torture. In the pages of Fox's Martyrs their names shine brightly with those of their fellow sufferers high in social or church rank. On 16 October, 1555, Bishop Latimer, the matchless popular orator, and Bishop Ridley were burned at Oxford. At the stake he called to his weaker companion: " Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as, I trust, shall never be put out." He received the flame as if embracing it, crying vehemently in his own English tongue : " Father in Heaven, receive my soul." Cranmer, perplexed and fearful of suffering, signed at least six recantations before he was finally condemned. Yet his en^. was truly heroic. Confessing himself " a wretched caitiff and a miserable sinner," he thrust first into the flames the hand which had signed the recantation, crying: "This hand hath offended." He perished, 20 March, 1556. The effect upon the people was tremendous. The Primate of the National Church, the author of the beautiful Book of Common Prayer, had been martyred for an ecclesiastical system which an English King and an English Parliament had discarded. Plainly such examples encouraged rather than frightened the weaker. Even the most devoted Romanists 240 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN recoiled, but the stern misguided Queen persisted in the useless butchery. War with France (1557). Loss of Calais (1558). — Everything, however, worked against her. A new Pope, Paul IV, insisted upon the restoration of the Church lands, thus alienating many of her Catholic supporters. In March, 1557, Philip, during the course of a three months' visit, succeeded in drawing the English into a war between Spain and France which had just broken out. An excuse was furnished by anti-Marian plots, supposed, in spite of his denial, to have been assisted by the French King; but the result of this violation of the marriage treaty was most humiliating and damning to Mary. On 6 January, 1558, Calais, the last English possession on French soil, was captured by the French. Three months later Mary, Queen of Scots, was married to the Dauphin. At home the English prospects were as dark and threatening as they were abroad. An ague fever raged through the land during the summer and autumn of 1557 and 1558, corn was dear, trade and agriculture languished, and heavy taxes were imposed to meet the cost of the unsuccessful and unpopular war. Death of Queen Mary (1558). — In the midst of sullen discontent engendered by persecution, foreign and papal intermeddling, financial stress, and national humiliation, Mary, long ailing in health and broken down by a cumulation of disappointments, succumbed to the prevail- ing epidemic. The loss of Calais was the crowning grief. " When I am dead and opened," she said in her last illness, " you will find Calais lying upon my heart." She died 17 November, 1558. Pole, who had succeeded Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, followed her to the grave within a few hours. In a prayer book, said to be hers, the pages which contain the prayers for the unity of the Holy Cath- olic Church are stained with tears and much handling. Her marriage to Philip was the greatest mistake of her life ; it outraged national sentiment and ruined what chance there was of making her religious policy prevail, while the oppositions which it excited, and its other unhappy consequences, accentuated her austere sense of duty into blind fanaticism. The Results of the Marian Exile. — The activity of the Marian exiles, who flooded the country with furious and inflammatory writ- ings, made the lot of those who remained behind much harder than it might otherwise have been. At the beginning of the reign all foreign exiles had been ordered to leave the realm within twenty-four days under pain of imprisonment and loss of goods. About 800 migrated, together with 200 English disciples. During their sojourn THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 241 abroad, Calvinism took a firm hold upon the Marian exiles, an earnest and thinking class. On their return under Elizabeth they brought back and spread their views among their countrymen, with marked effect upon England's future religion and politics. Calvinism. — Calvinism had two sides. The cornerstone of its doctrine was predestination, which came to be accepted even by many loyal members of the Church of England. Then there was its system of Church government, which substituted for the Episcopal hierarchy a series of representative assemblies. Each church had its " kirk session," consisting of the pastor or " presbyter " and a body of elders chosen by the congregation. These were grouped into " presby- teries, or classes," which, in their turn, were grouped into " synods." Finally there was the " general assembly," composed of represen- tatives from the smaller bodies, and exercising jurisdiction over the whole. This Calvinistic system ultimately came to be the form established in Scotland. In England, where it never received any official sanction, it was adopted by an aggressive and influential class and played an important part in public affairs for over a century. Up to the time of Calvin the principle of the Reformation had been cujus regio, ejus religio, meaning, the religion of the ruler shall be the religion of the land. That had been, and was to remain, the basis of settlement in Germany and in England. Calvinism, on the other hand, like Roman Catholicism, was opposed to national in- dependence and State control. Each claimed to be a universal Church superior to all rulers. The State was regarded as the servant, not the master of the Church. Yet there was one fundamental difference between the two. The Roman organization was monar- chical, while the Calvinistic was, in theory at least, republican. The pastors and elders were supposed to be the representatives, the chosen instruments of the congregation. As a matter of fact, wherever Calvinism got a foothold the presbyters sought to gain complete control in political as well as religious affairs. This is the chief reason why the mass of Englishmen ultimately rejected it ; not, how- ever, before it had accomplished a great work, in helping to make the Reformation something more than a transference of religious head- ship from Pope to King. The Scotch Reformation. John Knox. — The overthrow of the Church of Rome in Scotland is unique in that it was brought about, not under the leadership of, but in opposition to, the Sovereign. After the death of James V the control of the government was grad- ually secured by Cardinal Beaton and the Queen Dowager, who finally became Regent, in 1554. In her effort to maintain Roman 242 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Catholic ascendancy under a French alliance there were three elements ranged against her : the Protestants, the anti-French party, and the nobles, poor and greedy, who coveted the riches of the Church. The burning of George Wishart, i March, 1546, occasioned the first rising, when a body of nobles banded together and murdered in his bed, 29 May, Cardinal Beaton, the great and worldly Archbishop of St. Andrew's, author of Wishart's death. Seizing the Castle of St. Andrew's they were joined by many of the anti-Catholic, anti-French party. Among those who came was John Knox (1505-1572) who, more than any other man, was the author and organizer of the Scotch Reformation. Hard, narrow he was, but a born leader, eloquent and fearless. In July, 1547, when the castle surrendered to a combined force of French and Scots, he was taken prisoner, and served in the French galleys till February, 1549. Then he became a preacher in England, but, shortly after Mary's accession, fled to the Continent. There he met Calvin, whose views he adopted, and settled in Geneva as minister of the English congregation. In the autumn of 1555 he paid a brief visit to Scotland, during which he started an organization of the nobles that resulted, 3 December, 1557, in a bond or " covenant" to " establish the most blessed word of God." The signatories, or " Lords of the Congregation," as they were called, were actuated partly by political motives and hope of gain, but a petition, framed in 1558, shows that they demanded reform in the Church; " the right of public and private prayer in common speech, of explaining and expounding the Scriptures, and of communion in both kinds." FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Pollard, Innes, Lingard, Froude, and Cambridge Modern History. M. J. Stone, Mary I, Queen of England (1901) ; an apology for Mary. Constitutional and ecclesiastical as above. John Fox, Acts and Monu- ments, popularly known as the Book of Martyrs (first published in 1563, best edition Townshend's, 8 vols., 1 843-1 849) although marred by inaccu- racies and bias ; this is the classic contemporary account of the Marian Martyrs. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 163-166. CHAPTER XXIV THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT AND THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REIGN (1558-1572) Elizabeth's Accession and Character. — When Elizabeth received the news that she was Queen of England she cried : " This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." It was a great heritage and one which brought with it tremendous problems for a young woman of twenty-five. The new Queen, however, was endowed with rare qualities which had been sharpened by hard schooling in the world of men and books. Hers was a puzzling contradictory nature, though the gold glittered brightly through the dross. While vain, uncertain of temper, and unscrupulous, she united imperious dignity with pru- dence and tact, and was an adept in the art of concealing her meaning in well sounding words. Her physical vigor and endurance were re- markable, she could hunt all day, dance or watch masques and pageants all night, and when necessary apply herself unremittingly to business. Her Diplomatic Courtships. — Her youth had only been less hard than that of her sister Mary. Parental, brotherly, and sisterly affec- tion were all excluded from her life. Her first love affair was with Somerset's self-seeking brother, who aimed to use her as an instrument of his ambition, and, freeing herself only with difficulty from the charge of complicity in his plots, she ceased henceforth to trust any one. Thomas Seymour was the first of a long line of suitors, though her subsequent courtships were merely a part of the great diplomatic game which she played so successfully throughout her reign. While to gain political advantage she led men on, she was determined never to marry. This question, as well as that of the succession, she was bound that Parliament should not discuss, and members who presumed to disobey were overwhelmed with her wrath. Elizabeth was as lacking in reli- gious sense as she was in scruple and delicacy ; she had no sympathy with the advanced Protestantism of Edward's reign and still less with Mary's Roman Catholic restoration. Elizabeth's Favorites and Councilors. — Sure that they would not influence her judgment at crises, the Queen all through life indulged 243 244 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN her passion for the flattery of handsome, accomplished men and kept a large following of favorites. The chief of them all was Robert Dud- ley, Earl of Leicester, son of the notorious Northumberland; his step-son, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was " a pleasing and fruit- less object " whom Elizabeth took up in his old age ; Sir Walter Raleigh, with far greater abilities and merits than either, came to a tragic end in the next reign. For serious business Elizabeth chose good, wise Ministers. William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598), was her chief advisor for forty years ; though lacking the vision and ideals of the highest type of statesmanship, he was cautious, sane, methodical, and amazingly industrious. Francis Walsingham (1 530-1 590) , who served as Secretary of State from 1573 till his death, was a zealous Protes- tant, unrivaled for his skill in unraveling plots against the throne, and excellently versed in foreign affairs. In spite of their capacity and devotion Elizabeth was often at odds with her Ministers, largely because of their excessive Protestant zeal. Her outlook was doubtless broader than theirs, for while they were convinced that the only hope of safety lay in a rigid anti-Catholic regime, she saw. the wisdom of attaching moderates of both parties to her side, realizing that if she committed herself to the ultra-Protestant policy it would inevitably provoke civil and foreign war. Her Problems and Policy. — The exhausted country was deeply in debt. Two parties of religious extremists were striving for mastery. Mary had been dragged by her Spanish consort into a disastrous war with France, and the French King, with one foot on Calais and another in Scotland, loomed up doubly threatening. Foreign Powers and many of Elizabeth's own subjects held her to be a heretic and no true heir of her father, and Mary, Queen of Scots, the next orthodox heir, was united in marriage to the Dauphin. Spain, too, might conceivably compose her political differences with her northern neighbor and com- bine in a grand Catholic alliance to crush one of the few remaining outposts of Protestantism. It was the aim of Elizabeth to prevent this. But she sought to achieve her purpose by diplomacy, steering clear of wars and alliances, and contenting herself with occasional — so far as possible secret — aid to the Protestants in Scotland and the Netherlands and the Huguenots in France. There were three reasons : she desired to give her overburdened country a chance to rest and to develop its resources ; moreover, she hoped by preserving neutrality to unite all classes of subjects irrespective of party ; finally, she was proud of her diplomatic gifts, though her diplomacy was frequently nothing but deceit. Yet, with all her pettiness, Elizabeth had a true love for her people, and in times of stress could rise to the noblest THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT 245 heights. In general, her hesitating policy was best, since it enabled her to play off conflicting forces one against another, thereby gaining time, the healing properties of which she understood so well. The result was that she left Protestantism established on a secure founda- tion, she insured a peaceful succession which led to ultimate union with Scotland, she found poverty and strife and left prosperity and national unity. Peace with France (1559). ■ — One of the new Queen's first steps was to refuse an offer of marriage from Philip II and to declare to Parlia- ment her intention to remain single, which meant that with the help of her people she was to solve her problems independently, not as a prov- ince of Spain. In April, 1559, she made peace with France by yield- ing Calais, a concession which relieved the country of great expense and helped in the withdrawal from foreign complications. The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (1559). — While extricating the State from foreign entanglements Elizabeth also had turned her attention to the religious settlement. By steering a middle course she sought to unite the moderates of both parties against the extrem- ists ; moreover, " new-fangledness " repelled her because it stood for popular or clerical control, while Romanism meant subordination to the Pope. Parliament, after a hard struggle, carried in April, 1559, two Acts embodying the Elizabethan Settlement, which, save for a few later modifications, is practically that of the Church of England to-day. By the first of these Acts — popularly known as the " Act of Supremacy " — the reactionary legislation of Mary was repealed and most of the anti-papal laws of Henry VIII were restored. A few of Henry's claims were not revived; for example, in place of the title of " Supreme Head," Elizabeth assumed that of " Supreme Governor " of the Church, thus avoiding offense to the Catholics who recognized only the Pope, and to the Puritans who accepted Christ alone as Head. Obedience to the Act was secured by an oath imposed upon all clergy- men and holders of civil office, while those who maintained the author- ity of any foreign prince or prelate were subject to severe penalties. The second measure, the " Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer," enforced the form of service of a newly revised Prayer Book and pro- hibited all others. Ministers who disobeyed were punished, and every one refusing to go to church had to pay a fine. Submission to the Established Church was regarded as a test of loyalty to the State ; and, in those troublous times, disobedience was regarded as the blackest of crimes. For the time being, the Elizabethan Settlement apparently satisfied all but a few extremists among the rank and file, though the bishops, all but one of whom opposed it, either fled abroad or were de- 246 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN prived and imprisoned.. Matthew Parker (1504-1575) was conse- crated Archbishop of Canterbury in place of Pole. Wise and moderate as well as learned, he desired ever to conciliate, though he was later forced into sharp opposition against the Puritans. The Triumph of the Scotch Protestants (1 559-1 560). — No sooner had Elizabeth brought English affairs into some degree of order than she was drawn into the struggle across the Border. John Knox re- turned to Scotland in 1559 and at once took the lead against the Regent. An attempt to suppress the Protestant preachers furnished the im- mediate occasion, but back of it was a growing feeling against French influence. The Lords of the Congregation, who furnished Knox's fighting force, applied to Elizabeth for aid. Fearing to go too far lest she might set a precedent for foreign Powers to combine with her Catholic subjects to drive her from her throne, she agreed to assist the Scots in expelling the French, provided they continued to acknowledge their Queen, Mary, wife of Francis II of France. 1 Since the French were fully occupied by internal troubles, and since the masterful Regent died, in June, 1560, the Lords of the Congregation, with such help as they got from the cautious Elizabeth, were able to overcome the France- Catholic party. In August, 1560, they called a meeting of the Estates, which renounced the authority of the Pope, and forbade the saying or hearing mass under penalties culminating in death for the third offense. Mary's Return to Scotland (1561).- — In December, 1560, Francis II died, and in August of the following year Mary returned to Scotland. Her guiding aim was to secure the succession to the English throne. Her accomplishments, added to her personal charm, made her well- nigh irresistible, and she was daring, persistent, and unscrupulous as well. In her struggle with Elizabeth, however, she was handicapped by various disadvantages besides inferior resources. Her loves and hates frequently prevailed over her State policy, whereas Elizabeth, equally fearless and unscrupulous, always kept her feelings under con- trol ; Elizabeth's interests, too, were generally identical with those of the English people, while Mary looked on the Scotch solely as a means of furthering her own ambitions. In spite of herself, Mary advanced the cause of the Reformation. Her claims to the English throne forced Elizabeth to seek the support of her Protestant subjects and drew patriotic Catholics to her side ; it also insured to Protestant Eng- land the friendship of Philip II as a counterpoise to Franco-Scotch ascendancy, while a similar fear led Elizabeth to lend effective, if grudging, aid to the Protestant lords. 1 He succeeded his father, Henry II, July, 1559. THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT 247 Mary's Marriage to Darnley (1565). — In the course of a few years, partly owing to her winning graces, partly to the repellent austerity of Knox and his ministers, Mary had gained great strength, when sud- denly, 29 July, 1565, she married her cousin Lord Darnley. Thus she broke away from her half brother Lord James Stewart, 1 leader of the dominant Protestants, and put herself at the head of the Catholic party in Scotland and England. Her motives in this marriage were political, not romantic; for Darnley was next to herself in the succes- sion and cf her own faith. The Catholic cause seemed triumphant. Moray and the Protestant lords, after an unsuccessful appeal to arms fled to England, and Mary set to work to induce the French and Span- ish to sink their political jealousies in a common war for the destruc- tion of Protestantism. She was destined to bitter disappointment. Darnley's Breach with Mary. His Murder (1567). — Darnley proved weak, dissipated, and presuming. His excesses disgusted the Queen, while he, infuriated at his exclusion from all authority, laid the blame on Mary's secretary David Rizzio. So he was easily persuaded to enter into a bond with the exiled lords to bring them back and dispose cf his rival. On 9 March, 1566, he burst into the Queen's chamber in Iiclyrood Palace, followed by a body of armed men who tore Rizzio from her skirts where he clung for protection, dragged him to the door, stabbed him, and flung his body down the stairs. Mary met the situation with promptness and decision. Feigning reconcili- ation with her ineffectual Consort, she drew him from his fellow con- spirators, and restored to favor such of the Protestant lords as had not been involved in the crime. However, her natural aversion to Darnley was rendered complete by a passionate attachment which she formed for the Earl of Bothwell, a reckless, aspiring noble, who, although a Protestant, was the declared enemy of Moray. It was at this junc- ture that, 9 February, 1567, Kirk O'Field, the house in which Darnley, just recovering from a serious illness, was lodged, was blown up and his dead body was found in the adjoining garden. Mary, who brought him to the house, had left him, only a few hours before the explosion. Mary's Flight to England. Her Captivity (1560-1587). — Though Bothwell was accused with one voice, no one dared to appear against him. After his acquittal at a trial which was nothing more than a farce, he took Mary captive, apparently by arrangement planned with her beforehand. Having secured a divorce from his own wife, he and the Queen were married, 15 May, 1567. This outrageous proceeding led to a revolt — in which Mary was overcome. Bothwell escaped while she herself was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, forced to yield 1 Earl of Moray in 1562. 248 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the throne to her infant son, James, born 19 June, 1566, and to nomi- nate Moray Regent. She escaped after a few months only to receive another defeat, May, 1568, when, in despair, she fled across the Border, threw herself on the support of Elizabeth, and demanded a hearing against her subjects. After a body of commissioners, representing the two Queens and the rebellious Scots, had delayed for months on the case Elizabeth was able to announce a characteristically in- definite conclusion, blaming neither party. Nevertheless, Mary was held a captive for nearly twenty years. Fortunately for England, the French and Spanish Kings were for a time fully occupied with their own affairs, and, in spite of the danger of rousing the Catholics, Mary proved a valuable hostage. The Rising of the Northern Earls (1569). — Not long after Mary's arrival in England the plotting began. Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, planned to marry her. Lacking courage to declare himself, he, never- theless, aroused Elizabeth's suspicions, who had him locked up in the Tower, October, 1569. A fortnight after his arrest a great rebellion broke out in the north. As in the case of the Pilgrimage of Grace, the movement was due to a mixture of religious, political and economic causes. However, the specific demands of the insurgents were the restoration of the old religion, the purging of new men from the Council, the release of Norfolk, and the restoration of Mary to her throne. Once more, however, lack of concert among them proved fatal, with the result that the Queen's army was soon able to restore order. How- ever, a strong party still survived who firmly believed that Elizabeth had no right to rule and that it was their religious duty to put Mary Stuart in her place ; they looked to Rome for support, and, when occa- sion offered, intrigued with Spain and France. Elizabeth and the Catholics. — Elizabeth sought to meet the Roman Catholic danger in two ways : abroad, by stirring up the Protestant subjects of the rulers whom she feared ; at home, by restrictive legis- lation. She demanded only outward conformity ; for, as she proudly declared, she " made no windows into men's souls." Moreover, no one was put to death for religion during the first seventeen years of her reign. Persecution was forced upon her by political necessity. While liberty of worship was forbidden from the first, the restrictions later imposed were due in most cases to aggressions from Rome or to marked successes of the Catholic cause abroad. The events of 1562 illustrate this. The Pope struck a hard blow at the loyalty of the moderate Catholics by a brief in which he denounced the Prayer Book and for- bade the faithful to attend the services of the Church of England. In France the Huguenots, or Protestants, met with a series of reverses, THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT 249 and English troops, which Elizabeth had reluctantly sent to their aid, were driven out of Havre. The result was a series of measures, aimed to offset these papal assertions and gains. So the Forty-two Articles, revised and reduced to thirty-nine, were adopted by Convocation, 1563 ; l while an Act of Parliament extended the Oath of Supremacy to members of the House of Commons, to schoolmasters, and lawyers. Furthermore, the Court of High Commission, authorized by the Act of Supremacy, began actively to inquire into the faith of the clergy. The Counter-Reformation. — There was still great danger that England might be engulfed in the " Counter-reformation," as the great movement was called by which the Church of Rome sought to reform itself and to recover the countries which had broken away. Practically every spark of heresy was stamped out in Spain and Italy, France was retained by hard fighting, so were ten of the seventeen provinces in the Low Countries, while Poland, Southern Germany, and, later, Bohemia, were all won back. Four main factors played a de- cisive part in the Roman Catholic renascence. First, zealous and religious Popes were elected. Secondly, the counsels of progressive and high-thinking men began to be heard, who sought to regenerate the Church from within in order to tempt back those who had wandered from the fold. Steps even toward reconciliation with the Lutherans were undertaken by progressive Italian Catholics ; but were checked by Francis I who persuaded Paul III that religious unity in Germany would make Charles V dangerously strong. So the question was re- served for a General Council soon to meet at Trent. Before it came together a new religious order sprang into being, the influence of which prevented all reconciliation. The Jesuits. — This third and most aggressive factor in the regen- eration of the Church — the famous Society of Jesus — was the crea- tion of Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight, who developed a wonderful organization, the members of which, pledged to absolute obedience, were to be Christian soldiers in a grand spiritual campaign to convert all outside the pale of the Church and to suppress free thought and inquiry within. The Society received the papal sanction in 1540, and Loyola became its first general in 1541. Training schools and colleges were established ; and the Order, which numbered thousands and extended over Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, was divided into provinces, each under a provincial, while the general at Rome wielded power over Popes and Princes. 2 1 Ratified by Parliament in 1571. 2 They were greatly assisted in their work of suppression, by the Inquisition, an institution as old as the twelfth century; but which, with an elaborate or- 250 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Council of Trent (1545-1563). The Council of Trent, the fourth factor in counteracting the Protestant Reformation, was opened in 1545, and continued its session intermittently till 1.563. Here the Jesuits prevailed over the party of mediation. The leading doctrines of Protestantism, such as individual interpretation of the Bible and justification by faith, were condemned ; the chief dogmas of the Church were defined more rigidly, the supremacy of the Pope was reaffirmed, glaring abuses were reformed, and stricter discipline was introduced. Thus reformed and reorganized, strengthened by the terrible arm of the Inquisition, the Church of Rome under pious and energetic Popes sought the support of Spain and France, and started anew on its road of recovery and conquest. England, however, who had so much to fear from this powerful combination, was to enjoy a period of respite. Philip II, keen enough to reestablish the power of the Church, was held back for some years by fear of France, who aimed to extend her power across the Channel by making Mary Stuart Queen of England. During the interval, the French Government was occupied in a series of religious wars with the Huguenots, while Philip himself was called upon to face a revolt of his Protestant subjects in the Netherlands. The Revolt of the Netherlands (1567). — Charles V had ruled with great moderation, respecting carefully their provincial privileges to which they clung tenaciously; but Philip II, unlike his father, had not been brought up among them and was Spanish to the core. Cold and unbending, he determined to mold them into the vast religious and political system by which he sought to control his dominions in Europe, America, and the Eastern Ocean. The opposition started with a combination of the local nobility, led by William of Orange, against an attempt to ignore their share in the government. Then the activity of the Inquisition in punishing heresy led to their union with the people in a common bond to uproot and expel the iniquitous instrument of oppression. As a result of a great popular outburst, the Regent, who governed for Philip, made certain concessions which led many of the nobles and some of the moderate folk to return to their allegiance, though the Prince of Orange held aloof and withdrew to Germany. Philip, instead of meeting his subjects halfway, adopted the advice of the Duke of Alva, the most uncompromising of his gen- erals, and sent him with Spanish troops to repress and punish those who had presumed to rebel against his authority. Directly on his arrival, in May, 1567, Alva set up a tribunal known as the " Blood Council " to try those concerned in the recent outbreak, and among ganization of courts and officials, had been particularly active in Spain for about a century. THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT 251 those put to death were nobles who had renounced the extremists. William of Orange, who during his exile had become a Calvinist, led an army against the savage executioner, but had to withdraw de- feated. The Ridolfi Plot and the Execution of Norfolk (1572). — The cause of Protestantism was exposed to serious menace, and the Protestant cause received another blow from the assassination of Moray, Regent of the Scots, 23 January, 1 570 To cap all, the Pope issued a bull of ex- communication against Queen Elizabeth. Her reply was a new series of measures against the Catholics. In 1571 Parliament declared it high treason to call the Queen a heretic, to affirm that any particular person was her successor, 1 or to publish any papal bull against her. In this year " Ridolfi's Plot," engineered by a Florentine resident in England, came to light, a plot which, with the aid of Alva, Philip II, and the Pope, aimed to liberate Mary and to marry her to the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk paid the penalty with his head, 1572. Though the clouds still hung heavy, Elizabeth had already achieved much and was steadily gaining ground. She had settled the religion of her realm, she had helped to set up Protestantism in Scotland, she held her rival captive, she had put down a dangerous rising, and, while Catholicism was gaining ground abroad, the two leading Powers of that faith were at odds with each other and busy repressing religious revolts among their own subjects. Further dangers were in store for England's Queen ; but when they came, she proved ready to meet them, backed by the moderate men of both camps who saw that the salvation of their country depended upon united effort. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Pollard ; Innes ; Lingard ; Froude ; and Cambridge Modern History. Creighton, Queen Elizabeth (1909), the best biography of the Queen. Creighton, The Age of Elizabeth (6th ed., 1885), a good brief survey. M. A. S. Hume, The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth (1896) and The Great Lord Burghley (1898) are useful. For Relations with Scotland. Cambridge Modern History, III, ch. VIII (bibliography 810-815) is an able and impartial survey of the Mary Stuart problem. See also P. H. Brown, Scotland; Andrew Lang, History of Scot- land (1900-1902) and W. L. Mathieson, Politics and Religion (1902). J. R. Seeley, Growth of British Policy (2 vols., 1895) contains a stimulating and suggestive account of the broader features of the diplomacy of the reign. Ecclesiastical. In addition to Wakeman and Dixon, W. H. Frere, History of the English Church, 1 588-1603 (1904). F. Proctor (ed. W. H. 1 This was of course aimed at Mary and her adherents. 252 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Frere) New History of the Book of Common Prayer (1901). H. Gee, The Elizabethan Prayer Book and Ornaments (1902). H. N. Birt, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (1907) treats the subject from the Roman Catholic standpoint. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 167 ff. ; for a more complete selection G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitu- tional Documents (1894, new ed., 1913). CHAPTER XXV ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE (1572-1603) The Massacre of St. Bartholomew (24 August, 1572). — Alva's triumph was short-lived. His bloodthirstiness and his oppressive taxation roused the Netherlanders to fury : encouraged by French and English aid, town after town rebelled, and, in July, 1572, four of the Northern provinces united under William of Orange as Stadholder. One result was a wild assault on the Huguenots in France. That country was practically governed by the masterful Catherine de' Medici, mother of the nominal King Charles IX, who had recently fallen under the influence of Admiral Coligny, the noblest of the Huguenot leaders. Momentarily freed from fear of Spain, Catherine, recoiling at the thought of Protestant ascendancy, combined with the hated Guises 1 to get rid of her son's new mentor and to destroy his followers. The opportunity came when the wedding of Henry of Navarre, 18 August, 1572, brought large numbers of the Hugue- not party to Paris. Representing to her feeble-minded son that his throne, his religion, and indeed his life were in danger, Catherine prevailed upon him to order a general massacre, which began in the early morning of St. Bartholomew's Day, 24 August. Ccligny was the most notable victim, though few of the leaders, except Henry of Navarre, escaped. The slaughter, spreading from Paris to the other towns of France, lasted for days. England was plunged in deepest gloom, and when the French ambassador succeeded in obtaining an audience he was received by the whole Court in mourning. The Union of Utrecht (1579). — Alva, now that the Netherlands were cut off from French help, hoped to crush them utterly ; but his ruthless methods only stirred them to more desperate resistance. Philip, in despair, soon recalled him, and sent a successor pledged to a more pacific policy. The French Government, too, were not long in recognizing the futility of the policy of bloodshed, and sought to conciliate the Huguenots by a new edict of toleration. In the Neth- 1 A powerful Lorraine family who furnished many Roman Catholic leaders in Church and State. 253 254 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN erlands the new Governor, Alexander of Parma, managed to break up the combination of the seventeen provinces by artfully fomenting religious dissension. The ten southern, prevailingly Catholic, formed a separate union and gradually fell back to Spain, while the seven northern, by the Union of Utrecht, 1579, combined under William of Orange, and ultimately, after an heroic struggle, achieved their independence, which was finally acknowledged in 1648. Roman Catholic Movements against Elizabeth in Ireland and Scotland. — In view of the large number of disaffected in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales a plan was concocted by certain English exiles, with the sanction of the Pope, to strike at Queen Elizabeth in all those three centers simultaneously. Ireland offered a peculiarly favorable field. While Henry VIII had alienated many by his attempts to bribe the chiefs with tribal lands, attempts in Mary's reign to plant English settlers in western Leinster had only increased the bitterness. The natives were in constant turmoil, and the English officials, strong enough for oppression and extortion, had not sufficient forces to maintain order. In consequence, Irishmen listened eagerly to papal emissaries who promised deliverance from tyranny. How- ever, a joint invasion and rising, centering in Kerry, in 1579, led by two brothers of the powerful House of Desmond, and supported, with the sanction of Gregory XIII, by a few Spanish and Italian troops, was ruthlessly suppressed by a new Lord Deputy, an achievement which Elizabeth joyfully acknowledged as an act of God. Followed by devastations and seizures, its only result was to widen the breach between England and her subject people. In Scotland an attempt at a Catholic revival was made through Esme Stuart, sent in 1579 by the Guises with the design of converting James VI and restoring the French alliance. Easily gaining a complete ascendancy over the young King, who created him Duke of Lennox, he was for some months virtually master of Scotland, and was on the point of calling in a force of Spanish troops when, in August, 1582, a group of nobles seized King James while hunting and forced him to order Lennox to leave the country. After a period of aimless lingering the defeated intriguer withdrew to France, where he died soon after. The Seminary Priests and Jesuits in England (1579-1581). — The third center of attack was in England itself. Among other evidences of the zeal inspired by the Jesuits was the founding of a Seminary at Douay (soon transferred to Rheims) and of a college at Rome for the training of English Catholics. Burning with enthusiasm, the Englishmen who went from them x strove to convert their Protestant 1 Known as " seminary priests " when they took Holy Orders. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 255 countrymen and to arouse the native Catholics from their lethargy. In June, 1581, a mission led by two Jesuits, Edmund Campion, a high-minded enthusiast of captivating eloquence, and Robert Parsons, a restless intriguer, landed in England. Moving from place to place in disguise they preached to large crowds, they set up a printing press, circulated controversial pamphlets, and converted considerable numbers. Alarmed at their success, the Government passed an Act of Parliament which declared it high treason to convert the Queen's subjects to the Church of Rome or to aid or to conceal those engaged in such work. Heavy fines were imposed on any priest who said mass or on any one who refused * to go to Church. A rigid persecution was begun ; houses were searched for concealed priests ; Campion and some of the other Jesuits were captured and put to death ; but Parsons escaped and troubled the Government for years to come. Further Measures against the Roman Catholics (1584-1593). — The discovery, in 1583, of another plot to put Mary on the throne with foreign aid, and the assassination of William the Silent, 2 in July, 1584, led to the formation of a voluntary association to protect the Queen, which was legalized by Parliament early in 1585. Another Act ordered all Jesuits and seminary priests to quit the realm within forty days and declared any found thereafter, or any who had harbored them, guilty of high treason. The final anti-Catholic Act of the reign, passed in 1593, provided that recusants of the wealthier sort should be forbidden to travel more than five miles from their homes 3 and that those of the poorer class should be banished. The Protestant Extremists. — Meantime, since the beginning of the reign, the extreme Protestants had been giving -serious trouble. Three classes may be distinguished : the Puritans or moderate Non- conformists, who wanted to stay in the Church, but desired to "purify" its services from forms and ceremonies savoring of Rome ; the Presby- terians, who aimed to substitute their form of government for the Episcopal form established by law ; finally, the Separatists or Brown- ists, called Independents or Congregationalists in a later time, who insisted on the right of each congregation to manage its own affairs. Differing among themselves on many fundamental points, they agreed in denouncing what they regarded as " Romish " forms and cere- monies. The Puritans, who objected to the vestments prescribed 1 Such persons were called "recusants." The fine, £20 a month, too heavy to be enforced, was intended mainly as a threat. 2 The popular name for William of Orange. ; They were retained as a source of revenue from the fines which might be im- posed. 256 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN for the clergy, and to various forms and ceremonies, such as the observance of saints' days, the sign of the Cross in baptism, and organ music, opened the fight in Convocation, in 1563. Failing to secure any concessions, they began to meet in " conventicles," where they held services according to their own rules, instead of those laid down in the Prayer Book. Elizabeth desired to avoid trouble, but they flouted the ritual to which she was attached ; their contempt of form and denunciation of amusements were unpalatable to the majority of her subjects; and they defied royal authority. Ac- cordingly, she insisted on the observance of the forms of worship by law established. The Presbyterians. — Later, the Presbyterians entered the field with an onslaught upon the very structure of the Episcopal church. In two " Admonitions to Parliament," in 1572, they denounced the government of bishops as contrary to the word of God and demanded government by presbyters. Not only were their views startlingly democratic but their language was immeasurably violent. A mild sample is their description of the Archbishop's court as " the filthy quagmire and poisoned splash of all abominations that do infect the whole realm." The advent of the Separatists about the same time added another element of confusion. In 1583 the Court of High Commission was put on a permanent footing with enlarged powers, though for ten years previously it had been active in enforcing the Act of Uniformity against Protestants as well as Catholics. On the other hand, Archbishop Parker's successor had to be suspended for refusing to suppress meetings of those of advanced views, while Whitgift, an orthodox and energetic prelate who followed him, 1583, was greatly hampered from the fact that extreme Protestantism had secured strong sympathizers in the Council and Parliament. The Marprelate Libels (1588). — Attempts at repression only embittered the extremists, who replied with violent abuse which reached its height in the Martin Marprelate libels, in 1588. In them the Archbishop was graced with such names as " Beelzebub of Canterbury, the Canterbury Caiaphas; Esau, a monstrous anti- Christ; a most bloody oppressor of God's saints." The bishops were: "false governors of the Church, petty popes; proud, popish, profane, presumptuous, paltry, pestilent, pernicious prelates, and usurpers ; enemies of God and the State." The clergy were : " popish priests, ale hunters, drunkards, dolts, hogs, dogs, wolves, desperate and forlorn atheists, a crew of bloody soul murderers, sacrilegious church robbers." These pronouncements of certain hot zealots, " who for Zion's sake could not hold their peace," were bound to hurt ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 257 the cause of the earnest, moderate men opposed to the Elizabethan State Church. Indeed, the very year in which the libels appeared marked a reaction toward the Establishment, to which many other circumstances contributed. For one thing, numbers came to realize that it was both graceless and futile to engender strife against a Sovereign who, however sternly she repressed extremists, had done so much for the Protestant cause ; she was growing old and they could wait to push their claims under a successor to whom they were not bound by such ties of gratitude. To dispose of the irreconcilables, Parliament, in response to a royal demand, passed, 1593, an Act " against seditious sectaries and disloyal persons," providing, among other things, that those who frequented conventicles or assailed the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical should abjure the realm and never return under pain of death. In the same year three, including Penry, the chief author of the Marprelate libels, suffered for their faith, though the cause assigned was malicious defaming of the Queen with intent to stir up rebellion. Elizabeth's Intervention in the Netherlands (1585). — Doubtless the chief reason for harmonizing religious differences was the necessity of meeting a great invasion sent by Philip II, and the burst of loyalty which followed its triumphant repulse. The attack was due mainly to two causes: English intervention in the Netherlands and the aggressiveness of the English sea power. With the murder of William of Orange and the continued successes of Alexander of Parma, the cause of the Netherlands seemed to be doomed, particularly when the childless Henry III of France, allowing his religious sentiments to triumph over his fear of Spain, joined Philip II, 1585, to exclude from the French throne his heir Henry of Navarre, leader of the Huguenots, and to extirpate Protestantism in France and the Low Countries. Elizabeth, who had hitherto lent only enough assistance to the revolt to keep it alive, saw that the time for active intervention had come. She refused the offer of sovereignty, though, with her accustomed thrift, she demanded from the Dutch certain " cautionary towns " as pledges for expenses incurred. Toward the end of 1585 Leicester was sent over with a force of foot and horse. Thoroughly incom- petent, cramped from lack of funds, and opposed by Parma, the greatest general of the time, he accomplished nothing, and wags put in his mouth the words, vent, vidi, redii. 1 Leicester's futile expedition is only important as a leading cause of Philip's attack on England. The Rise of the Elizabethan Sea Power. — More alarming to the 1 "I came, I saw, I returned," a brilliant distortion of Caesar's famous, veni, vidi, vici. 258 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Spanish King than the English intervention in the Netherlands were the attacks of English seamen upon his commerce and his American possessions. Since the accession of Elizabeth the maritime power of the country had sprung into a stage of growth which ultimately brought it to a height unequaled in the world's history. Although the royal navy was developing, this was the peculiar work of the explorers and of sea-rovers or privateers, recruited from the merchant marine. They braved the perils of unknown seas and unknown lands, they broke through the colonial and commercial monopoly of Spain, and strove as well to strike deadly blows at Philip's world- wide religious and political domination. Thus fame and booty, the profit and glory of England, and the defense and spread of Protestant- ism mingled curiously and effectively to spur them on. And in the Queen they found a persistent if shifty supporter, for she shared in their profits and gained by their victories. Though her policy was in essence defensive — to preserve national independence and Protes- tantism — she sought to realize it, to a considerable degree, by offen- sive means. She had no mind to declare war ; but she sent aid to the Dutch in revolt, first " underhand " and at length openly, and from the beginning of her reign she steadily kindled the enthusiasm of her subjects for buccaneering enterprises against the Spanish commerce and the Spanish colonies, though protesting, all the while, that she was not responsible for the acts of her subjects. The English Buccaneers and Their Aggressions against Spain. — The pioneer of the Elizabethan " sea-dogs " was John Hawkins, who initiated the traffic in slaves from the Guinea coast of Africa to Spanish America, the Queen, it is shameful to relate, sharing in his profits. His young cousin Francis Drake accompanied him on his second voyage and commanded a ship on a third and more famous one, in 1567, when they were attacked in the Mexican port of San Juan d'Ulloa, 1 whence they escaped only after the bulk of their crew had been massacred. While they had given great provocation, the act was a piece of deliberate treachery 2 and determined Drake to devote the remainder of his life to a relentless war against Spain and her possessions in the new world. In his famous voyage round the world, 1577-1580, Drake marked his course by devastation and plunder; yet the magnitude of his achievement and the fortitude which he 1 The roadstead of Vera Cruz. 2 Elizabeth replied to the incident at San Juan by seizing, in December, 1568, Genoese ships laden with Spanish treasure for the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, a step which, with amazing effrontery, she justified on the ground that, having saved it from the privateers, she was entitled to take it as a loan. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 259 displayed amply merited the acclaim which greeted him on his return. Elizabeth economically rewarded him with a knighthood for the share of treasure which he brought her. Trembling for the safety of his lands and trade, Philip for some years had sought to check Elizabeth's aggressions by seizing ships in Spanish waters. Her reply was to send privateers to the scene of action. Most disastrous to the enemy was the activity of Drake, in 1585. Striking first at the coast of Spain he seized a quantity of shipping ; thence he passed to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, overcoming great cities, and plundering and destroying as he went. The simultaneous operations of Drake and Leicester led Philip to plan a joint attack on England from Spain and the Netherlands. Under cover of a fleet, Parma was to land an army, the English Catholics were to rise for Mary, Elizabeth was to be disposed of, and Parma was to marry the new Queen and to govern the country for his master. Babington's Plot (1586). Execution of Mary. — The miscarriage of Babington's plot in behalf of Mary, 1586, shattered this project, but furnished Philip with another pretext for invading England. Mary was brought to trial and sentenced to death. After two months of vacillation and after she had made a vain effort to induce Mary's keeper to murder his royal captive, Elizabeth finally signed the death-warrant and handed it over to a Secretary without, how- ever, giving him any authority to carry it out. By order of the Council who assumed the responsibility, Mary Stuart was beheaded, 8 February, 1587, going to her death with magnificent fortitude. Elizabeth pro- tested to France and Scotland that she was innocent of the deed and, as a proof of her good faith, fined and dismissed the poor Secretary. The Sailing of the Armada (1588). — Before Philip, now the avenger of Mary's death and the claimant 1 to the English throne, had com- pleted his ponderous preparations, the terrible Drake assumed the offensive. Sailing from Plymouth harbor, in April, 1587, he made for Cadiz, plundered the town, and destroyed a ' vast amount of stores and shipping, darted thence to Lisbon Bay, creating havoc with the fleet which the Spanish commander was making ready, and then intercepted, off Cape St. Vincent, a squadron of transports from the Mediterranean. This exploit, which is called " singeing the King of Spain's beard," frustrated Philip's plans for that year. At length, in May, 1588, the great Armada was ready to sail; but at the very outset it encountered a furious storm off Lisbon which so crippled 1 Mary before her death had disinherited her son James in his favor as a claimant. Philip based his claim on his descent from a marriage of John of Gaunt with a Portuguese princess. 260 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and scattered the ships that the second and final start was delayed till 12 July. Comparative Strength of the English and Spanish Fleets. — At least three serious obstacles confronted the invaders. Parma's army was blockaded by a Dutch fleet and that blockade would have to be broken ; then it was necessary to overcome the English in the Channel in order to convey his army across ; finally, Parma, if he succeeded in landing, would have to conquer the country — in all probability, in the teeth of opposition even from the Catholics. The critical struggle took place in the Channel, and in spite of the terror of the Spanish name and the imposing appearance of the Spanish fleet, the English captains anticipated a victory from the outset. Elizabeth, to be sure, was not well prepared, for she had hoped to avert war ; but her commander, Lord Howard of Effingham , was a man of experience, prudence, and valor, and had some of the most brilliant sea fighters of the age to help him. The Spanish fleet numbered 130 ships with a total tonnage and an equipment of men and guns double the English. On the other hand, while the English royal navy counted only 34 ships, others contributed by the nobles, the gentry, and the seaports, brought their aggregate up to 197. Moreover, the Spanish galleons were high fore and aft, offering excellent marks for the English gunners, and, drawing little water, they were unable to move rapidly — a serious impediment to their classic style of fighting, which consisted of closing with the enemy and making use of their superior numbers in hand-to-hand encounters. The English ships, lighter and better handled, kept the weather gauge, and firing three times to the enemy's one, poured their shot with deadly effect into their lofty exposed hulls. The clumsy Spanish, on their part, wasted their fire in a vain effort to disable the vessels that they could not reach, by aiming at their rigging. The Camp at Tilbury. — The English land forces were gathered at Tilbury where Elizabeth appeared before them mounted on a war horse, holding a general's staff, and arrayed in a breastplate of steel. Followed by a page who bore her helmet, she rode bareheaded through the ranks, and roused them to the highest pitch of loyalty by her stirring words. " I am come among you at this time," she said, " being resolved ... to lay down for my God and for my Kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of a feeble woman, but I have the heart of a King and a King of England too." No wonder they prayed heartily the Spaniards might land quickly, and " when they knew they were fled, they began to lament." ELIZABETH'S AS1ENDANCY AND DECLINE 261 The Destruction of the Armada. — On ig July, 1588, the long- expected Armada was first sighted off the Cornish coast. Repulsed in a series of engagements in the waters about Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, the invaders started up the Channel to join Parma. When they reached Calais the English turned loose a number of fire ships, scattering the Spanish vessels in all directions ; before they had time to recover, they were engaged by the English fleet in force and obliged to break and flee. The victors, however, were in no con- dition to pursue them, for their ammunition was exhausted, their provisions had run short, and what remained was spoiled — a mishap due partly to the faulty and inadequate supply system of those days and partly to Elizabeth's parsimony. The " invincible Armada " sped north driven by a stiff gale, rounding the north of Scotland and the west of Ireland ; about half of the original force finally reached Spain. Beside those lost in fighting, many were wrecked, of whom numbers, cast alive on the Scotch and Irish shores, were slain by the natives or by English officials. Wind and weather had fought against the proud Spaniard, yet, after all has been said, the result was chiefly due to the courage and skill of Elizabeth's seamen. Significance of the Repulse of the Armada. — While the Armada had never seemed so formidable to English seamen as to the Catholic Powers of the Continent, its repulse marked a grandly significant moment in the history of England. It justified at home and abroad Elizabeth's wise policy of moderation. She had won her people with peace, light taxes, and the fostering of trade, and had prosecuted re- ligious extremists only so far as necessities of State demanded. When the crisis came her subjects, forgetting their religious differences, flocked to the defense of their Sovereign and their Kingdom. And the victory was not only an indication, it was also a further cause of na- tional unity. Achievement in a common national undertaking drew more closely together subjects of all shades of opinion. For the first time, too, it revealed to Christendom the greatness of English sea power and marked the beginning of the end of the Spanish sea power, one of the leading causes of Spanish ultimate downfall. New Aggressions against Spain and the Final Stages of the Struggle with Philip II. — The younger generation were thirsting for great exploits. Not content with preying upon Spain's commerce and worrying her with occasional dashes against her coasts, they aspired to break up her dominion beyond the seas and to set up an English dominion in its place. At the head of this party stood Essex, a nephew of Leicester, and Raleigh, who wanted to override the older, wiser, and more cautious councilors like Burghley and Walsingham. A futile 262 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN expedition, in 1589, for the purpose of restoring a Portuguese claimant to the throne of Portugal is an instance of their extreme aggressive policy. In August, 1589, Henry III was assassinated, whereupon Henry of Navarre was able to fight his way to the throne, while the assistance which Philip II and Parma vainly sent to his opponents gave England and the Netherlands a happy respite. In 1593 Henry IV, as he now was, declared himself a Catholic ; but this was only for State purposes, and, in 1598, by the Edict of Nantes he granted a generous toleration to Huguenots. Already, more than a year earlier, after Philip's forces captured Calais, he joined the English in an expedition which sacked Cadiz and destroyed the shipping in the harbor. This was the last great naval expedition of the reign against Spain. Burghley succeeded in persuading the Queen to make his son, Robert, Secretary of State, and the peace party was able to put a check upon the fiery Essex fac- tion. Philip, in 1596 and 1597, sent fleets against England and Ire- land successively, but neither reached its destination. In 1598 Henry IV concluded a peace with Spain which made Philip free to pursue his designs on England and the Netherlands, but he died the very same year, leaving a bankrupt and crumbling heritage. Elizabeth's Last Years. — The repulse of the Armada marked the climax of Elizabeth's glory. The years that followed were years of increasing loneliness and isolation. Her favorites and her trusted councilors dropped off one by one: Leicester in 1588; Walsingham in 1590; Burghley in 1598. l The system which she represented had outlived its time; the old absolutism had served its turn, and new men and new policies were eagerly waiting their chance. The romance, too, of her life was ended ; for even at Court her popularity declined with her fading charms. The admiration of the younger courtiers came to be more and more a pretense. Yet, old as she was. she re- fused to face the prospect of death or to provide for the succession, and clung to vain display till the last. Once when the Bishop of St. David's ventured to preach on the text, " Lord, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," she burst out stormily : " He might have kept his arithmetic to himself, but I see that the greatest clerks are not the wisest men." Yet, too, there were times when she showed flashes of that tact and insight which had been so characteristic of her in her prime. In 1601 when Parliament forced 1 Essex was beheaded, in 1601, in consequence of an armed uprising against his Court opponents, to whom he attributed an humiliating sentence to imprisonment in his house, after he had burst into the royal presence unannounced on his return from Ireland, where he failed to deal effectively with a rebellion he was sent to quell. Elizabeth never recovered from the shock of signing his death warrant. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 263 her to revoke some grants of monopolies, regarded as burdensome, she yielded very gracefully, and declared : " I have more cause to thank you all than you me ; for, had I not received a knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lap of an error only from lack of true in- formation." Yet, when the subject had been raised four years earlier, she had expressed the hope that her loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, and had done nothing. Elizabeth's Death (24 March, 1603). — Elizabeth died 24 March, 1603, in the forty-sixth year of a reign, which, judged by its achieve- ments, was most notable. She maintained the established religion without civil war and kept England from being absorbed either by the House of Valois or the House of Hapsburg. By preventing the question of the succession from being decided prematurely, she peace- fully prepared the way for the Scotch Protestant line and the union of two countries that naturally belonged together. While she kept England out of war she diverted its energies into trade, exploration, and colonization, thus helping to lay the foundations of its future greatness. She was blessed with a long reign in which she labored to educate her people into a sense of unity and national self-conscious- ness. She trusted to time which, though it was ruthless to her as a woman, blessed her policy. FOR ADDITIONAL READING M. A. S. Hume, Treason and Plot (1901) deals with the struggles of the Roman Catholics for supremacy in the last years of Elizabeth. E. P. Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth (vol. I, 1914) is the most thorough account of the history of the period. See also the references for ch. XXIV above. CHAPTER XXVI ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND (1558-1603) The Strength of the Later Elizabethan Monarchy. — After Eliza- beth had weathered the storms of the first part of her reign, the Mon- archy seemed to be even stronger than under her triumphant father. Necessity, sentiment, and gratitude all contributed to this apparent result. The Protestants of every shade of opinion had been forced to support her through fear of civil war and foreign invasion. They clung to her against Mary Stuart, backed by France and the Papacy and, at length, by Spain. After Mary's death the moderate Catholics ranged themselves on Elizabeth's side against the Spanish invasion and the conquest which it threatened to involve. The sentiment of chivalrous devotion to a woman, although it took absurdly extravagant forms, particularly at Court, was another real source of strength that the Queen, not from vanity alone, knew how to foster. Finally, the gentry and the commercial and trading classes were bound to the throne by ties of material interest and gratitude. Henry VII had done much for them ; Henry VIII, continuing his father's policy, had shared with them the spoils of the monasteries and contributed to their prosperity in other ways ; under Elizabeth came peace, economical rule, depreda- tions against Spain, and the expansion of trade, together with the glorious deliverance of 1588. Opposition and Sources of Weakness. — Nevertheless, forces were already at work which indicated that absolutism was tottering. A new order of things was inevitable, though it was precipitated by the advent of the Stuart dynasty. The very services rendered by the Tudors, and particularly by Elizabeth, had put the subjects of the realm in a position to assert themselves. They no longer feared the old nobility who had oppressed them in the past and had been respon- sible for the terrible disorders of the fifteenth century ; they were no longer threatened with a Catholic successor ; the combination between France and Scotland had been broken by the union of the English and Scotch crowns ; Spain had been repulsed and the Romanist party 264 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 265 had shrunk to a faction of plotters who were looked at askance by the loyal members of thei r own communion ; and Ireland, long a storm center, seemed for the moment quelled. 1 The grievances, actual and potential, against which the disaffected could now assert themselves, were both religious and political. While religious strife practically ceased after the Armada, the extreme Protestants had not been crushed ; they were only waiting more auspicious times. Since the bishops and their followers among the clergy turned to the Crown for support and sought to strengthen their position by exalting the royal pre- rogative, their opponents turned to Parliament, combining with those whose grievances were primarily political, with those who were op- posed to arbitrary taxation and to the jurisdiction of the extraordinary courts which had grown up under the Tudors. In order to follow the conflict in the two following reigns, it is necessary to understand the situation in Church and State on the eve of the struggle. The Royal Supremacy over the Church. — The Sovereign was su- preme governor over all ecclesiastical persons and causes, and, directly or indirectly, controlled the legislation, administration, and revenues of the Church. Convocation was summoned and dissolved by the Crown, and none of its acts were valid without the royal assent, while the administration of ecclesiastical finances 2 and justice was under royal control from ;..ie fact that the bishops were appointees of the Crown. The regular Church courts were those of the Archdeacon, the Bishop, and the Archbishop. Their competence extended over temporal as well as spiritual causes ; for, in addition to sacrilege, heresy, perjury, and immorality, probate and divorce fell within their scope. 3 Appeals in the last instance went to the High Court of Delegates, com- posed of judges appointed by the Sovereign whenever need arose. 4 Until 1 64 1, however, the ordinary ecclesiastical courts were practically superseded by the Court of High Commission, empowered by the Act of Supremacy to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to inquire into and punish heresy and other offenses of a like nature. At first its energies were devoted to enforcing the Acts of Supremacy and Uni- formity against the Romanists ; but, when it came to be used against the Protestants as well, it began to be hated more and more, until it was finally suppressed. Moreover, its procedure was most oppres- 1 In 1602 by Essex's successor Lord Mount joy. 2 Among various revenues derived from the clergy were first fruits and tenths, clerical subsidies voted in Convocation, and occasional benevolences. 3 Their jurisdiction over matrimonial and testamentary cases was taken away in i8S7. 4 In 1833 its duties were transferred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 266 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN sive ; for it dispensed with juries, and, by the so-called ex officio oath, it could oblige the accused to answer any question that might be put to him, quite contrary to the fundamental provision of common lav/ that no man could be obliged to testify against himself. The Crown and Parliament. — From the break with Rome the Tudor s had used Parliament as an instrument of government. Eliza- beth's most notable acts, though framed by herself and her councilors, all received parliamentary sanction. But the right of summoning, proroguing, and dissolving were in her hands, and she preferred to summon that body as infrequently as possible. Moreover, when it was called together, the Sovereign had various means of controlling its composition and workings. In the Upper House the Bishops, composing a third of the total membership, were royal nominees. The temporal peers, of whom there were about sixty, could be controlled by favor, by new creations, and promotions. Elizabeth relied rather on favors than appointments. 1 The membership in the Lower House could be regulated by the establishing of new boroughs. 2 Sixty- two date from Elizabeth's reign, some from the sparsely inhabited Cornish districts ; but, in general, there was little corruption for Crown pur- poses ; the increase of representation was a natural outcome of increase of population and a reliance on the support of the middle classes. Be- sides, it was easy to control Parliament in other ways. When roads were few and bad and the postal service inadequate and when public meetings and caucuses were unknown, no effective opposition could be organized outside, nor, with such short and infrequent sessions, was much to be feared from the disaffected after they had assembled. Furthermore, the names of the members were known to the Govern- ment before they were to each other; important measures were in- troduced by the royal councilors ; and the election of the Speaker was controlled by the Crown. If, in spite of all, an opposition member ap- peared dangerous, Elizabeth would forbid his attendance or order his imprisonment ; also she might prohibit the discussion of an unpopular bill, or withdraw it in the midst of a discussion. In the last instance she could resort to the veto. The Privy Council. — Under Elizabeth the actual government was not in Parliament, but in the hands of the Privy Council, which num- bered seventeen or eighteen members, mostly laymen, nominated by the Queen. Its functions were threefold; executive or administra- tive, legislative, and judicial, and its business extended over a most 1 Henry VII created or promoted 20; Henry VIII, 66; Edward, 22; Mary, 9; Elizabeth, 29. 2 Henry VIII had created 5 ; Edward, 22 ; and Mary, 14. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 267 varied field — local government, industry, and trade, Irish, colonial and foreign affairs. Legislation was exercised by means of ordinances or proclamations. Emanating usually from the Sovereign, they were executed by means of administrative orders issued by the Secretary (or Secretaries, for there were generally two) who had come to super- sede the Chancellor as the chief officer of State. Judicial functions were exercised in the Star Chamber sessions. Altogether, the system of government by Council was very simple and workable and might be very oppressive under a despotic ruler. It framed and executed its own measures, and even on occasion tried cases arising from them. Revenues and Taxation. Ordinary Crown Revenues. — Taxation formed a leading issue in the coming struggle, partly because the sub- ject wished to protect his purse, and partly because the control of sup- ply was an effective weapon against absolutism. In ordinary times the Sovereign was expected " to live of its own " ; but the Crown revenues were far from adequate. Elizabeth, with all her economy, left a debt. The ordinary revenues, largely under royal control, were derived from several sources — Crown lands, feudal dues, court fees and fines, and customs duties, especially tonnage and poundage. In addition to tonnage and poundage and the hereditary customs, the Crown claimed the right to levy certain additional duties known as " impositions," though the Tudors, in contrast to their two successors, employed these largely to regulate trade. Monopolies, Benevolences, and Forced Loans. — Certain other royal exactions were resisted even under the popular Tudors. There were monopolies, though Elizabeth abolished some of the more objection- able patents, in 1601. Then there were benevolences 1 and forced loans. Elizabeth, however, rarely if ever exacted benevolences; as to forced loans, while Henry VIII, with parliamentary sanction, re- pudiated most of his, Elizabeth usually repaid hers, though not often in money. Extraordinary Grants by Parliament. — Extraordinary grants im- posed by direct taxation were wholly in the hands of Parliament. They were of two sorts. (1) Tenths and fifteenths, consisting origi- nally of a tenth of the income of burgesses and a fifteenth from the shires, came to be fixed in the fourteenth century at £39,000 for each assessment, and, owing to exemptions and other causes, grew to be very unequal in its distribution. (2) Less early in origin was another form of direct tax — the subsidy. Originally this term had been used 1 The Tudor Henrys had revived benevolences — which Richard III had abolished in 1484 — ■ on the ground that, as a usurper, his legislation was invalid. They maintained also that they were not taxes but gifts. 268 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN loosely as a name for additional customs ; in its later and stricter sense it meant a parliamentary tax of 45 in the £ on land, and 2s Sd on goods, though, by the time of Elizabeth, a subsidy had become fixed at about £80,000. Unable to secure adequate grants from the taxes under the control of Parliament, the two rulers who followed Elizabeth re- sorted, with disastrous consequences, to the irregular devices already in existence, but sparingly used by their predecessor. The Justices of the Peace and the Common Law Courts. — Only less fruitful in precipitating the conflict to come was the arbitrary jurisdiction exercised by the various special courts set up during the Tudor period. Just as the High Commission came to supplant the regular Church courts, so these extraordinary tribunals superseded, to a large degree, the normal judicial system. Lowest in the scale of the latter were the justices of the peace, chosen by the Chancellor from the landed gentry in the counties and from the magistrates in cities and boroughs. A single justice could commit ; but it required two for a judicial decision. In such petty sessions, as they came to be called, they dealt with minor criminal cases, while more important ones were re- served for sittings of the justices of the whole county, known as Quar- ter Sessions, because they were held four times a year. Next above the Quarter Sessions were the Assizes held at the county seat and presided over by one of the King's justices, assisted by such of the local justices as were commissioned to sit with him. Above the Assizes were the three Common Law Courts sitting at Westminster. 1 The Court of King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas had each a chief jus- tice and three associate or puisne judges ; the judges in the Exchequer Court were called barons. The Court of Exchequer Chamber was a court of still higher resort, consisting of certain of the judges who had not previously heard the case, and, occasionally, a specially im- portant case would be referred to all twelve judges at the start. In the last instance a case went either to the Privy Council or the House of Lords. Even over these Common Law courts the Sovereign had great control ; for their judges were appointed by the Crown, usually during pleasure, though Elizabeth was careful not to abuse her powers. The Special Jurisdictions. — Of the special courts, Chancery, of course, greatly antedated the Tudors. Primarily designed to decide questions of equity, its jurisdiction was often employed to invade the proper field of the Common Law courts. Among the Tudor creations were -certain local courts modeled after Star Chamber, notably the President and Council in the North Parts and the Council of Wales 1 It was their judges who held the Assizes when the central courts were not in session. England was divided into several circuits for the purpose. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 269 and the Marches, set up in 1539 and 1542 respectively for dealing with disturbances on the Borders. Other bodies were established for deal- ing with particular branches of the revenue, such as the Court of Wards and Liveries. In most cases their original purpose was justi- fied ; but their powers were greatly abused, and few of them survived the Puritan Revolution. Local Government. — The Elizabethan period is especially impor- tant in the history of local government ; for one thing, it was the sys- tem in which the American colonists were trained and which they developed in their new homes. Old organs were losing much of their vitality. The sheriff, for instance, was deprived of most of his im- portance ; his military duties as head of the county militia, organized to deal with insurrection and invasion, were taken over by the Lord Lieutenant — a county official dating from Edward VI, 1 while his ju- dicial and administrative duties passed to the justices of the peace. Beginning with the Statutes of Laborers, it became the work of the latter to license beggars, to force the sturdy to work and to repress vagrants ; with the passage of the poor laws and the recusancy acts, more burdens were laid upon them, such as regulation of wages and prices, management of roads and prisons ; while subsequent " stacks of statutes " weighed them down with innumerable duties, which, on the whole, they discharged effectually. The smallest administrative division was the parish, which looked after the maintenance of the church services ; had the care of the roads within its borders ; and was responsible for the support of its poor, levying rates for each of these purposes. Each parish furnished its quota for the Lord Lieutenant's levy and was intrusted with police powers exercised by elected constables. Some parishes too supported or helped to support schools. Business was transacted in parish meetings under the charge of church wardens, assisted by a committee ranging from eight to twenty-four members. The whole was known as a vestry, which was generally a close corporation, i.e. vacancies were filled by surviving members. The city and borough governments were growing equally oligarchical throughout the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries. Thus, from the Council to the parish, there was a complete but well-knit system of administration, in which, however, none but the select few had any share. Material Conditions. — Except for the humbler folk, the Elizabethan period was one of increased prosperity, of improved methods of farm- ing, of the growth of manufactures, of the extension of trade and com- merce. The Queen's wise measures — her restoration of the coinage, 1 His military powers were not taken away till 187 1. 270 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN her peaceful policy, economy, and light taxes, and her encouragement of exploration and maritime enterprise — were greatly favored by circumstances. England, as a wool-producing country, was bound, in the long run, to prevail as a manufacturer of cloth. The necessity of feeding those engaged in the new industry made arable farming again profitable. Moreover, from her position on the very threshold of the Atlantic seaboard, it was inevitable that the Island Kingdom should profit by the discovery of the New World and the new trade routes. Also, the revolt of the Netherlands and the ruin of Antwerp gave London and the other English commercial cities opportunities which they were not slow to seize. The Restoration of the Coinage. — The disorganization of the currency, begun under Henry VIII, continued through the next reign, and Mary, in spite of well-meant efforts, was able to accomplish little toward remedying the evils. It remained for Elizabeth to overcome the " hideous monster of base money." She called in the debased coins at a figure far below that at which they circulated and somewhat less than their real value, issuing, in their place, pure new coins. The extension of credit combined with the improved currency to help the growth of business. Discarding the old notion that all- lending at interest was usurious and wrong, both Henry VIII and Elizabeth recognized the legality of moderate interest. 1 Owing to the policy of mercantilism, to the expansion of trade and commerce, and to the privateering against Spain, prices kept rising; but the rise was of a healthier sort than that due to scarcity and debased money. Since rents and wages went up more slowly, the landlords and la- borers did not feel the change so fully or so quickly as the merchant and manufacturer, though the increasing demand for the products of the soil steadily improved the condition of the landed gentry and gave the laborers more regular employment. Many of the former, too, invested in trading and buccaneering enterprises which brought them large returns. Prosperity had developed to such a point in 1569 that the Government which had hitherto borrowed abroad placed a loan at home. Development of Agriculture. — There was a marked revival of farming in Elizabeth's reign. Country gentlemen began again to turn their attention to the cultivation of their estates, agricultural writers discussed improved methods, while new sources of profit began to arise from market gardening. Sheep raising, however, had to contend against various obstacles ; not only was the practice of en- closing still discouraged by law, but also there was a decline in 1 In 157 1 it was fixed at 10 per cent. PXIZABETHAN ENGLAND 27 1 the price of wool, possibly owing to a temporary over-stocking of the market, more likely because rich pasturage * coarsened the quality. In addition to- the growth of population and the in- creasing demand for food supplies, the policy of the Queen contri- buted greatly to favor the revival of tillage. When the price of corn was moderate she encouraged its export in the interest of the farmer and the shipper ; only in times of scarcity was export checked in the interest of the consumer. One exception, however, was made on political grounds ; after hostilities opened with Spain no foodstuffs could be sent to that kingdom at all. New and better roads opened new markets at home, more attention was paid to fertilizing, and with the revival of market gardening, onions, cabbages, carrots, and parsnips began to be grown. In general, it may be said that relatively to tillage and cattle raising, sheep farming was becoming less profitable, and that most of the enclosures were for the purpose of convertible husbandry. Discovery and Exploration. — The notable exploits of Elizabethan seamen have influenced profoundly the history of England and the history of the world in a multitude of ways. In these men the spirit of the Renascence was wonderfully manifested, and geographical know- ledge, literature, religion, commerce, industry, colonization, and the spread of civilization all bear the marks of their achievements. They circumnavigated the globe ; they opened Russia and the East to Eng- lish trade, they extended English commerce into the Mediterranean and along the African coast ; they took the first steps toward securing a foothold in India ; they undertook Arctic voyages in search of north- east and northwest passages to Cathay ; and they made possible the beginnings of English colonization in America. The Opening up of Russia and Central Asia. — The opening up of Russia began with an attempt on the part of two daring explorers, Richard Chancellor and Sir Hugh Willoughby, in search of the north- east passage. Of the three ships which began the voyage, in 1553, two, including Willoughby's, were lost. Chancellor, " very heavy, pensive, and sorrowful," proceeded alone. He rounded the North Cape, passed southward to the White Sea, and landed near the present Archangel. Thence he journeyed fifteen hundred miles on sledges to Moscow, the court of Ivan the Terrible, King of the Muscovites. After remaining three months he returned to England with letters from Ivan and an account of the condition and resources of his King- dom. Chancellor was drowned on his return from a subsequent voyage, but the Muscovite ambassador who accompanied him was 1 Due to the development of mixed farming or convertible husbandry when lands used for tillage one year were turned into pasture the next, and vice versa. 272 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN received at Mary's court in 1557. Having secured a foothold in Russia and the favor of the Tsar, English enterprise was extended under Elizabeth, by journeys along the shores of the Caspian Sea into Turkestan and northern Persia, valuable commercial privileges being secured in all these countries. However, the death of Ivan, in 1584, marked the decline of English trade in this direction, the Dutch broke in upon the monopoly, and new fields of commerce and other routes to the further east were sought. The Mediterranean. The Overland and Sea Routes to India. — One was overland from the Mediterranean, a natural development from the Turkey trade which was being pushed forward vigorously. Most notable of all was an overland expedition led by John New- berrie and Ralph Fitch. Starting from Syria, in 1583, they went in company as far as the western coast of India. There Fitch parted pany with Newberrie, and penetrated to Bengal and other parts of the eastern side of the peninsula, probably the first Englishman who ever made the journey. The other route was by sea around southern Africa. James Lancaster and George Raymond, the first English- men to venture past the Cape of Good Hope, 1 returned in 1594, having gone as far as Malacca and Ceylon. The tales of these explorers and the desire to compete with the Dutch, 2 who were beginning to supplant the Portuguese in the East Indies, led to the formation of the English East India company, in 1599. The English Seamen in the Western World. — Biggest, however, in results, as we view them, were the voyages to our American shores and the first steps toward colonization within the limits of the present United States. The Cabots had prepared the way in the reign of Henry VII, but little more was done till Elizabeth's time, when Haw- kins and Drake stirred the spirit of English maritime adventure, the crowning achievement being Drake's circumnavigation of " the whole globe of the earth " from 1577 to 1580. There was still much specu- lation as to the possibility of a northwest passage, and Englishmen hoped to discover gold as well as a trade route in the bleak northern regions. Thither, Martin Frobisher made three voyages (1576-1578) adding much to the knowledge of Greenland and Labrador. Early English Attempts at Colonization. — Attempts at conquest and settlement followed in the wake of these voyages of discovery 1 The Portuguese, Bartholomew Diaz, was the first to round the Cape of Good Hope, in i486. In 1497-1498 Vasco de Gama made his celebrated voyage from Portugal to India. 2 Their various trading companies were united into the Dutch East India Com- pany, in 1602. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 273 and plundering raids. The pioneer was Sir Humphrey Gilbert who, in 1578, received a patent for " the planting of our people in America." Failing in his first two voyages, he sailed again, in 1583, and reached the coast of Newfoundland, where he founded the first colony in British North America. On his return voyage he went down with his ship, crying with pious courage to those in a neighboring vessel : " We are as near heaven by sea as by land." His half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, took over his patent, and the region which he selected for colonization was named " Virginia," after England's virgin Queen. Although the various colonies which he sent failed to establish a per- manent settlement on the Carolina coast, he deserves credit for his efforts in a work so big in future results. Never setting foot himself on the shores of North America, he did, however, make a voyage, 1595, in search for El Dorado, the fabulous city — an expedition that gave the English their claim to the present British Guiana. Also, Eliza- bethan seamen undertook numberless other journeys to remote lands and distant seas, and the whole wonderful story may be read in the stirring pages of the contemporary Richard Hakluyt (1 552-1616) whose Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation — form the " best collection of the exploits of the heroes in whom the new era was revealed." Foreign Trade. — Governmental regulation of trade still prevailed. New navigation laws were passed, partly for protection and partly to foster English seamenship. The latter motive also played a part in the encouragement of the fisheries, which explains why England, a Protestant country, not only enforced fast-days by law, but added Wednesday as a new " fish day." In order to nurse infant industries the importation of certain manufactured goods and the export of raw materials (except wool which was an English staple) were discouraged. One curious enactment provided that, on Sundays and holidays, every English subject over six years of age must wear a cap of native manu- facture or pay a fine. 1 Monopolies were another means of fostering English industry and commerce, though, later in the reign, they were also employed as a means of adding to the royal revenues. All sorts of luxuries and some necessities were imported. Trade was largely monopolized by great merchant companies. The old Merchant Ad- venturers, who had received a patent from Henry VII, were incor- porated with extended privileges in 1564, while most noteworthy among the many new companies was the famous East India Company, which laid the foundations of the present Indian Empire of Great 1 The "woolsack", on which the Chancellor sits in the House of Lords, had its origin in the same effort to foster the national industry. 274 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Britain. Though the Dutch still led in almost all branches of com- merce and though agriculture still remained England's chief industry, this period is marked by progress in manufactures and trade which led within two centuries to her preeminence over all rivals. Burghley's Economic Policy. — This great development was due, in a considerable degree, to Burghley. With him the strength of the State was the main aim, and much of his industrial and commercial legislation was designed toward that end. He developed mining and manufacturing with a view of enabling England to supply her own ordnance and ammunition, and, in order to increase the effectiveness of the navy, he took steps to preserve the timber lands, to increase the native supply of hemp and sailcloth, and actively encouraged the merchant marine. Among the means which he employed were : the formation of trading companies, granting patents of monopoly, fostering the fisheries, and improving the harbors. In some respects his policy was sharply opposed to that of Elizabeth : he was against piracy, which she secretly encouraged, and he disapproved of the navi- gation laws on the ground that, while they helped the growth of Eng- lish shipping, they encouraged the importation of luxuries, such as wines, silks, and spices. Internal Trade and Industry. — Industry was greatly stimulated by immigrants from France and Flanders, who went, in limited num- bers, to towns authorized by license to receive them, introducing, among other things, thread and lace making and silk weaving. The gilds which had long regulated industry, at first independently and then under central control, were already on the decline before the Reforma- tion, and the confiscation of their religious and charitable funds under Henry VIII and Edward VI practically forced them to the wall. In many places " livery companies " were formed to take their place, new organizations*, 1 which were associations of employers authorized by the Crown instead of the municipalities, and often included several trades. Their aim was to supervise the quality of wares, to keep records of entered apprentices, and to protect the natives of corporate towns in competition with aliens. In order better to control condi- tions of labor and production, Elizabeth, in the fifth year of her reign, passed the famous Statute of Apprentices, not repealed till 1813. All able-bodied men, with certain exceptions noted in the Act, were liable to serve as agricultural laborers; measures were framed to prevent irregular and brief employment, vagrancy, migration of laborers and artificers alike; and the term of apprenticeship was fixed at seven years in both town and country. In the choice of apprentices the 1 Not to be confused with the merchant companies who traded abroad. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 275 rural districts and the corporate towns were given special advantages over market towns, which checked the drift toward the newer towns where conditions of employment had been unregulated and lax. Also the Act intrusted the assessment of wages to the justices of the peace acting under the supervision of the Council, and wages were no longer arbitrarily fixed as had been the case under the old Statutes of Laborers, but were to be regulated according to plenty or scarcity and accord- ing to local conditions. The Poor Laws. — Important as were the poor laws of Henry VIII in foreshadowing new principles, he failed to provide effective means for enforcing them. While something was done to improve his system under both Edward and Mary, it remained for the government of Elizabeth to put the laws in a shape which survived, in most of. their features, down to the nineteenth century. The famous " Old Poor Law " of 1601 was really only the embodiment in permanent form of a series of statutes extending from 1563 to 1598. In sub- stance it provided that: contributions for the relief of the poor should be compulsory ; habitations were to be furnished for the impotent and aged ; children of paupers were to be apprenticed ; stocks of hemp and wool were to be provided for the employment of sturdy idlers ; and houses of correction were to be set up for those who obstinately refused to work. Royal Progresses. — The Queen in her tireless pursuit of pleasure and her fondness for magnificent display 1 naturally set the fashion for her people, particularly the Court and the upper classes. This ostentation was peculiarly manifest in the royal progresses, when she was entertained so lavishly as to bring many noblemen and gentlemen to the verge of ruin. These journeys and visits served va- rious purposes : they gratified the Queen's inordinate vanity ; they were a part of her economy, for during long intervals she was supported at the expense of others ; and finally they kept her before her subjects and stimulated rivalry in loyalty. The most famous of the entertain- ments in her honor was that provided by Leicester at Kenilworth Castle, where she stayed three weeks in the summer of 1575. There were all sorts of pageantry and poetry, giants, nymphs, fireworks, a floating island in a pool in front of the palace, hunting, tilting, bear baiting, tumbling, rustic sports, songs, and masques. Dress and Manner of Living. — Extravagance and artificiality were characteristic of the dress, the manners, and the speech of the period. Women dressed their hair in most elaborate fashions; they surrounded their necks with enormous ruffs held by wire or starch 1 In spite of her parsimony she left a wardrobe of 3000 gowns. 276 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and wore huge farthingales or hoop skirts. And the men were fully as bad. They perfumed themselves with musk and civet ; and with tight-fitting nether stocks and trunk hose, surmounted by padded doublets or jackets, with highly ornamented cloaks slung over their shoulders, with gaudy befeathered hats, and girt with swords and adorned with bracelets and earrings, they presented an imposing show. The dress of the laborer was of necessity very plain; but sumptuary laws were passed from time to time to check the extrava- gance of the lower classes and to encourage the use of homemade woolens. There were abundant sports and diversions in town and country. The man of fashion lounged in the nave of St. Paul's of a morning ; he dined at a tavern, drinking heavily and smoking tobacco, a practice introduced from the New World before the close of the reign ; then he might choose between bull and bear baitings and the theater for further amusements. Masques and interludes were fre- quent, and, for the hardier sort, tennis, football, wrestling, fencing, tilting, hunting, and hawking. There were still numerous holidays, each with its appropriate festival, with mummings, games, and abundant eating and drinking. The merits of soap were not yet fully recognized, though refinements and luxuries were on the increase, such as chimneys, glass windows and carpets in place of lattice and rushes. Plate and glassware were abundant among the wealthy, while the poor used pewter. Knives supplanted the fingers in eating, more and more, and forks were soon to appear. Many artificers and farmers even began to have beds hung with tapestry and to discard logs of wood and sacks of chaff for pillows. Timber houses gave way to dwellings of brick and stone. There was great lament over these changes : it was said that when houses were of willow there were men of oak, and that now with houses of oak there were men of straw. Architecture. — By Elizabeth's time men had ceased to use the Gothic style in building. The classical Italian, which gradually replaced it, was at first a mixture of Italian and Gothic, and was chiefly employed in secular building; for, from the Reformation to well into the seventeenth century, church building of original artistic value practically ceased. Henry VIII was as fond of fine buildings as he was of fine clothes, though Wolsey, who built Hampton Court and Christ Church, Oxford, was far more active in construction, while Henry's courtiers were too poor to build very extensively. It was only with the increase of wealth and the rising of standards of comfort of Elizabeth's time that such magnificent palaces as Kenil- worth begin to raise their heads. Then, too, numbers of stately and artistic country mansions were erected. In the early part of her ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 277 reign the old English, rambling and picturesque in effect, still pre- dominated over the Italian; later the Italian elements with greater symmetry of plan had come to prevail. Prevalence of Superstition. — Except for William Gilbert's treatise on the magnet, in 1600, there were few real steps in advance between the Reformation and time of the Stuarts. Witchcraft and sorcery still held sway over men's minds. Alchemists and quacks had great vogue ; indeed, a Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity resigned his chair to devote himself to the study of transmutation of metals. The revival of Greek medical science contributed to prolong a popular belief in astrology, while the triumph of the Copernican system was undermining its basic principles. One famous physician, who was a professor of the art, found it wise to flee the country after he had predicted from the stars a long life for Edward VI. The Elizabethan Age an Epoch in the World's Literature. — The three main achievements of the Elizabethan age were : the establish- ment of Protestantism; the remarkable impulse in maritime enter- prise ; and the wonderful literary outburst, perhaps unparalleled in the world's history. The third remains to be considered. Up to this time England had produced only one writer of enduring fame — the incomparable Chaucer. While from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign promising writers were in evidence, the work of the decade preceding its close -has never been matched in any period or country. In seeking to account for the phenomenon it is hardly enough to say that it was due simply to the fact that a number of men of unusual gifts of expression chanced to be born about the same time. Many causes had combined to awaken a spirit which quickened their imagi- nation and stirred them to speech. First, there was the influence of the Italian Renascence. Those who first drank from that in- vigorating source were primarily interested in religious problems, and the ecclesiastical upheaval, which followed, diverted men for a time from pure literature. However, before the end of the reign of Henry VIII, Wyatt and Surrey had begun to voice the worldly aspect of Humanism, which was to reach such a choice and varied expression under Elizabeth. Secondly, the discoveries and explorations and the strange new outlook on the world which it brought, broadened the mental horizon of Englishmen and gave them stimulating food for thought. And, finally, the triumph over Catholicism and Spain aroused a national consciousness and a pride which clamored for utter- ance. Translations. — The works of the ancients and of the Italians of the Renascence were opened to Englishmen largely through adapta- 278 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN tion and translations. The old printer Caxton had led the way. From his time until Elizabeth the most notable production of this sort was Surrey's JEneid. Then they followed thick and fast. In 1566 appeared William Painter's Palace of Pleasure, a collection of stories from the Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, which furnished a rich store of material for the Elizabethan dramatists. Another source from which they drew freely was Plutarch's Lives, done into English by Thomas North in 1579. Most of the earlier work of this field was by lesser men; but later such renderings as Chapman's Iliad (1598) and Florio's Montaigne (1603), deservedly rank as works of art. Prose Literature : Early Affectation. " Euphuism." — Imma- turity, the use of these foreign models, and the prevailing affecta- tion led to much pedantry, extravagance, and obscurity among the earlier writers of the reign. There were a few stout protests against such " inkhorn English," larded with French or " Italianated " idioms. For example, Roger Ascham, himself a master of vigorous, plain but graceful English, declared that, " he that will write well in any tongue must speak as the common people do, and think as wise men do," and lamented that " many English writers have not done so, but, using strange words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark." But the young writers of the new age were too im- petuous and too bubbling over with ardor to take him as a model, nor did the impressive and grave simplicity of the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible translations of the previous generation appeal to them. It was only after a period of luxuriant extravagance that the ripe, finished, and gorgeous but dignified style of the late Eliza- bethan and early Jacobean era was attained. The summit of affec- tation v/as manifested in John Lyly's Euphues, 1579, a fantastic romance full of labored and far-fetched figures of speech. Taken up by the Queen, the work was enthusiastically received at Court, where a new style of speaking, known as " Euphuism," came into vogue. An inevitable reaction followed, and it was attacked and caricatured, notably by Shakespeare in his earliest play, Love's Labour's Lost. While the ridicule was deserved, Euphues accomplished something for the improvement of morals and culture, and the refine- ment of current speech. The Middle Period. Sir Philip Sidney. — Sir Philip Sidney (1 554-1 586), whose short life was crowded with activity as a soldier, statesman, and poet, marks the transition from the earlier to the later period. Although an outspoken critic of Lyly, Arcadia, his first book, is marked to a considerable decree bv the same faults of ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 279 artificiality and diffuseness. On the other hand, it is illuminated by passages of real beauty and was immensely popular for nearly two centuries, until the advent of the modern novel, for which it was a forerunner, superseded the type. His Apologie for Poetrie, 1 1581, one of the earliest pieces of English criticism and a splendid vindi- cation of imaginative literature, though not free from exuberance, pedantry, and scholasticism, marks a great advance over the Arcadia. One passage will illustrate the wondrous charm of his phrasing at its best. " Nature," he says, " never set forth the earth in so rich tapes- try as divers poets have done, neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more lovely." Altogether, Sidney marks a genuine advance in clearness, genuineness of feeling, and beauty of expression. The Crowning Decade. — As was the case with all other forms of Elizabethan literature, the truly great prose did not appear until the last decade of the reign. Richard Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, the first four books of which appeared in 1594, did much to soften the strife between Puritan and Anglican. With " sweet reasonableness " the " judicious Hooker " sought to justify the Church of England by a threefold appeal : to Scripture and primitive practice ; to reason ; and to the needs of the times, arguing that its policy best accorded with all three. Aside from its polemical importance it is a recognized monument of classic English prose. Equally significant in form, and even more in substance, because of their more general appeal, are the Essays, 1597, of Francis Bacon (1 561-1626) whom many regard as England's greatest intellectual product. Though he esteemed Latin to be the only tongue fit for learned communication, and wrote in English only under protest, his style, in spite of its formality and overgreat use of Latinized expressions, is remarkable for its vigor, wit, incisive ness, and pith. The only parts which he ever completed of a vast treatise designed to comprehend all learning and science, appeared in the next reign. Of the men who supported themselves by their pens, most wrote chiefly for the theater; yet, altogether, they produced a large body of miscellaneous writing — prose fiction and controversial pamphlets. Perhaps the most worthy of note are Robert Greene's Repentance and A Groat's Worth of Wit which tell of his own irregular life, all too characteristic of the set in which he moved, and Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde, a romance regarded as the most perfect bit of prose fiction of the time, from which Shakespeare got the plot of As You Like It. Thomas Nash, who died in poverty at an early age, also wrote vigorous biting prose, and entered into all 1 Or Defense of Poesie. 280 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN sorts of controversies, attacking with especial bitterness the Puritan authors of the Marprelate Libels, while his Unfortunate Traveller, or the Adventures of Jack Wilton, a romance of reckless exploits, is an interesting anticipation of one type of modern novel. Elizabethan Historical Writing. — Throughout the reign men were producing important historical works. John Fox (15 16-1587), one of the Marian exiles, published, in 1563, the first English edition of his famous Acts and Monuments, popularly known as the " Book of Martyrs." In 1578 appeared Holinshed's Chronicles, which furnished Shakespeare with the materials for his historical plays, and for some of his grandest tragedies. John Stow's Survey of London, 1598, is a mine of information on the buildings and streets of the Elizabethan city. Other historical works reflect the larger world that writers of the age were coming to know. In this field Richard Hakluyt's Principall Navigations outshines them all. Poetry. — Yet it is in its poetry that the age is really distinctive. There was a constantly swelling stream of sonnets, lyrics, pastorals, epics, and, above all, of dramas, of unsurpassed richness, variety, and beauty. For twenty years, however, it was chiefly minor poets that were busy, and anthologies appeared with titles more enticing than their contents warranted ; for example, A Gorgeous Gallery cf Gallant Inventions, 1578. The Shepherd's Calendar, 1579, of Edmund Spenser (155 2-1 599) marks the transition between the period of beginnings and the glorious final decade of the reign. Meantime, Philip Sidney had begun his charming group of sonnets entitled Astro phel and Stella, 1 noteworthy not only for their own sake, but for their influence on Shakespeare's matchless collection. Only a work especially devoted to literary history could give an adequate description of the mass of exquisite songs and lyrics which appeared thenceforth either independently, or, set like jewels, in the contemporary stories and plays. The " great epic of Elizabethan England " was Spenser's Faerie Queene, 1 590-1 596. Cast in the form of a medieval romance, it is in substance an allegorical manifestation of the spirit of the age — a defense of Protestantism, and a glorification of Elizabeth as the champion of the truth and virtue against Papal Rome, embodiment of error and vice. The Drama. English and Roman Sources. — Rich and beautiful as was the Elizabethan literature in its manifold forms, the supreme achievement was in the drama. While distinctly an expression of the spirit of the age, inspired and strongly influenced by the study 1 They were written during the years from 15 75-1 583, though they were not published till 1591. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 281 of revived classical and Italian models, it was not wholly unaffected by the popular and Court festivals and the religious representations which had been developing for centuries on the native soil. The pageants and masques, the mysteries, miracle and morality plays, the interludes and mummings which delighted the medieval English- men furnished one fruitful source. From them came the local color, the life and the old time jollity. The other source is to be found in the Roman dramas, revived in the Italy of the Renascence. They served as models of style and structure and provided many of the plots. 1 Masters of the great public schools prepared scenes from the Roman comedy writers, chiefly Plautus and Terence, for their boys to act, either -in Latin or in English translation. Nicholas Udall marked an epoch when, about 1541, he wrote in English, from a Latin model, Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy. In tragedy the chief model was Seneca. The first English tragedy in the approved classical style was Gorboduc or F err ex and Porrex, based on an old British legend from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, it was pre- sented before Queen Elizabeth, in 156 1. In general, however, the first half of Elizabeth's reign was not productive of significant dra- matic works, and while plays of all sorts were written, it was largely a time of experiment. The " University Group." — The " great dramatic period " opened first with the so-called " University Group." The list includes many names. George Peele, an Oxford man who wrote plays, pageants, and miscellaneous verse, was brilliant and versatile but weak in power of construction, as is evident in his David and Bethsabe, full of fine, detached passages. Preeminent among the Cambridge groirp was Christopher Marlowe, the author of many remarkable plays — Tamburlaine (about 1587) ; The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus (1588) ; and The Jew of Malta (1593). Also he wrote a goodly part of the second and third parts of Henry VI, which Shakespeare revised and com- pleted. Much other work, too, he produced before he was killed in a drunken brawl at the age of twenty-nine. His Tamburlaine marked an epoch in tragedy, while his sonorous, uneven blank verse far excelled that of any who had preceded him. With an amazing mingling of bombast and sublimity he set forth the soaring flights of human ambition, for power in Tamburlaine, for knowledge in Dr. Faustus, for wealth in the Jew of Malta. In spite of his lack of humor and restraint, some leading critics have ranked him among the world's 1 While the scenes of the Elizabethan writers were laid in far-off countries in bygone days their characters were English to the core. 282 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN great poets. Robert Greene went first to Cambridge and later to Oxford. Although his prose, and the poetry scattered through it, are superior to any of his dramas, one of the latter, The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bungay, contains glowing pictures of healthy country life. Altogether, the " University Group struck out one of the faultiest, but one of the most original and vigorous kinds of literature that the world has seen." While it is full of extravagance and horror, it is charged with passion and power. If many of the plots are ill constructed and told in language often over- wrought, frequent passages of lofty eloquence and rare sweetness more than make atonement. The lives of most of this set were as tempestuous as their works, and, with one or two exceptions, they came to a sad and untimely end. William Shakespeare (1564-1616). — The English drama reached its culmination in Shakespeare, who, indeed, has been without a peer before or since in any language. Something, but not overmuch, is known about him, nor is it strange that so few details of his life have survived, for he came of a family of no distinction, he did not go to a university, he did not belong to a learned profession, and nothing that he wrote, save a few poems, was published with his authority in his lifetime. For twenty years, from about 1591, when he wrote Love's Labour's Lost, until 161 1, when he completed The Tempest, he was actively writing. During this time he produced about forty plays, besides the sonnets and the poems, Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece. The plays include all sorts: history, comedy, tragedy, dramatic romance, and melodrama. He portrays every mood from mirth and joy to black despair, and every class of society from peasant to king; he deals with every phase of human passion : love, jealousy, ambition, and resignation, besides telling the past life of his people and reflecting to posterity the conditions of his own age. Though while he lived, his works appeared only in pirated editions, and are not mentioned in his will, they were collected in a folio edition, in 1623, and thus have come down to us. The Shakespearian Theater. — The means for presenting the wonderful dramas of that age were curiously primitive. The early mystery or miracle plays had been given in churches and church- yards, then on moving carts or pageants. Others were rendered in noblemen's halls or in the courtyards of inns, the audience looking down from surrounding galleries ; still others were produced privately at court. By the middle of Elizabeth's reign independent theaters had begun to spring up. Originally they were placed in the suburbs, since, for reasons of public policy, the authorities refused to have ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 283 them in London ; within a few years, however, the actors pushed into the City, and, before the close of the century, there were eleven play- houses in London and the adjoining districts. They were very simple structures, circular or octagonal in shape, with the center or pit where the poorer classes stood, open to the sky, which afforded the only light. 1 The surrounding galleries only were roofed; here or on the stage the fashionable classes sat, lounging, eating, smoking, talking, flirting, and interrupting the actors when it pleased them. Female parts were played by young men. While costumes were often rich, scenery and properties were most primitive : a change of scene was indicated by a placard ; a lantern represented the moon ; a wooden cannon and a pasteboard tower a siege. Yet the absence of elaborate scenery had its advantages ; it fixed attention on the play and it called forth some of Shakespeare's finest descriptive passages. The Successors of Shakespeare. — While no one reached the height of Shakespeare, the great age of Elizabethan drama continued under the Stuarts, until an ordinance of 1642 closed the theaters for some years. Foremost among the younger contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare was Ben Jonson (1573-1637), poet laureate of James I, literary dictator of the time and king of tavern wits. Learned, rugged, and fearless, he struggled for pure classicism against the prevailing romantic tendencies, drew lifelike pictures of his age, and strove for workmanlike restraint, though he could fashion sweet, beautiful lyrics. It would take pages merely to enumerate the names and plays of hosts of others. In spite of their achievements the drama steadily declined. The youthful ardor was gone, and the growing Puritan spirit was hostile. By way of reaction, playwrights catered more to the courtier and the cavalier with coarseness and sensational horror. Many fair pieces continued to be written, but the greatest literary work now came to be produced in other fields. " Merrie England," throbbing with fullness of life, was yielding to riotousness and dissipation at one extreme, at the other to soberer ideals and practice. Final Estimate of the Elizabethan Period. — Altogether, Eliza- beth's long reign, though blemished by traits of meanness, shuffling, and evasion, was a period of glorious achievement. Her Court was a center of pomp and magnificence, learning and statesmanship, where polished gentlemen, brilliant adventurers, wise councilors and judges strove with each other for her favor. If the peace, prosperity, and industrial development, the ecclesiastical settlement, and the 1 Though plays were given in the afternoon it grows dark very early in London in the autumn and winter. 284 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN wonderful literary outburst were not all her work, they all redounded to her credit. For a time Elizabeth seemed the most absolute, the strongest, and the most popular of all the rulers of her House. But the splendor and strength of her power reached maturity during the years just following the Armada. As she approached the close of her reign, the luster of her glory had begun to dim and the vigor of her power to decline. Her people began to await impatiently for her decease to open the way for new men and new measures. Those who valued religious and political liberty more than wealth eagerly greeted the new dynasty from Scotland. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Constitutional. Prothero, Statutes, introduction, an admirable survey. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, A Discourse on the Common- wealth of England (first published in 1583 ; the best and most recent edition, 1906, ed. L. Alston). Also Taswell-Langmead ; Taylor; and Hallam. Social and Industrial. Innes, England under the Tudors, ch. XXVIII. Traill; Cunningham; Ashley; Rogers; Tickner and Usher. E. M. Leonard, Early History of English Poor Relief (1900). Hubert Hall, Society in the Elizabethan Age (1901). Stephenson, The Elizabethan People (1910). G. Unwin, Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1904). Harrison's famous Description of England, from Holinshed's Chronicle, is reprinted in the "Camelot Series" (ed. L. Withington, n. d.). P. H. Ditchfield, The England of Shakespeare (191 7). Shakespeare's Eng- land (2 vols., 1916), a cooperative work. Frank Aydelotte, Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds (1913). Maritime enterprise, the Navy and the Army. Pollard, ch. XVI ; Innes, ch. XXIII ; Froude, English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century (1895) ; J. W. Williamson, Maritime Enterprise, 148 5-1 588 (1913), based on docu- ments. Selections from Hakluyt's Voyages ed. by E. J. Payne (2 series, 1893-1900) and C. R. Beazley (1907). Oppenheim, Administration of the Royal Navy, I; J. S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy (2 vols., 1898) and The Successors of Drake (1900). Fortescue, British A.rmy, I. Literature. Moody and Lovett ; Cambridge History of Literature; Jusserand, II ; and Taine, I, II. Saintsbury, History of Elizabethan Litera- ture (1890). Cambridge Modern History, III; Pollard, ch. XXIII; Innes, ch. XXVII. Sidney Lee, Life of Shakespeare (1898), the standard biography. Sir Walter Raleigh, William Shakespeare (1907), a charming appreciation. For the Church, see references to chs. XXIV and XXV, together with R. G. Usher, The Reconstruction of the English Church (2 vols., 1910). CHAPTER XXVII JAMES I AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION (1603-1625) The Significance of the Accession of James I. — The accession of the Stuarts in the person of James I, 24 March, 1603, was fraught with consequences. United and prosperous, the mass of the English people were now eager to throw off the Tudor absolutism, which had fulfilled its mission, and to ask for more liberty. There was much in the old system which they opposed, and which not only stood in the way of free religious and political development, but might, under a new line of Sovereigns, menace the little which they still enjoyed. There was the State Church absolutely under royal control; there were the extraordinary courts, all independent of common law guaran- tees; and there were taxes and exactions, not only oppressive in themselves, but peculiarly dangerous from the fact that they made the Sovereign independent of Parliament. These were the special grievances, actual or potential. The main issue which was tried out under the Stuarts was whether the sovereignty, supposed to rest in the King-in-Parliament, should, in cases of conflict, be exercised by the Monarch or by the body which stood between him and the people. The result was victory for Parliament. In this respect England led, by nearly two centuries, the countries of Continental Europe, where the tendency, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was toward increasing absolutism, and the tide did not turn till the French Revolution. The King's Early Scotch Environment. — James, called upon to face a situation grave enough for any one, " turned out to be one of those curiosities which the laws of inheritance occasionally bring to the notice of mankind." Not only did he represent an alien house to whom the English were bound by no ties of gratitude, but he was totally unfitted by training and temperament to rule a country where the ideal was constitutional government. When, as an infant scarcely more than a year old, James VI had succeeded to the throne of Scot- 285 286 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN land, 24 July, 1567, another minority was added to those which had during two centuries plagued the country. Internal and border wars had torn the Kingdom for ages : the barons contended against the Crown ; Highland chiefs fought against Lowland lords and each fought among themselves, while the Border was wasted by the con- stant passage of Southron and Scot, and the wild Highlander lived by pillage. Parliament was not a representative body but a col- lection of factions from the various estates ; the King rarely went to it for supplies and the nobles redressed their own grievances. The religious grievances added another element of discord. While the Reformation was aimed against real abuses in the ancient Church, it was directed by greedy nobles who appropriated the greater part of its temporal goods. The General Assembly of the new Church not only demanded a more adequate share of the ecclesiastical property but the right to interfere in State affairs. Finally, the intrigues of the French and Romanists, and of Elizabeth's agents as well, all contributed still further to weaken national sentiment and to promote lawlessness. Truly, the little James grew up in troublous times. Before he was fifteen years old, four Regents had come and gone, of whom only one died a natural death. Twice the King himself had been taken captive by factious nobles. Weak in position and in temperament, he sought to make himself strong and to attain the English succession by the only means open to him, by dissimulation and intrigue, a policy upon which he came to pride himself and which he dignified by the name of " Kingcraft." So he had grown up to thread a tortuous way between a rapacious, turbulent nobility and a gloomy, fanatical,- domineering clergy, between an English and a French party ; between, indeed, all sorts of conflicting forces. Character of the King. — There were many good points about James. He had the good of his subjects at heart, he strove for peace, and aimed to be the reconciler of factions and the arbiter of warring nations. He had a touch of Scotch shrewdness, he was kind-hearted, and on the whole good-natured. Gifted with considerable natural ability, he had been carefully educated, but he was uncouth in manners and was a pedant rather than a scholar; he paraded rather than applied his learning, so that he was properly called " the wisest fool in Christendom." Naturally indolent, he was also timid and infirm of purpose, impatient of detail, and irritated at contradiction. From his youth up he was easily led by favorites, who gained ascendancy over him more by their personal graces than by their attainments. James' Queen, Anne of Denmark (f 1619) was not a help to him. Although faithful, kindly, and personally popular, she was frivolous THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 287 and extravagant; moreover, she inclined toward Rome and was reported to be a convert, although she finally died a Protestant. James and " The Divine Right of Kings." — A most fruitful source of discord between James and his subjects was the exalted notions which he held concerning the origin and nature of Monarchy. Al- ready before coming to England he had shaped his views, and, in the True Law of Free Monarchies, had asserted that a Monarch was created by God and accountable to God alone, though he graciously admitted that a good King should govern in the popular interest. Such views in themselves were enough to arouse the bitterest oppo- sition. James only added fuel to the fire by his astounding manner of stating them. " The State of Monarchy," he announced in a speech before Parliament, in 1610, " is the supremest thing upon earth; for Kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods .... That as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy ... so it is seditious in subjects to dispute what a King may do in the height of his power." James I and the Puritans. The Millenary Petition (1603). — Count- ing much on the fact that he had been brought up a Protestant, the Puritan l clergy presented to James as he journeyed to London, in April, 1603, the so-called Millenary Petition, 2 embodying various demands: I, that the ritual of the Church be purged of Romish forms and ceremonies, such as the cross in baptism, and the wearing of the cap and surplice, that holidays be decreased, and the Sabbath be better observed ; II, that more care be taken to secure learned preachers ; III, that such abuses as non-residence and pluralities 3 be abolished ; IV, that oppressive customs in the ecclesiastical courts be remedied — their expensive procedure, their excommunication for trivial matters, and their use of the ex officio oath. The Hampton Court Conference (1604). — In January, 1604, James arranged a conference between representatives of their party on the one hand, and certain bishops and clergy of the Established Church on the other. The King himself presided. Bred a Calvinist, he favored Calvinistic theology, he was fond of argument, tolerant of other men's opinions, and too kind-hearted to be a persecutor. At the same time, he had been overawed and browbeaten by Presby- terian ministers from his youth up, and his later experiences only accentuated his distrust of the Presbyterian theory that all men were 1 Those who wanted to stay in the Church while purifying it of certain abuses. 2 Because it was supposed to have been signed by 1000 clergymen. As a matter of fact, it was assented to by about 800. 3 The holding of many Church offices in one hand. 288 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN equal in the sight of God, that the Church was independent of State control, and of their Presbyterian practice of interfering in secular affairs. In shining contrast, to his mind, was the English custom where the Sovereign appointed the bishops and through them con- trolled the Church. " No Bishop, no King " was his motto. He was on the lookout for any political bearing in the Puritan demands, and when their leader began to outline a scheme of government he burst out : "If you aim at Scotch presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil." After a long harangue he concluded with the ominous threat to the Puritans : "I will make them con- form themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." The only results of the Conference were a few alterations in the liturgy, and the decision to translate the Scriptures which bore fruit in the famous King James' version, 1611. Before the close of 1604 a proclamation was issued depriving of their livings those who refused to conform. Some of the irreconcilables went to the Low Countries, whence they migrated later and founded Plymouth Colony. James and the Catholics. — The turn of the Catholics, who had hoped much from Mary's son, soon came. Averse to persecution and desirous of a Spanish alliance, he started by remitting the recu- sancy fines, and, in August, 1604, made peace with Spain, leaving the Dutch to shift for themselves, though he still allowed his subjects to volunteer in their service. Nevertheless, he could not accept the claim of Popes to be above earthly rulers and shuddered at the right which they asserted of deposing princes when the occasion demanded. Moreover, the Catholics multiplied so soon as they received the encouragement, James became agitated by accusations that he was leaning toward Rome, and resented the Pope's refusal to excommuni- cate certain turbulent members of his flock who were disturbing the repose of the Kingdom. As early as February, 1604, he issued a procla- mation banishing priests ; in June, Parliament passed an Act confirm- ing and extending the penal laws of Elizabeth, and before the end of the summer the royal justices were busy enforcing them. The Gunpowder Plot (1605). — The result was to precipitate a dangerous plot, already in the making, of which Robert Catesby, whose family had suffered for the old faith, was the leading spirit. Among the conspirators whom he enlisted was Guy Fawkes, a young Englishman who had been serving in the Spanish army in the Nether- lands. After some delays and changes in their plan they at length hired a house with a cellar running under the Parliament buildings, where they deposited twenty barrels of gunpowder which they covered with iron bars, faggots, and billets of wood. Their design was to blow THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 289 up the Lords and Commons, together with James and his eldest son, Prince Henry, when the session opened, in November, 1605. Beyond this they contemplated a general rising of the Catholics in the west Midlands, and the setting up of a new government. Too many, however, were taken into the secret, the plot was disclosed, and Fawkes was surprised and seized in the cellar. Catesby, with a num- ber of his fellow plotters who had escaped to the scene of the projected rising, were shot in an attempt to bring it about, while several others who were captured were tried and executed, together with Fawkes. Under the name of Guy Fawkes's Day 5 November came to be cele- brated as the anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, with bonfires and fireworks, and remained a national holiday for over two centuries. By way of retaliation Parliament, in 1606, passed two Acts greatly increasing Roman Catholic disabilities and imposing a new oath of allegiance, expressly denying the papal power of de- position, on all recusants. Another Act followed, in 1610. These penalties, however, were not enforced, partly because the pacific King did not want to drive the Catholics to desperation, partly because he was frequently in negotiation with Spain. Their exist- ence, however, was a constant grievance to the Catholic subjects, while the failure to enforce them was a source of resentment to the Protestants. Initial Difficulties with Parliament. — Parliament, which met for its first session, 19 March, 1604, came into conflict with James from the very start. His opening speech, though reasonable and dignified in many respects, was marked by evidences of his characteristic vanity and grotesqueness. Before proceeding to other business, two important cases of privilege were settled. By Goodwin's case it was determined that the Commons should henceforth be the sole judge of election returns of their members. In the case of Sir Thomas Shirley it was established that members, during the session and for an interval of forty days before and after, should be exempt from arrest for debt. Thus the King's power of excluding possible opponents from the House of Commons was greatly restricted. In sharp con- troversies which followed on various political and religious questions one fundamental issue was defined. The King took the ground that the Commons " derived all matters of privilege from him." In a notable Apology, which was drawn up and read in the House before the close of the session, they declared that their privileges of free election, freedom from arrest, and freedom of speech were their lawful inheritance and not a gift from the Sovereign — an inalienable right which could not be withdrawn. In this reply to the royal challenge 290 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN they took a position about which a fierce struggle was waged for nearly a century, a struggle from which Parliament ultimately emerged victorious. James's Financial Embarrassments. — The King's chief weakness was his need of money, due partly to royal extravagance, though still more to the increasing needs of the State, and to the fact that the royal income had been fixed when money went further than it did at this time, when the standard of living was growing steadily higher and the influx of precious metals was still sending up prices. It speaks volumes that the thrifty Elizabeth had left a deficit. The plain duty of the Stuarts was to economize or, by timely concessions, to obtain larger grants from Parliament — that they did neither ac- counts for their final overthrow. The Bate Case and Impositions (1606-1610). — One of the means by which James undertook to increase his revenue was the levying of impositions, and, in 1606, Bate, a Turkey merchant, refused to pay such an imposition on a consignment cf currants. On the case being referred to the Court of Exchequer the barons decided in favor of the King. There was some legal ground for this decision ; because, while it was recognized that direct taxes could not be imposed without parliamentary consent, there was no general prohibition comprehend- ing all indirect taxes. Moreover, it had been customary for certain Sovereigns, particularly the Tudors, to impose such duties as a means of encouraging native industries or of striking a blow at the trade of hostile powers. Nevertheless, the power was fraught with dangerous consequences. Kings might employ it, not merely for the regulation of commerce, but in order to raise a revenue independent of Parlia- ment. James's intentions were soon evident. In 1608 the Lord Treasurer issued a new Book of Rates, or tariff schedule, in which he greatly increased the revenue from tonnage and poundage, adding, at the same time, impositions to the amount of £70,000 a year. Nevertheless, there was still great need of money when Parliament assembled, 9 February, 16 10. The Great Contract (1610). — While the King was concerned chiefly with supply, the Commons were intent upon redress of grievances, financial, religious, and legal. After some haggling they agreed to grant a permanent revenue of £200,000 a year, provided that purvey- ance and feudal dues were given up. Then the matter was laid over till autumn. But when they met again the Commons insisted on including the redress of various other grievances. The King, on his part, felt that £200,000 was an inadequate compensation for what he was asked to yield. Thus the Great Contract, as it was called, THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 291 came to nothing. Worse than that, the bitterness engendered by the struggle marked another step in the breach between the Crown and Parliament. Relations with Scotland to 1612. — Meantime, the Scotch question was producing friction that was to be a decisive factor in the coming conflict. James strove ardently to bring about a constitutional union between the two countries ; but there were serious obstacles in the way. For one thing it would involve free trade, and the English were set against meeting the competition of the frugal and industrious Scot. Thus an irritating issue had been raised, destined to remain unsettled for a century. As the English opposed James's plan for a union, so the Scotch Presbyterians struggled against his restoration of the Episcopal system, which it took him from 1599 to 161 2 to effect. Since he and the nobles selected bishops for the control of the Church, while the Presbyterian clergy represented the bulk of the people, anti-Episcopalianism came to be identified with national independence. Irish Difficulties. The Plantation of Ulster (161 1). — In spite of Lord Mount joy's conquest, Ireland presented even greater difficulties than Scotland. Unable to maintain a Standing army, England's only hope was in conciliation, though, in view of the turbulent and back- ward condition of the people, as well as the native hatred of the Church of England, the prospect seemed well-nigh hopeless. Other stumblingblocks were the greed of unscrupulous officials, and the land question. The colonists of Mary and Elizabeth were in general a thrifty and progressive class, but they were provided with estates which justly belonged to the Irish. James, however, sent out a wise and liberal-minded Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, who with a free hand might have accomplished wonders. As it was, he put an end to martial law and pardoned offenses committed before the accession of James ; also, he turned much of the tribal land which the chiefs had secured from Henry VIII into individual freeholds and transferred the tribal dependents into tenants with fixed obligations and rents protected by English law. But in religious affairs, bound unfortunately at the start by royal orders, he made futile attempts to enforce conformity, and when he afterward sought to strengthen the Church by regulating abuses and by putting in conscientious ministers it was too late. The situation became impossible. Per- secution only nerved the priests to greater efforts, toleration multi- plied their number and influence. Then an unsuccessful rising in the north led the Crown to seize vast estates, which were utilized for the Celebrated Plantation of Ulster, in 161 1. Against Chichester's advice the most fertile tracts were allotted to English and Scotch 292 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN settlers and undertakers. 1 As in the case of the previous plantations, the economic results were excellent, but, politically, new bitterness was engendered which bore fruit, thirty years later, in a bloody rebellion. The "Addled Parliament " (1614). — After the failure of the Great Contract, the King got on for nearly four years without a Parliament, ever more and more hard put to it for money. After the death, in 161 2, of the Lord Treasurer Salisbury he acted as his own chief Minister under the influence of frivolous, incompetent, and self-seeking favorites. Early in 1614 James called his second Parliament; 2 but contrary to good advice, he decided to exclude impositions and all questions of an ecclesiastical nature from the grievances he was willing to re- dress. After two months spent in discussing the prohibited subjects Parliament was dissolved without having passed a single measure or voted a money grant ; hence it was called the " Addled Parliament." Grievances During the Inter-Parliamentary Period (1614-1620). (1) Financial. — Then followed another and longer interval of nearly seven years when James tried to get on without a Parliament, exciting opposition by the continuance of old grievances and by the addition of new ones. A leading cause of discontent lay in his futile schemes for raising money, though none of them proved specially burdensome. In 1 6 14 letters from the Council were sent out asking for benevolences, but in three years they yielded only £66,000, less than a single subsidy, and called forth protests from some counties, rdusals to pay from others. Another device, which happily attracted but few, was the sale of peerages and titles. Worse even than this, the nefarious prac- tice of buying and selling offices, prohibited by a Statute of Edward VI, was vigorously pursued. Only the rich and the unscrupulous and mean-spirited, the one by purchase and the others by scheming and fawning, could hope to obtain places, and hence royal government be- came a chaos of intrigue. (2) Legal. The Crown and the Judges. Sir Edward Coke. — More significant was a conflict which came to a head between the. Crown and the judges. The King and his supporters maintained that there were occasions when reasons of State should prevail over strict legal rules, but in carrying out his policy he sought to set himself above the law and to make the judges mere creatures of the royal will. At the beginning of James's reign, before it was evident that their jurisdiction was to be infringed upon, the judges were, as the Bate 1 Speculators or promoters. 2 The first had held five sessions from 1604 to 161 1. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 293 case indicated, inclined to support the Crown, largely owing to their love of precedent and their failure to take into account the political bearings of an issue. Their attitude changed when attempts were made to encroach upon their Common Law jurisdiction. In the struggle which followed Sir Edward Coke (155 2-1634) took the lead. He was harsh, avaricious, and narrow. As Attorney-General, 1594- 1606, he had shown himself one of the most brutal prosecutors who ever served the Stuarts, and first began to oppose the King after he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in 1606. Though his motives were largely personal and professional, his prodigious learning and his savage aggressiveness made him an invaluable champion of the popular cause. The struggle opened over prohibitions, or the right of the Common Law courts to restrain the ecclesiastical tribunals from proceeding with a case until the judges decided whether it lay within their field. Finally they had to yield on prohibitions ; but, in 16 10, they managed to carry another point, that the King could create no new offenses by proclamation. Another clash came, in 1614, over the case of Peacham, a clergyman, who, charged with writing against the King and Government, was convicted and died in prison. Before the trial the King called in the judges for consultation, a proceeding against which Coke stoutly protested, though on the narrow technical ground that James was acting contrary to custom, rather than on the broad principle that the Crown was seizing a dangerous weapon for prejudicing or intimidating the bench. In a suit which arose two years later, 16 16, Coke was the only one who held out, refusing to promise anything further than that, when a case came before him, he would act as became a judge. He was suspended, and, ignoring a royal hint to cull from his Reports observations reflecting on the pre- rogative, was dismissed from his judgeship. In the next Parliament he appeared in the opposition ranks where he rendered valiant service. Coke and the judges, so far as they followed him, performed a great work in striving to hold the King to the limitations of the law ; but it was well that they did not realize their ambition to act as arbiters in the great political questions at issue between the Sovereign and his people, for that would have resulted in the legal domination fully as dangerous to liberty and progress as royal tyranny. (3) Immorality at Court. The Rise of Villiers. — A third cause of friction was in the frivolity, extravagance, and riotous life at Court which shocked the growing Puritan sentiment. James himself loved study, his life was pure, and he was never overcome by liquor. Never- theless, he enjoyed the society of boon companions, he mingled with those of evil lives, and did nothing to reform his Court. Most scan- 294 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN dalous of all was the case of an unworthy favorite who rose to be Earl cf Somerset. Convicted of complicity in a murder on evidence by no means conclusive, James commuted the death sentence to impris- sonment in the Tower. Although he honestly labored to see justice done, the whole affair roused widespread and prolonged abhorrence. The growing arrogance of Somerset before his downfall had caused his personal and political enemies to bring to Court as a rival, George Villiers, the son of an obscure country knight but a youth of rare personal charm, clever, audacious, and ambitious. Villiers' influence proved more dangerous than that of Somerset because he came to play a greater role in public affairs. (4) Foreign Policy. The Spanish Marriage Negotiations (1604- 1618). — The relations with Spain marked another breach between James and his subjects and led to a series of parliamentary crises. The peace with Spain, in 1604, had been followed by negotiations for a marriage between Prince Henry and the eldest daughter of Philip III. James was particularly anxious to bring it about, as a means of cement- ing an alliance which he ardently desired : he wanted to prevent the recurrence of hostilities which had occupied so much of the previous reign, he admired the Spanish absolutism, and he aspired, with Spanish support, to become the peacemaker of Europe. Philip, however, demanded concessions in favor of Roman Catholics that James dared not grant. During the negotiations, which were more than once sus- pended, Prince Henry died and the eldest daughter of the Spanish King married Louis XIII of France, so her younger sister and Henry's brother Charles were substituted. The Spanish gradually became more anxious for the alliance, since a twelve years' truce with the Nether- lands was due to expire in 162 1 and England commanded the sea route to the Low Countries. Again, however, marriage negotiations were blocked, chiefly owing to the difficulty of relaxing the penal laws, and were only resumed after the English King had been drawn into the Thirty Years' War. 1 The Beginning of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1620). — The war was brought on by difficulties growing out of the Reformation settle- ment, complicated by others of a political nature. The German princes were striving for independence against the Emperor, and in 1 James's subserviency to Spain led to the sacrifice of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been sentenced to death, in 1604, for an alleged plot against the Sovereign. Sorely in need of money, the English King had allowed him to go to South America in search of gold; at the same time promising the Spanish ambassador that if any Spanish possession were attacked, the leader would pay the penalty. A Spanish town in the Orinoco was destroyed. Raleigh on his return, June, 1618, was beheaded, though on the original charge. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 295 Bohemia, where he was King, the national feeling was acute. In 1608 a Protestant Union was formed which called forth, in 1609, a Catholic League ; but a series of events in Bohemia led to the first outbreak of the war. On the death of the childless Emperor Matthias, in 16 19, the Bohemian Protestants, refusing to acknowledge as their King his cousin Ferdinand, a pupil of the Jesuits, whom he had selected for his successor, 1 chose the Count Palatine of the Rhine, Frederick V, son-in-law of James. 2 Ferdinand, who was elected Emperor, leagued with Maximilian of Bavaria and Philip III of Spain. A Spanish army invaded the Palatinate, while, 8 November, 1620, Frederick himself was decisively defeated at White Hill near Prague. He was driven out of Bohemia, his own Palatine lands were confiscated, and he fled to Holland. What began as a revolt in Bohemia became a general European conflict, drawing into its vortex England, Denmark, Sweden, and France, and directed against the ascendancy of the Spanish and Imperial branches of the House of Hapsburg and the triumph of the Counter-Reformation. Divergent Views of James and the Popular Party regarding the Thirty Years' War. — James was finally moved to intervene, but solely in order to recover the Palatinate for his son-in-law, a purpose which he sought to effect by securing the good offices of Spain through the long-contemplated marriage alliance. Owing, however, to the need of money to carry on his diplomacy, he was obliged to call, in 162 1, an- other Parliament, which precipitated another conflict with his sub- jects, for the majority regarded Spain as the prime mover in a great Catholic aggression which could best be met by a " war of diversion," that is, a naval war directed against the Spanish for the purpose of diverting them from the Imperial alliance. Feeling even that could wait they seized the opportunity to demand the redress of pressing grievances and the recognition of fundamental rights. Monopolies and the Revival of Impeachments. — Among them were the non-enforcement of the recusancy laws and infringements on the liberty of speech, but they devoted their chief attention to abuses connected with monopolies. Even to-day monopolies are recognized by law in the case of patents and copyrights ; at that time they went much farther and included the exclusive right of dealing in certain 1 In theory the Emperor was elected. As a matter of fact, from 1438 till the dissolution of the Holy Roman or German Empire, in 1806, a member of the Austrian House of Hapsburg was always chosen. Since 1526 the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary had been annexed to the House of Austria in a personal union. 2 The leading Calvinist Prince in Germany. He had married the Princess Elizabeth, in 16 13. 296 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN commodities, of trading in a particular district, or of carrying on a specified industry. There were many reasons why this should have been so. The dangers from pirates and savages, the uncertainties of unknown lands and seas, the risk oi" shipwreck in small and weakly constructed ships made it necessary to offer unusual privileges in order to induce men to venture their lives and their capital. As a means of building up industries, monopolies were granted not only to inventors but to all who introduced new processes from abroad. Here again there was not infrequently a special justification, for ex- ample, in the case of arms and ammunition, to insure an adequate supply in the event of war. Licenses, too, were required from inns and alehouses, for the restriction and regulation of the traffic in drink. The chief complaint against James, who derived compara- tively little revenue from his monopolies, was that he granted them to favorites who made a large profit from acting as figureheads in companies or from re-selling their rights. Moreover, those who had the supervision of inns and alehouses frequently used their powers for extortion and blackmail. As a result of the investigation which Parliament now undertook, the King abolished the worst abuses by proclamation, and, by an Act of 1624, monopolies with certain excep- tions were done away with. 1 Francis Bacon (1561-1626). —-This first session of the Parliament of 162 1 is also notable for the impeachment of Francis Bacon on charges of judicial corruption. Made Lord Chancellor, in 16 18, and created Viscount St. Albans, in 162 1, he had, in spite of his unusual abilities, risen very slowly. At once a man of affairs and a man of letters, he wrote on many subjects, philosophy, scientific theory, literature, history, and law. His views on politics were broad and liberal, he favored a strong monarchy resting on the support of the people and acting for the popular good, informed and advised by a loyal Parlia- ment. Advocating liberal reforms in the law, he had, in the struggle with Coke, stood for interpreting legal questions on large grounds of policy rather than upon technical precedents. Always prone, how- ever, to overlook practical difficulties, he failed to recognize that Par- liament would no longer tolerate even a benevolent despot, and that, in any event, James was not the man to exercise such power. Yet, as he saw plan after plan fail, he continued in office as a supporter of the Crown. Aside from his vast intellect, his sobriety and industry, he had few commendable qualities ; he was cold, lacking in affection, and fond of comfort and display; he stooped to the most servile 1 These exceptions included : new inventions, charters to trading companies and certain specified manufactures. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 297 flattery in his relations with James ; he was ever ready with worldly- wise council ; indeed, the poet Pope did not greatly exaggerate in designating him as the " wisest, wittiest, meanest of mankind." His Impeachment and Fall (1621). — Parliament, already prejudiced against him, particularly since he had taken the royal side on the legality of monopolies, was very ready to listen to complaints brought against him by certain persons for accepting money from suitors while their cases were pending in Chancery, and, on the basis of these charges, proceeded to impeach him. Bacon, while he did not at first realize the gravity of the situation, was at length forced to admit, that while he had never allowed gifts to influence him, he had been guilty of accepting both presents and loans from those who had suits in his court. Public officials were in those days regularly in receipt of pay from companies and even from foreign countries in return for represent- ing their special interests, and it was also customary for judges to accept gifts from successful suitors. Bacon, with a salary inadequate for his office, particularly in view of the pomp and circumstance of his household, also notoriously loose in money matters and contemp- tuous of forms, had simply neglected to wait until he rendered his decisions. The sentence imposed upon him was a heavy one ; but more to mark Parliament's opinion of the enormity of the offense than with any thought that it would be fully executed. He was to pay a fine of £40,000, to be imprisoned in the Tower, to give up the Great Seal, and to be henceforth disqualified from holding any office of State or sitting in Parliament. The fine and imprisonment were remitted and the old man retired to achieve by his studies a reputation which he had failed to attain as an officer of State. His impeachment, while technical rules were not strictly observed, is an important step in the revival of a practice which had been in disuse for over a century and a half. Second Session of the Parliament of 1621. — In the autumn session the difference over foreign policy developed into a momentous quarrel which reopened the whole question of privilege. James hoped, if the marriage between Prince Charles and the Infanta were brought about, that the Spanish would intervene to restore Frederick by force if necessary. The Commons, fearing that the Catholics were unduly encouraged, framed a petition asking that the Prince marry one of his own religion ; calling for the execution of the penal laws ; and for a war against Spain. A long and bitter correspondence resulted, in which the King forbade the Commons "to meddle with mysteries of State," asserting again that their privileges were derived from the grace of his ancestors, though he assured them that, so long as they 298 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN confined themselves within proper limits, " he would be careful to preserve their lawful liberties." More than one picturesque incident enlivened the controversy. When the Commons sent a deputation with a second petition, James cried " Bring stools for the ambassadors," implying that they were assuming the position of an independent power. Finally, they framed a protestation in which they declared that : " their liberties and privileges were the inherited birthright of the subjects of England ; the State, the defense of the realm, the laws and grievances were proper matters for them to debate ; the members have liberty of speech, and freedom from all imprisonment for speaking on matters touching Parliamentary business." The King adjourned the session, sent for the Journal, and tore out the protestation with his own hands, while opposition members were imprisoned or confined to their houses in London, and, 6 January, 1622, Parliament was dis- solved. The Journey of Charles and Buckingham to Spain (1623). — The Spanish, realizing that the King's hands were tied so long as he had failed to obtain supplies, determined to keep him at odds with his subjects in order to avoid the least chance of English intervention in the Continental war. To that end, their ambassador encouraged Charles and Buckingham 1 in a harebrained project — a journey in- cognito to Madrid, where the Prince was to woo the Infanta in person. The visit ultimately failed of its object, although Charles agreed to the hardest terms short of changing his religion. When it finally became clear that Spain would grant no aid in recovering the Palatinate negotiations were broken off. The initiative was taken by Bucking- ham, whose self-importance had been wounded by the lack of con- sideration shown him at the Spanish court, and to whom the popularity which would result from an anti-Spanish policy proved a temptation which he could not resist. Indeed, he made up his mind to go to the length of war and dragged Charles along with him. The Parliament of 1624. Breach with Spain. — When Parliament met again, in 1624, James, who had hitherto refused to. consider the right of the Commons to discuss foreign politics, now consented to ask their advice. Buckingham told all the assembled members the story of the journey to Spain, insisted that the Spanish had never in- tended to help recover the Palatinate, and urged that the marriage treaty be canceled. James had come to see that war was necessary ; but he would only consent to a land war for the recovery of the Palat- inate ; Parliament was still bent on fighting Spain at sea, while Buck- ingham was keen for both. It was a part of his plan to ally with the 1 The royal favorite Villiers, created Duke of Buckingham, 1623. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 2QQ Dutch, the Danes, and the German princes, assisting them with Eng- lish subsidies. In voting a grant, less than half the sum asked for, the Commons specified distinctly the purpose for which it was to be employed, which included the strengthening of the navy and assistance to the Dutch and other allies. The French Marriage Treaty (1624). — Parliament was prorogued till autumn; but it never met again during the reign, for the King simply did not dare to face the Houses. On the failure of the Spanish marriage, negotiations had been opened with France for a marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII. Although, during the recent session, James had distinctly promised that no con- cessions would be made to the recusants in consequence of any such alliance, Cardinal Richelieu, Louis's adroit and able chief Minister, forced the weak King and his weak son to agree to a secret article guaranteeing a relaxation of the penal laws, and on these terms the treaty was ratified, in December, 1624. However, France, though anxious to strike a blow at the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, had no mind as yet to assist the German heretics. Accordingly, they re- fused to allow a rabble of raw pressed men whom James had dispatched abroad under a German soldier of fortune, Count Mansfeld, to pass through their territories. So in the dead of winter, he had to lead his half -clad troops into Holland, where more than three quarters of them perished of cold and starvation, and, in the spring, the miserable remnant returned to England. Death of James and Estimate of His Reign. — In March, 1625, the poor old King, much reduced by gout and worry, was attacked by an ague, from which he died on the 27th. As a ruler he had been a failure. His problem in a critical time had been to economize and to gain the good will of his subjects. Yet he was lavish to the last, and, what with the expenses in connection with foreign affairs, he left the treasury too poor to give him a royal burial ; he disappointed the Catholics and he disappointed the Puritans ; he quarreled with the judges and he quarreled with Parliament. While he never acted without some color of legality, many of his measures ran counter to the temper of the times. By his pompousness and love of theorizing he alienated his subjects, and by his failure to meet crises with decision he forfeited their confidence. All through his reign he strove, in the teeth of Prot- estant prejudice and Elizabethan tradition, for an alliance with Spain, and lived to see his pet project destroyed by his son and his favorite. His only essay in war — the Mansfeld expedition — ■ was a pitiful fiasco. The fresh memory of this, the empty treasury, and a crop of differences with his subjects were his legacy to Charles. 300 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRTTA1N The bright spots in the reign were not due in any great degree to James. The peace which he maintained was favorable to industry, commerce, and prosperity; but the light taxes which contributed greatly to the result were due to necessity rather than to policy. Also, the settlements leading to a vast colonial empire in the New World have him to thank only so far as he drove opponents of the Established Church from England. Again, while he shares with Elizabeth the glory of the greatest age of the world's literature, he was, in spite of his scholarly tastes, as innocent as his predecessor of assisting the movement. In spite of him, very notable gains were made by the Commons. They secured the right of deciding contested elections and right of freedom from arrest, and effectively asserted their right to debate all matters of public concern and to appropriate supplies for purposes which they designated. On the other hand, they pro- tested vainly against impositions, and failed deservedly in an at- tempt to judge and punish offenses not committed against their own House. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. F. C. Montague, Political History of England, 1603-1660 (1907), an accurate account of the main course of events. G. M. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 1603-17 14 (1904), a work of unusual brilliancy and suggestiveness, an excellent supplement to Montague. Cambridge Modern History, III. S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642 (10 vols., 1883 -1884), a monumental work, the authority on the period, but confined almost exclusively to the political and ecclesiastical aspects of the subject. L. von Ranke, History of England (6 vols., Eng. tr., 1875), next to Gardiner the best detailed work, particularly valuable for foreign re- lations. Lingard, already cited. T. Carlyle, Historical Sketches (1891), a picturesque and stimulating work. Special. Seeley, British Policy. J. Corbett, England in the Mediter- ranean (1904). J. N. Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings (1896). Algernon Cecil, A Life of Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury (191 5). Constitutional. Hallam; Taylor; Taswell-Langmead ; and especially Maitland, Constitutional History of England, Period III, sketch of the public law at the death of James I. Church. Wakeman ; Frere ; Usher, as above. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 181-188. Prothero, Select Statutes. CHAPTER XXVIII CHARLES I AND THE PRECIPITATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE (1625-1640) Personal Traits of Charles I. — Charles I had many of the quali- ties of a popular Sovereign. Handsome and of a noble presence, he was a skillful athlete and bore himself with the courage of a thorough- bred. Keenly appreciative of all that was beautiful in the world about him, he was at the same time deeply religious, and lived un- spotted amidst the dissipations of his Court. On the other hand, he lacked that power of reading the temper of the times and that gift of voicing the feelings of his subjects which had made the Tudors so irresistible. Without the imagination and sympathy necessary ' to the understanding of other men's views, he regarded every one who differed from him as an enemy ; while he prided himself on the legality of his measures he failed to see that what had the sanction of the law might at times be absolutely inexpedient. Much influenced by the few to whom he gave his confidence, he clung obstinately to an opinion he had once formed. Worse than all, he was secretive and evasive ; he made promises which he found himself unable to keep, and sometimes even entered into engagements with mental reservations which would enable him to elude what he did not consider to be for the public good. Political Problems. — Spurred on by Buckingham he had aroused popular enthusiasm by forcing the timid old King to abandon his peace policy, but he and his favorite planned to conduct the war in a manner quite out of accord with that advocated by Parliament ; they entered into engagements which that body was not asked to approve, and they conducted their military operations with a rashness, an incompetence, and a lack of success which forfeited the confidence of the nation. Consequently, the Commons, when they were called together, would not grant the supplies necessary to meet the situation. This forced the King to resort to the irregular measures which, in conjunction with his religious policy, led to the revolt which finally cost him his head. Religious Problems. — While the Puritans had failed to receive under James the concessions which they desired, they had not been 301 302 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN actively persecuted. Silently but effectively their views were being preserved and spread by means of Bible reading, prayer, and services in private houses. Already chafing under restraint, the victories of the Catholics in the Continental war, the King's marriage, and the relaxation of the penal laws aroused their gravest apprehensions. Furthermore, while James had been content with the existing Es- tablishment, Charles was a High Churchman, who wanted, so far as possible, to restore the liturgy and the ecclesiastical organization of the pre-Reformation days, partly because he loved the splendid ancient ceremonial, but chiefly because of the chance to strengthen his royal powers. The high Anglican divines, as a means of securing the great offices in Church and State and counteracting the Puritan tendencies of the people, sought his ear and magnified the prerogative to ridiculous heights. So the issue was not merely religious, it was political as well. Two parties were ranged against each other, one in close alliance with the Crown, the other with Parliament. The Puritan Parliamentary Party. — Though the Puritan party in- cluded high-souled cultivated gentlemen, poets, and scholars, its gen- eral attitude was hard and ungracious. The spirit of the Renascence appealed but little to them. The old English Sunday with its pic- turesque and boisterous merriment was an abomination in their eyes. Standing for the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, many had scant sympathy for philosophical and historical studies. They wanted to enter the lists against the great Catholic combination on the Continent, but only after the King had redressed domestic grievances and had agreed upon a plan of hostilities of which they approved. At home they insisted upon the enforcement of the penal laws, and, as the event proved, they desired also to put down the Anglicans as well as various sects of religious extremists which had recently sprung up. They did not oppose an Established Church as such, but they opposed one upheld by the Crown and Bishops — a Church which they held re- sponsible for the prevailing moral laxness, particularly at Court, a Church with ceremonies which they denounced as " popish " idolatries imposed by authority. The Puritans fought, not for any principle of toleration, but for their own supremacy; yet, in so doing, they deepened the spiritual independence of the people, they struck at despotism, and, if they did not gain the ascendancy at which they aimed, they secured a large measure of political freedom for their country and prepared the way for a religious liberty that came slowly but none the less surely. The High Church Royalist Party. — The High Church party, ranged against them, stood for a revival of medieval ceremonialism and held PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 303 exalted views regarding the origin and functions of the Church. While the Puritan regarded the Bible as the sole source of Christian truth, this party insisted that it must be interpreted according to the writings of the early Fathers and of the customs of the primitive Church. They laid stress on the divine origin of Episcopacy, and maintained that the observance of the Sacraments of the Church was as essential to salvation as personal holiness. While the standpoint of the royalist party was broader than that of the Puritans, it was unfortunate that they sought to impose their views by insisting upon absolute conformity and by magnifying the King's prerogative in Church and State as a means of crushing their opponents. Yet both parties were equally intolerant and both were equally aggressive. The Royal Advisers. — Incompetent himself to deal with the polit- ical and religious problems which confronted him, Charles was pecul- iarly unfortunate in his advisers. Indeed, it is an evidence of his incapacity that he should have chosen such men. Buckingham was rash, self-confident, and incapable, and he was largely responsible for the foreign disasters and the constant conflicts with Parliament which marked the four years of his ascendancy from 1624 to 1628. Worse still was Queen Henrietta Maria, who proved an evil genius to the King and the country ; bred in an atmosphere of absolutism and Catholicism, ignorant of the ways and temper of Englishmen, and dominated by papal agents, she put worthless men into office, and egged Charles on to some of his rashest and most unpopular acts, cul- minating in a disastrous policy of foreign intrigue. Abler far than these mischievous councilors and the group of religious enthusiasts who surrounded the throne were Charles's two later councilors, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, though they pushed him still further toward his final ruin. Charles':: First Parliament. — The royal supporters in Charles's first Parliament, which met 18 June, 1625, were few and weak, while the King made the fatal mistake of not explaining at once what he meant to do, how much he needed, and for what objects. The Opposition, counting many effective leaders, had no sympathy with a Continental war, they were determined to keep control of the taxes, and were bitterly suspicious of relaxations in favor of the Roman Catholics. So, after voting an absolutely inadequate supply, they fell to discussing grievances and foreign policy. When they began to express their distrust of the royal advisers, especially Buckingham, who had aroused such enthusiasm in James's last Parliament, Charles ordered a dissolu- tion, 12 August. 304 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Cadiz Expedition, 1625. — That autumn, Charles and Bucking- ham, hoping to increase their scanty funds by rich booty and to re- cover their lost prestige by a glorious success, sent an expedition against Cadiz. The invaders were unable to take the town, or to capture the ships in the harbor, and allowed a treasure fleet to slip by them. The troops got drunk on Spanish wine and became unruly. Storm- tossed, starving, and sick, the expedition straggled back to Plymouth late in November, another miserable failure. Charles's Second Parliament and the Impeachment of Buckingham (1626). — Pressed by his financial needs, Charles very reluctantly called a second Parliament, which met 6 February, 1626. To guard against resistance the leaders of the Opposition in the last Parliament had been disqualified for reelection, but an unexpected opponent came to the front, Sir John Eliot, vice-admiral of Devon. Though he had formerly been a friend of Buckingham, the shameless miscarriage of the Cadiz expedition and the deplorable condition of the returning soldiers and sailors had inflamed his wrath and stirred his pity. At once he forced the fighting by demanding an inquiry into the " recent disaster," de- nouncing Buckingham as the cause of all the mischief. Eliot, though violent and partisan, was a lofty-minded patriot, not in any sense a republican but an advocate of a form of monarchy in which Parlia- ment should be supreme. Following his attack, articles of impeach- ment against Buckingham were framed, in which he was accused, among other things, of gross neglect and mismanagement of public affairs. Although the King had supported the favorite in all his acts, and, by assuming the responsibility, placed an insurmountable obstacle in the way of conviction, nevertheless, Buckingham's mismanagement and incompetence were publicly exposed, while, for the first time since the pre-Tudor period, the Commons had ventured, on grounds of public policy, to assail a Minister enjoying the unlimited confidence of the Sovereign. To be sure, Charles finally stopped the impeach- ment by a dissolution, but, in so doing, he lost the grant which the Commons had resolved to vote him. Hard put to it for money he tried all sorts of devices, and at length resorted to a forced loan, dis- missing Chief Justice Crewe because he would not declare it legal. Some eighty gentlemen, including Eliot and Wentworth, were im- prisoned for refusing to lend, while many of the commoner sort were pressed as soldiers. Out of £350,000 asked for £236,000 was secured, but at the price of sullen and widespread discontent. The War with France and the Expedition to Rhe (1627). — In the spring of 1627 a war with France which had long been brewing was declared. Toward the close of the last reign Richelieu had exacted PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 305 an impossible promise that the English would loan him a fleet to be used " against whomsoever except the King of Great Britain." When it became clear that he was to employ it to reduce the Huguenots at La Rochelle who were in revolt, Charles and Buckingham, unable to face the popular outcry, had tried to elude the obligation by instigating the Admiral in command to stir his crews to mutiny. Eventually the French got the ships without the men. Such double dealing ac- centuated the distrust of the English and alienated the French. Two other causes of friction were : that French ships trading with Spain and the Netherlands were searched and condemned even before formal trial in the English prize courts, and that King Charles was not only unable to relax the penal laws against the English Catholics but was even obliged to dismiss the Queen's French attendants, and, after much shuffling, to declare himself the protector of the French Hugue- nots. As a stroke against France, Buckingham, in June, 1627, sent an expedition which landed on the island of Rhe, opposite La Ro- chelle, with the object of securing a base for assisting the beleaguered citizens and for attacking the French coast and shipping. Bucking- ham himself showed both courage and energy in the undertaking, but the English, resenting the forced loan and without confidence in the leader, gave him grudging support. As a result the French, in October, drove the invaders from the island. The Five Knights' Case (1627). — Following this fresh humiliation, five knights, 1 who were among those imprisoned for refusing to con- tribute to the recent loan, brought their case to trial by suing for a writ of Habeas Corpus. 2 Fearing to state the reason for their deten- tion, Charles had assigned no cause except the command of the King. The judges decided to send the knights back to prison, although they did not commit themselves on the general question as to whether the Sovereign might, under all circumstances, hold the subject in con- finement, solely by virtue of his royal command. Nevertheless, the decision was ominous for the subject who looked to the protection of 1 One of them was Sir Thomas Darnel, hence the case is sometimes called Darnel's Case. 2 As it was against the spirit of English law for a subject to be detained in prison without cause shown, the writ of Habeas Corpus had been devised, in order that the judges might inquire into the case and, in view of the sufficiency or insufficiency of the evidence, release the prisoner, admit him to bail, or remand him to prison. It had always been the custom for the Sovereign, for reasons of State, to order the arrest of persons dangerous to the public safety without any further reason than the royal command. In the present instance, however, no one was conspiring against the State ; the only offense of those imprisoned was resistance to unparliamentary taxation. 306 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the law against royal oppression. Charles, still hoping to obtain the needed supplies, soon released all the prisoners, and called a third Parliament to assemble, 17 March, 1628. Charles's Third Parliament (1628). — Before the opening of the ses- sion the Opposition leaders had met and agreed to drop the proceed- ings against Buckingham until they had secured redress of recent and pressing grievances. In addition to the arbitrary exactions and the imprisonment or impressment of those who had refused to pay, soldiers had been billeted on private houses, consuming the goods and menac- ing the quiet and security of those who occupied them. Moreover, they were under the government of martial law, which was feared as a dangerous encroachment on liberty. After sharp discussion, the Commons agreed to grant five subsidies in return for the removal of these evils, both Houses adopted a proposal of Coke's to formulate their grievances and demands in a petition, to which Charles, after vain efforts to wriggle out by means of vague promises, gave his formal assent, 7 June, 1628. The Petition of Right (1628). — The Petition of Right, as it was called, provided that : (1) No man hereafter should be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge without common consent by Act of Parliament; (2) No freeman should be imprisoned or detained without cause shown ; (3) Soldiers should not be billeted in private homes ; (4) . Commissions to punish by martial law should be revoked and no more issued. This Petition of Right has always been regarded as one of the great landmarks in the progress of English popular liberty, ranking with Magna Carta, and with the later Bill of Rights. Yet it left more than one issue un- settled. When the Commons proceeded to formulate the more outstanding ones in two remonstrances, reiterating their demand for the removal of Buckingham, Charles forthwith prorogued Parliament with " a sharp speech," 26 June, 1628. The Murder of Buckingham and the Rise of Wentworth (1628). — Less than two months had passed when, 23 August, Buckingham, while superintending the embarkation of a fleet at Portsmouth, was stabbed by John Felton, who combined personal grievances with a desire to perform a public service. The crime, though received with general rejoicing, only embittered the King without doing any good. While he never again loved or trusted any one as he had the departed favorite, he turned to new councilors equally regardless of the popular will. Thomas Wentworth, who had already, in July, passed over to the royalist party, gradually attained the position of the King's chief PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 307 adviser. Though he had strenuously fought the King for years, it was because he was opposed to the Buckingham regime, which ran counter to his ideals of peace abroad and efficient administration at home. An aristocrat by birth and temper he had no sympathy with Puritanism and parliamentary supremacy. The Petition of Right and the remonstrances went further than he could follow, so he turned back. When Buckingham, the chief obstacle which had stood in his way, was removed, he welcomed the chance to put into practice the policies which he had long cherished. Tonnage and Poundage and Religious Innovations. — The two most pressing questions left unsettled by the Petition of Right con- cerned the royal right to levy tonnage and poundage without parlia- mentary grant, and religious innovations. Charles maintained that since Parliament had, in failing at the beginning of his reign to grant him tonnage and poundage, departed from a long-recognized custom, he was entitled to collect it on his own authority. The Commons argued that by the Petition of Right he had yielded any right which he may have possessed. This he denied on the ground that tonnage and poundage was not included under " gift, loan, benevolence, or tax." Since a " tax " was then generally understood to mean a direct tax, there seems to be little doubt that, technically, he was in the right. Whatever legal rights the King may have had, his attempts to enforce them were bitterly resisted. In reply he imprisoned some and seized the goods of others who refused to pay. The religious issue had reached an equally acute stage. When his High Church supporters were sharply attacked he sought to shield them by pardons and pro- motions. Then, in November, 1628, he issued a Declaration pro- hibiting further disputes on Church questions, and providing that all ecclesiastical changes, unless contrary to the laws and customs of the land, should be settled in Convocation with the royal approval, which meant by a body composed largely of the King's creatures. The Eliot Resolutions (1629). — When Charles's third Parliament met for its second session, 20 January, 1629, the Commons began a busy discussion of the religious differences and of the treatment of the merchants who refused to pay tonnage and poundage. Seeing that he was to get nothing but complaints, the King ordered them to adjourn. The news caused a tumult, and, when the Speaker sought to leave the chair, two members, Holies and Valentine, held him down by main force while Holies repeated from memory three resolutions which Eliot had drawn up. They declared that : " Whosoever shall bring in innovations in religion, or by favor seek to extend or introduce Popery or Arminianism, or other opinions dis- 308 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN agreeing from the true and orthodox Church, shall be reputed a cap- ital enemy to this Kingdom and Commonwealth. " Whosoever shall counsel or advise the . . . levying of . . . tonnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, or shall be an actor or instrument therein, shall be likewise reputed an innovator in the Government and a capital enemy of this Kingdom and Common- wealth." " If any merchant, or other person whatsoever, shall voluntarily . . . pay . . . tonnage and poundage not being granted by Parlia- ment, he shall likewise be reputed a betrayer of the liberty of England and an enemy to the same." While the King's officers were pounding at the door, the resolutions were carried and the excited throng who had pressed and shouted about the Speaker's chair left the House. Thus ended the last Par- liament which Charles was to hold for eleven years. The Significance of the Dissolution. — A crisis marking an inevitable breach had arisen. If the King could at pleasure interrupt debate on public grievances, popular representation was an empty form. On the other hand, if his royal orders could be openly resisted, Charles Stuart had practically ceased to be King. Eliot and eight other mem- bers concerned in the recent disturbances were arrested on an indef- inite charge of sedition and contempt. An attempt on the part of some to obtain their release by Habeas Corpus was first evaded and then offered on terms which they could not accept. When finally brought to trial the majority made submission. Eliot died in the Tower, 27 November, 1632. Holies escaped abroad; but Valentine and another of the eight remained in prison till 1640. The Period of Personal Government (1629-1640). — During the eleven years that Charles governed without a Parliament he had an opportunity to do one of two things — to establish a despotism or to conciliate his subjects. He did neither. The royal impolicy was manifested in diverse ways : in vacillation and duplicity in foreign relations; in taking money from the people by methods inexpedient and of doubtful legality ; in allowing Laud and his party full scope to carry out a program which ran counter to the wishes of the majority ; in offending the moral sense of the graver sort by the license allowed at Court and by the harsh treatment meted out to those who protested ; in breaking down respect for the judiciary, the guardian of the laws ; and finally by a rash attempt to introduce Episcopacy in Scotland. (1) Foreign Policy. — Buckingham's foreign policy had at least the merit of energy ; but even that disappeared with his death. Peace was concluded with France in 1629 and with Spain in 1630. Then PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 309 followed a series of futile negotiations with these two countries and with various Protestant Powers. Charles aimed to recover the Palat- inate and to assert the supremacy of the narrow seas ; but his un- trustworthiness drew on him the contempt of the great Continental leaders, while by his inaction he lost the chance of increasing his popularity at home and abroad. (2) Arbitrary Taxation. — The King's irregular methods of raising money, though bolstered up with a show of legality, proved one of the chief means of alienating his subjects. He continued to levy tonnage and poundage and impositions regardless of public feeling. Perverse ingenuity was shown in the creation of new monopolies; since the Act of 1624 limiting monopolies had excepted corporations and trading companies from its prohibitions, licenses were granted to a number of such organizations for the manufacture of soap, starch, beer, and other commodities, and it was in vain that the patentees were scathingly denounced as a " nest of wasps or swarm of vermin which have overcrept the land." Although the country was prosper- ous and most of the financial exactions fell on special classes best able to bear them, nevertheless, discontent at the royal attempt to raise money independent of Parliament became increasingly widespread as the years went on, until a crisis came in the year 1637. (3) Religion and Morals. The Laudian Policy. — Meantime, the differences in questions of religion and morals were reaching an acute stage. The King's chief agent in Church affairs, Archbishop Laud, by his influence in the Privy Council, and by his control of the courts of High Commission and Star Chamber, gathered into his hands all the machinery, both ecclesiastical and temporal, for enforcing his drastic policy. He was a tireless worker, fearless, honest, and devoted to his duty as he saw it ; but he was narrow and rigid in his views, and, though he put no one to death, he sanctioned cruel punishments. Religious toleration was still practically unknown even among his opponents, but he was wanting in discrimination as well. He restored church buildings whose original beauty had been marred by neglect, he cleared St. Paul's of tradesmen and lawyers who used the holy place for base traffic, he made war on corruption and religious sloth, but, at the same time, he persecuted men who, from sincere convic- tion, refused to participate in the ceremonies which he was laboring to extend throughout the land. While he strove for Church unity, his test was uniformity; hence, he was not inclined to inquire too strictly what people believed, so long as they conformed. Wherever prescribed ecclesiastical rules were disregarded he concluded that there was no religion. Hence the Puritan, the indifferent, and the 310 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN profane were alike in his eyes. Furthermore, he undertook to suppress every breath of hostile expression in the press, in the pulpit, the parish church, and the conventicle. Much corruption, irreverence, and neg- lect he found by energetic inquiry. Many clergymen were profane, abusive, and loose in their conduct, the Communion table was some- times used as a writing desk, or otherwise desecrated; men slouched into church with their hats on, or disturbed the service outside ; pigs were allowed in many places to root up the churchyard. While Laud did much good work in remedying these and various other abuses, his failure to distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy stirred up a curiously general opposition. The impious or profligate, lay or cleric, who was proceeded against in the ecclesiastical courts, the country squire who resented the enhanced power of the parson, the lawyer who chafed against the increased jurisdiction of the Church tribunals, and the courtiers who disliked the bishops usurping great offices of State were all aroused. The Puritan Sentiment and Current Morality. — On the other hand, the Puritan conscience was shocked at what they considered to be the high-handed encouragement of immorality. In 1618, in order to counteract the zeal of certain magistrates, James had issued a Declaration of Sports which authorized the continuance of games on Sunday. There were some good reasons for this : among others to prevent idleness and tippling; and to encourage the subjects to strengthen their bodies for the more effective defense of the realm. In 1633, the Declaration, which had been promulgated in only one diocese, was published throughout the land, and ministers were ordered to read it from the pulpit under pain of suspension or deprivation. Then, in Somerset, it was the custom to celebrate the anniversary of the patron saints of churches on the Sunday following. These " Wakes," as they were called, were frequently scenes of drunkenness and disorder. When a conscientious Chief Justice made an effort to stop this abuse he was forbidden to ride on the Western circuit again. All this seemed to the Puritans nothing more than governmental sanc- tion of Sabbath breaking. The Censorship of the Press. — By a rigid censorship of the Press and by the brutal punishment of those who evaded its restrictions an attempt was made to check attacks on the existing system. Many of those suppressed or punished were violent and abusive in their language and unreasonable in their standards, but there was much to justify their protests, so that, in silencing them, voices were stifled that cried for better things. The first sufferers, in spite of the cruel pains inflicted on them, attracted little attention. Among them was PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 311 Alexander Leighton, a fiery and uneasy Scot. In his writings he had alluded to the Queen as a " Canaanite and an idolatress " and had attacked the bishops as " trumpery of anti-Christ " whom he coun- seled Parliament to smite under the fifth rib ; so, in 1630, he was ar- rested, sentenced to pay a fine of £10,000, to have his ears cropped, be pilloried, and whipped and to remain in prison for life. Though part of the sentence was remitted he was only released from prison ten years latepi /In 1632 William Prynne, a barrister of vast learn- ing but narrow-minded and contentious, denounced the theater in a work entitled Histriomastix; a Scourge of Stage Players, and received as hard measure as Leighton. Continuing his jeremiads from prison he was called to account again, in 1637, together with two others, chiefly for onslaughts on the Episcopacy. Each was sentenced in the Star Chamber to pay a fine of £5000, to stand in the pillory, to lose his ears, 1 and to be imprisoned. But, whereas the former sentences had passed unnoticed, this time the sufferers were sur- rounded by a sympathetic grieving multitude ; nevertheless, in company with John Lilburne > another tempestuous spirit who was caught circulating Puritanical books, they had to languish in prison till 1640. Fear of the Revival of Roman Catholicism. — Another thing which contributed to alienate the subject was the widespread suspicion that the King and his advisers were on the road to Rome. Laud, as a matter of fact, regarded the Roman Church as a branch of the Catholic communion, but thought it was severed by errors and in- novations from the truer traditions preserved in the Church of Eng- land ; Charles, too, was stanchly Anglican ; but the Queen was a Roman Catholic, and many of the Court ladies were attracted by the gorgeous Roman ritual. Moreover, the King, in his desire to please Henrietta Maria, admitted papal legates and allowed concessions to worshipers of the old faith, and a number of conversions resulted. Laud did all in his power to check the movement; but he was far from successful. The Convergence of Discontent (1637). — The significance of the discontent aroused by the Laudian policy is difficult to realize in the present day when men have such varied interests, when they may think what they like, and worship where they please. In the early seventeenth century the mass of Englishmen, beyond the routine of their daily life, had almost no intellectual resource save religion, 1 Since Prynne's ears were already cropped, the stumps were gleaned and he was branded with the letters "S. L.," that is, "Seditious Libeler," but he inter- preted them to mean "Scars of Laud." 312 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and they were obliged to worship in the parish church. When they were forced to participate in ceremonies which many of them regarded as idolatrous and to hear doctrines which their reason could not ac- cept, it was inevitable that their pent-up fury would burst forth with terrific consequences when the chance offered. For years, however, after the crisis of 1629, there was no open resistance. The reasons are obvious : no machinery existed for focusing and expressing public discontent. The press was muzzled ; there were no public meetings, and, if any had been attempted, they would have been suppressed as seditious riots ; there was no party organization or no adequate means of communication. Even gatherings at the tavern or ale houses or at the homes of the great merchants and gentry were dangerous, for they might be reported by spies ; so the bulk, even of the Puritans, conformed to the ecclesiastical regulations, either half-heartedly or sullenly, most of them meeting to worship and pray in secret, while others fled to America to develop in the New World religious and political ideas and practices which were stifled in the old. The turn of the tide in England came in 1637 — first, the popular demonstra- tion about the pillory for Prynne and his fellow sufferers, then the case of John Hampden, and a rising in Scotland. (4) Ship Money. Origin and Aim. — All of the King's ingenious but ill-judged financial expedients had been unpopular ; ship money proved to be the most " famous and disastrous " in its consequences. It called forth the first notable resistance and it convinced the mass of the subjects that they could not depend upon the judges to pro- tect popular rights. 1 There was no doubt that Charles was con- fronted by an urgent problem. The French, rapidly developing their maritime resources, were in negotiation with the Dutch, who had the greatest mercantile fleet and the finest navy afloat, for the partition of the Spanish Netherlands, while, in addition, English shipping was gravely menaced by pirates from Algiers and Dunkirk who scoured the Channel. Her merchant marine was in a deplorable state compared with the glorious days of Elizabeth, and the sov- ereignty of the seas, asserted by English monarchs since the first Ed- ward, was in danger of becoming an empty boast. It was at this critical juncture that Charles, at the suggestion of his Attorney-Gen- eral Noy, called on his subjects for ship money. With his charac- teristic want of frankness he concealed designs for maintaining the supremacy of the narrow seas and protecting the Spanish Netherlands 1 They were still consulted beforehand, and those who showed the slightest independence were dismissed. This happened to Crew in 1626; to Walter in 1629; to Heath in 1634. PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 313 against the French and Dutch, alleging merely that he aimed to clear the Channel of pirates. It was an old custom to call on the port towns and maritime counties for ships, while the levying of money instead, though very infrequent, was not unknown. The first of the writs which Charles now issued, in October, 1634, was confined to the port towns. Since the country was at peace and since money and not ships were asked for, the suspicion arose that a new scheme of direct taxation independent of Parliament was intended. In spite of some grumbling, however, the levy was paid without resistance, and, during the summer, Charles actually sent out a fleet which did good service. On 4 August, 1635, a second writ was issued calling for twice the amount of the first and including the inland towns and counties. Public opinion was so roused that Charles consulted the judges in December and obtained an opinion that : " When the Kingdom was in danger, whereof his Majesty was the only judge, the charge ought to be borne by the Kingdom in general." When a third and even a fourth levy followed, in 1636 and 1637, it became evident that there was an opportunity fcr a permanent and • general tax — '" an everlasting supply for all occasions." Feeling surged higher and higher, and calls were even heard for a Parliament. Hoping to stem the tide, Charles had, in February, 1637, referred to the judges again, and again they sustained him. Hampden's Case (1637). — Among those who refused to pay his assessment, in 1635, was John Hampden, a wealthy country gentle- man. Though it amounted to only 20 shillings his case was made the test. The trial was opened in November, 1637, before the full bench of twelve judges, and judgment was rendered in the following June. There were learned arguments as to whether ship money was a tax which required the consent of Parliament, also as to whether inland towns and counties were included in the obligation to fur- nish ships ; but the main issue developed over the question as to whether, in time of danger, the King had the right of levying the money of the subject for the defense of the realm, and whether the King was the sole judge of such danger. Charles's extreme supporters took a position according to which the long battle which Parliament had been waging for centuries to secure the power of the purse had been fought in vain. The Sovereign, by the simple assertion that the Kingdom was in danger, could impose whatever taxes he chose. Seven of the twelve decided against Hampden, in spite of the fact that, at the time of his refusal to pay, the Kingdom was in no dan- ger of invasion. For nearly four years ship money continued a 314 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN legal source of revenue and was occasionally collected. It was evi- dent that the judges would not protect the liberties of the subject, and that some of them at least had scant regard for what Parliament had gained in the past. With dependence on established law thus shaken, the way was opened for Revolution. (5) The Crisis in Scotland. — The outbreak in Scotland, which also began in the memorable year 1637, was fraught with two notable consequences. It forced the King to call another Parliament, thus giving his English subjects a chance for concerted action which cul- minated in civil war ; furthermore, it threw the Scotch on the par- liamentary side, a fact which contributed appreciably to Charles's ultimate defeat. James, who boasted that " he knew the stomach " of his Scotch subjects, had been very cautious in his policy, notwith- standing the fact that he restored Episcopacy in a modified form. It was Charles and Laud who brought on the crisis. The Catholic marriage had aroused the suspicion of the Scots at the very beginning of the reign, and every act which followed deepened their distrust. In 1633 the King, accompanied by Laud, visited Scotland. Shocked at the lack of propriety in outward religious observance, they launched, on their return to England, a series of high-handed measures. Among them was a new Book of Canons or rules for ecclesiastical government, drawn up without ever being referred to the General Assembly or to Parliament. Published in 1636, they declared the King absolute head of the Church in Scotland. Also, a new Service Book was issued, " Laud's Liturgy," which was unsparingly denounced be- cause its ceremonies smelled of the mass, because it followed the English model, and because it was imposed by royal authority. The Scottish National Covenant. — The first attempt to read the new service, made, 23 August, 1637, at St. Giles's, Edinburgh, provoked a riot. And, as the news spread through the country, Charles was soon flooded with supplications from all classes, beg- ging that the hated liturgy be suppressed. To these he turned a deaf ear, and when the Opposition began to organize, he issued a proclamation declaring all meetings and supplications treasonable. The Scotch leaders, by way of reply, framed a " National Cove- nant," February, 1638, the signers of which pledged themselves on oath to defend the Crown and true religion. 1 Almost everywhere throughout Scotland it was signed with enthusiasm. Where such was lacking persuasion and threats were even employed. 1 These two contradictory principles of devotion to Presbyterianism and of loyalty to the King played a curious part in the struggles to follow. Often the Scots were in arms against him ; but only, they insisted, in defense of their religion. PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 315 Futile Negotiations and Preparations for War. — In order to stem the rising tide, Charles agreed that a free Assembly and a free Parlia- ment should meet, and even professed his willingness to revoke the Canons and Liturgy, though he refused to accept the Covenant. He insisted, also, that the Assembly should consist solely of clergymen, including bishops, while the Scots were determined to exclude the latter and to admit laymen. In defiance of the royal wishes an As- sembly, constituted after the Scotch plan, met at Glasgow, 21 No- vember, 1638, deposed the bishops, and nullified the Canons and the Liturgy. Charles, who had only promised concessions in order to gain time, had, by the spring of 1639, completed an elaborate plan for an invasion of Scotland, and for combining with it a rising of his supporters in the Highlands. But his funds were scanty, while his troops were raw and undisciplined, with no enthusiasm except to get home safely, and his generals were men of no military ex- perience or capacity. The Scots, on the other hand, were fired by a tremendous zeal and were drilled by veterans schooled in the Con- tinental wars. Indeed, their commander, Alexander Leslie, later Earl of Leven, had been trained under Gustavus Adolphus, the greatest captain of the age. The First Bishops' War (1639). — The royalist risings in the High- lands came to nothing, and when the two armies on the Border were brought face to face neither wished to fight. For Charles it meant certain defeat, while the Scotch feared the consequences of a victory which might rouse the national pride of Englishmen to rally to the support of the King. It is said that only one man was killed, and he by accident, in the whole war. With both sides ready to come to terms a treaty was easily arranged. The Scots agreed to disband, while Charles agreed to leave the ecclesiastical questions in dispute to a General Assembly and the civil questions to a free Parliament. The Assembly, which met at Edinburgh, 12 August, replaced the Epis- copal by the Presbyterian system, and imposed the Covenant upon the whole nation, while Charles, again merely to gain time, ratified all its measures, though when the Scotch Estates met and confirmed these measures they were dissolved. Later, they met again, 2 June, 1640, on their own authority and prepared to resume the war. Wentworth in Ireland. Recall to England as Chief Minister. — Charles, too, had been making ready to renew hostilities. His chief adviser was Thomas Wentworth, whom he recalled, in September, 1639, from Ireland where he had served as Lord Deputy since 1633. He had ruled with a strong hand and greatly improved the material conditions of the country. He had suppressed piracy, protected 316 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN trade, and encouraged the flax culture in the north, he had developed a well-disciplined army, he had been successful in managing Parlia- ment and using it as a source of supplies. Also, he had endeavored to reform the Church in order to employ it against the ascendancy of Rome. Yet he had only accentuated the bitterness of the sub- ject people. Besides having to contend against the religious prejudice and anti-English feeling of the natives and the greed of the English officials and colonists, he was also harsh, impatient of opposition, and high-handed in his methods. In order to keep Ireland to some degree dependent on England, he discouraged the wool manu- facture and kept salt as government monopoly. Moreover, he was guilty of unjust evictions in the province of Connaught. On the whole, he carried out in Ireland the rule of " thorough " * which he and Laud in their correspondence advocated for England. The Short Parliament (13 April-May, 1640). — In January, 1640, Wentworth was created Earl of Strafford. Influenced by his success with the Irish Parliament, he advised Charles to call an English Par- liament, which might grant the supplies needed to put down the Scots, or by its refusal give the King an excuse to act on his own authority. When the session opened, 13 April, all of the leading opponents of the royal policy were present. Although far from extreme in their attitude, they were determined upon redress of grievances, while the King insisted that a grant of supplies should come first. John Pym, a veteran who had sat in every Parliament since 16 14 and who, from the leadership which he now assumed, came to be known as " King Pym," opened with a stirring speech. In a masterly survey of the events of the session of 1629 and of the period of personal rule which followed, he summed up the popular complaints under three heads : breaches of parliamentary privilege ; innovations in religion ; and invasions of private property. Committees were appointed to consider each of these subjects. Finding that there was little chance of getting any money without concessions which he was un- willing to make, and that the Opposition leaders were treating with the Scots, Charles ordered a dissolution, 5 May. Although the Short Parliament only sat three weeks and did not pass a single meas- ure, its work was memorable ; for it brought the chiefs of the people together and gave them an opportunity to discuss and formulate the popular discontent against the Crown. Devices for Raising Money after the Short Parliament. — Straf- ford, in the Privy Council, held that, since Parliament had refused to 1 That is, carrying "through" a policy regardless of consequences. The two words meant the same in those days. PRECIPITATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 317 vote the required supplies, the King was " absolved from all rules of government." His violence and arbitrariness knew no bounds : he proposed that an army should be raised in Ireland to assist in re- ducing " this Kingdom" — whether Scotland or England is not quite cer- tain. Hampden, he declared, should be " well whipped into his right senses," for going to law about ship money. When the City refused a loan he proposed that some of the aldermen be hanged as examples. Ail sorts of expedients were tried to raise funds — ship money and its military equivalent, " coat and conduct " money for the equip- ment and transport of troops, were levied ; futile attempts were made to raise loans from Spain and the Pope ; while a proposal to debase the currency, known as " the abominable project of brass money," came to nothing. These and various other schemes proved as unproductive as they were unpopular. The Second Bishops' War, 1640. — On 23 August, Charles joined his army at York. It consisted mainly of pressed men, ill-equipped, discontented, Puritan in sentiment, and violently suspicious of its officers, many of whom were reputed Romanists. The Scots, having issued a manifesto declaring that they were merely seeking their rights, and that they were in full sympathy with the English, crossed the Border, brushed the King's forces aside, and occupied the two counties of Durham and Northumberland. In the face of the crisis Charles was forced to consent to summon another Parliament. Be- fore it assembled he called a Great Council of the Peers — the first of the sort since the reign of Edward III — to meet him, 24 September, at York. This body guaranteed a large loan and opened negotiations with the Scots at Ripon. It was finally agreed that the invaders should remain in possession of Durham and Northumberland and receive £850 a day until a definite peace was signed ; then the nego- tiations were transferred to London, where they were concluded the following August. On 28 October, 1640, the Great Council was dis- solved and a few days later Parliament met. FOR ADDITIONAL READING For narrative, constitutional, and special references, see ch. XXVII. Also Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution (1899), intro- duction, a good summary, and G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (1898). Biography. P. Gibbs, George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (1908) rather gossipy. I. A. Taylor, The Life of Queen Henrietta Maria (1905). Macaulay, essay on Hampden. Goldwin Smith, Three English Statesmen (1868), Pym, Cromwell, and Pitt. IT. D. Traill, Strafford (1889). W. H. *l8 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Hutton, Laud (1895). D. Masson, The Life of John Milton (6 vols., 1859- 1880) ; every other chapter is devoted to the general history of the times. Contemporary. Clarendon, History of the Great Rebellion (best ed. W. D. Macray, 6 vols., 1886), a literary and historical classic; but must be read with caution, owing to the inaccuracies and prejudices of the author. Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (best ed, C. H. Firth, 2 vols., 1885), a rather idealized picture of the highest type of Puritan gentleman. Peter Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus (1668), a life of Laud by an avowed admirer. Church. W. H. Hutton, History of the English Church from the Accession of Charles I to the Death of Anne (1903). Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland. Cambridge Modern History, IV. Turner, Joyce, and Bagwell. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 189-194. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 1-25. CHAPTER XXIX FROM THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT TO THE OUT- BREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR (i 640-1 642) The Opening of the Long Parliament. Temper and Aims. — The body which assembled, 3 November, 1640, came to be known as the Long Parliament and was destined to sit through years perhaps the most eventful in English history. While most of the men who had found seats in the Short Parliament were reelected in the autumn of 1640, the temper both of the members and of those who returned them had changed. Convinced by the developments of the intervening months that Charles and his councilors were conspiring to crush their religious and civil liberties and to introduce " Popery," they now de- termined not only to remove existing grievances, but to " pull up the causes of them by the roots." Even yet, however, their intentions were not revolutionary : they designed merely to make it impossible for the King to govern without a Parliament ; to do away with his arbitrary power of taxing and administering justice ; to safeguard Protestantism, and to punish the evil advisers whom they blamed for leading the King astray. While they were pretty generally agreed upon their political program, a split came on the religious question ; one party wanted to abolish Episcopacy outright, the other party wanted only to modify it. The inevitable conflict encouraged the shifty King to start intriguing again in order to recover what he had yielded, and convinced the extremists that there was no hope of peace and safety until Charles Stuart had ceased to live. The Opposition Leaders in the Commons Pym and Hampden. — The party chiefs who had succeeded Eliot and his fellows differed from their predecessors in organizing a great popular movement out- side the walls of Parliament. For years they had been meeting and maturing their plans in the country houses of wealthy peers and com- moners. When the Short Parliament revealed the temper of the nation they began to act. They entered into negotiations with the Scots ; they organized the petition for a new Parliament, and, during the autumn elections, they rode about the country influencing voters to choose Puritan representatives. Until his death, in December, 1643, 319 320 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the leading spirit in the popular opposition was John Pym. Added to unusual abilities as a debater and parliamentary tactician, he had rare gifts of popular management. According to his theory, Parlia- ment was the chief element in the constitutional life of the nation, of the two Houses the lower was superior, while the rights of the people transcended both. He never was a Republican, though events might have made him such had he lived. He was opposed to the Bishops, whom he regarded as agents of royal despotism ; but he advocated in place of Episcopal, not Presbyterian but Parliamentary control of the Church. Pym's closest associate and supporter was John Hamp- den, whom the Ship Money Case made a central figure in the struggles against the Crown. Hampden's influence was due as much to his high rank and to his character as to his abilities ; he was absolutely fearless, free from private ambition, and possessed of a wonderful ascend- ancy over men. Like Pym, he sought to bring about a reconciliation with Charles and his people rather than to do away with the Monarchy ; on the other hand, he gradually became an advocate of a " root and branch " extirpation of Episcopacy. Pym and Hampden were the cen- ters of a small group, forming the " engine which moved all the rest." Cromwell, Vane, and Hyde. — Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) who had entered the House of Commons in 1628, and represented Cambridge in the Short and Long Parliaments, was as yet notable chiefly for his religious zeal and his advocacy of Puritan liberty of preaching. The fact, however, that he was a cousin of Hampden brought him into intimate relation with the Opposition chiefs ; he soon became active on committees, and " very much hearkened unto." " Very ordinarily apparelled ... his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable," and fervid in utterance, he was a man of power rather than charm. Sir Harry Vane, almost a fanatic in his enthusiasm, was an extreme liberal in politics and an Independent in religion, but had both ability and great powers of leadership. Edward Hyde, later Earl of Clarendon, was one of the most active in securing the political reforms of the first session of the Long Parliament ; but he was too much attached to the Church and the prerogative to go fur- ther, so, as the tendencies of the extremists in Church and State be- came more and more evident, he joined the King's party and became the leader of the constitutional royalists. His History of the Great Rebellion, written mostly during his subsequent exile, is, in spite of its prejudices and errors of fact, the great classic of the period. The Puritan Peers. — There was a small but stanch body of Puri- tan leaders among the peers, a few of whom belonged to the little circle dominated by Pym and Hampden. Chief among them were the Earls FROM LONG PARLIAMENT TO OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR 3 21 of Essex and Manchester. The Earl of Essex, a son of Elizabeth's favorite, became the first commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army, but though actuated by a high sense of duty, he lacked asser- tiveness, his abilities were too slender for the difficult situation, and he soon had to make way for a leader of more robust fiber. The Earl of Manchester was " a sweet meek man " who for a time commanded the army of the Association of Eastern Counties, but was also forced into retirement for lack of vigor. Early Work of the Long Parliament. — Charles could not dismiss this Parliament nor could he resist its measures ; for it was absolutely necessary for him to obtain a grant, either to pay off the Scottish in- vaders or to raise another army to resist them. London became the center of stirring activity. Pamphlets on religion and politics and fervid sermons contributed to spread radical ideas and to rouse men to carry them into effect ; sects multiplied ; while mobs of howling apprentices and even of once sober tradesmen menaced the Court at Whitehall and fanned the zeal of Parliament at Westminster. As an act of tardy justice the victims of the Star Chamber prosecutions, Prynne, Leighton, and Lilburne, were released and welcomed in the City with every manifestation of joy. Parliament's valiant labors during the few months of its first session group themselves under three main heads: (1) proceedings against the King's evil councilors; (2) curtailing the royal powers of arbitrary taxation and administra- tion of justice ; (3) attempts at religious reforms. (1) Impeachments. The Trial and Execution of Strafford. — Parliament had sat just a week when Strafford, the " dark-browed apostate," whom the Commons regarded as the King's evil genius and their own most dangerous enemy, was impeached and placed in cus- tody. Other impeachments followed in swift succession. Some escaped, but Laud, " too old and brave to fly," was lodged in the Tower, whence he was taken four years later to the block. The charges against Strafford which the Commons sent to the House of Lords de- clared, in substance : that he had traitorously endeavored to subvert the laws of England and Ireland and to introduce arbitrary and ty- rannical government ; that he had advised the King to reduce his subjects in Scotland and England by force of arms ; and that he had tried to enlist " papists " in support of his political schemes. The trial began 22 March, 1641, in Westminster Hall, which was crowded with spectators. While it was easy to prove the accused Minister guilty of tyranny and contempt of the law, it was not possible to sub- stantiate the charge of treason. According to the existing law that was an offense that could be committed only against the King, and 322 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the King had approved of all that Strafford had done. The charge which underlay the various counts against the accused was treason against the nation — a new offense which had never been recognized by Statute. As the trial progressed the danger increased that he might escape after all, so those most bent on his destruction proposed that a Bill of Attainder — which required no evidence — be substituted for an impeachment ; though opposed at first by Pym and Hampden, the Bill passed the Commons, 21 April. Charles did everything in his power to block its further progress : he offered to dismiss the Earl, and even to give his consent to any punishment short of death penalty. But the mob which surged about Westminster demanded the head of " Black Tom the Tyrant," whose fate was sealed by the discovery of a plot, in which the Queen rashly engaged to bring the army down from York to overawe Parliament. In consequence of a dispute which arose between two factions of the royalist supporters, this "first army plot" was betrayed to the popular leaders; Pym seized a fitting moment to disclose the information, and the Lords, who had hitherto hesitated, voted the Attainder, 8 May. Charles withheld his signa- ture as long as he could, but pressed by deputations from both Houses and menaced by the armed dnd excited throng, he was obliged to sacrifice his Minister whom he had promised to protect. When the condemned Earl heard the decision, he exclaimed : " Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men, for in them is no salva- tion." On 12 May, 1641, receiving Laud's benediction as he passed, he proceeded dauntlessly and haughtily to his execution on Tower Hill. He had served the King faithfully and he was put to death without a warrant of law ; but he was a dangerous man who, had he been allowed to live, would have worked to destroy the liberties of the people and the lives of their leaders. (2) Remedial Legislation. — Meantime, Parliament had taken steps to curtail the King's arbitrary powers. On 16 February, 1641, a Triennial Bill became law, providing that henceforth Parliament should meet at least once in three years, a design to prevent such long inter-parliamentary intervals as had occurred under James and Charles. Another measure — aimed to stop for the future the sum- mary methods which Charles had employed to block Buckingham's impeachment and Eliot's resolutions — provided that Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent. The King gave his assent 1 1 May. Secured against interference with its work, Parliament proceeded to deal with taxation and the extraordinary courts. On 22 June, 1 641, a statute was passed granting tonnage and poundage for two months ; but providing that henceforth " no subsidy, FROM LONG PARLIAMENT TO OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR 323 custom, impost or other charge whatsoever " should be imposed except by consent of Parliament on merchandise imported or ex- ported. This was followed, 5 July, by an Act abolishing the Star Chamber, and greatly restricting the jurisdiction of the Council of Wales and the Marches. The High Commission was done away with by an Act which became law the same day. In August, ship money was declared illegal. Unhappily, Charles, in spite of his promises, refused to accept without a struggle the limitations thus imposed upon his sovereignty. He tried all manner of devices to recover the ground he had lost ; his wife, too, was fertile in suggesting expedients as rash as they were futile, while increasing dissension over the Church ques- tion offered him the hope of strengthening his party at the expense of his opponents. (3) The Attempt to Settle the Church Question. — Of the parties opposed to the existing Church of England it seemed for a time as if the Presbyterians would prevail. The Scotch commissioners for com- pleting the treaty of peace brought to London a number of preachers who at first received a favorable hearing; but the hotness of their proselyting zeal and the expense of maintaining the Scotch forces gradually made them unpopular with one section of the English popu- lar party. Throughout that party there was a general desire for a parliamentary regulation of the Church as well as the State, and for doing away with the Laudian innovations. Sharp differences of opinion, however, arose over the nature and extent of the changes to be undertaken ; there were many who demanded the abolition of Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer, while others would have been content with modifying the powers of the Bishops and alter- ing the liturgy. Among the extremists, or " root and branch " men, there were at least three groups : the parliamentary majority, led by Pym, wanted a Puritan State Church, controlled by parliamentary lay commissioners in place of Bishops ; a second group, made up of a few divines backed by the Scots, clamored for a Presbyterian establishment ; a third party, led by the London Independents, strove for congre- gational control of doctrine and worship. The issue was joined when, December, 1640, " a world of honest citizens in their best apparel " came to the House of Commons "in a very modest way " with a petition, containing 15,000 names, for the abolition of Episcopacy "with all its roots and branches." For months the whole Church question was debated earnestly but inconclusively, and one bill after another was introduced only to be rejected. The Second Army Plot and the " Incident." — The differences gave Charles " a majority in the Lords and a large minority in the 324 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Commons " ; but instead of fostering the moderate party, he allowed himself to be drawn into two wild and wholly irreconcilable schemes. One was to go to Scotland to attach himself to a party that was forming against the extreme Covenanters. At the same time, under the bane- ful influence of the Queen , Charles hopefully welcomed another attempt to bring the Yorkshire army to London. The Second Army Plot, which proved more futile than the first, served only to strengthen the suspicion against the King. He started for Scotland, 10 August, 1641, concealing his real purpose under the pretext that he was going to com- plete arrangements for the treaty of peace. While he evidently was not privy to a mad and futile plot — known as the " Incident " — for seizing the Covenanting leaders, he was suspected of complicity in it, which almost amounted to the same thing. The Ulster Rebellion (1641). — In the autumn of 1641 the news of a terrible rebellion in Ulster reached England. Freed from the iron grip of Strafford, chafing under the ascendancy of an ultra-Protestant Parliament, and infuriated by generations of accumulated grievances, the wild and ignorant peasantry, whom the leaders from the Celtic aristocracy could not or would not control, threw themselves on their enemies with barbarous cruelty. It is estimated that 5000 were massacred outright and that twice as many more perished from star- vation, exposure, fright, and other causes. Rumor exaggerated the victims to fabulous numbers, ranging from 40,000 to 300,000. The English, horrified and alarmed, attributed the outburst not to oppres- sion and extortion, but to the savagery of the Irish worked on by the teachings of the Church of Rome. Parliament and the people saw the need of recruiting a large army to deal with the situation, but the leaders feared to trust unreservedly any considerable force to the King, because it would give him just the weapon he needed to recover the power which he had been obliged to yield. So Pym carried a motion that Charles should either " employ such Councilors and Ministers as should be approved by his Parliament "or Parliament would raise an army subject to its own control, and as a means of appealing to the people in a more detailed and formal manner than they had yet done, he and his followers pushed through the celebrated Grand Remon- strance. The Grand Remonstrance (1641). — During the first week after the opening of the Long Parliament a motion had been introduced to draw up such a remonstrance to the King " as should be a faithful and lively representation of the state of the kingdom." It was August, however, before the proposal was adopted, and the discussion might have dragged on interminably if the Rebellion had not brought the IREIiAND SINCE THE ACCESSION OF THE STUARTS SCALE OF ENGLISH MILES 20 40 CO 80 100 West 7 from 6 Greenwich 5 ' &Ct). l ENafi'8,N.Y t FROM LONG PARLIAMENT TO OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR 325 matter to a head. The Remonstrance finally passed the Commons, 22 November, and was shortly after presented to the King and printed. Although addressed to the Crown, the Grand Remonstrance was, in reality as well as in intention, an " appeal to the nation," a statement of the case of the Commons against the King. It consists of a pre- amble and 204 clauses, which trace in considerable detail the King's misgovernment, from his accession to the meeting of the Long Parlia- ment ; describe the abuses which the Commons had abolished since the opening of the session, the reforms which they had prepared and effected and the obstacles they had met with ; explain and defend the scheme of the Church reform of the parliamentary leaders ; and outline the other remedial measures demanded — the establishment of safeguards against Roman Catholicism, of securities for the better administration of justice, and the choice of such Ministers as Parlia- ment might have cause to confide in. Its Significance. — The document is of the deepest significance. It presents a condensed but adequate history of the reign from the standpoint of the parliamentary opposition, it is a clear, concise state- ment of the case of the popular party, and, finally, it caused a breach in the opposition ranks resulting in the formation of a party of con- stitutional royalists who encouraged the King to continue the struggle. The earlier clauses denouncing past misgovernment were not opposed. The fight began over the recommendation for Church reform and waxed bitter over the question of printing, which meant submitting the whole matter to the people. Members shouted, waved their hats, and even drew their swords. During the factional fights which followed the names " Cavalier " and " Roundhead " first came to be employed. The Attempted Arrest of the Five Members. — Charles returned from Scotland late in November, 1641. Deceived by the splendor of his reception in the City and encouraged by the split in the parlia- mentary ranks, he not only returned an unsatisfactory answer to the petition, but sharpened the issue by various ill-advised acts. On 3 January, 1642, in order to rid himself of his most dangerous oppo- nents, he ordered the Attorney-General to impeach five members of the House of Commons, including Pym and Hampden x — charged with subverting the fundamental laws of England and inviting a foreign power to invade the Kingdom. Egged on by his wife, Charles went the next day with an armed force to seize them in person. Warned of his intention, the accused members had fled by boat to the City, and, when Charles asked if they were in the House , the Speaker Lenthall 1 This was a most irregular proceeding, for impeachment had hitherto never originated except in the Lower House. The name of one peer was afterward added. 326 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN humbly evaded the question with the memorable words: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." Charles answered : " Well, I see all the birds are flown," and went away pursued by cries of " Privilege, privilege ! " The incident was regarded as one of tremendous import. If the leaders of the party of reform were to be treated as traitors, and if the sacred precincts of the Commons could be invaded by the Sovereign with an armed force at his heels, there was little hope of any safeguarding the liberties of the subject in a peaceful parliamentary way. The Struggle for the Control of the Kingdom. — Five days after his failure to arrest the members, Charles withdrew with his family from London, never again to enter his capital except as a prisoner. The next six months were occupied in a struggle between Parliament and the Crown for the control of arsenals, fortresses, militia, and other military resources of the Kingdom. Parliament saw no other way to guarantee the political and religious liberties of the people, while the King realized that he could only maintain his sovereignty by frustrating their efforts. The Opening of the War (22 August, 1642). — Parliament, 2 June, sent him nineteen Propositions embodying their final demands, which included : parliamentary control of the army and of appointments to important political and judicial offices, the suppression of Roman Catholicism, and the reform of the government and liturgy of the Church as Parliament should advise. Refusing to accept these terms, Charles hastened preparations for war. Parliament did the like : they chose a committee of both Houses to provide for the safety of the Kingdom, they voted an army, and appointed the Earl of Essex Captain-General. Further futile negotiations followed. Then Charles marched south toward London from York, where his headquarters were. On 22 August he raised his standard at Nottingham and the Civil War was begun. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See chs. XXVII, XXVIII. Also H. L. Schoolcraft, The Genesis of the Grand Remonstrance (1902) an excellent study; John Forster, The Debates on the Grand Remonstrance (i860) and The Arrest of the Five Members (i860). J. A. R. Marriott, Life and Times of Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland (1907). John Stoughton, History of Religion in England (6 vols., 1881) from the Nonconformist standpoint. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 195-206. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 26-56. CHAPTER XXX FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR TO THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I (1642-1649) The Aim of the Popular Leaders in the Civil War. — Even now that the issue was joined, the guiding aim of the parliamentary leaders was still merely so to restrict the powers of the Crown that the people they represented might be secure in their civil and re- ligious liberties. The war which followed, and the resulting execu- tion of the King, came from a final realization of the fact that Charles would not submit to any considerable loss of his powers, and that he was conspiring in every possible way to recover the ground which he had been forced to yield. The events of the past year had marked a decided advance in the parliamentary demands. Barring the settlement of the religious situation, the great mass of the mem- bers, in the autumn of 1641, had been satisfied with depriving the King of the extraordinary judicial powers acquired since the accession of the Tudors; with securing control of the supplies; with guarantee- ing frequent sessions and the duration of the existing body until its work was done. By June, 1642, they found it necessary to demand safeguards against Episcopacy and Roman Catholicism, and con- trol of the military, judicial, and administrative machinery of the Government. While, during the struggle, Episcopacy and Monarchy were temporarily overthrown, it was only as a means to an end — to preserve Protestantism and the law. The Numbers and Grouping of the Combatants. — The zealous fighters on either side, however, were in a small minority. Many who had resisted the King in his encroachments against their liberties and property hesitated to draw their swords against him when the fatal moment of decision came. Fear of anarchy and dread of Puri- tan supremacy weighed heavily with numbers of them ; another power- ful check was a deep-rooted instinct of loyalty to Monarchy. The nobles generally took the King's side, though enough, like Essex and Manchester, fought against him " to make rebellion respectable." 327 328 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN While the majority of the gentry also stood by the King, a consider- able minority were to be found in the parliamentary ranks. Of the small freeholders or yeomen the greater part in the east and midlands were Parliament men ; the royalist following among this class was strongest in the west. As a general rule, the trading classes in the towns were strong for Parliament. The laboring classes were mostly indifferent, only fighting when they were pressed, or when it was neces- sary to defend their poor homes and their goods and chattels. The Anglican clergy were stanch in their royalism, as were the Univer- sities, more especially Oxford, which was, during the greater portion of the war, the King's headquarters. Most of the great Catholic families also threw in their lot with the Crown. Territorial Distribution of Parliamentarians and Royalists. — The north, the west, and the extreme southwest, the stronghold of royal- ism, were largely agricultural and pastoral, economically backward and under the control of landed magnates. The most productive agri- cultural regions and the bulk of the commerce and manufactures were in the south and east, the centers of advanced religious and political sentiment. Roughly, a line from Hull to Southampton separated the royal from the parliamentary districts, though ports and marts of trade like Bristol, Gloucester, and Plymouth in the royalist country were for Parliament. Resources of men and money were very unequally distributed, the parliamentary territory con- taining more than three quarters of the wealth of the entire coun- try. Here the rich and populous London, an incalculable source of strength, was situated. But, although there were general lines of cleavage socially and territorially, " the war was not one of classes or districts but of ideas." Outside England, Charles sought aid in various directions ; but with ill-success. In attempting to ally himself with the Irish Catholics he lost more than he gained, because of the opposition which he excited among his English subjects. In Scotland the Earl of Montrose led the wild Highland clans valiantly but vainly in his cause. The Queen was tireless in her intrigues with Continental Powers: for one reason or another none could or would do much ; but the Catholic powers were particularly reluctant to furnish assistance unless Charles changed his faith. The Revenues of the Two Parties. — Parliament collected the King's taxes and the rents from the royal estates in the districts which they controlled ; also, since the navy took their side, they se- cured the customs duties. But they derived the bulk of their revenue from an excise, or inland revenue duty, and a direct assessment on lands and goods, apportioned in the various counties each month. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 329 Charles, for his part, had to subsist largely on plunder and gifts from his devoted followers. Having little ready money and able to col- lect only a portion of their normal rents, most of them were sooner or later reduced to melting their plate and sacrificing their jewels. The Two Armies. — Parliament directed its side of the war through a Committee of Safety until 1643, when they united with the Scotch. Thenceforth, Scotch representatives were admitted, and the name was changed to the Committee of Both Kingdoms. There was no standing army or professional soldiery : the forces consisted of volun- teers, pressed men, and county militia or " trained bands," of which the trained bands — with the notable exception of those from Lon- don — were the least satisfactory. Since they were changed at every muster they were always raw and inexperienced, besides being un- willing to march outside their own counties. The best service was rendered by volunteer forces raised by private persons for the King or Parliament. In some cases, groups of counties banded together to put an army into the field, the most famous being the Eastern Association, whose levies rendered notable service. At first the Parliamentary party suffered from the lack of a com- petent commander : indeed, most of their earlier generals were chosen because of their social position rather than their military capacity. The King was head of the Royal forces, but he was slow and irreso- lute, while his nephew Rupert, 1 who began as commander of horse and, toward the close of the war, became General-in Chief, was a dash- ing cavalry leader, but utterly without caution and restraint. At the opening of the struggle both the sides made the mistake of under- rating their opponents. The Parliamentarians saw in the King's men a body of mincing courtiers and profane swaggerers, while the Royalists contemned their enemies as shopkeepers and clodhoppers. Cromwell, however, after the first real encounter recognized the mis- take his side was making, and said to Hampden with shrewd pene- tration : " Your troops are, most of them, old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and their troops are gentle- men's sons, younger men and persons of quality ; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honor and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of a spirit, and, take it not ill what I say ... of a spirit that will go on as far as the gentlemen will go or you will be beaten still." In cavalry the Royalists had the initial advantage, for the gentry were used to riding, hunting, and martial exercises, and exacted implicit obedience from the tenantry who served under 1 A son of the Count Palatine Frederick. 330 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN them. The infantry were about double the number of cavalry. Their weapons were supposed to be the pike and the musket, but many had nothing but pitchforks and cudgels, while a few appeared with the primitive bow and arrow. The Parliamentary artillery, greatly developed by Cromwell, proved very effective in reducing Royalist strongholds after the King had been overcome. The Plan of War. — In the early stages of the war neither side had any consistently executed plan of campaign. Charles's main aim was to recover London, while Parliament at first aimed merely to gain as much territory as possible, and to that end its armies wandered aimlessly about the country. It was only after the rise of Fairfax and Cromwell that a definite plan was adopted — the defeat of the King in battle and the capture of his person. Want of money, lack of discipline, and absence of enthusiasm on the part of the rank and file hampered both sides, and numberless petty en- gagements resulted, which exhausted their energies and obscured the larger features of the struggle. The Campaign of 1642. — From Nottingham, Charles marched west to recruit his slender forces and supplies. Essex followed him slowly. Suddenly the King turned back, with his pursuer hard on his heels, and made for London. At Edgehill, in Warwickshire, the first serious encounter of the war took place, 23 October, 1642. The result was a drawn battle, the chief consequence of which was to convince Crom- well that his party could accomplish nothing with such a miscel- laneous lot, whereupon he went off to the eastern counties to or- ganize his famous troop of Ironsides. Essex pressed on to London, while Charles established himself at Oxford, which he made his head- quarters during the remainder of the war. Before the close of the year he made one more vain attempt to reach the capital ; but his failure was counterbalanced by the success of Royalist forces in the southwest and the north. The Campaign of 1643. — The Royalists, in the campaign of 1643, again made London the objective point, planning to approach and surround the City from three directions. The Earl of Newcastle was to force his way from Yorkshire through the hostile eastern coun- ties and take up a position on the north bank of the Thames, a con- tingent from Devon and Cornwall was to march through the south- ern counties, occupy Kent, and thus threaten the City from that di- rection, while Charles, with the Oxford army recruited from Wales and the west Midlands, was to approach between them and com- plete the line of investment. But this well-devised plan, in spite of some preliminary successes, was frustrated mainly by the narrow 80BMAY i CO.. FN9R/S. H.t. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 331 fears and selfishness of the local levies and the Parliamentary control of the ports. The Yorkshiremen would not move from home while Hull remained in the hands of the enemy ; the men of the south were of the same mind about Plymouth, and Charles found it impossible to lead his forces from the west until he had made an attempt to re- duce Gloucester, which commanded the navigation of the Severn. Newcastle's Failure in the Eastern Counties. Cromwell's " Iron- sides." — During the spring and early summer Newcastle with his northern army won for Charles practically the whole land from the Scotch border to the Humber, except Hull. Then he led his unwill- ing forces into the counties of the Eastern Association, a district which, because of its wealth and tough Puritan stock, formed the backbone of the Parliamentary cause. Here Cromwell was laboring to organize a force of men of real ideals, strengthened by effective drill and held together by adequate and regular pay. His famous regiment of horse — the " Ironsides" — which was his particular' creation, is almost unique in the history of warfare. Almost exclu- sively men of substance, largely freeholders, none were included but " those who had the fear of God before them and made some con- science of what they did," yet, so long as they were Protestants who were not " prelatists," x Cromwell did not care what their sect might be. Terrible against the enemy, they studiously refrained from plunder and all manner of cruelty toward non-combatants. Crom- well not only commanded their respect by his military ability and his political and religious principles, but won their warm affection by his " familiar, rustic carriage," his love of merriment and fondness for rough games. The new regiment first showed its strength by repuls- ing Newcastle in a cavalry skirmish 25 July, 1643. Though they were obliged to retreat when the latter's whole army came up, the reluctant temper of his forces obliged the Royalist general to turn back, and, after a brief and unsuccessful siege of Hull, he retired to York. Meantime, Parliament had sent Manchester into the Asso- ciated Counties with a commission to raise 10,000 foot and 5000 horse to be paid for out of the national taxes. The Royalists from the South and West Likewise Fail to Reach London. — In the southwest, the Royalists succeeded in overrunning Devon, Wiltshire, and Dorset ; but since Plymouth, supported by a parliamentary fleet, held out persistently, the Cornishmen refused to inarch to Kent. In the west, Essex, whose army was steadily wasted by sickness and desertion, conducted a desultory and ineffective campaign centering about Oxford. In spite of the ineptitude of the 1 That is, supporters of the Episcopal system. 332 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Parliamentarians the Royalist forces would not march on London until Gloucester was captured; so, 10 August, Charles encamped before the city. In spite of the efforts of a strong peace party Essex was provided with a force of 15,000, from the London trained bands, to raise the siege of Gloucester. Charles, withdrawing at their approach, sought to block their return to London, and a fierce but indecisive battle was fought near Newbury, 20 September, 1643. The King's powder having given out, he slipped away during the night, leaving the London road open to his enemy. The Solemn League and Covenant (1643). — Meantime, Parliament had completed an alliance with " their brethren of Scotland " that marked the turning point of the war. By the Solemn League and Covenant, finally accepted by both Houses, 25 September, 1643, the subscribers agreed to preserve the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterianism), to reform religion in England and Ire- land, and " to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity " ; to extirpate " Popery, prelacy . . . and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of Godliness " ; and to " preserve the rights and privileges of Parliament and the liberties of the Kingdoms." The Scots contracted to provide an army, for the support of which the English Parliament agreed to furnish £30,000 a month. Their as- sistance assured the victory of Parliament, yet at the same time their entrance into the struggle sharpened the differences between Pres- byterians, Independents, 1 and those who advocated parliamentary control of religion — differences which encouraged the King to per- severe in fighting and intrigue until he finally lost his head. The Deaths of Pym and Hampden (1643). — The alliance was mainly the work of Pym and was his last great undertaking; for, worn out with his arduous labors, he died, 8 December, 1643. In him the cause lost a matchless leader, as it had lost a wise counselor in Hampden, mortally wounded at Chalgrove Field in the previous June. They were sadly missed in the troubles soon to break out between the military chiefs and the Houses. The Westminster Assembly. — As soon as it was decided to ask military aid of the Scots, reform of the Church on a Presbyterian basis became a " political necessity," and an assembly for that pur- pose met at Westminster Abbey, 1 July, 1643, nearly two months before the formal ratification of the Solemn League and Covenant. This body, made up of representative English divines, peers and com- moners, together with Scotch commissioners, continued in formal 1 Advocates of congregational church government. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 333 session till 22 February, 1649. One fruit of its labors, the Westminster Confession, though never accepted by Parliament, remains the form of belief in the Presbyterian Church to-day, while the system of Church government — on the Presbyterian model — which it formulated was accepted by Parliament, with the qualification that it should be under the control of a standing committee of the Houses. Although partially established in some counties, the final triumph of the army under Cromwell, who stood for Independency and toleration against Scotch clerical Parliamentary domination, and who aimed to unite all Protestants who would fight against the King, prevented the system from ever becoming national. Marston Moor (2 July, 1644). — Although at the beginning of 1644 Charles was still master of two thirds of the Kingdom, he weakened his forces by trying to garrison all the territories which he held, while his supplies and equipment were rapidly melting away. On the other hand, though the taxpayers grumbled, the Parliamentary troops were well provided and were learning their trade in the exacting school of experience. In January, 1644, the Scots under the veteran Earl of Leven crossed the Tweed with 18,000 foot and 3000 horse. New- castle, who had only 5000 foot and 3000 horse, shut himself up in York. In April, Leven, joined by a Parliamentary army under the Fairfaxes, father and son, sat down before the city, where in June, they were re- inforced by the army of the Eastern Association under Manchester, with Cromwell as lieutenant-general commanding the horse. On the approach of Rupert, whom Newcastle had summoned to his relief, the Parliamentarians raised the siege and took up a position near Long Marston, somewhat west of York, to bar his road. But Rupert " by a dashing maneuver " circled round them, entered the city from the north, and, 2 July, came out and offered battle at Marston Moor, the bloodiest contest of the whole war. 1 For five hours, in the long twilight of a summer evening, the combat raged. While the soldiers fought magnificently, it was mainly Cromwell who plucked the victory from the enemies' hands, and he earned here from Rupert the name of " Ironsides," later transferred to his famous regiment. Cromwell himself attributed the success to " the Lord's blessing on the Godly party principally." Though Rupert escaped with 6000 horse, the rest of the Royalist army was broken up, York surrendered and the land north of the Trent was lost to the King. This decisive victory for Cromwell and the " Godly party " marked a decided breach in the anti-royalist ranks; fearing that the extremists might become 1 The united Parliamentary armies numbered 20,000 foot and 7000 horse, the Royalists, about the same number of horse, and 11,000 foot. 334 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN dominant, Leven, Manchester, and Lord Fairfax before they parted sent a joint letter to the Committee of both Kingdoms recommending the establishment of Presbyterianism and peace with the King. Surrender of Essex's Army (2 September, 1644). — The Presbyterian wing were all the more uneasy because, in the late summer, Charles succeeded in bottling up the army of Essex on the Devon coast ; while Essex escaped by boat and his cavalry managed to break through, his infantry were forced to surrender, 2 September. In London the disappointment was bitter, for it looked as if the great gain in the north was to be altogether neutralized. Charles, however, was not able to profit by his success, for his supplies were short and his troops were mutinous. On his way north he was intercepted by a Parliamentary army, twice the size of his own, made up of many elements, includ- ing the army of the Eastern Association which came down from the north. In the second battle of Newbury which ensued, 27 October, 1644, Cromwell was completely victorious, but owing to the inert- ness of Manchester, the King was able to slip off to Oxford in the night. Cromwell's Plan for Remodeling the Army. The Self-denying Ordinance. — Cromwell saw that it was necessary to get rid of generals like Essex and Manchester before the cause which he had at heart could prevail. Accordingly, he made a speech in the House of Com- mons in which he laid the whole blame for the failure to capture Charles and his army at Newbury on Manchester, who was not only ineffective but professedly half-hearted. Cromwell and his supporters, vigorously opposing a considerable element who were vainly striving to arrange terms with the King, saw that, in addition to getting rid of incompe- tent and unenthusiastic leaders, they must reorganize the whole army into an effective fighting machine, well paid, equipped and disciplined, consisting of spirited, zealous troops and unhampered by Presbyterian tests. He saw that the first essential was to beat the King in the field and to postpone the settlement of other questions until that was ac- complished. At his suggestion the Self-denying Ordinance, providing that the members of either House should throw down their commands, military and civil, was introduced into the Commons, 9 December, 1644. Meantime, by the New Model Ordinance, the Commons had directed the Committee of both Kingdoms " to consider of a frame and model of the whole militia," recommending an army of 14,000 foot and 7600 horse to be " regularly paid from taxes assessed on those parts of the country which were suffering least from the war." Sir Thomas Fairfax, a young and capable officer unattached to any sect or party, was named Commander-in-Chief in place of Essex. The New OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 335 Model Ordinance passed the Lords 15 February, while the Self-deny- ing Ordinance became law, 3 April. No provision had been made against the reappointment to office of members of Parliament who had resigned, and 10 June Cromwell became lieutenant-general. The New Model Army. — It was so difficult to secure volunteers for the infantry that 8500 men had to be pressed. The cavalry were of a much finer type, while the officers in both branches of the service, though some rose from humble rank, were generally of good family and godly men. Gradually their zeal, guided by Fairfax and Crom- well, welded together an irresistible force, which grew steadily in strength and discipline as the King's forces fell more and more into weakness and disorder. The Battle of Naseby (14 June, 1645). The King a Fugitive. — Forthwith, Fairfax and Cromwell started to overcome the King. They found him wandering about the Midlands, desirous of joining Mont- rose, who was righting for him in Scotland, and yet hesitating to leave his base at Oxford. The decisive battle was fought at Naseby, 14 June, 1645. Charles managed to escape with half his cavalry to the Welsh border ; he still had an army in the southwest ; he held many strong places; he hoped to bring together his scattered forces, and, with the aid of the Irish, to be " in a far better condition before winter than he had been at any time since this rebellion began." But, though he eluded capture for nearly a year and though some of his supporters held out even longer, his cause was doomed. Montrose in Scotland (1644, 1645). — For a time Charles rested great hopes in Montrose, who, beginning 1 September 1644, had a year of triumph, gaining battle after battle. But the Highlanders, who composed the bulk of his army, were keener on booty and ven- geance against hostile clans than they were on restoring the power of the King. After each victory numbers of them would disperse to their mountain glens to deposit their spoil. With such an unstable following it was impossible to achieve permanent results ; moreover, the Covenanters, who opposed him on religious grounds, were steadily reinforced by those who were infuriated by the pillaging of his un- controllable hordes. At length, 13 September, 1645, he was defeated and forced to flee. Charles Intrigues with the Irish (1642- 1645). — Charles had also counted much on support from Ireland. In order to secure religious concessions the Roman Catholics desired to come to terms, while Charles was anxious to release for service in England the army which the Marquis of Ormonde was commanding against them, and even nourished a mad hope of employing Irish troops in England. When 336 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the Irish finally insisted upon freedom of worship and the repeal of the laws rejecting papal jurisdiction, the King, knowing that Ormonde, who was a Protestant, would listen to no such terms, sent the Catholic Earl of Glamorgan with vague instructions to treat behind the back of the Lord Lieutenant. Glamorgan arrived, 25 August, 1645 ; and, although the Irish even increased their original demands, he signed a secret treaty granting all they asked. A copy of this treaty was dis- covered and published and Glamorgan was arrested ; notwithstanding Charles's disavowal of this arrangement, he was unable to clear him- self from suspicion, nor had he got the least help for all risk he had run. The Queen, who had again gone abroad in November, 1644, was equally unsuccessful with the Continental Powers. The End of the First Civil War (1646). — Without any prospect of foreign help, it was only a question of time how long Charles and his few remaining adherents could hold out. On 10 July, 1645, his last field army was overcome at Langport in the southwest, and it only remained to reduce the garrisons and to secure the territories held by remnants of the royal forces. When the news of one reverse after an- other had reached him, Charles finally left Oxford, 25 April, 1646. The Scotch had offered their mediation, and, finally deciding to trust such vague assurances as they were willing to offer, he rode, 5 May, into their camp at Newark, which he only left as a prisoner. With the surrender of Oxford, 24 June, the first Civil War was practically over, though a few isolated castles held out for some time longer. State of Parties at the Close of the War in 1646. — During the three years from the beginning of Charles's captivity to his death, in 1649, he was occupied in tortuous and futile intrigues to recover his liberty and his authority. The divided state of parties offered him at least a prospect of success. He could still count on a small body of English Royalists who were ever ready to fight again if they got the chance, and he still nourished hopes in the Irish Catholics with whom he was constantly in communication. Parliament, which had begun the strug- gle in behalf of popular liberties, was pledged to Presbyterianism, 1 and had of late come to be chiefly concerned with stemming the rising power of Cromwell and the Army, mainly Independents and advocates of toleration for all Protestant sects. It only widened the breach when the Army became convinced of the necessity of doing away with the Monarchy. The Scots, whose chief aim was to preserve their religion at home and to extend it in England, naturally ranged themselves with 1 In spite of 150 new members known as the "Recruiters," who had been elected to fill the vacancies caused by the desertion of the Royalists, the Presbyterians were still in the majority. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 337 Parliament against the Army. The bulk of the English people were anxious for peace. Pushed into the struggle by the fervor of the minority, they had undergone much loss and suffering, from the in- evitable disorganization of trade, from increased taxes, and, in spite of the relatively humane character of the war, from plundering and pillaging. Parliamentary Intolerance. — Notwithstanding the tireless in- trigues of the King, it might have been possible to have effected a settlement if the Commons had not failed to realize the need of recon- ciling either the Royalists or the Army. To win over the former, it was essential to grant them a measure of toleration and to show some tenderness in the matter of their estates. Instead of that, the dominant party agreed that the " Prayer Book was an abominable idol in the land," and f 01 bade it by law, while 2000 of the Anglican clergy were expelled from their benefices. Furthermore, certain Royalists were al- together exempted from pardon, while hosts of others were punished by the total or partial forfeiture of their estates. Regrettable and impolitic as was its treatment of the vanquished Royalists, it was the height of folly and ingratitude for Parliament to oppose the Army who had fought and won its battles. Yet the wrong-headed majority made repeated attempts to come to terms with the King, to get rid of the Army, and to suppress the sects that Cromwell had fostered. Many of the Parliamentary leaders were embittered from the fact that they had been excluded from the Army by the Self-denying Or- dinance, though they really wanted to cut down military expenses, and by persecuting the religious and political extremists, chiefly in the Army and among its supporters, they were at least partially sincere in their hope to check disorder and confusion, to strengthen their hold on the sober Roundhead element, and to placate, somewhat, the mod- erate Cavaliers to whom they denied the Prayer Book. The Scots Deliver the King to Parliament, January (1647). — While the King, since the autumn before his captivity, had been treating secretly both with Parliament and the Scots, he refused to concede anything more than a toleration for their religion, since like his father, he believed that " the nature of Presbyterian government is to steal the crown from the King's head." Indeed, he frankly told the Scots that he would rather lose his crown than his soul. For this reason, and because he refused to agree to Parliamentary control of the Army and Navy, the negotiations with Parliament ended in failure. At the same time, he alienated the Scots by his unwillingness to take the Covenant. As a result, the Scots drew closer to Parliament, and in January, 1647, they delivered up the King in return for payment of 338 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN arrears of pay and of the expenses which they had incurred in the war just closed. Parliament and the Army. — Parliament, with the King in their hands, thought that if they could manage to disband the New Model, they might force their terms upon him and secure a Presbyterian settlement. The Army refused to agree, except upon their own terms — toleration, indemnity for past acts, and arrears of pay — ■ terms to which Parliament would not listen, though later they offered a grudging concession of arrears. In order to work more effectively, each of the regiments of the New Model chose two agents, called " agitators," l who, in combination with the council of the generals, acted as a rival representative body to Parliament. Since Fairfax had no strong religious convictions or ability in statesmanship, the burden of leader- ship fell on Cromwell, who from his seat in Parliament and from his place in the Army Council, strove to be a peacemaker, urging con- cession on one hand and obedience on the other. It was only after long hesitation that he made .up his mind to extreme measures, and then he acted with his customary decision and energy. The Army Secure the King and March to London. — On 31 May, 1647, ne sent Cornet Joyce and a troop of soldiers, who tore the King from his Parliamentary captors and took him to Newmarket, where the Army was then quartered. Charles went willingly, for, having failed to arrange terms with Parliament, he was glad to try his chances with the Army, who after a solemn engagement not to disband until they had obtained satisfactory concessions, began to draw toward London. They entered the capital, 6 August, still further embittered against Parliament, who, under the pressure of a city mob, had re- voked such concessions as they had at length reluctantly consented to grant. The Heads of Proposals (1647). — Meantime, the Army chiefs had sought to come to terms with the King, offering to restore him to the throne and to accept Episcopacy if he would grant toleration. The scheme of the saner element was formulated in the " Heads of Pro- posals," sketched by Cromwell's son-in-law, General Ireton, 17 July, 1647, and later amended by the Army Council. While allowing Par- liament adequate powers for the control of the Sovereign and the administration of the government, it provided checks against Parlia- mentary omnipotence, and outlined a series of reforms by which the people should have more voice in public affairs and a more adequate representation. Special precautions were taken to safeguard religious liberty against Presbyterian intolerance. It was a farsighted, states- 1 From an old word meaning "to act." The form "adjutator" is erroneous. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 339 manlike plan, but it was in advance of the times and failed to satisfy either party : it was too democratic and too tolerant for the Royalist, and too conservative and too balanced for the extremist. The Transformation in the Army. — In the debates in the Army Council, Ireton took the lead. Cromwell, keen as he was in seeing the needs of the moment and swift in action, was not inclined to look far into the future. It was only when he came to realize that the re- ligious freedom which he and his companions had won at the risk of their lives could never be secure so long as Charles Stuart remained King, that he made up his mind to dispose of him and of his royal office. Ireton and many others saw, long before he did, that Charles was only playing parties off one against another until he could raise a sufficient force for a second Civil War. At first, the zealots in the New Model were chiefly in the cavalry; the infantry, largely pressed men and hirelings, contained many men who, although not deep grounded in their convictions, were rather inclined to support Presbyterianism and Parliament. A number of causes, however, tended to alter their temper. For one thing, the denial of their reason- able requests alienated them from Parliament. Then the Presbyterian chaplains, as a rule, left their regiments to enter the livings from which the Episcopal clergy had been expelled, and the preachers who remained, together with the officers, exerted a steadily growing influence ; further- more, many volunteers flocked in to replace the pressed men, infecting with their enthusiasm those who remained. Rise of Democratic Opinion in the Army. — The political trans- formation was equally striking. Indeed, in this period English demo- cratic opinion took rise. Evolved by certain advanced thinkers, it was first voiced in the debates in the Army Council, and quickly per- meated the whole body. Formulated in plans for a written consti- tution which failed to survive, these fundamental ideas of democracy — equality of opportunity for every man, and government by the people as well as for the people, or universal manhood suffrage — after lying dormant for a century and more, came to the front in the American and French Revolutions. Extremists declared that they would have no more kings or lords — " the meanest man in England," they insisted, " had the right to a share in the election of his rulers." Since leaders in the battle for liberty had hitherto based their claims on constitutional precedents — on the birthright of Englishmen — it marked a new and significant departure when Colonel Rainsborough appealed to the natural rights of man. " The poorest he that is in England," he said, with quaint directness, "hath a life to live as the greatest he. And, therefore . . . it's clear that every man that is to live under a 340 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government." Republicanism and universal suffrage, however, were not the ideals of the majority of Englishmen of that day ; fearing that only confusion and anarchy would result, many even of the Army leaders, with Cromwell in the vanguard, fought strenuously to preserve the law of the land. Yet the men whom they condemned as vision- aries and fanatics, and who were unable to make their views prevail at that time, were contending for principles which are the bone and sinew of modern political life. On the other hand, the more conservative members of the party of political and religious progress were wise in their efforts to hold the radicals in check, for revolutions, unless they are carefully guided, are bound to be wrecked by their very excesses. As it was, all sorts of queer sects and parties grew and multiplied. The " Engagement." — In November, 1647, Charles fled to the Isle of Wight where, 26 December, he signed with the Scots, a treaty known as the " Engagement," by which he undertook to allow a Presbyterian settlement for three years, on condition that the Church should, at the end of that period, be regulated by himself and the Houses. In return, the Scots agreed to support the King's demand for the disbandment of the Army, and, if this were refused, to publish a manifesto, as a preliminary to invading England, asserting certain royal prerogatives, including the " negative voice " x and control over the militia and the great offices of State. It is practically certain that Charles had no intention of binding himself permanently by the Engagement ; for the moment, however, he was all for the Scots, and adopted such an uncompromising attitude toward Parliament that they broke off all negotiations with him. The Second Civil War (1648). — The King counted on a Royalist reaction to support the Scottish invasion, and there was much in the situation to encourage his hopes. Among moderate men respect for Parliament was steadily diminishing, with some because of its ineffect- iveness, with others because of its intolerance ; many more were fright- ened at the prospect of Army rule ; while the austerity of Puritanism offered a most unlovely prospect to the pleasure-loving Englishman. Yet it was one thing to manifest discontent, and quite another to join in rebellion; accordingly, the mass of the people, during the Second Civil War, " looked on in bewildered neutrality." Presbyterian sol- diers in some garrisons declared for the King, and so did the more pronounced Cavaliers; but there were no considerable risings except in Wales, Kent, and Essex. The result was fatal to the King ; for the crisis brought Parliament and the Army together once more and healed 1 I.e. the royal veto power. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 341 the breach between Cromwell and the extremists. On his way to quell the outbreak in Wales, Cromwell met the Agitators at Windsor, where at a solemn prayer meeting, lasting three days, it was resolved that : "it was our duty if ever the Lord brought us back in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed, and the mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's cause and the people in these poor nations." Easily suppressing the rising in Wales, Cromwell was free to march against the Scots, who had crossed the Border, 8 July. They consisted only of extreme Royal- ists, for there was another Scotch party who would not fight for a mon- arch who refused the Covenant. Cromwell intercepted the invaders in Lancashire, and made short work of them in the three days running fight of Preston, Wigan, and Warrington, 17-19 August, while Fairfax crushed out the revolts in Kent and Essex. All Charles's plans had miscarried, and he was soon to meet the fate which the Army leaders had voiced in their prayer. Pride's Purge. — For the moment, however, the old discord and intrigues were resumed. Though Parliament had joined with the Army in the face of pressing danger, they still were fearful of religious and political radicalism, and were even yet ready to restore the King if he would agree to Presby terianism and aid them to suppress the sects. When, with this end in view, they resumed negotiations with him, in September, 1648, the Army proceeded to act with decision. They issued a remonstrance, drawn up by Ireton, declaring that it was im- possible to devise terms that would bind the King, and that it was just to execute him as a traitor for his attempts to turn a limited into an absolute monarchy ; 1 December they removed him to a lonely for- tress on the Hampshire coast, and appealed from the existing Par- liament " unto the extraordinary judgement of God and his people." The House of Commons continued so defiant that, 6 December, 1648, Colonel Pride was sent with a force of soldiers who, when the Commons appeared for the day's session, turned back those known to oppose the Army and arrested those who resisted. The " Rump " that remained after Pride's Purge was in no sense a representative body, but merely a group of members depending for their places on the support of the soldiers. That evening, Cromwell returned from the north, and, from this time on, he took the lead. The High Court of Justice and the Trial of the King. — The Rump soon showed its temper by passing a resolution that, according to the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, it was treason in the King to levy war against Parliament and the Kingdom. This was followed by other resolutions to the effect that whatever was enacted by the Com- 342 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN mons had the force of law, even without the assent of the King and the House of Lords, and, 6 January, 1649, an Act was passed erecting a High Court of Justice of 135 persons to try the King, though only 68 appeared, 20 January, the day the trial opened at Westminster Hall. The King, who had in the meantime been brought to London, was seated in a crimson chair in front of the bar ; he refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court in any way. The charge set forth that : " Charles Stuart, being admitted King of England with a limited power, out of a wicked design to erect an unlimited power, had traitorously levied war against the Parliament and people of England, thereby causing the death of many thousands, and had repeated and persevered in his offense." Accordingly, he was impeached as a " tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy of the Commonwealth of England." The sentence was finally pronounced on the 27th, and Charles, amid cries of " Justice !" and " Execution !" was led out of the court. The Execution of the King (30 January, 1649). — Charles was de- capitated, 30 January, 1649, on a scaffold in front of Whitehall. His quiet dignity and courage made a wonderful impression on the multi- tude. In his dying speech, he disclaimed all guilt for the Civil War, declared against the unlawfulness of his sentence, and said : " For the people truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whosoever ; but I must tell you that their liberty and their freedom consist in having government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in the government, sirs, that is nothing pertaining to them ; a subject and a sovereign are clean different things." Sincere in his religious and political convictions, no doubt, he failed to understand his people. In his eyes, those who resisted him were bad subjects and bad Christians, against whom deceit and force were legitimate weapons. The execu- tion of the King went far beyond the wishes of the majority, and those who brought it about made the mistake of trying to cloak their action under forms of law. It was not a time for law or pity, but for " cruel necessity," since there was no hope of peace until Charles Stuart — the incarnation of obstinacy and duplicity — was dead. Many troublous years were to follow, and Monarchy and the Church of England were to be restored, but owing to the daring act of those grim men of 1649, it was not the same despotic Monarchy or the same all- powerful Church. OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR TO EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 343 FOR ADDITIONAL READING Besides the general and special works cited in chs. XXVII-XXIX, Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War (4 vols., 1893) ; J. L. Sanford, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion (1858) ; C. H. Firth, The House of Lords during the Civil War (19 10). Biography. T. Carlyle, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (best ed. S. C. Lomas, 3 vols., 1904), an effectual vindication of Cromwell's sincerity. The best modern lives of Cromwell are : S. R. Gardiner (1899) ; C. H. Firth (1900); and J. Morley (1900). W. W. Ireland, Life of Sir Henry Vane the Younger (1905). E. C. Wade, John Pym (191 2). Military and Naval. C. H. Firth, Cromwell's Army (1902) the authority on the subject. T. S. Baldock, Cromwell as a Soldier (1899). C. R. Mark- ham, Life of Lord Fairfax (1870), anti-Cromwellian. Fortescue, British Army. W. L. Clowes, The Royal Navy; Oppenheim, The Royal Navy; Hanney, Royal Navy; and Corbett, England in the Mediterranean. Church. Wakeman; Hutton; Stoughton; and Cambridge Modern History, IV, ch. XII. W. A. Shaw, History of the English Church, 1640- 1660 (2 vols., 1900), an exhaustive treatment. G. B. Tatham, The Puritans in Power, a Study of the English Church from 1640 to 1660 (1913). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 207-212. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 57-85. CHAPTER XXXI THE KINGLESS DECADE: THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PROCTECTORATE (i 649-1 660) The Commonwealth : the First National Republic. — In March, 1649, the Rump abolished the House of Lords and the office of King as unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous, later in the same month it named a Council of State to carry on the executive work of the government, and 19 May, England was declared to be a Common- wealth. Thus the first national republic in the world's history had come into being. " In form a democracy," it was in reality " an oligarchy, half religious, half military," the creation of a minority imposed upon a majority of disaffected subjects. The Anglicans, the Presbyterians, and the Roman Catholics wanted a Monarchy, with the sects absolutely excluded from power and toleration, while the bulk of the people, though indifferent in political and ecclesi- astical questions, were hostile to military domination, heavy taxa- tion, interruption of business and meddling with their pastimes. Even those who upheld the Commonwealth were divided among them- selves ; they included religious and political groups of various com- plexions, each of whom wanted a freer system, or one more suited to their peculiar ideas. The Army, too, whose pay was still in arrears, were insistent that Parliament should take steps either to limit its own power or fix a date for dissolution. Parliament disregarded the demand, and unrepresentative and masterful as it was, there is much to be said in defense of its attitude. In the event of its dissolution there was grave peril that the Royalists might raise their heads or that the extremists might gain the upper hand ; in the one case, another civil war was inevitable, in the other, confusion and anarchy. The Problems of the New Government. — John Lilburne, " Free- born John," was the chief spokesman of the political Levelers and of many other discontented ones who demanded more individual liberty than the existing government allowed. Twice he was tried and acquitted, and once, in the interval, was exiled by a special Act 344 THE KINGLESS DECADE 345 of Parliament. Cromwell — whom Lilburne had once heard declare angrily before the Council, " that there was no other way to deal with these men but to break them or they will break you " — aroused his bitterest ire. " You will scarce speak to Cromwell," he cried, " but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes and call God to record. He will weep, howl, and repent, even while he doth smite you under the fifth rib." While Cromwell had no sympathy with unrestricted Parliamentary control, he was determined that order should be preserved. Thus, when an effort to disband several of the regiments led to a series of mutinies, he combined promptly with Fairfax in putting them down. Anarchy in England was only one of the many problems to be faced. Scotland, Ireland, and more than one of the American colonies had declared for Charles II. A portion of the fleet was Royalist, and since the attitude of foreign powers was also menacing, English ships at sea, English merchants, and English ambassadors were in serious peril. Altogether, the new Government had undertaken a tremendous and complicated task: to set up an adequate central authority in place of Monarchy; to prevent the restoration of the Stuarts; to settle the religious ques- tion ; to unify three kingdoms ; to maintain the sea power ; to secure and extend the colonial possessions, and to safeguard and extend the national commerce. Cromwell ere long assumed the leadership in all this work and maintained it while he lived. The Conquest of Ireland (1649). — The most pressing danger was from Ireland, whither Ormonde had returned in 1648, and suc- ceeded in uniting the Catholic and Protestant Royalists. After the execution of Charles, they proclaimed his son Charles II and secured practically all Ireland, except Dublin. In order to meet this crisis, Cromwell was sent over as Commander-in-Chief, and in September, 1649, he appeared before Drogheda, where the enemy were strongly fortified. Setting up his siege guns, he battered down the walls, took the city by storm, and ordered the garrison put to the sword. He has been bitterly condemned for this ruthless bloodshed, though in the Irish war no quarter had been given on either side ; moreover, eminent generals have justified such single acts of slaughter as a means of preventing a protracted war. Cromwell himself deplored the act as a melancholy necessity, regarding himself, at the same time, as a chosen agent to visit the righteous judgment of God upon the authors of the massacre of 1641. Yet, after all has been said, the proceeding remains the darkest blot in his career. Within ten months he had conquered eastern Ireland, Ormonde's unstable alliance fell to pieces, and the backbone of the war was broken. In August, 1650, Crom- 346 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN well, leaving his generals to conquer the natives in the west, hurried home, for the situation in Scotland demanded attention. The " Cromwellian Settlement " (1652). — Two years were required to complete the subjugation of Ireland, at a cost, from fighting, famine, and pestilence, of the lives of a third of the inhabitants. The scheme, formulated in 1652 by the Rump, for dealing with the conquered is known as the " Cromwellian Settlement." Although the details were not devised by him, it was made possible by his victories, it met with his approval and was carried out under his supervision. The Catholic religion was suppressed, and the Celtic owners were dis- possessed of their remaining lands in Leinster, Munster and Ulster, receiving nominal compensation in the wild, remote and unfruitful Connaught, while their holdings were given to those who had fur- nished money for the Irish wars and to the generals and soldiers. The Situation in Scotland. — After the crushing defeat of the Scot- ish Royalists in 1648, the extreme Covenanters under Argyle became dominant. Bitterly opposed to the English Independents and the policy of toleration espoused by the victorious army, they offered to support Charles II, on condition that he take the Covenant. Al- though inclined to Roman Catholicism, the Prince was as indifferent to religious as he was to moral principles, so, in his extreme necessity, he followed the suggestion of some of his advisers " to promise any- thing and break the promise when you can." He had to pay a heavy price for his apostasy. He was not allowed to speak in council, he had to listen to long sermons, he was prohibited from dancing, card playing, and even from walking on Sunday afternoons ; moreover he was obliged to bewail his own sins and those of his house, his father's hearkening to evil counsel and his mother's idolatry. No wonder he declared that he would rather be hanged than ever set foot again in that hated land. The Invasion of Scotland and the Battle of Dunbar (1650). — Fair- fax, who had no sympathy with the policy of the Commonwealth, resigned his command in June, 1650. Cromwell, appointed to suc- ceed him, was commissioned to invade Scotland, and crossed the border 2 2 July. When the Scots rejected his advances, he was forced , much against his will, to resort to arms. Frustrated in an attempt to take Edinburgh, he was obliged, by sickness among his troops and lack of supplies, to retreat to the coast, where, at Dunbar, the Scots succeeded in hemming him in between the mountains and the sea. Very unwisely they came down from their commanding position, 3 September, 1650, and offered battle, and were scattered by one of Cromwell's irresistible cavalry charges just as the morning sun rose. THE KINGLESS DECADE 347 The Scots Invade England. The Battle of Worcester (1651). — Cromwell now advanced and took Edinburgh. When the defiant Scots proceeded to crown Charles at Scone, Cromwell, with daring strategy, crossed the Firth of Forth, thus cutting his enemies of! from the Highlands upon which they depended for recruits and sup- plies. Since he left the road to England open, the Scots had no choice but to march south across the Border, though the invasion would in- evitably arouse the national sentiment of the bulk of the English. Cromwell hastened after them, and Charles's army, much worn down by English forces which had been harassing his flanks and rear, was overtaken at Worcester. There, 3 September, 165 1, a fierce battle was fought. Charles, who manfully plunged into the fray, after he had for some time breathlessly followed events from the cathedral tower, only fled when the last hope was gone. After six weeks of thrilling adventures, he made his way to France to wait for better times. Worcester fight was Cromwell's " crowning mercy." Scotland soon yielded, and it now remained to establish the Commonwealth securely in England and to assert its power in the colonies, on the seas and abroad. The Sea Power of the Commonwealth. — Before the close of 165 1 the fleet of the Commonwealth, chiefly through the abilities of Blake, who had won his spurs as a land commander during the Civil Wars, had successfully asserted its dominion of the seas. Prince Rupert, who had taken over the command of the royal navy, was able to ac- complish little. The island possessions of the Royalists in the Channel were forced to yield, and after the news of Worcester, Virginia, the Bermudas and Barbados, which had declared for the King and where many Royalist exiles had taken refuge, acknowledged the authority of Parliament. In the two years from 1649 to 165 1 the navy was more than doubled ; and the weapon thus forged was soon to be used, first against the Dutch and subsequently against Spain. The First Dutch War (1652-1654). — The first Dutch war, result- ing from troubles which had been long brewing, broke out in July, 1652. The causes of friction were commercial and political. In the East Indies there was long-standing rivalry which had led to bloody encounters ; for instance, in 1623, the Dutch had massacred a body of English traders, a deed for which they steadily refused to make com- pensation. The English, on their part, refused to recognize the right of the Dutch to fish for herring in the North Sea ; against the latter's claim that free ships made free goods they insisted on searching their ships for Royalist arms ; and they demanded that the Dutch recognize the English supremacy in the narrow seas by lowering their colors 348 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN when ships of the two countries met. The Estates General not only rejected an alliance with the Commonwealth, but refused its demands to expel the Royalist exiles, although a body of these exiles had, in 1649, murdered the English diplomatic representa- tive at the Hague ; nor would the Estates proscribe the House of Orange, allied by marriage to the Stuarts and openly hostile to the new English regime. Finally in October, 165 1, the English aimed a blow at the Dutch carrying trade by a Navigation Act providing that no goods should be imported from Asia, Africa, or America save in English or Colonial ships, or from any European country except in English ships or those of the country that produced the goods. 1 In the conflict which followed, though the honors were about even in actual engagements, the English, on the whole, had the advantage. The Growing Opposition to the Commonwealth. — While the Commonwealth had. asserted its power by force of arms in all direc- tions, the existing arrangement failed to win the approval of the bulk of the nation. The Council of State was efficient and honest; but the Rump Parliament contained many members who were charged with self-seeking and corruption. Then, in order to deal with the recent crises, Parliament had not only been obliged to impose heavy taxes, but to muzzle the writings of those who opposed their policy, and, in general, to resort to very arbitrary measures. Their aus- terity added to their general unpopularity : they put a stop to church festivals; they closed the theaters; they tried to enforce morality by law, and to stifle innocent merriment in a regime of gloom. Cromwell Dissolves the Rump (20 April, 1653). — Finally, 2 August, 1652, the officers of the Army formulated a petition, embodying the demands of the more progressive sort and again insisting on arrears of pay. When nothing came of it, Cromwell began reluctantly to realize that Parliament was as serious an obstruction to the cause which he had at heart as Charles had been. Gradually he became convinced that the only hope lay in his assuming the executive; but, as usual, he proceeded cautiously, until the Rump planned a step which helped him to action. The members, instead of providing for a general election, framed a bill to prolong their own powers by filling the vacant seats in their body with men of whose qualifications they should themselves be the judge. Directly he heard the news, Cromwell hurried to the House, followed by a guard of soldiers. With his hat on his head he strode up and down the floor, and after an angry speech in which he overwhelmed them with grave charges, he 1 This Act, however, which was apparently not very rigidly enforced, was not made a pretext for war. THE KINGLESS DECADE 349 snatched up the offending bill and, putting it under his cloak, he com- manded the doors to be locked, and hurried away. The Nominated Parliament (July-December, 1653). — Immedi- ately after the dissolution of the Rump, the Army superseded the Council of State by a provisional council with Cromwell at the head. Fearing to appeal to the country at large, the new executive deter- mined to secure an assembly of godly men of their own way of think- ing, and, to that end, they wrote to the Congregational ministers of each county asking them to name suitable persons, from which lists they made their selections, adding names of their own. Thus, they assembled a body to which they handed over the powers of the State on condition that, after devising a new scheme of representation, it should bring its own sessions to a close within fifteen months. The Nominated, Little, or Barebones Parliament, 1 as it has been variously called, was intended to be a constituent assembly only; but, com- posed of zealous reformers, it chose a Council of State, appointed committees to consider the needs of the Church and the nation; and proceeded with the work properly belonging to the body it was supposed to constitute. Most of its proposed reforms were good in themselves, indeed, many of them have since been adopted, but they were in advance of the time. So, 12 December, 1653, the more moderate members held an early sitting and resigned their powers into the hands of Cromwell, while those who resisted were expelled by the troops. If the Rump had not been ready to go far enough, its successor had gone too far, and aroused the fear that it was going to introduce the domination of the sects and radicalism. The Instrument of Government. Cromwell made Lord Pro- tector (December, 1653). — Upon the overthrow of the Nominated Parliament, the Army officers presented a scheme known as the In- strument of Government, vesting the supreme power in a single per- son, assisted, and to some extent controlled, by a Council and a Parlia- ment. The Instrument is notable as the first written constitution for governing a nation in modern times and the only one which Eng- land has ever had in actual operation. On 16 December, Cromwell accepted office as Lord Protector for life. Powers of legislation and extraordinary taxation 2 were vested in Parliament, though between sessions the Protector and Council could issue ordinances which might be afterwards confirmed or disallowed by Parliament. The Protector had no power of veto, though he could withhold his assent to a bill 1 It got its name from Praise-God-Barebone, a leather merchant of London. 2 A fixed revenue was provided for the ordinary expenses of the army and navy and the civil administration. 350 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN for twenty days. It was provided that Parliament should meet at least once in three years and that each session should last at least five months. The Christian religion as contained in the Scriptures 1 was to be professed by the nation ; there was to be an established Church, but a provision less objectionable than tithes was to be made for its support. Full liberty was allowed to believers in Jesus Christ, though this was not to extend to " popery or prelacy " or to those who disturbed the peace or practiced licentiousness. While, pn the whole, the Instrument was " a good attempt to steer between the despotism of a single person and a single House," various criti- cisms might be urged against it. It was not through any faults in its plan, however, that the Instrument failed, but because Parliament refused to accept it, insisting, when they came together, that it was their function and not that of Cromwell or the Army to construct the constitution. Cromwell's Aims as Protector. — From 16 December, 1653, to 3 September, 1654, when Parliament met, Cromwell was in fact if not in name Sovereign. Having overcome all who withstood the cause of which he had made himself the champion, and standing triumphant over his vanquished opponents — the King, the Irish, the Scots, and Parliament — he had before him the one supreme task — "of healing the rancor engendered by so many years of strife ; of settling a new order, political and ecclesiastical, which should rest, not upon mili- tary force but upon the willing acceptance of all good citizens." The Protector's Religious Policy. — The religious policy which he sought to enforce was one which he adopted but did not originate. It contemplated an established, non-Episcopal Church, endowed and supported by the State, and comprehending all Protestant sects who believed in Christ, save those who accepted Bishops and the Prayer Book. For those who opposed any establishment the greatest pos- sible toleration was to be allowed. Each congregation was to own its church buildings and to regulate its own form of worship, and no provision was made for church courts or ecclesiastical assemblies. Anglicans were forbidden openly to use the Prayer Book, but their private worship was winked at except during moments when the Government felt itself in danger. Catholics, though still subject to the old penalties for saying and hearing mass, were no longer forced to attend the parish church, and the penal laws were not rigidly enforced. The Jews began to reappear, and, though the feeling, economic and religious, was too strong for Cromwell to follow his in- clination and grant their petition for a free exercise of their religion, 1 This meant Puritanism. THE KINGLESS DECADE 351 he was able to protect them from disturbance ; so that the period of his rule is said to mark their return to England. In spite, however, of its generally tolerant attitude, Cromwell's was a Puritan regime. Its austerity, its exclusion of the Cavaliers from political activity and the unfair discrimination in financial burdens kept alive a dis- content that was soon to assert itself. Cromwell's Foreign Policy. — Cromwell's foreign policy, which now began to shape itself, had three main objects : the weakening of the Stuart cause on the Continent, the development of England's colonial and commercial power, and the formation of a great alliance of the Protestant countries of Europe under the leadership of England. He succeeded, so long as he lived, in staving off a Stuart restoration, also he did much to carry on the old Elizabethan tradition of English maritime supremacy which had been so effectively revived under the Commonwealth, but, in his third, and what he liked to believe was his paramount aim, he was not so fortunate. After the Peace of West- phalia, which concluded the Thirty Years' War in 1648, religious interests in Europe gave way more and more to those of political and commercial aggrandizement. The northern Protestant states, which Cromwell aimed to unite, fell to quarreling among themselves, and the two great Catholic powers, France and Spain, whom he strove to keep apart, made peace in little more than a year after his death. Moreover, the Protector himself, in spite of his Protestant zeal, mingled with it a worthy but conflicting ambition to enhance Eng- land's material advantages. Peace with the Dutch (April, 1654). — Deploring the continuance of the war with the Dutch, he concluded a treaty of peace in April, 1654, but his terms were hard and distinctly to England's commer- cial and political advantage. The Dutch agreed to strike their flags to English ships in the narrow seas, and to accept the Navigation Act ; on the other hand, they were to continue to fish for herring in the North Sea without payment of rent, and they maintained their own views on the right of search. Each country agreed to make com- pensation for damages done to the other in the East Indies; con- cluded a defensive alliance ; and agreed not to harbor each other's rebels, which involved the exclusion of the Stuart exiles from the United Provinces. Altogether, the war was a heavy blow at Eng- land's greatest trade rival and marked the beginning of the end of the Dutch supremacy at sea. The Capture of Jamaica (May, 1655). The War with Spain. — France and Spain contended with one another for an alliance with the Protector. France, to be sure, was the hereditary enemy of England, 352 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN while her King was a nephew of Henrietta Maria. On the other hand, Spain had been the foe who inspired the glorious achievements of the Elizabethan seamen, and the Spanish religious and commercial policy was still unbearably exclusive. When England asked for freedom of religion and trade for her merchants, the Spanish ambassador declared that it was like asking for his master's two eyes ; far from making any concessions, the Inquisition was rigorously enforced against English- men in the Spanish dominions, English settlements in the West Indies were persistently harassed, and English ships were intercepted in the surrounding waters. Cromwell's reply was to send, in December, 1654, a fleet and an army bearing orders to strike at the Spanish do- minions in the New World and to seize her treasure ships, with the twofold object of breaking her colonial monopoly and striking a blow at " anti-Christ." Jamaica, practically defenseless, was captured by this expedition in May, 1655. In June, Blake, who was protecting English trade and pursuing pirates in the Mediterranean, received orders to intercept treasure ships on their way to Spain, and vessels containing troops and supplies for the West Indies. Not till months afterwards, 26 October, 1655, did Oliver declare war. The Alliance with France (1655 and 1657). — Two days before the declaration of war with Spain, he concluded a treaty with France pro- viding for the promotion of commerce, and the exclusion, from each country, of the rebels of the other. The treaty between France and England was followed by an offensive and defensive alliance, 23 March, 1657. In June of the next year, the French General Turenne, assisted by English troops who fought with rare bravery, captured Dunkirk, the best port in Flanders. It was handed over to the Protector, who had stipulated for this cession, partly because Dunkirk was one of the keys of the Channel, and partly because it was a lair for pirates who preyed upon English commerce. Results of the Protector's Foreign Policy. — In foreign policy Oliver achieved much. He gained for England a high place among European Powers, he advanced English commercial and colonial interests by striking hard at the monopoly of Spain, and he took his country an- other long step toward that naval supremacy which she had enjoyed for the last two centuries. His cherished scheme, however, for a great Protestant alliance failed. He has been charged, too, with short- sightedness in furthering the greatness of France, a growing Power, as against Spain which was on the decline ; yet it must be said that the decay of Spain was not then fully apparent, while it was the slavish policy of Charles II, far more than Oliver's alliance, which contributed to the subsequent ascendancy of Louis XIV. A more serious indict- THE KINGLESS DECADE 353 ment of Oliver's policy is that it took money which the country could ill spare ; it diverted the Protector's attention from pressing domestic problems, and, by mingling material motives with religious professions, he lowered his ideals and stained his prestige as a godly ruler of the elect. The First Parliament of the Protectorate. — Meantime, the first Parliament of the Protectorate had met, 3 September, 1654. Beside a small body of Republicans opposed to a strong executive, a stout contingent of conservatives had been elected who were set against war. While they desired a settled government, they were bent on hav- ing one settled by themselves. Cromwell was willing that they should alter " circumstantials " in the Instrument, but he insisted that they should not meddle with " fundamentals" ; nevertheless, they set about to revise the Instrument in such a manner as to obtain Parliamentary sovereignty, control over the militia, and religious uniformity rigidly restricting freedom of conscience. Consequently, 22 January, 1655, at the end of five lunar months, Oliver appeared before them, and after a scathing speech proceeded to dissolve the House. It was one of the ironies of fate that he who desired above all things peace and heal- ing and who had contended against despotism both in King and in Parliament, could only preserve at the point of the sword what he had struggled to gain for the nation. The Rule of the Major-Generals (1655). — The dissension between the Protector and Parliament, and evidences of discontent outside, encouraged the Royalists to plan a general revolt in March, 1655. A single armed rising occurred which was easily suppressed ; nevertheless, the unrest continued to be so great that in August the Protector divided the country into ten military districts, setting a Major-General over each. In addition to keeping order, they were commissioned to en- force the Puritan moral code and were most effective in both capacities. This increased rigor served only to alienate further the mass of the people, in whom the love of amusement was strong. Moreover, the Cavaliers were oppressed with singular and special burdens. In addi- tion to those who were punished for participation in the recent rising, an income tax of ten per cent was imposed on all who were known to have taken part against Parliament in the Civil War. When, owing to the need for money for carrying on the Spanish war, a new Parlia- ment met, 17 September, 1656, the whole country was seething with discontent. Cromwell made Hereditary Protector (June, 1657). — Very wisely the rule of the Major-Generals and the fining of the Cavaliers were discontinued. While, as in the previous Parliament, various professed 2A 354 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN opponents of the Protector were excluded, there were two leading parties, one desiring to make Cromwell hereditary Protector, the other to make him King. Cromwell professed to regard the kingly title " as a mere feather in the hat " ; but when it was offered him in a revised form of the Instrument, known as the Humble Petition and Advice, he hesitated ; when he refused, early in May, 1657, it was ap- parently only because of the strenuous opposition of the Army. In- stead, he accepted the hereditary office of Lord Protector, and, 26 June, was inaugurated with regal pomp and ceremony. Most of the other recommendations of the Humble Petition were adopted as well, chief among them a provision for a second or " other House," whose mem- bers should, in the first instance, be nominated by Cromwell. When Parliament met again in January, 1658, the power of the Protector was found to have been greatly weakened, by the admission of the members excluded in the autumn of 1656, and by the promotion of his stanchest supporters to the " other House." In the face of intrigues against his authority and disputes over the relations between the two Houses, he ordered their dissolution, 4 February, 1658. " I think it high time to put an end to your sitting," he declared, " and let God be judge be- tween you and me." It was destined to be his last Parliament. Cromwell's Death, 3 September, 1658. — The last few months of his life were marked by growing unpopularity and disappointment. The strain of keeping up a large army and a large navy at the same time was too much for the nation to bear, while the need for money grew more pressing every day. Only Oliver's strong hand could hold in check the steadily mounting discontent. His naturally robust consti- tution, undermined by fifteen years of titanic labors, broke under the burden, and when, in August, he was attacked by an ague and inter- mittent fever he realized that his days were numbered : " I would be willing," he said, " to live to be further serviceable to God and His people ; but my work is done." He died 3 September, 1658. Cromwell's Work. — Cromwell's enemies have judged him harshly, and long after his death, the view prevailed that, starting as a sincere zealot, the taste for power gradually transformed him into a hypocritical fanatic. Such a distorted view has not been able to survive the test of fact, and now it is possible to picture him more nearly as he really was in the light of the problems he had to face. It was his unswerving trust in God and his absolute acceptance of every victory which he gained in war and in politics, at home and abroad, as a manifestation of Divine Providence, that lent color to the hostile view that so long prevailed. In spite of seeming contradictions, he pursued consistent aims — to strike at despotism under whatever form it was cloaked, THE KINGLESS DECADE 355 royal or parliamentary ; to stem the inrush of anarchy ; and to pre- serve the heritage for which he fought. When Parliament proceeded to contest the basis of his power, he found himself forced to adopt methods more arbitrary than those of the King whom he had over- thrown. While more effective as a destroyer than as a builder, he achieved many things. He struck a blow at tyranny, royal and eccle- siastical, from which it never recovered ; he gave the country an actual experience in religious toleration that helped prepare the way for the spiritual freedom which it was left to later hands enduringly to establish ; he made the name of England respected abroad, and adopt- ing the maritime and colonial policy of his great predecessor Elizabeth, he carried it a stage further along toward the goal which Great Britain has now reached. Under his government, particularly during the regime of the Major-Generals, there was rigid repression and minute interference with private affairs, and some innocent recreation was blighted by the enforced observance of the gloomy Puritan Sabbath. While certain of these measures were due to stern political necessity, others were in the interests of a high if somewhat dreary morality, and the policy, mistaken as it was in many respects, introduced serious and sober ideals which have done much to uplift the national character. Cromwell, the Man. — Cromwell the man, so simple and human in his bearing, was a complex character embodying the most diverse traits — at once daring and cautious, hesitant in council and decisive in action. Although a religious enthusiast, he was at the same time intensely practical in his military and state policy. In his habits of life he was the opposite of a " morose and gloomy " ascetic ; he hunted, hawked, and was a lover of horses ; he loved his jest and was enthusi- astic for games, playing bowls even after he became Lord Protector ; he had an ear for music, and scandalized the stricter sort by allowing " mixed dancing " at the wedding of a daughter in 1657. But this lighter side only appeared at moments in his absorbed and purposeful life. In his last prayer he gave thanks that he had been " a mean instrument to do God's people some good and God some service." If as a ruler he came more and more to subordinate " the civil liberty and interest of the nation ... to the more peculiar interest of God," — if to that end he was often abrupt and arbitrary, his aims were lofty and disinterested. " A larger soul, I think, hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay," was the tribute of one who knew him best. Richard Cromwell Lord Protector. — Richard Cromwell, whom his father had named successor, was a worthy man, of pure life, personally popular, but without force and without training or ability in affairs of State ; moreover, he had no hold on the Army, whose chiefs desired 356 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN more control over military affairs than the Government would accord. After some wrangling, the old Rump was recalled 7 May, 1659. Though originally there had been no intention of overthrowing the Protec- torate but merely to " piece and mend up that cracked government, " the Rump proceeded to pass a resolution for maintaining a Common- wealth " without a single person " at the head, whereupon Richard, after a few days of hesitation, resigned. The End of the Long Parliament (26 March, 1660). — The Rump was as unwilling as Richard's government had been to allow the Army to control military affairs, hence its dissolution, 13 October, 1659. While the generals were trying to devise some plan of orderly govern- ment in which they might have the voice they desired, an unexpected figure arose to dominate the situation. This was George Monck, who commanded the army in Scotland. He had begun his military career fighting for King Charles ; taken prisoner in 1644 by the enemy, he had successively served Parliament, the Commonwealth, the two Pro- tectors, and the restored Rump, and had shown unusual ability as a fighter on the sea as well as on the land. A man of sphinx-like reserve, he seemed absorbed in his military duties and indifferent to politics. Now he suddenly stood forth as the " champion of the authority of Parliament " against the designs of the generals. Apparently he cared little whether England was a Monarchy or a Republic; but, if we can believe his own professions, he was convinced that she should be governed by law rather than by the sword. On 2 January, 1660, he crossed the Tweed at the head of his troops. General Lambert, one of the Army chiefs, made a vain effort to oppose him ; but there was no enthusiasm for the cause of the Army, and, deserted even by his own men, he was obliged to give way. Monck marched south, carefully evading any public declaration of his intentions. However, he at length yielded so far to the demands of the Presbyterians as to readmit to the Rump, which had been recalled again 26 December, the members excluded by Pride's Purge ; but he informed the body thus reconstituted that it must dissolve by 6 May, 1660, at the latest, and make way for a free Parliament. Monck was made commander of the army of the three kingdoms, and, 26 March, with " many sad pangs and groans, " the Long Parliament dissolved itself after an inter- mittent existence of nearly twenty years. The Recall of Charles II and the Declaration of Breda. — Before dissolving, it had provided for a Convention Parliament to meet 25 April. Royalists were allowed to vote in the elections, though they were not eligible to sit unless they had given some proof of affection to the Parliamentary cause. About this time, Monck opened negotia- THE KINGLESS DECADE 357 tions with Charles ; realizing that the people were weary of frequent revolutions, ax'my rule, and heavy taxes, he may have thought that he would gain personally by recalling the King as a means of anticipat- ing an inevitable reaction, though it is possible that he had an un- selfish desire to restore peace and a settled government. At any rate, " while the Restoration was the result of a general movement of opin- ion too strong to be withstood," he did more than any other man to bring it about. As a result of the negotiations which opened, Charles, acting under the advice of Hyde, who was with him in exile, issued from Breda a declaration in which he promised : (1) a general amnesty for all offenders, save those excepted by Parliament; (2) liberty of conscience, according to such a law as Parliament might propose; (3) such security for property acquired during the late troubles as Parliament might determine ; (4) full arrears to the soldiers according to Act of Parliament. Following a futile rising, led by Lambert, the Army took an engagement to accept whatever settlement Parliament' might make. " Their whole design," wrote Pepys, the famous diarist, " is broken . . . and every man begins to be merry and full of hope." The Convention met 25 April, 1660, as appointed. After both Houses had agreed in a declaration that, " according to the ancient and fundamental laws of the Kingdom, the government is, and ought to be, by Kings, Lords, and Commons," Charles was proclaimed in London. Nature of the Restoration and the Results of the Puritan Revolu- tion. — Charles landed at Dover, 25 May, 1660. The Restoration had at length come as a reaction from excessive Puritanism and Army rule. Yet the Revolution had accomplished results which were never to be effaced. It had arrested the growth of absolutism; for the Monarchy that was restored was destined never again to be, for any considerable period, a Monarchy completely independent of Parlia- ment. The Established Church, too, was restored ; but it never again became the National Church, embracing every subject as such. A lusty body of Dissenters had sprung up and multiplied during the recent upheaval, and the century had not run its course before many of them had obtained a recognized legal status outside the bounds of the Establishment. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See chs. XXVII-XXX. Narrative. Gardiner, The History of the Commonwealth and the Pro- tectorate (4 vols., 1903). C. H. Firth, The Last Years of the Protectorate, 1656-1658 (1909). F. A. Inderwick, The Interregnum (1891). Pollard, 358 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Factors in Modem History, chs. IX, X. The Diary of the contemporary John Evelyn (best ed. H. B. Wheatley, 4 vols., 1906) throws vivid lights on the period. Constitutional and special. E. Jenks, The Constitutional Experiments of the Protectorate (1890). Gardiner, Cromwell's Place in History (1897). G. L. Beer, Cromwell's Policy in its Economic Aspect (1902) valuable for this phase of the subject. R. Dunlop, Ireland under the Commonwealth (1913)- Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 213-220. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 86-105. CHAPTER XXXII FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON (i 660-1667) The New King and the Restoration. — In spite of the fact that the Monarchy and the established Episcopacy were restored under Charles II, the old absolutism in Church and State was destined never again to prevail. The Puritan Revolution had produced an upheaval and an awakening which was bound to leave enduring results, and Charles was shrewd enough to sense the situation. To be sure, he struggled to make himself supreme, and he ended his reign in a very strong position ; but he achieved his aim only by timely concessions. He recognized Parliament, and the opinion which it represented, as a force which might be manipulated but never dominated. What- ever happened, he once remarked, he was determined " never to set out on his travels again." During the years that Charles was King, neither arbitrary taxa- tion nor the system of extraordinary courts was revived. More- over, notable gains were made, both judicial and parliamentary. The fining of juries was done away with, and a new Act made the writ of Habeas Corpus, for protecting the subject against prolonged im- prisonment before trial, more of a reality. Parliament asserted suc- cessfully its right not only to grant taxes, but also to appropriate them for specific purposes ; to audit accounts ; and, by frequent and effective impeachments, to hold the royal Ministers, in some measure, responsible to itself. In this period, too, modern party organiza- tion took rise, and the system of Cabinet government, based upon it, showed the first signs of taking shape. Yet, while many good laws were passed, bad government continued, numerous traces of abso- lutism survived, and much that cried for remedy was left untouched. The judges, whose tenure was still during royal pleasure, continued servile to the Crown and - tyrannical to the subject ; except by im- peachment there was no means of getting rid of those who refused to govern according to the will of the majority in the House of Com- 359 360 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN mons ; while the King, by long prorogations, avoided meeting Parlia- ment for extended intervals, and during the last four years of his reign never summoned that body at all. The Early Life of Charles II. — Charles II was thirty years old on the day that he entered London, 29 May, 1660. He had received little systematic instruction from books ; but his life had been a stir- ring one, full of harsh and varied lessons in the great school of ex- perience. Often out at the elbows during his long years of exile, and disappointed, time and again, in his efforts to come to his own, he dis- played through all his adversity chiefly the virtue of cheerfulness, and continually vexed his grave and learned councilor, Hyde, by his unwillingness to work and his loose habits. Charles's early mis- fortunes and privations did nothing to build up his character ; they only made him more greedy of comfort and amusement when the opportunity came. His Character and Attainments. — To the end he remained indo- lent, fickle, untrustworthy and absolutely devoid of reverence. Al- though utterly selfish, he had an easy good nature and charm of manner that captivated everyone who came in contact with him, and generally was as ready in making promises as he was careless in performing them. According to Rochester, one of his boon com- panions, " he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one" ; nevertheless, he was keen and persistent in any matter that he thought worth the trouble. He had an acute observant mind, an excellent memory, and a nimble wit. In person he was over six feet tall, and well formed, of dark swarthy complexion, with a cynical eye, a great fleshy nose and thick lips. It was only his magnificent physique and his devotion to athletic exercises that enabled him to keep his health, in view of the excesses in which he indulged. His Policy. — He was quite without scruple in pursuing his ends, and sharp at profiting by the mistakes of his opponents. Although he hated the details of business and was too sensible to believe in the Divine Right of Kings, he aimed to keep as free from parliamentary control as possible : to that end, he sought to set up a standing army, to reintroduce Roman Catholicism, to secure toleration for Dis- senters, and allied himself with France. He bribed, flattered, and managed, but, fully alive to his royal limitations, he yielded when popular opposition proved too strong. Thus, before the close of his reign, he gave up all his projects, except the French alliance to which he clung tenaciously; with a political cunning rare in history, he shifted to the Anglican side, and by adroit politics managed to spend his last years free from parliamentary restraint. FROM RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON 361 The Supremacy of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. — The first period of Charles's reign was marked by the ascendancy of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who had accompanied his young master into exile and rose to become Lord Chancellor. He had many ad- mirable qualities: industrious, honest, and fixed in his principles, he was a devoted champion of the Church of England and an op- ponent of royal absolutism. On the other hand, in spite of an un- usual knowledge of men and parties, he was quite incapable of adapt- ing himself to changed conditions, and met the usual fate of men who try to steer a middle course. He alienated the King by opposing his policy of toleration and by frowning on his pleasures, while, at the same time, he alienated Parliament by opposing what he regarded as their meddling in the details of administration. The Privy Coun- cil formed under his leadersdip, June, 1660, was constituted both of Cavaliers and Puritans who had worked to bring about the Restora- tion. Out of thirty members, twelve had formerly taken sides against the Crown ; indeed, both within the Council and outside, there were not only party differences but differences between members of the same party. Thus courtiers, particularly women, were able to prevail by intrigue, and graver gave way steadily to lighter counsels. The Convention Parliament (25 April-29 December, 1660). — After the recall of the King, the Convention set about to settle the government. Strong in the Commons, the Cavaliers dominated the Lords. 1 On n June by an Act " for removing all questions and dis- putes," the authority of the Convention was formally established. Acting henceforth as a legal body, it proceeded to take up the terms of the Declaration of Breda. The first to be settled concerned the fate of those who had taken part in the late troubles. The King had promised a pardon for all save those excepted by Parliament. While the Commons wanted to make very few exceptions, the Lords were inclined to be less lenient. Through the efforts of Charles and Hyde a moderate compromise was adopted, as a result of which, thirteen of the regicides were put to death, though some twenty-five more were given life sentences. 2 The status of property acquired during the late troubles was next taken up. Estates confiscated and sold by the State were recovered on the ground that an illegal government could give no valid title ; but private contracts were declared legal, so 1 Although those peers who had fought for Charles I, or who had been created by him since 1642, were at first excluded, they all took their seats before June. 2 One glaring case of injustice was the trial and execution of Sir Harry Vane in 1662 ; for he had no part in putting the late King to death; moreover Charles II had promised to spare his life. 362 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN that many Royalists who had sold their estates to pay fines or to help the King's cause got no redress. The Cavaliers grumbled that there was indemnity for the King's enemies and oblivion for his friends. 1 Disbandment of the New Model and the Settlement of Revenue. — Arrears due the army and fleet were paid in full, and the troops were dismissed, except three regiments. On various pretexts Charles in- creased this force until, in 1662, it numbered 5000 men, the nucleus of England's standing army. Another important work of the Con- vention was to settle the revenue. An annual income of £1,200,000 was granted as sufficient for ordinary expenses, but since no more than three quarters of this amount reached the royal coffers in any one year, it was found necessary, in 1662, to vote new taxes. Mili- tary tenures, and feudal dues and services, which had long been more vexatious to the subject than profitable to the Crown, were practically all swept away, in return for which the King was granted an hered- itary excise of £100,000 a year on beer and other alcoholic beverages. Such acts and ordinances of the various Parliaments passed since 1642, as the Convention did not choose to confirm, were declared invalid ; among those reenacted was the Navigation Act of 165 1. The Convention Makes no Provision for Religious Toleration. — The settlement of religion caused the greatest difficulty. Church affairs were in a most disordered and confused state. Within the Episcopalian and Presbyterian folds there were a number of moder- ates who desired a compromise, who would have welcomed a curtail- ment of the powers of the bishops and some modifications in the service. The Puritans, however, had been so destructive of beauti- ful old churches and their hallowed furnishings, so oppressive and un- bending, as well, that the extreme Anglicans, naturally narrow and intolerant enough, were determined to allow them no concessions. Charles, nominally the head of the Church of England, was entirely without religious convictions, though he hated the Presbyterians and was inclined toward Roman Catholicism. In the Declaration he had promised to cooperate with Parliament in granting such liberty of conscience as would not disturb the peace of the Kingdom, a prom- ise he was ready, even anxious, to carry out, because, under the guise of a general toleration of the sects, it would be possible to reintro- duce Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, as events showed, he was not ready to push this policy to the extent of risking his throne. Ex- cept for an Act to restore the ejected Episcopal clergy, the Conven- tion passed no laws relating to religion. Fearing Charles's Roman 1 This had reference to the late Act dealing with the regicides, which was called "An Act of Indemnity and Oblivion." FROM RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON 363 Catholic designs, the moderate Presbyterians lost a supreme chance by refusing to combine with the moderate Anglicans in passing a com- prehension bill which he advocated, a bill broad enough in govern- ment and ceremonies to include both parties. In the forthcoming parliamentary election the reactionaries were in the majority. Domi- nant Anglicanism put down opposing sects with an uncompromising hand ; but it was Parliament and not the Crown who directed the policy of repression. The Restoration in Scotland. — The Restoration in Scotland was brought about by a Parliament which repealed all acts passed since 1639, reestablished the Episcopal Church, and renounced the Cove- nant, which was burned by the common hangman. The Scots had chafed at the army of occupation and the dominance of the Inde- pendents, but they were soon to learn that the little finger of the new Government was thicker than the loins of the old. By the new Navi- gation Act, passed in 1660, they lost the equality of the trading privi- leges which they had recently enjoyed, and, by a subsequent measure, many of their commodities were excluded from England or burdened with heavy duties. All this, together with active persecution of the Covenanters, soon stirred up the old hostility between the two countries. The Restoration in Ireland. — The Restoration in Ireland was equally fruitful in oppression and discontent. The King was under obligation to the Irish Catholics, he sympathized with their aims, and he " pitied the miserable condition of the Irish nation." But the Cromwellian settlers were in possession of the broad lands, and, backed by English anti-Catholic sentiment, were too strong to be dis- placed. All that Charles could do was to restore a few estates to the greater nobles and to procure a small amount of land for the lesser men. To make matters worse, heavy restrictions were imposed on Irish commerce. In 1663 their ships were excluded from the Colonial trade, and, three years later, the importation of Irish cattle into Eng- land was strictly forbidden. The Opening of the Cavalier Parliament (8 May, 1661). — The new Parliament, which met 8 May, 1661, lasted till 1679, having a longer continuous existence than any other in English history. After the first outburst of loyalty was over, friction with the Crown began soon to develop. Having restored the King without the aid of foreign intervention, Parliament was determined to rule ; many of the mem- bers resented the King's leaning toward Roman Catholicism and toleration for the sects and the exercise of the dispensing power which it involved ; not a few were disquieted by his attempts to increase 364 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the standing army and by his alliance with France, and looked askance at the royal profligacy and the splendor of the Court, not so much on moral grounds, as on account of the expenditures which they necessitated. Moreover, the country squires were discontented by falling rents, while the recent land settlement had satisfied neither the Puritan speculators nor the Cavaliers who had been forced to sell out. The Corporation Act (1661). — Parliament at first showed its hot and masterful temper by passing a series of measures strengthening the power of the restored Monarchy. Then, with the aid of the Bishops now restored to their seats in the House cf Lords, it proceeded to frame an ecclesiastical policy which, in most respects, ran directly counter to the intentions of Charles, and which resulted in transferring the control of Church affairs from the King to Parliament and the Bishops. This was accomplished mainly by a group of four Acts popularly known as the " Clarendon Code " x — though the Chan- cellor was by no means responsible for all of them — which excluded Dissenters from public office, from any share in the Establishment, and imposed other grave disabilities upon them. The Corporation Act, December, 1661, provided that no man could hold office in a cor- porate town unless he took the sacrament according to the Church of England, renounced the Covenant, and declared that it was un- lawful, under any circumstances, to bear arms against the King. The New Act of Uniformity (1662). — When Convocation produced a revision of the Prayer Book even more distasteful to the Puritans than its predecessors, Parliament accepted it, and 19 May, 1662, passed an Act of Uniformity providing that, on and after St. Bar- tholomew's Day, 2 the revised Book should be read in all the churches, and that all ministers who refused, or who had not received their holy orders by Episcopal ordination were to be deprived of their bene- fices. Schoolmasters also were required to conform to the Book, and both classes were further required to declare the illegality of tak- ing up arms against the King. On the day appointed, nearly 2000 clergymen resigned their livings rather than sacrifice their convic- tions. Many of the most able men of the Kingdom, in order to main- tain themselves and their wives and children, were forced to toil as laborers or to depend upon charity. The Act marks an epoch in English religious history. For nearly a century, the Nonconformists had sought to secure alterations in the government, doctrine, and 1 They were: the Corporation Act, 1661 ; the Act of Uniformity, 1662; the Conventicle Act, 1664; and the Five Mile Act, 1665. 2 St. Bartholomew's Day was 24 August. FROM RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON 365 ceremony of the Church and to remain within the fold ; henceforth the majority sought to secure freedom of conscience outside. Sepa- ration rather than comprehension became their aim. Years of per- secution, however, were to follow before they even partially effected their purpose* The Conventicle Act, 1664, an d tne F* ve Mile Act, 1665. — Hav- ing defeated an attempt on the part of the King to soften the rigor of the Act and to introduce toleration by means of the dispensing power, Parliament proceeded with its ecclesiastical legislation. By the " Act against Seditious Conventicles," 1664, it was forbidden for five or more persons, exclusive of members of a family, to hold meetings for religious worship, where the Established forms were not used. The penalty was imprisonment for the first and second offenses, and transportation for the third. Persons who returned to the country were liable to be put to death. The Quakers seem to have been the chief sufferers. Pepys, who saw several dragged through the, streets, noted in his diary : " I would to God they would conform, or be more wise and not be catched." In 1665 followed the equally cruel Five Mile Act, which provided that no Nonconformist minister was, for the future, to teach in any school, or to come within five miles of any city or corporate town unless he had taken an oath that it was unlawful to bear arms against the King, and had pledged him- self that he would not " at any time endeavor the alteration of gov- ernment in Church and State." This measure was peculiarly malev- olent, because, during the Great Plague which visited London in this year, many of the regular clergy fled, leaving the dissenting min- isters to care for the sick and dying. However, since the chief strength of Puritanism was in the towns, it was felt that it would be unusually dangerous to leave them a free hand at this time. The Significance of the Clarendon Code. — These penal laws, mercilessly though somewhat intermittently enforced, sowed bitter seeds of hatred between the Dissenters and the governing authorities. Presbyterianism lost the preeminence it enjoyed during the early months of the Restoration, and even outside the Established Church ceased to play the leading role among the Protestant sects. Natu- rally democratic, the excluded bodies now became more so, partly out of increased resentment toward the aristocratic privileged classes, partly because those among them who were desirous of political influence hastened to conform, leaving only the extremists in the ranks. Dissent became more and more confined to the lower and middle classes. However, as time went on, numbers grew wealthy through trade and productive enterprise, and combined with 366 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN the more liberal Anglicans to demand toleration and other pro- gressive measures. Charles' Foreign Policy. The Portuguese Marriage, and the Approach to France. — In his foreign relations as in his ecclesiasti- cal aims Charles developed a policy quite at variance with Parlia- ment and with Clarendon. Ready to attach himself to the highest bidder, he turned first to the thrifty Dutch, who seemed to offer the best prospects for a loan; but the passage of the Navigation Act destroyed any chance of help from that quarter. Next, he looked about for a bride, and finally negotiated a treaty with the King of Portugal for a marriage with his sister Catharine of Braganza. By this alliance and the accompanying dowry, England obtained Tangier, 1 Bombay, 2,000,000 crusados in money, together with commercial privileges and freedom of conscience for English merchants. The bride's failure to bear the King a male heir brought about a bitter struggle toward the close of his reign, yet, in spite of neglecting her shamefully, he loyally resisted the strong pressure which was brought upon him to divorce her. Very early in his reign Charles adopted the policy of a close alliance with France, which he maintained, except for brief intervals, till his death. While his chief motive was to secure French subsidies, other reasons were not without weight: particularly he was desirous of extending English trade, and counted on French aid in breaking the colonial monopoly which Spain still retained and in humbling the Dutch, the greatest sea power of the time. This policy of uniting with England's ancient enemy, to be sure, had originated with Crom- well ; but he would never have tolerated Louis's Catholic aggres- sions, to which for some years Charles lent his favor ; moreover, he would have dominated the alliance instead of playing the part of a subordinate pensionary. The Second Dutch War (1665-1667). — The commercial greatness of England which Charles sought to foster was bound to arouse the hostility of the Dutch. Furthermore, there still existed many out- standing points of friction. For example, the English Court hated the Republican faction which had obtained control in the United Provinces, while the trading companies of the two countries were constantly fighting; the Dutch refused compensation for certain English ships which they had seized, nor would they restore one of the East India Spice Islands awarded to England in 1654. Among the acts which precipitated the crisis, was Colonel Nicoll's seizure, in May, 1664, of New Netherlancl, which Charles had granted to his 1 It was abandoned to the Moors in 1684. FROM RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON 367 brother, the Duke of York, over a year previously. The Dutch replied with one reprisal after another, until war was finally declared, 4 March, 1665. If the professions of the King may be believed, he was pushed into hostilities by public opinion and the eagerness of his brother. The Sad State of the English Navy. — It is possible that Charles, while desiring to fight at a fitting opportunity, may have desired delay owing to the ill-prepared state of the navy, which at any rate was soon manifest. Even if the system of administration was not as bad as has sometimes been represented, nevertheless many of the officials were idle and corrupt, and, owing to the poor food and un- certain pay, sailors were so reluctant to enlist that it was necessary to resort freely to impressment. As a result, the crews were most unruly and so discontented that many who were taken prisoners by the Dutch entered the service of their captors. Much was subsequently done by Charles and James to improve the state of the navy; for they were both keenly interested, and had an efficient and devoted servant in Samuel Pepys ; but it did not come in time for the second Dutch war. The Opening Events of the War (1665). — The primary object of each combatant was to protect its own shipping and to inflict all possible damage on the shipping of the enemy, for neither side had a sufficient army to effect anything by land. In the first serious encounter which occurred, 3 June, 1665, off Lowestoft, 1 the Duke of York gained a decisive victory for the English, though the Dutch, after being put to flight, managed to regain their own shores in safety. While the English had proved their superiority in fighting, the events of the remainder of the year counterbalanced their signal success. Short- age of men and supplies and the last and one of the worst visitations of the Plague, which raged in London during the summer, all helped to account for this. Charles, in the meantime, had allied himself with the warlike Bishop of Minister, who invaded the Dutch frontier in September, a gain that was more than offset by the entrance of Louis XIV into the war on the side of the Dutch, in January, 1666. The Fighting in 1666. — Louis's intervention and the possibility of a French attack frightened the English into dividing their fleet, with the result that Monck 2 was roughly handled by a superior force under De Ruyter in the Four Days' Battle, 1-4 June, 1666, fought be- tween North Foreland and Dunkirk. Monck and Prince Rupert, in their turn, defeated De Ruyter off North Foreland, 25-27 July, after which they chased the Dutch home, ravaged their coast, de- 1 Sometimes called the Battle of Solebay. 2 Created Duke of Albemarle at the Restoration. 368 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN stroyed towns, and capture much shipping. Lack of provisions, which kept the English from remaining continuously at sea, and storms, prevented further naval engagements. Moreover, the Bishop of Minister having made peace in April, the land operations ceased as well. By autumn, both sides were ready for peace: the Dutch be- cause they wanted a free hand to resist the encroachments of Louis XIV, who had only aided them in order to keep the combatants evenly balanced while he sought to secure Spanish lands on the Nether- land border which he claimed in right of his wife ; the English be- cause they could not longer stand the expense, particularly since the Plague in London had been followed by a disastrous fire. The Peace of Breda (27 July, 1667). — With peace in sight, Charles was unwilling to spend money on strengthening and refitting the fleet, and so threw away such advantages as had been gained. Profiting by this inaction, De Ruyter entered the mouth of the Thames, passed up the Medway and took, burned, and scuttled sixteen vessels, inflicting a loss that was great and a shame that was immeasurable. Fortunately the Dutch did not feel strong enough to remain, so they withdrew to the mouth of the Thames, where they occupied themselves for a time intercepting commerce. Before they could do any more damage the local forces were called out, and the coast and ports put in a state of defense. Peace was concluded at Breda, 21 July, 1667. Fearing the designs of Louis XIV, the Dutch agreed to comparatively favorable terms. In their chief concession — to leave New Netherland in the hands of the English — they yielded more than they realized, for this territory included the present New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. The Plague, the Fire (1665-1666). — England emerged from the struggle in an extremely crippled condition. The Plague, in the summer and autumn of 1665, carried off 70,000 from London alone, and, during the following spring, spread through the southern and eastern counties. It was the first visitation for over thirty years and proved to be the last. The great London fire which followed, raged for five days, 2-7 September, 1666, during which interval it is esti- mated that at least two thirds of the population were unroofed. In rebuilding the City, the streets were made broader and straighter, and the houses with their overhanging upper stories, which cut off the air and sunshine, disappeared. A newer London arose, less pic- turesque, but more healthful and spacious than the old. The Growing Discontent, and the Attack on Clarendon (1667). — The three disasters — the Plague, the Fire, and Dutch in the Medway — were regarded as signs of Divine wrath at the corruption and inefficiency of the Government. Among the credulous lower and FROM RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON 369 middle classes, the Fire was attributed to the machinations of the " Papists" and the French, who were thought to have caused it by throwing " fire-balls " into the City ; it was expected that a general massacre would follow, and Catholics and Frenchmen were mobbed in the streets. In general the situation was gloomy enough, what with a lazy dissipated King, a dearth of money, and " no reputation at home and abroad." The first victim of the vague but intense and increasing discontent was Clarendon. Charles, anxious to be rid of him, was glad to make him the scapegoat. Men of all classes looked with envy to the lofty height to which he had risen, and longed to see him overthrown, while many, indeed, nourished actual griev- ances against him. He was blamed, with scant justice, for the sale of Dunkirk to France in 1662, and for the disasters of the late war which he had opposed. The country gentry hated him for opposing the Irish Cattle Act,- and the Dissenters were infuriated against him as the reputed author of the cruel " Code " directed against them. His austere ideals were a constant reproach to Charles and the more dissolute and frivolous courtiers, while his old-fashioned and pompous bearing offered them endless opportunity for raillery. His chief diffi- culty, however, was his attempt to hold an untenable ground between the Crown and Parliament. While Charles was anxious to be quit of him on less worthy grounds, it is only fair to say that he had come to realize it was futile to attempt to retain a Minister to whom Parlia- ment was so unalterably opposed. His Impeachment and Flight. — In August, 1667, the faithful old servant was dismissed from his office of Chancellor; in November the Commons presented articles of impeachment against the fallen Minister, charging him among other things, with corruption, with intent to introduce arbitrary government, and with treachery dur- ing the late war. While these extreme charges were unjust, there were many serious counts against the Chancellor, besides the fact that he was out of harmony with the attempt of Parliament to super- vise the administration. In the summer of 1667 he had advised the King to delay calling Parliament, and in the meantime, to raise sup- plies on his own authority ; he had arbitrarily imprisoned the op- ponents of the Government ; and he has been accused of first teaching Charles to seek money from France. On the King's advice he fled to the Continent. He died at Rouen in 1674. Parliamentary Gains in the Control of Finances. — The financial situation continued to be very disturbing. The moneys granted proved insufficient to meet expenses. Cries were raised of corruption in high places, and the King was accused of diverting huge sums for 370 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN his private pleasures. While he was extravagant enough, the root of the trouble lay deeper : supplies were voted so tardily and collected so grudgingly that the Government was obliged to anticipate by borrowing ; and the prevailing high rate of interest cut into revenues that at best were hardly adequate even for legitimate expenses. Niggardly as the Commons were, they were wise in keeping a tight hold on the purse-strings, and made notable gains during the Clar- endonian regime. In a grant, made in 1665, a clause was inserted that the moneys voted should be used only for the purposes of the war. Suggested by a wily royal adviser to prevent the goldsmiths from claim- ing any portion for debts due to them, this marks another important step toward the practice of appropriation of supplies. Two years later, in the spring of 1667, after a sharp and prolonged struggle, the King made the important concession of appointing a committee of Parliament to audit accounts. One issue raised in this period was settled, 3 July, 1678, when the Commons carried a resolution that all bills of supply should originate in their House, and that such bills " ought not to be changed or altered by the House of Lords." From that date the Lords have never made a serious attempt to originate or amend a money bill. In spite, however, of these evidences of the growing strength of the Commons, Charles, directly his old mentor was disposed of, proceeded to collect about him a body of Ministers of his own choice and to develop a policy quite at variance with Parliament's, a policy which he struggled for some years to maintain. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Besides Trevelyan, Ranke, Lingard, and Cambridge Modern History already cited, Richard Lodge, The Political History of England, 1660-1702 (1910). Macaulay, History of England (illus. ed. C. B. Firth, 6 vols., 191:4) gives a brief survey of the reign. Constitutional. In addition to Taylor, Taswell-Langmead and Hallam, A. Amos, The English Constitution in the Reign of Charles II (1857) and W. C. Abbott, "Long Parliament of Charles II," English Historical Review (January-April, 1906). Contemporary. Samuel Pepys's Diary (most complete ed. H . B . Wheatley, 9 vols., 1893-1899). Evelyn, Diary. G. Burnet, The History of My Own Time (ed. O. Airy, the reign of Charles II, 2 vols., 1897-1900) in spite of some partisanship and inaccuracies, an indispensable authority. Biography. O. Airy, Charles II (1901), an admirable biography and a good survey of the reign. Violet Barbour, Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington (1914). A. Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds (1913). Lady Burghclere, George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham FROM RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON 371 (1903). W. D. Christie, Life of the First Earl of Shaftesbury (2 vols., 1871), a scholarly vindication. H. D. Traill, Shaftesbury (1888), a brief sketch. T. H. Lister, Life of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon (3 vols., 1838) ; has not been superseded by the recent Life by Sir Henry Craik (2 vols., 191 1). A. C. Ewald, Life and Times of Algernon Sidney (2 vols., 1873). Helen C Foxcroft, Life and Letters of George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax (2 vols., 1898). Foxcroft and Clarke, Life of Gilbert Burnet (1907). A. Fea, King Monmouth (1902). H. B. Irving, Life of Lord Jeffreys (1898), an apology. Roger North, The Lives of the Norths (ed. A. Jessopp, 3 vols., 1890), a classic. Special. G. B. Hertz, English Public Opinion after the Restoration (1902). C. B. R. Kent, The Early History of the Tories (1908). Seeley, British Policy. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783 (15th ed., 1898), an epoch-making work. A. W. Tedder, The Navy of the Restoration (19 16), an excellent study. Church. Hutton ; Wakeman ; and Stoughton. Scotland and Ireland. Works already cited. For further reading on Scotland and Ireland see Lodge, 487-471. Cambridge Modern History, V, 825-837. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 221-226. C. G. Robertson, Select Statutes, Cases and Documents (1904), pt. I, nos. I-IX; pt. II, no. I. CHAPTER XXXIII FROM THE FALL OF CLARENDON TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES II (1667-1685) Charles Seeks to Make Himself Absolute (1667). — Charles took advantage of the fall of Clarendon to carry out a design which he had been cherishing for years — to establish himself as an absolute Mon- arch. To that end, he applied himself with renewed energy to the four means by which he sought to accomplish his purpose : to build- ing up the standing army; attaching the Dissenters by offering the toleration which Parliament refused to grant ; restoring Roman Catholicism; and securing a closer alliance with the French King, to whom he looked for supplies, and, in case of need, for troops. The obstacles, however, proved so formidable that he had to follow a very crooked course, and, before many years had passed, to alter his plans profoundly. In sensing the situation at the proper moment and in the means which he adopted to meet it, the King, who appeared to most of his subjects as a good-natured and witty trifler, proved himself to be one of the most cunning politicians of the century. The " Cabal" (1667-1673). — In the meantime, until the turning point of his policy, in 1673, ne governed with a body of intimate coun- cilors known as the " Cabal." It formed an inner circle of the Privy Council, and its members, who were consulted by the King singly or collectively, or in groups of two or three, were responsible to him and not to Parliament. While such Cabals, even under that name, were not unknown in English history long before the body in question came into existence, some have derived the word from the initial letters of the names of its leading members — Clifford, Ashley, Buck- ingham, Arlington and Lauderdale. 1 Ablest of them all was Anthony Ashley Cooper, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1661 to 1672, when he was created Lord Chancellor and Earl of Shaftes- 1 In reality it is derived from a Hebrew word cabala, which meant a "secret," hence it came to be applied to a party or faction engaged in a secret design, and later, to a group of secret councilors. Charles's body, however, is the most famous of them all. 372 FROM FALL OF CLARENDON TO DEATH OF CHARLES II 373 bury. He was a born agitator and demagogue, a forerunner of the modern party leader ; yet, with all his ambition and his turnings against men and parties, he was ever consistent in the pursuit of his two ideals — civil liberty and toleration for all Protestants. He was himself a freethinker. The Duke of Buckingham was a man of engaging man- ners and not without accomplishments, but was vain, unsteady, and ever striving for powers in the State which he was incapable of using. Though he espoused the cause of the Dissenters for a time, he was not only devoid of religious opinions but a libertine to boot, perhaps the worst of all the dissolute set who surrounded the King. Lauderdale was a former Covenanter who devoted himself chiefly to Scotch affairs with the design of making the Crown supreme in that country. While Charles used all these men in the development of far reaching plans which, if they had been carried to completion, would have destroyed Protestantism and popular liberty in England, the " Cabal," as such, never enjoyed his full confidence, to say nothing of dominating him as Clarendon had done. The Secret Treaty of Dover (1670). — The English were embittered at the French King for taking the Dutch side in the late war, and apprehensive of his growing power as well. Nevertheless, Charles soon came to terms with Louis XIV ; for, to his mind, the French alli- ance was closely bound up with the introduction of Roman Catholi- cism and the revival of the old monarchial power. In pursuance of this design, the famous Treaty of Dover was concluded with France, 22 May, 1670. Only two of the Cabal were present, and the terms long remained a secret. They were, in substance : that Charles, in return for an annual grant during the period of hostilities, agreed to join Louis in making war on the Dutch, and to assist him in securing the inheritance which he claimed — through his wife, a daughter of Philip IV of Spain — in the Spanish Netherlands. Furthermore, and this was the secret part, the English King, in consideration of a sum of money, was, at a fitting time, to declare himself a Roman Cath- olic, and in case Charles's subjects resisted, Louis was to send troops to aid him. Though Charles was inclined to declare his conversion forthwith, the French ambassador persuaded him that such a step would strengthen the hands of the Dutch as champions of Protestant- ism, whereas, if the English were kept in ignorance of their Sovereign's change of faith they would continue to regard them merely as trade rivals. So, of the two objects contemplated in the Treaty, that of the destruction of the Dutch was thrust into the foreground. Since the negotiations leading up to the secret Treaty were known to all the Ministers, Charles commissioned Buckingham to negotiate a sham 374 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN treaty, concluded in February, 167 1, which was practically the same as that of the previous spring except for the provision concerning religion. Meantime, Charles by nursing Parliament in the delusion that a Triple Alliance — concluded with the Dutch and Swedes in 1667 — still held, secured large sums for the purpose of rendering it effective. Had he stood loyally by the Dutch, the designs of Louis XIV might have been checked and later costly and devastating wars might have been avoided. The Declaration of Indulgence (1672-1673). — The religious situ- ation was such as to cause " all Protestant hearts to tremble." On 15 March, 1672, the King issued a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending " all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical against whatsoever sort of Nonconformists or recusants." Although the Declaration only granted to Catholics liberty of private worship, while all Protestant sects were to be allowed to worship in public, men suspected it was issued mainly in the Catholic interest. Nor did it allay the suspicions, particularly of the Presbyterians, when the jails were opened and hun- dreds of Quakers and other Dissenters were released, although a large body of the Nonconformists sent the King a deputation to express their gratitude. When Parliament met, in February, 1673, the opposi- tion was so intense, that Charles, in return for a grant of money which he sorely needed, announced, 8 March, that he would cancel the Declaration. The Test Act and the Break-up of the Cabal (1673). —To clinch their victory, Parliament passed the famous Test Act providing that all holders of civil and military office must receive the sacrament ac- cording to the Church of England and take an oath declaring their disbelief in transubstantiation. That test excluded Roman Catholics and conscientious Dissenters for over a century and a half. 1 The im- mediate result of the Test Act was the break-up of the Cabal Ministry, though Arlington and Buckingham managed to hold on till 1674, and Lauderdale till 1680. Shaftesbury, the lifelong friend of religious liberty, who had been one of the instigators of the Declaration, but who, on gaining an inkling of the real purport of the Treaty of Dover and the King's Catholic designs, had reversed his policy and had lent his support to the Test Act, was dismissed from the office of Lord Chancellor, and became the most active leader and organizer of the opposition party forming against the Court. The anti-Catholic party had renewed cause for apprehension when the King's brother James, Duke of York, whose first wife, Anne Hyde, had died the previous year, married, in the autumn of 1673, Mary of Modena, who had been 1 Some Nonconformists did not scruple to qualify by taking the sacrament. FROM FALL OF CLARENDON TO DEATH OF CHARLES II 375 destined for a nun. The nuptials were brought about in the teeth of a Parliamentary address, praying that the Duke should not wed any person but of the Protestant religion. The Third Dutch War (1672-1674). — Parliament shared also in the growing opposition to the Dutch War which had resulted from the Treaty of Dover, and which was now drawing to a close. At the outset the war had been popular, for the English, as yet unaware of Charles's Catholic designs, welcomed the chance of French aid to crush their commercial rivals and avenge the invasion of the Medway. While the two countries were still at peace and while De Witt, the Grand Pensionary, was making every effort to avert a conflict, Charles ordered an attack on a Dutch fleet from Smyrna as it passed up the Channel. This inexcusable act of bad faith, which deservedly failed, led to a declaration of war four days later, 17 March, 1672. The situation seemed very serious for the Dutch. In the previous war the English victories at sea had been barren of results, because of their inability to follow them up by land attacks. Now with the armies of Louis operating on the frontier, they had every prospect of crushing their opponents. Neither side, however, was well prepared, and the first battle off Southwold Bay, 1 28 May, 1672, was indecisive. An attempt made by the allies, later in the season, to land on the Dutch coast was frustrated by the Dutch Admiral, with the help of his superior knowledge of the foggy, sandy shores. The Close of the War. — The next year, Prince Rupert succeeded the Duke of York, who had to give up his command in consequence of the Test Act. Several engagements proved as indecisive as that off Solebay. The feeling between the French and English in the allied fleets became intense. Increasing numbers of Englishmen, who had already begun to fear the designs of Louis XIV more than the com- mercial rivalry of the Dutch, became convinced that their sailors were being used to fight the battles of the French, and it was the common opinion in London that " unless this alliance with France be broken the nation will be ruined." Since the Dutch were torn by party strife, both sides were ready to come to terms. So a treaty was signed at London, 9 February, 1674, 2 by which the Dutch again acknowledged the honor of the flag and restored New York which they had captured in the previous July. The Turning Point in the Policy of Charles. Danby made Lord Treasurer. — With the passage of the Test Act and the close of the Third Dutch War, Charles quietly dropped his design of making Eng- land Catholic. Sir Thomas Osborne (1631-1712) succeeded Clifford 1 Or Solebay. 2 Known as the Peace of Westminster. 376 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER ERITAIN as Lord Treasurer, in 1673, and was created Earl of Danby the follow- ing year. A devoted supporter of the royal prerogative, he was op- posed to Dissenters, to Catholicism and French ascendancy, and showed great financial ability, though he was unscrupulous in filling his own pockets and in attaching supporters by bribery and patronage. While he was not the first to employ financial corruption in Parliament, he organized the system and extended it to the rank and file. Working with Danby, Charles readily went to the lengths of deserting the Catholics for the High Anglicans, and of consenting to the persecution of the Nonconformists; nevertheless, except for brief intervals, he continued in the pay of France till his death, though, after the peace with the Dutch, he never gave Louis any active support, receiving his subsidies in return for neutrality. The Beginning of the Modern Party System. — It was during the fight against Danby and the Court policy, in the session of 1675, that the Country Party, which had been taking shape for some years, was definitely organized under Shaftesbury in the Lords and by William Sacheverell in the Commons. Built on the principles of parliamentary supremacy and toleration, it soon came to be known as the Whig Party, a name which it bore until well into the nineteenth century. It sur- vives to-day in the present Liberal Party. While Danby was the first to organize a Government machine, his opponents put on a permanent footing one of the two great modern political parties. The center of activity of the Country Party was the Green Ribbon Club, founded in 1675, and, during the next few years a very busy organization it was, spurred by the feverish energy of its president, Shaftesbury. Anti-government men of all sorts gathered at its meetings, there petitions were drawn up, and thence speakers, agents and pamphlets were sent to spread their views throughout the city and country. The Succession. The Marriage of William of Orange and Prin- cess Mary, 1677. — The question of the succession was gradually be- coming acute. In 1676, James, Duke of York, brother and heir of the King, became a professed Roman Catholic, whereupon there began a fa- mous struggle, which came to a head two or three years later, to exclude him from the throne. The Protestant interest scored a victory when the King, in spite of the fact that he was in the pay of France, agreed, on zealous pressure from Danby, that Mary, 1 the eldest daughter of James and his first wife Anne Hyde, should marry William of Orange. The marriage, which had already been discussed in 1674, was celebrated 4 November, 1677. Charles's motives were : to force more money from 1 She had been brought up a Protestant, though her mother died in the Church of Rome. FROM FALL OF CLARENDON TO DEATH OF CHARLES II 377 Louis by coquetting with his enemy, as he had once before at the time of the Triple Alliance ; to strengthen himself with his Anglican sup- porters ; and to obtain from Parliament supplies of money and men by a threatened demonstration against the Power which they hated. A Tortuous Foreign Policy. — The course of English foreign policy and the relations between Charles and his Parliament were most tor- tuous and complicated. At times the King, in order to strengthen his army and to secure supplies from the Commons, was threatening war with France ; yet, all the while, he was treating with his old pay- master, now breathing defiance, now promising to dissolve his Par- liament, always with the view of making the best financial terms pos- sible. While Parliament voted him considerable sums to assist his Dutch son-in-law against the encroachments of Lcuis XIV, there was generally a strong opposition against him. Many, and not without reason, distrusted Charles's sincerity, fearing the use to which he might put the men and money which he sought, others wanted to get rid of Danby, and, sad to say, not a few had been corrupted by French gold. The aim of Louis XIV in subsidizing the Opposition x was to strengthen the party opposed to Danby, and, while the session lasted, to keep Charles so embroiled that he could not carry out his threat of inter- vening in behalf of the Dutch. When, in spite of his bribes and in- trigues, the English King finally prepared to send a force to assist William of Orange, Louis was obliged to sign a peace with the Dutch at Nymwegen, 10 August, 1678. While Charles gained nothing by the actual terms of the peace, the events which led up to it had greatly strengthened his position. He had increased his standing army and he had drawn large sums of money both from Parliament and Louis, by playing one against the other. Titus Oates and the " Popish Plot." — Such was the situation when startling disclosures of Titus Oates, an unscrupulous informer and liar, threw England into a violent panic. The anti- Catholic frenzy aroused by the so-called " Popish Plot " gave the Country Party a momentary ascendancy which they failed to maintain because of their unbridled violence. Titus Oates was the son of a Baptist formerly a chaplain of one of Cromwell's regiments. Deserting his father's faith he had first taken orders in the Church of England, and then, in 1677, joined the Church of Rome. His motives were base: either to obtain profitable employment as an agent in Catholic intrigues, or to sell their secrets to the English Protestant party. Already, in the course of a checkered career, he had been found guilty of false witness 1 It was estimated at one time that more than two thirds of the members were in the pay either of Charles or Louis. 378 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and of offenses even more loathsome. During brief residences at two Jesuit colleges abroad, from each of which he was successively expelled, he learned, through scraps of conversation, that Charles II was thought to stand in the way of the Romanist conversion of Eng- land for which he had once striven so zealously ; that Catholic hopes were now centered on his royal brother; that Coleman, secretary first of the Duke and later of the Duchess of York, was busy corre- sponding with the French Jesuit, Pere la Chaise, and that a Jesuit con- gregation had been held in London in April. Thus scantily equipped he went to London, where he worked up his story from such raw ma- terials as he had gathered. It was, in substance, that there was a hellish plot to fire the City, to rouse rebellion in Ireland, to invade England with a French and Irish army, to massacre the Protestants, and to murder the King. The Murder of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey (1678). — These disclos- ures were read before Charles and the Council, and a copy of the charges was put in the hands of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, a justice of the peace, who, though a Protestant, was intimately acquainted with Coleman and other prominent Roman Catholics. In spite of the fact that Oates was twice caught in falsehood and contradiction during his examination before the Council, an investigation was set on foot which resulted in the discovery of Coleman's correspondence with Pere la Chaise. This was the only evidence that could be found to support the story of Oates. In view, however, of the intrigues with France, partly known and partly suspected, the people were ready to believe anything; in consequence, when, 17 October, 1678, the dead body of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey was found in a ditch, north of London, their fears mounted to a panic. The mystery of Godfrey's death has never been solved. Causes Promoting Belief in the Plot. — A review of the years im- mediately preceding will show that Oates, though he told a lying story, had some ground to work upon; in other words, that there was to some extent a real as well as a sham plot. Charles, by the Treaty of Dover, had entered into a definite engagement for the Catholicizing of England. When the turn of events caused him to abandon these designs, and particularly after he had given his sanction to the marriage of William of Orange and had allied himself to the Dutch, Catholics at home and abroad, far from giving up hope, began to look to his brother to accomplish the work which he had deserted. While they worked earnestly at their plan of converting the country and to secure the succession of James, there is no proof that they ever plotted to murder the reigning King. Though party leaders on both sides sought FROM FALL OF CLARENDON TO DEATH OF CHARLES II 379 to make use of the " Plot " for their own ends, Shaftesbury was the most active of all in fomenting the excitement. Oates gave him the weapons he sought, to fight the succession of James and the Catholic line. His zeal was amazing in procuring informers and in hounding them by threats or bribery or whatever means proved most effective. Sad to say, all too many, high in public affairs, were deluded or un- scrupulous enough to fan the flames of popular frenzy. Charles's Share in the Responsibility. — Charles must bear a heavy share in the responsibility for the whole matter. By his manifest favor to Catholics in the early part of the reign and by his intrigues with France, he had placed himself in a position such that he could not make light of the whole affair without laying himself open to suspicion. So, though he did not believe a word of the Plot and even declared to his intimates that he regarded the chief informers as liars and rogues, he remained passive, letting events take their course. He suffered innocent men to go to their death on the testimony of rascals, and even permitted Oates, the arch-villain of them all, to lodge in splendor at Whitehall and to receive a large weekly pension from the privy purse. Finally, when he came to realize that Shaftesbury and his party were aiming, with the aid of Oates and his kind, to force him to divorce his Queen and to exclude his brother from the throne, he roused himself, dashed their plans and fought them with amazing ability and determi- nation during the rest of his reign. Yet, before that happened, he had allowed his subjects, whom his father had once described as a " sober people," to pass through a stage of madness which was an abiding disgrace to him and to them. Parliament Imposes New Tests upon Roman Catholics (1678). — Parliament met 21 October, 1678, and continued in session till 30 December. Its first step was to hurry through a resolution that " there has been and still is, a damnable and hellish plot contrived and carried on by Popish recusants, for the assassinating and murdering of the King, and for subverting the Government, and rooting out and destroy- ing the Protestant religion." None dared dissent, for fear of being thought implicated. Fear rose to panic. Elaborate precautions were taken against fire, men went about armed, and the Protestant " flail " was invented, a handy little club for striking suddenly a threatened assailant. The City and the royal palace were guarded with troops and cannon. The prisons were filled with suspects, and, while their trials were proceeding, measures were framed to exclude Catholics from the Government. A new test, passed 28 October, obliged mem- bers of both Houses to take the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and subscribe to a declaration that worship according to the Church 380 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN of Rome was idolatrous. One commendable achievement of this session was in forcing Charles to disband the standing army which the Commons protested was raised " for an imaginary war." The Victims of the Plot. — For months the trials of those accused of participation in the Plot went on. Coleman was the first to die, and upwards of twenty more met the same fate ; most of them guilt- less of any crime except that of being Roman Catholics and attempt- ing to propagate their faith. The judges were brutal and biased, the witnesses told what they knew to be lies, but, it must be said, the pro- cedure was no more unfair than it had been for a century and more. In constant fear of danger from without, of treason and rebellion from within, with no adequate police or military force, the Government saw no safety except in swift ruthless convictions. Thus the law courts were concerned not so much in saving the innocent as in making ex- amples of those who seemed guilty. While the Popish terror was at its height, the courts as well as the places of execution were threatened by howling mobs, so that the judges could acquit no one without the greatest risk to their own safety. The turn of the tide came in July, 1679, when the Chief Justice, acting on a hint from the Crown, with- stood popular clamor and declared the acquittal of the Queen's physi- cian, whose case was bound up with that of his royal mistress. More trials there were ; but they grew fewer and fewer, though two victims of high rank remained yet to be sacrificed to the popular fury. In December, 1680, Lord Stafford, an aged peer of the notable family of Howard, was sent to the block, and, in the ensuing summer, he was followed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, the last of the accused to suffer. The Fall of Danby (1678-1679). — Meantime, Danby had fallen and the Cavalier Parliament was no more. The Lord Treasurer was overthrown by the combined hostility of the Shaftesbury party and the French King. The agent was a disappointed office-seeker, who, moved by revenge and a bribe from Louis XIV, disclosed instructions which he had received from Danby to offer the dissolution of Parlia- ment in return for a French loan. Parliament started to impeach the Lord Treasurer forthwith. In was urged in vain that, disapproving of the proposal, he acted solely in accordance with the royal orders. Next, Charles tried to save him by proroguing and then dissolving Par- liament. The new Parliament, which met 6 March, 1679, resumed the attack. Ultimately the impeachment was withdrawn, he was convicted under a bill of attainder and committed to the Tower, where he remained for nearly five years. Danby's case is of great political and constitutional significance ; it marks another step in FROM FALL OF CLARENDON TO DEATH OF CHARLES II 381 the process of calling Ministers to account, and established the principle that a royal pardon was no bar to an impeachment. The "Habeas Corpus Act" (1679). — This Parliament which dis- posed of Danby secured notable gains to the subject in connection with the writ of Habeas Corpus. Notwithstanding the Petition of Right, repeated instances of arbitrary imprisonment occurred after the Res- toration. One bill after another was introduced, but it was not till 1679 that an Act was passed, mainly through the efforts of Shaftes- bury, to make the execution of the writ more effectual. Hitherto, the jailer had not been bound to make an immediate return, and he might avoid giving up a prisoner by shifting him from prison to prison. Moreover, it was not clear whether any but the Court of King's Bench could issue the writ, or whether a single judge could do so during the long vacation. The Act of 1679 provided that any prisoner held for a criminal charge must, on the issuance of the writ, be brought before the judge within a specified time to decide whether he should be dis- charged, released on bail, or held for trial. Henceforth, the writ might be obtained from any court, while, during the long vacation, a single judge might issue it. Furthermore, except in special cases, persons could not be imprisoned beyond the seas, and the writ was to run in the counties palatine and other privileged jurisdictions. Evasions were punished by heavy fines. Even yet the remedies were still in- adequate. A judge might require bail too excessive for the prisoner to obtain, jailers might make a false return, and the provisions applied to criminal cases only. The first abuse was remedied by the Bill of Rights, the two latter by an act of 1816. The First Exclusion Bill (1679). The Whigs and Tories. — Charles ratified the Act in order to placate the Opposition, who were bent on excluding the Duke of York from the succession. A bill for that pur- pose passed the Commons, and he only prevented it from going to the Lords by proroguing Parliament, 27 May, 1679. That body did not meet again till the autumn of 1680. During the interval the struggle raged furiously. In general, Charles played a waiting game, hoping by repeated prorogations to keep Parliament in check or to drive the Opposition to violence. Petitions poured in from all parts of the coun- try, begging him to call Parliament. These were answered by coun- ter-petitions from his supporters, declaring their abhorrence of such petitions. The names " petitioners " and " abhorrers " came to be applied to the two great parties, who, however, soon received their more enduring names of " Whigs and Tories." l 1 '" Whig" is thought to be a shortened form of " Whiggamore," a name applied to the Scotch covenanting party, from "Whiggam," the cry by which they en- 382 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Second Exclusion Bill (1680). The Oxford Parliament (1681). — Truly these months were a " crazy time everywhere." The Duke of Monmouth, one of Charles's natural sons, a weak, erring young man as charming in manners as his reputed father, had gained some popu- larity by suppressing a Presbyterian rising in Scotland, and Shaftes- bury, disappointed of forcing Charles into a divorce and a Protestant marriage, aimed to prove that Monmouth was the legitimate fruit of a secret marriage, and thus to set him in place of the Duke of York as heir to the throne. When Parliament met, in October, a second Exclusion Bill was introduced. Passing the Commons, it was defeated, chiefly by the eloquence of Lord Halifax, who favored Charles's plan of a Catholic succession with limitations, whereupon, the Houses were prorogued, and finally dissolved, in January, 1681. The King's last Parliament met 21 March, 1681, at Oxford; for he dared not allow it to assemble in London. The Whigs, greatly in the majority and backed by bands of armed followers, were determined to force through their exclusion measure, and to set up a Protestant Association to govern the country under Monmouth. Charles, in order to secure his sup- porters against attack, had the road to Oxford lined with armed men and made other preparations for defense. Moreover, he secured an- other large grant from Louis, and, when the Opposition again re- fused to accept a bill of limitations, he put an end to the session after eight days, the members dispersing with " dreadful faces and loud sighs." Charles's waiting policy had been crowned with success, the Whigs had over-reached themselves by their own violence, and never again, while he lived, were they to recover their lost ascendancy. Their leaders kept up the struggle, but their following was a body of desperate agitators, not a popular political party. Flight and Death of Shaftesbury. The Royal Attack on the Munici- pal Corporations. — Loyal addresses came pouring in from all sides, couched in the most abject and fulsome language. The Tory doctrines of non-resistance and absolute devotion to absolutism now became all the more fashionable by way of reaction against the Whig notions which had dominated the last three Parliaments. Charles was now ready to assume the aggressive. The first blow was aimed against Shaftesbury, who was charged with plotting against the King and with attempting to set up a republic. Although the grand jury refused to bring in a true bill against him, the fiery popular leader, after a year of furious agitation and busy intrigues, fled to Holland in December, 1682, couraged their horses, though some derive it from a word meaning "sour whey." "Tory" originally meant an Irish outlaw. It was first applied by Oates to those who disbelieved in the Plot, and passed from them to the opponents of the Exclusion. FROM FALL OF CLARENDON TO DEATH OF CHARLES II 383 where he died the following January. The Middlesex jury who had thus defied the royal will was appointed by the London sheriffs who, in their turn, were chosen by the City, where the Whig element remained strong. Accordingly, Charles, in order to revenge himself and at the same time to gain control of the government of London, had a writ of quo warranto brought in the King's Bench calling on the City to show why — by what warrant — it should not forfeit its charter, on the pretext that it had abused its privileges. In June, 1683, the judges rendered a de- cision that the charter should be forfeited. Nevertheless, it was pro- posed that the charter might be retained on certain conditions, the most important being that the election of the chief officials should be submitted for royal approval. When the City refused to submit to this arrangement, Charles proceeded to appoint men of his own choice. He next extended the attack against other municipalities. His ob- ject was not only to increase his supporters in influential centers, but, since many corporations chose the parliamentary members from their borough, to strengthen his party in the House of Commons in the event of another session. Some resisted, some surrendered voluntarily when suit was brought against them ; altogether, nearly seventy charters were forfeited or remodeled. Meantime, the Duke of York had re- sumed office in violation of the Test Act, and the persecution of Dis- senters had been resumed. The Triumph and Death of Charles (1685). — Charles was now tri- umphant. The country was prosperous and trade was flourishing; the furious partisanship of the Whigs, the dread of another rerolution, and the King's adroitness in giving up his Catholic designs and in playing his adversaries until they had risen to the bait had left him supreme. Yet he had won at a tremendous sacrifice. For the sake of French gold he had acquiesced tamely in Louis XIV's plans of ascendancy, which caused untold misery to generations to come. Happily he did not live to enjoy long the repose which he had so basely gained. He was stricken with apoplexy, 2 February, 1685, and only survived four days. Witty to the last, he apologized to those about him for being " such an unconscionable time in dying." In his last hours he was received into the Church of Rome. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Lodge; Trevelyan; Cambridge Modem History; Ranke; Lingard ; and Macaulay. Constitutional. Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law (3 vols., 1883), I, 325 ff. for judicial procedure in the seventeenth century. 384 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Biography. Lord John Russell, Life of William Lord Russell (4th ed., 1853). Anonymous, Adventures of James II (1904), very sympathetic as regards James. Special. John Pollock, The Popish Plot (1903), the authority on the subject ; pt. IV deals with the procedure in the treason trials. Contemporary. J. S. Clarke, The Life of King James the Second, "col- lected out of memoirs writ of his own hand" (18 16). For further works relating to this chapter see Chapter XXXII, above. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 228-232. Robert- son, Select Statutes and Cases, pt. I, nos. X, XI, pt. II, nos. II- VII. CHAPTER XXXIV * JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" (1685-1688) Strength of the Monarchy at the Accession of James, in 1685. — Charles, though lazy, dissipated, and unprincipled, was tactful and wary, and left his brother in a position of unusual strength. The Whig opposition was crushed and discouraged ; the municipal corporations were under royal control ; France stood in need of the friendship of the English King, while the Dutch, the Protestant princes of Ger- many, and Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy, all of whom dreaded French ascendancy, courted his alliance. Moreover, James, during the first few months of his reign, steadily strengthened his position : he obtained an ample grant from Parliament and, in order to face a rebellion which was easily suppressed, he secured a large standing army. Had he been content with the religious situation as Charles had left it, he. might have ruled long and successfully, but his rash am- bition to reestablish the Church of Rome alienated even the most devoted of his supporters, the Tory High Churchmen, drove them into the ranks of the opposition, and led to his overthrow. Personal Traits of the New King. — James was nearly fifty-two years old. 1 During twelve years of exile he had seen service both in the French and the Spanish armies. Then, and afterwards as a naval commander in the Dutch wars, he had shown himself to be brave and not without ability. Also, as Lord High Admiral, he had, in the teeth of great obstacles, proved an enlightened administrator, fond of details, and, for a man who lived at Court in those days, compara- tively free from vices of drunkenness and gambling. But here his virtues ended. He was dull and obstinate, ready to sacrifice every- thing for the advancement of his Church. Much of the cruelty charged to him may have been due to the agents whom he trusted, but a chief duty of rulers should be to choose worthy servants and up- right counselors ; James's failure to do this was a main cause for his downfall. 1 He was born, 14 October, 1633. 2 c 385 386 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The First Measures of the Reign. — From his very accession, 6 February, 1685, he celebrated mass with open doors, though he dis- armed the apprehension of the bulk of his subjects by declaring to the Council that he would make it his endeavor " to preserve the Gov- ernment in Church and State as it is by law established." Many Catholics and Quakers 1 were released from prison; but the penal laws were rigidly enforced against the bulk of the Dissenters. Gates, already under sentence of perjury, received a flogging from which it is a marvel that he survived.- In addition, he was sentenced to prison for life and to be pilloried five times a year. Parliament Meets and Grants James a Fixed Revenue. — Parlia- ment, which met 19 May, 1685, readily granted to James for life, the revenues of the late King, together with certain additional duties, which, added together, gave him about £1,900,000 a year, a sum which, considering that he was a thrifty Monarch, abundantly sufficed for his ordinary needs. Less pliable in religious matters, Parliament met the King's proposal to remove the tests excluding Catholics from office by insisting that the anti-Catholic laws be strictly enforced. Such was the situation when news came that Monmouth had landed on the south coast. Pausing only to pass an Act of Attainder against him and to set a price on his head, the Houses adjourned, July 2. The Exiles. Argyle lands in Scotland. Failure and Execution. — Following the final triumph of Charles, crowds of bitter-tempered exiles had fled to the Low Countries. Their hopes centered in Mon- mouth, who, until his father's death, had been content to shine as a social leader at the Hague. Next to him in importance was the Earl of Argyle, head of the great clan Campbell and son of the famous covenanting leader who had been executed after the Restoration. Egged on by the busy plotters, Monmouth and Argyle were induced to attempt simultaneous invasions of England and Scotland. Argyle, who started in May, finally reached the land of his own people on the west coast ; but, owing to dissensions, desertions, inadequate supplies, and lack of enthusiasm for the cause, he failed miserably. His forces were scattered, he himself was captured and taken to Edinburgh where, 30 June, 1685, he was beheaded, meeting his fate with lofty resigna- tion. Monmouth's Rising and Its Failure (1685). — Meantime, 11 June, Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis. There, at the market cross, a Declaration was read which charged James with all manner of horrid and unlikely crimes — such as burning London, strangling Godfrey, 1 They were persona grata with the Sovereign because passive resistance was one of the tenets of their religion. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 387 and poisoning his late brother — and stated that the young Duke had come to deliver the land from popery and tyranny and to submit his claims to a free and lawful Parliament. The peasants in the coun- try round about pressed eagerly to join him ; but the gentry held aloof. At Taunton, Monmouth, contrary to his promise, proclaimed himself King. He soon had to reckon with a royal army, composed partly of regular troops and partly of local militia, which encamped, 5 July, at Sedgemoor in the Somerset marshes. Here they easily repulsed a night attack and scattered the Duke's raw levies, fighting valiantly, but poorly mounted on cart-horses, and many of them armed only with scythes tied on poles. The battle of Sedgemoor was the last im- portant battle fought on English soil. Monmouth, who fled when he found the battle was going against him, was discovered two days later, hiding in a ditch, disguised as a shepherd. Although he pled abjectly for his life, it proved of no avail. He was beheaded 15 July, 1685. Monmouth's popularity among the peasants of Somer- set and Dorset amounted to veneration. Refusing to believe that he was dead, they cherished for years the hope that he would re- appear to lead them. 4t Kirke's Lambs " and Jeffreys' " Bloody Assize." — The venge- ance of James was swift and terrible. First, Colonel Kirke with his regiment of "Lambs " l butchered scores without trial, enriching himself, however, by sparing those from whom he could extort money. 2 In the infamous " Bloody Assize," held by Judge Jeffreys in the autumn, more than 300 were hanged, drawn and quartered, and 800 more were transported. For generations there were spots in the countryside that the natives would not pass after nightfall, from the gruesome memories preserved of bodies swinging in chains and of heads and quarters fixed on poles. During the trials, Jeffreys, who afterwards boasted that he had hanged more traitors than any of his predecessors since the Conquest, roared, swore and joked at the trembling victims in a way that made his name a terror for years to come. All that can be said for him is that he was only a degree worse than the typical judge of the century, and that, owing to a painful malady, he drank so heavily that he was scarcely ever sober. Some have tried to excuse James from responsibility for the acts of his brutal judges, but to those who appealed for mercy he showed himself harder than the marble chimneypiece in his audience chamber, and he not only rewarded Jeffreys with the Lord Chancellorship on his return 1 So called from a device on their banner representing the Lamb of God. 2 Of late the view has been gaining ground that the charges against Kirke may have been exaggerated. SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN from the West, but honored him with his fullest confidence through- out the reign. The Turning Point in the Reign. Foreign Relations. — In spite of the hatred smoldering in the west, the power of James seemed un- assailable. He had crushed and overawed those who dared to rise against him. The Church and the bulk of his subjects were still loyal, he had an adequate regular revenue, and a strong standing army. Nevertheless, the autumn of 1685 marked a decisive turn in the tide of his affairs. The situation abroad and the execution of Mon- mouth, followed by a long succession of follies, led to his downfall within the space of three years. His connection with Louis XIV was most unfortunate; for while he gave the French King no active assistance, he received subsidies from him and was popularly sup- posed, at home and abroad, to be a partner in the French King's de- signs of establishing an ascendancy on the Continent, bound to be stoutly resisted by Catholic as well as Protestant rulers. Not only was James hampered by an unpopular ally, but also, by putting Mon- mouth out of the way, he removed a great cause of dissension between his opponents, some of whom supported the late Duke as the suc- cessor to the English throne. Now all parties united for William of Orange. So, when James began to make it clear that he was bent on reintroducing Catholicism into England, the ground was prepared for an irresistible conbination — European and English — against him. Such being the situation, it was most unfortunate for the pros- pects of James that Louis, in October, 1685, revoked the Edict of Nantes, which, in theory at least, had protected his Huguenot sub- jects for over a century. Many of them took refuge in England, and the tales they told revived the terror which had somewhat subsided after the discrediting of Oates and his gang. What Louis had done in France James might do in England. James Breaks with his Parliament (November, 1685). — It was at this unfortunate juncture that James began to show his hand. He had three measures which he was determined to put through : to maintain intact the standing army, which had been increased from 6000 to 20,000 in consequence of Monmouth's rising; to obtain the repeal of the Test Act, for the purpose of retaining a number of Catho- lics who already held office in the army and to make it possible to put others in military and civil positions ; and, finally, to repeal the Habeas Corpus Act, which prevented him from dealing summarily with those who were disposed to resist his authority. Parliament, which met 9 November, vigorously opposed these projects. This so angered the King that he prorogued the Houses before they had passed a money JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 389 bill to pay for the expenses incurred in suppressing the recent insur- rection. He also dismissed from office many who had voted against his measures. Parliament never met again during the reign. James's New Counselors. — The chief power soon fell into the hands of Lord Sunderland. While, perhaps, not so black as he is usually painted, he was inordinately ambitious, never hesitating to change his politics or his religion whenever he thought he saw a chance to advance his interests. Though he did not profess himself a Roman Catholic till the summer of 1688, he attached himself, not long after James broke with Parliament, to a small group of extremists whose policy was decidedly French and Jesuit. Among them were Father Petre and Richard Talbot, the latter commonly known as " lying Dick Talbot," a crafty intriguer who masqueraded as a jovial roisterer. The ill-advised designs of those men and a few more who joined with them, were a source of grave apprehension to the moderate Roman Catholics, especially to the nuncio and the vicar apostolic whom the Pope had sent over to restrain the zeal of James, and to counter- act the intrigues of France. The Case of Sir Edward Hales (June, 1686). — James awakened concern by one rash act after another. Since Parliament had refused to sanction the repeal of the Test Act, he determined to render it void by filling offices in spite of its restrictions. However, in order to give his procedure a show of legality in the eyes of subjects, he de- cided to extort from the judges a decision in his favor. Four who re- fused to do his bidding were replaced by others more pliant. To bring the case before the courts, the coachman of Sir Edward Hales was employed to start suit against his master for holding a commission in the army, contrary to the Test Act. Eleven of the twelve judges decided that, notwithstanding the provisions of the Act, he was en- titled by a royal authorization to hold office. Thus fortified, James, in July, admitted four Roman Catholics to the Privy Council. More startling still, he proceeded to invade the two strongholds of Angli- canism, the Church and the Universities. He issued dispensations enabling Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical benefices, he ap- pointed to the Bishopric of Oxford one who was a Roman Catholic at heart, and made a professed Romanist Dean of Christ Church ; moreover, Jesuit chaplains were introduced at University College, where they set up a press for printing controversial pamphlets. The Court of Ecclesiastical Commission (July, 1686). — It was necessary, if the King was to control the Church, to have a means of punishing those who refused to obey him. To that end, he revived what was in substance the Court of High Commission, which had been 390 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN abolished by the Long Parliament and which had not been restored at the Restoration. James called his body the Ecclesiastical Commis- sion, and insisted that it differed from the tribunal suppressed by Parliament, in that its jurisdiction was confined to the clergy. The first work of the Commission was to deprive Henry Compton, Bishop of London, of the administration of his See, because he had refused to suspend the Dean of Norwich, who had preached against a royal proclamation aimed to silence controversial sermons denouncing " Popery." Popular Excitement and Opposition. — By virtue of a wholesale issue of dispensations, Roman Catholic chapels were set up all over the country, and a church and school for Jesuits was installed at the Savoy Palace. In November, 1686, the new Royal Chapel was opened at Whitehall " with a world of mysterious ceremony." Monks and friars in their religious garb appeared again in the streets of London, and so alarmed and enraged the people that riots were of fre- quent occurrence. In order to overawe the unquiet, 13,000 men of the standing army were quartered on Hounslow Heath ; but the camp became a great resort for Londoners, who flocked there on Sundays, and the soldiers came to share more and more in the sentiments of the citizens. From the pulpits throughout the land sermons were preached against " Popery," while floods of pamphlets defending the Protestant faith issued from the press. In spite of the growing op- position and of the reproaches even of the Pope and the moderate Roman Catholics, the King went on stubbornly, and the situation grew more and more tense. The Situation in Scotland under Charles II. — In Scotland, too, there was grave discontent. The Restoration had been welcomed because of aversion to Cromwell's military rule and the domination of Presbyterians. Yet the result had been disappointment. The Scots had changed governors, but arbitrary government continued in a form more cruel and oppressive than ever before and became corrupt as well. The Presbyterians were kept down rigidly and the Episcopalians were mere creatures of the Government. Trade and commerce, too, suffered because of the Dutch wars and the abolition of the free trade existing under the Commonwealth and the Pro- tectorate. By an Act passed in 1663, known as the " Bishops' Drag- net," heavy fines were imposed on all who did not attend the parish church. Those who remained obdurate, and they were mainly cen- tered in the southwestern counties, suffered cruelly at the hands of the King's dragoons, who were quartered in their houses and who ruth- lessly searched out and broke up their " field conventicles." A JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 391 rising of some of the more desperate in 1666 only resulted in harsher measures of repression. After a bloody carnival of execution and torture, milder measures were tried, but when, in consequence, con- venticles began to multiply again, the authorities reverted to a policy of systematic coercion. The Rising of the Covenanters (1679). — A crisis came in the year 1679 with the murder of Archbishop Sharp, whom the Presbyterians detested as a treacherous deserter from their cause, and as a blood- thirsty persecutor. Then followed another revolt which was only crushed with the defeat of the insurgents at Bothwell Bridge, 22 June. In December, the Duke of York was sent to Scotland to govern the country, and, during the period of his regime, there began a policy of suppression which ultimately alienated the mass of Scotsmen from his cause. His military agent, John Graham of Claverhouse, who at first was occupied mainly against the fanatical extremists in the south- west, gained the name of " bloody Clavers," though modern writers are inclined to think the charges against him have been exaggerated. Scotland in the Reign of James II. — The accession of James was marked by even greater severity against the Covenanters than had been employed under Charles II. Not content with renewing the law which made the taking of the Covenant treason, the Estates slavishly passed an Act providing that all persons, preachers or hearers, proved to have been present at a Conventicle were to be punished with death and confiscation. When, however, the King sent them a letter recommending the repeal of the penal laws against " his inno- cent subjects, those of the Roman Catholic religion," they returned such a hesitant answer that he closed the session, and proceeded to carry out his policy by means of the Privy Council : he annulled the tests, he allowed Roman Catholics to worship in public, and removed from office those who opposed his will. This aroused such a storm that he, forthwith, issued letters of indulgence allowing to Presbyterians the same privileges which he had accorded to Roman Catholics. In- stead, however, of increasing his supporters and allaying dissatis- faction, as he had hoped, the measure was fatal for James's power in Scotland: for it led to the return of many Presbyterian preachers of the extremer sort who organized an opposition which expelled him from the throne of Scotland. James's Irish Policy. — In Ireland, where there was a Roman Catholic majority, the aims of the King were more far-reaching. He designed to make the old faith dominant and to employ the Irish as an instrument in his efforts to bring about the conversion of the two neighboring Kingdoms, and he had good ground on which to work. 392 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN To be sure, in spite of the restrictions on the wool trade and the cattle export, the country had prospered since the Restoration; for the restrictions had not been enforced, while the linen industry had flourished. But the trade shackles were galling; the Episcopal Church had power and revenues in inverse proportion to its size, and the bulk of the land, as well as the political power, lay in the hands of the English and Scotch colonists. The native Irish yearned to recover the possessions of which they had been deprived, and the Catholic extremists aimed at ascendancy. Irish affairs were in the hands of the Commander of the army, Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyr- connel, who was made Lord Lieutenant in 1687. The First Declaration of Indulgence (4 April, 1687). — In Eng- land, James, finding after preliminary examinations, or "closetings," that there was little prospect of securing a Parliament that would support his cherished policy of repealing the tests and the penal laws, determined to proceed on his own authority. So, April, 1687, he published a Declaration of Indulgence granting to all his subjects the free exercise of their religion, suspending the execution of all penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, and removing all oaths and tests for the holding of military and civil offices. The High Church Tories, struck with amazement and terror, thereupon began to make overtures to their old enemies, the Dissenters. All they could offer, however, was remote and uncertain, while the relief tendered by James was immediate. On the other hand, his proffered relief was not only un- sanctioned by Parliament but coupled with concessions to the Roman Catholics. The result was a split in the Nonconformist ranks. A minority accepted gratefully. 1 The majority, including such men as Baxter and Bunyan, stoutly refused. Dykevelt's Mission to England (1687). — It was about this time that many began seriously to look to William of Orange as their cham- pion against James and Roman Catholicism. Chosen by the Dutch to be Commander-in-Chief and Stadholder in the critical year 1672, his guiding aim was to check the growth of France in order to pre- serve the liberties of his people, and his main reason for desiring the crown of England was that he might secure English resources to aid him in his great work. Hitherto, he had held aloof from English politics, but now while not yet ready to strike, he undertook to pre- pare the way for a possible intervention by sending an envoy, Dyke- velt, under the cover of a special mission to the English Government, to sound the opposition leaders. Dykevelt, during his brief stay, 1 The King's chief agent in attaching them to his cause was William Penn, a sincere, if somewhat ill-advised, advocate of toleration. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 393 strove busily to ingratiate himself with all classes. He assured High Churchmen of his master's friendship for Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer ; he held out to Nonconformists the pros- pect of toleration and comprehension ; and to Roman Catholics the repeal of the penal laws. The Royal Attack on the Universities. — James, on the other hand, was continually making enemies for himself. One of the rash- est steps in his headlong course he took when he ventured to attack the Universities, who were traditionally as hostile to Roman Cathol- icism as they were devoted to Monarchy. While Cambridge did not escape the inroads of his Romanizing aggression, the bitterest struggle was waged at Oxford, where James insisted upon putting in a candidate of his own as President of Magdalen College. When the Fellows, to whom the right of election belonged, refused to admit the legality of the proceeding, they were ejected, September, 1687, and declared incapable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice, while Magdalen was for a brief period turned into a Roman Catholic semi- nary. Oxford was thrown into a state of defiant excitement, and subscriptions were raised all over the country for the victims of the royal wrath. James's Attempt to Pack a Parliament (1 687-1 688). — Realizing that the existing Parliament was unalterably opposed to his policy, James had finally dissolved it in July, 1687. 1 Nevertheless, since he still de- sired to secure parliamentary sanction of his abrogation of the tests and the penal laws, he made preparations to pack a body pledged to do his will. With that end in view, he caused the municipal corporations to be again remodeled ; for the High Church Tories put in by Charles opposed his policy. He appointed sheriffs from his own creatures, and he ordered the Lords Lieutenants to question the magistrates of their respective counties as to how they would act in the event of a gen- eral election. In some places he even went so far as to quarter troops. Promises of support, with the alternative of dismissal, were also exacted from officials in all the public departments. One poor customs house officer declared that he obeyed for fourteen reasons, a wife and thir- teen young children. In general, however, the result was most dis- couraging to James ; nearly hah theLords Lieutenants refused to carry out the royal orders and had to be dismissed, while the great majority of those questioned would give no further assurance than that, if elected, they would obey their conscientious convictions, or if voters, would cast their ballots only for men whose views agreed with their own. 1 It had never met since the autumn session of 1685. 394 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Second Declaration of Indulgence and the Protest of the Seven Bishops (April-May, 1688). — On 27 April, 1688, James reissued his Declaration of Indulgence, and followed it by an Order in Council, published 7 May, commanding the clergy to read the Declaration on two successive Sundays and directing the bishops to distribute copies throughout their dioceses. By way of reply, Archbishop Sancroft called a meeting at Lambeth Palace on the evening of 18 May, where he drew up a petition, in which it was declared, with great professions of loyalty, that the Declaration was illegal and that the petitioners could not be parties to its public reading during divine service. It was signed by the Archbishop and six of the assembled Bishops, after which the six Bishops crossed the Thames and delivered it to the King at Whitehall. James was furious. " This is a standard of rebellion," he cried, and repeated the phrase over and over again, while the Bishops protested that they were no rebels. That night the petition was printed, and circulated rapidly throughout the city and country. How it happened no one knows ; for the audience with the King was private. The excitement grew in intensity, and, when Sunday came, the Decla- ration was read in only four of the hundred churches in and about London. By the following Sunday a few more clergymen had been whipped into line ; but in most cases the congregation got up and left to avoid hearing the hated Declaration. Although Sunderland recom- mended moderation, the King, on the advice of Jeffreys, ordered the Bishops to be tried for libel. Meanwhile, they were committed to the Tower. As they passed down the Thames, crowds in boats thronged the river, and others ran along the banks crying : " God bless your lordships." Even the soldiers who conducted the prisoners asked their blessing, while those off duty drank their healths. The Birth of the Prince (10 June, 1688). — On Sunday, 10 June, while they still awaited their trial, a son was born to King James. This contributed more than any other single event to precipitate the crisis soon to follow, for, hitherto, many had consoled themselves with the thought that James's daughter and heir Mary was a Protestant. Now the prospect of an endless Roman Catholic succession suddenly loomed up. A story was at once started that no child had been born to the Queen, but that the little Prince, now proclaimed as such, had been secretly introduced into the Queen's chamber and passed of! as the royal heir. While the tale was generally believed, there is little doubt that that charge of trickery was absolutely baseless. However that may be, the popular leaders now made up their minds, when a fitting moment came, to send for William of Orange. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 395 The Trial of the Seven Bishops (June, 1688). — When the day fixed for the trial of the Seven Bishops arrived, the excitement had spread everywhere from Scotland to Cornwall. They were charged with having produced " a false, malicious, and seditious libel." Fortu- nately for the cause of liberty, their counsel were forced to abandon technicalities, and proceeded to prove that the paper in question was not false, malicious, nor a libel, but a respectful petition setting forth facts known to be true, and delivered privately into the hands of the King with no intention of stirring up strife. The jury remained closeted from nightfall until six o'clock the next morning before they reached an agreement. As they left the court after their verdict of acquittal had been announced, the people surged around them, crying : " God bless you! " " You have saved us all to-day." The city and the country, as the news spread, rang with shouts of joy. Even the soldiers in Hounslow Heath cheered lustily. The Opposition had won a great victory on the broad constitutional grounds that James's exercise of the dispensing power was illegal, and that his subjects had the right of petition against it. The Invitation to William (30 June, 1688). — All distinctions of politics and religious were, for the time being, merged in a general combination against the King. Many, even of the High Church clergy, who during their supremacy, had argued that the laws of God as well as the laws of man demanded unquestioning obedience to the civil authority, were now ready to contend: " that extreme oppres- sion might justify resistance . . . and the oppression which the nation suffered was extreme." Others, who shuddered at the notion of active resistance, were ready to go as far as passive resistance, asserting, that in view of his late acts, they were not bound to obey the King. Such was the state of the public mind when, 30 June, 1688, the day of the acquittal of the Seven Bishops, a letter signed by seven of the leaders of both parties was sent to William of Orange, inviting him to Eng- land and assuring him that nineteen twentieths of the people would rally to his support and that the army of James was full of disaffection. William's Declaration. — William, however, realized that the under- taking bristled with difficulties. If he crossed the Channel as the champion of Protestantism, the Catholic powers of the Continent might turn against him. However, he was able to reassure them by emphasizing the danger of an Anglo-French ascendancy. With regard to England, if he landed without an army he was very likely to meet the fate of Monmouth. On the other hand, English patriotism might re- sent an invasion of foreign troops. Concluding that the latter was the less serious danger, he prepared an army and a fleet. In order to pre- 396 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN pare the way for his coming, he caused a Declaration to be published in which he rehearsed James's violation of the fundamental laws, his favor to Roman Catholics and his oppression of Protestants. Dis- claiming any thought of conquest, he declared that he was going to submit the issues at stake to a full and free Parliament. James's Belated Concessions. — James, awaking at last to the gravity of the crisis, made a belated effort to conciliate the Tories who had once been so devoted to him. In the last weeks of September, 1688, he reversed one after another of his late unpopular acts : he reinstated Bishop Compton, abolished the Ecclesiastical Commission, and agreed to restore the forfeited municipal charters, as well as the Lord Lieu- tenants and various magistrates whom he had dismissed. It was felt, however, that these belated concessions were only drawn from him by the impending danger, while, even yet, he refused to give up his dispensing power or to remove his Catholic supporters from mili- tary and civil office. 1 William's Landing at Torbay (5 November, 1688). — William, having been delayed (or days by adverse weather, at length succeeded in land- ing, 5 November, at Torbay, on the coast of Devonshire. From Torbay he marched to Exeter, which he selected for his first headquarters. Although the magistrates tried to close the gates against him, crowds flocked to welcome him as a deliverer. James hastened to Salisbury, whither he had sent his army to face the invaders. On his arrival, he found the situation most discouraging ; for, heartened by the de- fection of men in higher station, the western counties had risen, and the gentry who had joined William at Exeter had bound themselves together in a formal organization to secure their liberties and religion. The North, too, was up in arms. James, in order to stem the tide, was keen for bringing on an engagement at once ; but he was suddenly taken with a hemorrhage of the nose which kept him inactive for three days. When he recovered, he was so disheartened by rumors of trea- son among his officers that he decided to retreat. The flight of John Churchill, his most efficient general, was a crushing blow, all the more so, because Churchill's wife, an ambitious intriguer, had the King's second daughter, Princess Anne, under absolute control. The re- treat and the constant desertions demoralized the army. Fearing for his capital, James hastened back to London, where he found that Anne herself had already fled from Whitehall. " God help me," cried the unhappy Monarch, " my own children have forsaken me." 1 Yet very wisely he did get rid of Sunderland, who, in spite of his brazen as- surances, was suspected of treasonable correspondence with the invaders. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 397 The Flight of James (11 December, 1688). — In his extremity, James issued writs for a Parliament to meet 13 January, 1689. Also he ap- pointed a commission of three to treat with William, in the meanwhile, and issued a proclamation granting full pardon to all who were in arms against him. This was merely to gain time. Already he had made up his mind to escape, and hastily made preparations for flight. His first care was to send the Queen and the little Prince safely out of the coun- t ry ; after this he annulled the writs for the promised Parliament , destroy- ing those which had not yet been sent out. On the morning of 11 December he rose at three o'clock, was rowed a short distance down the Thames in a wherry , dropping the Great Seal in the river as he proceeded, and boarded a hoy which he had engaged to transport him to France. His Capture and Second Flight. — The news of his flight aroused a storm of excitement, and, that night, lawlessness broke loose. Roman Catholic chapels were sacked and burned, private houses were attacked, and the residences of foreign ambassadors even were not spared. Suddenly, in the midst of the confusion, the rumor spread that James had been caught by a band of fishermen in search of plunder and escap- ing Jesuits. William was grievously disappointed; but he quickly made up his mind that, without making it too evident, a second chance to escape must be pressed upon James. So he was removed from Whitehall, whither he had been taken, to Rochester. There the house in which he lodged was left unguarded in the rear so that he was able to slip out through the garden to the banks of the Medway. Thence he was rowed down the river in a skiff until he found a fishing smack which conveyed him to France. Louis XIV received both James and his Queen with great ceremony and hospitality, lodged them at St. Germain and provided them with an ample revenue, vowing that ere long he would restore them to their throne. William's Arrival in London (18 December, 1688). — William, on his arrival in London, was waited on by numerous deputations. Though some extremists pressed him to declare himself King forth- with, William remained true to the promise in his Declaration to settle the government in a parliamentary way. As a preliminary step he summoned the lords spiritual and temporal, the members who had sat in the House of Commons in the reign of Charles II, 1 and a deputa- tion of the London magistrates. This body advised William to assume the provisional government and to call a convention to effect a per- manent arrangement. 1 The members from the first and only Parliament of James were excluded be- cause the remodeling of the corporations had interfered with the free choice of the electors. 398 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Convention and the Settlement of the Succession. — The Con- vention, which met 22 January, 1689, framed, after some discussion, a resolution declaring : " that King James, having endeavored to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom by breaking the original con- tract between King and People, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and hav- ing withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom, had abdicated the Govern- ment and that the Throne had thereby become vacant." This clumsy and illogical resolution was adroitly designed to suit all parties : the reference to the original contract was framed for the Whigs, who be- lieved that the Government was a contract between the King and his subjects, and that a Sovereign who broke the contract by the abuse of power could be deposed; the reflection on the Jesuits was for the extreme Protestants ; and the assertion regarding the abdication, for those Tories who held that subjects had no right to depose their Sovereign. When the resolution was finally adopted after a long, hot debate, it was decided that William and Mary should be joint sovereigns with the administration in the hands of William. The Declaration of Right. — Next it was necessary to determine the conditions upon which the crown should be conferred. The result was the Declaration of Right, which, like its two great predecessors 1 deals not with vague general principles, but more particularly with actual grievances of the last two reigns, which are to be safeguarded against for the future. After enumerating the recent attacks made by James on the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of the King- dom, it declared : that the pretended power of suspending laws and of dispensing as it has been exercised of late, that the court of Eccle- siastical Commission and other courts of a like nature, that levying money without consent of Parliament, were all illegal ; that it was the right of subjects to petition the King, and that all prosecutions for such petitioning were illegal ; that maintaining a standing army, except by consent of Parliament, was illegal ; that election of members to Par- liament ought to be free ; that freedom of speech, debate or proceed- ings in Parliament ought not to be impeached in any court or place outside the two Houses ; that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments in- flicted ; that jurors in cases of high treason ought to be freeholders ; and that, for amending and preserving the laws, Parliaments should be held frequently. The Declaration concluded by settling the crown upon William and Mary, and upon the heirs of Mary, Anne and William respectively. Mary arrived from Holland, 12 February, and the new 1 The other two being Magna Carta (1215) and the Petition of Right (1628). JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 399 Sovereigns were proclaimed 13 February, 1689, in the presence of shout- ing crowds. The Peculiar Character of the Revolution of 1688. — Thus ended the " Glorious Revolution." Although, so far as possible, every ancient form had been complied with, it was, from the strictly legal standpoint, a real revolution. The Convention which settled the crown on William and Mary was not properly a Parliament, for it had been summoned by no royal authority. To be sure, the new Sovereigns later declared it a legal body ; but since they were its creatures, their assertion could not make it such. Nevertheless, defective as were its proceedings when viewed in a purely legal light, the Revolution can be justified, both from the issues at stake and from the moderation with which the movement was conducted. Macaulay, in his classic work on this period, has pointed out that it was a " preserving " not a " destroying " revolution, in which all parties joined — Whig and Tory, Churchmen and Dissenters — to preserve the fruits of the Reformation and the Puritan Revolution, to maintain Protestantism, the supremacy of Parliament and the freedom of the subject. The fundamental laws were not changed but defined and secured ; the old line of Kings, how- ever, was set aside, and thus a final blow was struck at the theory of Divine Right. Never since the expulsion of James II has there been a revolution in England. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Macaulay, History of England, in spite of its obvious faults, remains the classic treatment of the subject. Sir James Mackintosh, Re- view of the Causes of the Revolution of 1688 (1834) contains a large collection of documents in the appendix. Biography. Viscount Wolseley, Life of Marlborough (vols. I, II, 1894), an apology for Marlborough, left uncompleted at 1702. , For further references see Chapters XXXII, XXXIII above. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 233-234. Robert- son, Select Statutes, pt. II, 1103. VIII, IX. CHAPTER XXXV PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND v' . Characteristics of Seventeenth-century England. — The period from 1603 to 1688 is crowded with incident and notable achieve- ment. It opened with a struggle of Parliament against the attempt of the first Stuart to maintain and strengthen the Tudor absolutism in Church and State, a struggle which culminated in civil war result- ing in the defeat and execution of a King, the temporary overthrow of Monarchy and Episcopacy, and the establishment of a republic. The experiment proved premature, and was followed by the restora- tion, both of the Stuarts and the Established Church. Nevertheless, the Puritan Revolution had not been in vain ; henceforth, in spite of occasional reassertions of absolutism, Parliament became, more and more, the supreme power in the State, while Dissent not only sur- vived and flourished, but obtained, before the close of the century, a substantial if imperfect legal recognition. The party system began to take shape and distinct gains were made in law reform. A stand- ing army was established, while the navy grew and obtained a really effective organization. Long strides were taken in the direction of commercial and colonial ascendancy. Manufactures became more varied and wealth increased, together with new comforts and lux- uries. Coal was introduced in place of charcoal ; tea and coffee ap- peared ; travel and communication were fostered by coaches and packet boats, and amusements multiplied. The newspaper came into being, and the spread of printing, together with the growth of the party system, resulted in myriads of caricatures and satires. There was a striking development in political and economic thinking, as well as in religious and philosophical speculations. Literature, while not reaching the heights of the wonderful Elizabethan Age, was interesting and varied, manifesting new and striking tendencies. Mathematical, physical and physiological sciences showed a marked advance. Such are some of the features of this complex and throb- bing age. 400 PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 401 Regulation of Trade and Manufactures under James I and Charles I. — While the monopolies and privileged companies fostered by James I and Charles I have been severely attacked, there is little doubt that both these Monarchs aimed, in some degree at least, to regulate the economic life of the nation in the interests of the whole, to main- tain high standards of production and to keep the subject employed as well. Such national regulation, however, was difficult to enforce effectively and impartially, while, moreover, the Stuarts mingled with their zeal for the public welfare a tendency toward favoritism and a proneness to utilize their grants as sources of revenue. Thus the system tended to abuse of privilege, to the curbing of healthy competition, and to the discouragement of those outside the pale. Men of ability and enterprise were excluded from trade, especially with foreign markets, or joined the ranks of the interlopers. Industrial Situation under the First Two Stuarts. — Neverthe- less, the period was one of material progress rather than decline. Foreign refugees nocked to the country, the population increased, old industries developed and new ones were introduced, though, under a freer system than that of company control, there might have been a far greater advance. The silk manufacture began to nourish, yet to nothing like the extent noticeable after the influx of French Hugue- nots which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The cutlers of Sheffield had been incorporated in 1624, but what is now a city cf half a million and the chief center of the cutlery in- dustry of the world, was then the possession of a manorial lord who leased the furnaces to the manufacturers. The total population scarcely exceeded two thousand, a third of whom were dependent on charity. There was a great opposition to the smelting of iron ore be- cause of the enormous quantities of charcoal required, which exhausted the forests and threatened the supply of timber for shipbuilding. Although one Dud Dudley devised and patented a successful process, his efforts were frustrated by rivals, and little was done toward apply- ing the method of smelting till the following century. Coal, which was beginning to be employed extensively for fuel in London, was brought by boat from Newcastle and hence was known as sea coal. The wool trade was practically stationary until after the Restora- tion. In order to encourage the home consumption an Act was passed for burying in wool ; nevertheless, there was complaint that many persisted " in adorning their deceased friend's corpse with fine linen, lace, etc., though so contrary to our own true national interest." In spite of the opposition of the wool interests, calicoes, chintzes, and muslins were imported from India, while in 2D 402 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN 1676, Flemish immigrants introduced the art of calico printing into England. The Period of the Civil War, the Commonwealth and the Pro- tectorate. — The Civil War and the disorders that followed naturally interrupted trade, yet less than might be expected. The return of the Jews under Cromwell gave considerable impulse to business, and the protests of London merchants against them were based, ap- parently, rather upon commercial jealousy than religious intolerance. Although the judges decided that the law did not permit them to live in England, Cromwell admitted them on his own authority. Charles II, who refused to reverse the Protector's policy, allowed them to open a synagogue in London. Trade during the Restoration. — Systematic supervision of trade and industry on the part of the Sovereign, which ceased with the personal government of Charles I, was not revived at the Restoration. Henceforth, commercial regulation belonged largely to Parliament. Some new companies were founded ; but, in general, encouragement took the form of tariffs and bounties rather than special privileges to " particular groups " of subjects. The cessation of rigid super- vision led to some falling off in the quality of goods ; but that was counterbalanced, to some degree, by competition and the use of trade marks. On the other hand, there was a general increase in trade, especially the carrying trade. The Navigation Acts were only partly responsible ; for they were not vigorously enforced, nor were the Dutch outstripped by the English until they had been exhausted by the wars of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Many other factors account for the great colonial and commer- cial expansion of the post-Restoration period. Charles' marriage brought to the country Bombay, together with increased facilities of trade with the other Portuguese possessions. Spain granted to England the privileges of the most favored nations ; also, treaties were made to protect the Levant trade from Turkish pirates, and, though humbling to national pride, proved effective. Colonial Expansion. — The Elizabethan Age was one of discovery and exploration ; the Stuart period marked the beginning of colo- nization. Although the Dutch still overshadowed the English in the East, notable steps in advance were taken. In the reign of James I, the Persian trade was first " enterprised " by English merchants, and a commercial treaty with the Great Mogul extended English commerce in India, while, before the close of the century, the East India Company was securely established at Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, and the Royal Africa Company had flourishing possessions PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND * 403 on the Gold Coast and at other points on the Continent of Africa. In America, several of the West India Islands were acquired, and all but one of the thirteen American colonies l were established. While Spain and Portugal were mainly concerned with the search for pre- cious metals, and while the French devoted themselves to founding trading posts and missionary stations, the English, if not free from delusions of their time, were the first to establish the policy of home building in the New World. Agriculture under the First Two Stuarts. — Under the Stuarts the agricultural progress, so marked during the reign of Elizabeth, promised to continue. The rise in prices, due to the increase of pre- cious metals and the growing demand for food, had intervened to check the turning of arable land into sheep pasture, and, with the prospect of increasing profits from corn and meat, renewed energy was de- voted to improving conditions of tillage and reclaiming waste lands. The efforts of cultivators were quickened and guided by resourceful writers on agriculture, who suggested more scientific care of cattle and poultry as well as improved methods of treating the soil. Much was learned from the Italians about irrigation and the utilization of water meadows. Rotation of crops by the planting of turnips and clover was urged as a substitute for fallow 2 ; potatoes and carrots began to be cultivated, and increasing attention was paid to orchards and gardens. It was in this period that the task of draining the fens in the Eastern Counties was first seriously indertaken, though since Roman times, occasional attempts at reclamation had been made, especially by the monks who lived on the islands dotting the watery and boggy expanse. The enterprise was interrupted during the Civil War and, while resumed during the Commonwealth, met with various set-backs. Some of the work was badly done by " mounte- bank engineers, idle practitioners, and slothful impatient slubberers," though the greatest difficulty came from the " riotous letts and dis- turbances " of the natives, who received no compensation for their rights of turf cutting, fowling, fishing, hunting and pasture, and it was not till after the lapse of a century and more that the results of their destruction were repaired. The Period of the Civil Wars and the Restoration. — The agri- cultural progress of the first forty years of the century was checked, 1 Georgia in 1733. 2 Apparently first introduced in the reign of James I from the Palatinate ; turnips had the additional advantage that they could be used to feed cattle over the winter. Formerly most of the live stock had been killed and salted. But turnips and clover did not come into general use until the eighteenth century. 4 04 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN to a large degree, by the war. The period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate was marked by a revival, to which Cromwell con- tributed by his enlightened support. Another period of stagnation set in under Charles II. Many facts beside the blighting effects of the war explain why the early promise of the century was not fulfilled. For one thing, most of the writers who urged wise and necessary im- provements proved to be failures in practice, so that their example did not inspire confidence. Then the system of common tillage and open fields, which, in spite of the enclosure movement, still survived in large parts of the country, was an obstacle to individual enter- prise. Moreover, the Cavalier estates had been heavily embarrassed by the sequestrations and other exactions from which they had suf- fered during the Civil War, while those of the other party who had acquired their lands were uncertain of their tenure after the Restora- tion. Landlords were unprogressive, grasping, and niggardly in ad- vancing capital, tenants were discouraged from making improvements when the only prospect was increased rent or eviction in the interest of the landlord or of some one who would offer a higher bid. Then roads were bad and canals as yet non-existent, so that new ideas spread slowly, and the producer was as yet limited to local markets. The great development in agriculture was not to come for almost a cen- tury. Roads and Travel. — Traveling was not only difficult but dan- gerous. On dark, moonless nights the traveler stood in grave danger of losing his way in the unenclosed heaths and fens that, in many parts of the country, lay on either side of the road. If he managed to keep a straight path, he was, in wet seasons, constantly liable to mire his horse or his coach, and sometimes his progress was alto- gether cut off by floods. The coach from London to Oxford — a dis- tance of fifty-four miles — took two days of thirteen hours each. Great was the amazement of the good people of the time when, in 1669, a " flying coach " was started which made the journey between six a.m. and seven p.m. of the same day. In spite of storms of op- position at the great risk involved in going at such a reckless speed, flying coaches, which averaged fifty miles a day in summer and thirty in winter, were started, before the close of the reign of Charles II, from most of the chief towns south of York and east of Exeter. Many still traveled by post horses rented at various inns along the road. The coaches were great lumbering affairs, drawn by four or six horses. There were stage wagons for merchandise ; though, on the by-roads, and even on the main highways in the North and West, goods were transported on the backs of pack-horses. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 405 Highwaymen. — To add to the woes of the traveler, there were the highwaymen who infested the roads in every direction, espe- cially those which led to London. Men made their wills before under- taking a journey, and started out with pistols in their holsters, blun- derbusses in their coaches, and often guarded by armed attendants. Some of the outlaws of the period were almost as famous as the leg- endary Robin Hood. Inns and Ale Houses. — Happily, English inns were famous for their plenty, comfort and good cheer. The larger ones were equipped with monstrous supplies of beef and mutton, hogsheads of ale, cellars of wine and well stocked stables. Besides, there were many of the humbler sort " with the cleanly swept brick floor, with the ancient ballads stuck on the walls, with the linen fragrant with the scent of lavender, with the open fire and the snowy curtains, and every material detail savoring of comfort and repose. ..." There were also, in rural villages, simple alehouses whither the natives, from the squire to the humblest toiler, came to talk and to doze. Social Classes. — The gradations of classes in rural England were the nobility ; the country gentry, who possessed broad acres ; the yeo- men, or small freeholders ; the tenant farmers, and the agricultural la- borers. In addition there were the country parsons who occupied a somewhat anomalous position. While class distinctions were deeply rooted and most folk died in the station in which they were born, there was a degree of close friendly association. High and low often mingled in the village schools and the grammar schools of the market towns. In cases where the sons of nobility and gentry were educated at home by tutors, boys of lesser rank were admitted, not infrequently, as com- panions or pages to share their studies. After this preliminary training the noble and the wealthy, and even a favored few of the lesser sort, might proceed to the great endowed schools such as Eton, Winchester, and Westminster. Many of the elder sons, after painfully strug- gling with the elements of learning, settled down at once upon their estates with a stock of knowledge not much in excess of the humble clodhopper. Others were sent with a tutor to make a grand tour of the Continent. Others, again, before traveling abroad, went for a time to Oxford or Cambridge. At the Universities there were marked distinctions of rank ; for the teaching and clerical professions were re- cruited largely from the middle class, from the sons of farmers and tradesmen. Numbers had to earn their own way, as servitors, or " sizars," making the beds, sweeping the chambers and performing other menial duties for the affluent gentlemen commoners. Not a few of the younger sons of the gentry found a career in the law or 406 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN medical professions, although some took holy orders. The former went to London to reside for a specified number of terms at the Inns of Court or to enroll in the College of Physicians and walk the hospitals. Others sought service in the Continental wars or engaged in commerce, either in the City or in the neighboring provincial town. These latter formed a link between the landed and the trading classes. Frequently, they married rich tradesmen's daughters, while, on the other hand, merchants who had become wealthy bought estates and set up as country gentlemen. The Nobility and Country Gentry. — During the Stuart period the bulk of the older nobility, especially of the soberer sort, remained comfortably on their estates, where they lived in ample leisure, mainly occupied in hospitality and the pursuits of the chase, leaving the votaries of pleasure and the climbers to seek their diversion or to push their fortunes at Court. The rural gentry, with a few shining ex- ceptions, were rude in their manner of life, prejudiced and often illit- erate. Few left home save at the most infrequent intervals, while such fragrants of book learning as they had acquired were soon for- gotten amid the business and pleasures of their rural seclusion — man- agement of land and cattle, dickering at market, riding and hunting, and huge dinners, washed down by copious potations of ale ; they had no newspapers or periodicals, and little opportunity for meeting men of affairs and information. Nevertheless, ignorant and uncouth as they often were, they had a pride of family, which, if it made them overbearing and impatient of contradiction, impelled them to cherish high standards of honor. It was from this class that the justices of the peace were recruited, and their experience and responsibility were bound to develop self-reliance and executive capacity. The Yeomen and the Farmers. — Next below the landed gentry were the yeomen and the tenant farmers. The former were free- holders who tilled their lands with the help of a few servants and laborers. They were a sturdy class, many of them Dissenters, who with the city tradesmen went far to counterbalance the Toryism of the squirearchy and the country parson. Toward the close of the period, however, they were already on the road to extinction ; for the large landowners and the well-to-do city merchants, anxious to found estates, were beginning to buy them out. The farmers, who hired their lands, with holdings averaging from 40 to 50 acres, formed a body almost as numerous as the freeholders. Competition was keen, rents were high, and they were destined to go the way of the freeholders, to give place to tenants of large holdings and capitalist cultivators. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 407 The Clergy. — There were, in the Restoration period, about 10,000 clergy of the Church of England, four fifths of whom received an income of not more than £50 each. While there was a great difference between the bishops and town clergy, on the one hand, and the do- mestic chaplains and country parsons, on the other, the poverty and menial status of the latter probably has been exaggerated. Many there were, no doubt, with large families in poor parishes, who had to eke out their scanty stipend by working small farms, who, with few or no books, denied the advantages of travel, and deprived of uplifting associations, were in a state not far above the peasants of their flocks. There were, too, chaplains who were household drudges, for whom the cook or the lady's maid was thought a fitting match. On the other hand, there were many younger sons of gentlemen, or even nobles, who sought a career in the Church ; not a few of the seventeenth-century poets were rural clergymen, and a long list of works on divinity will testify to the erudition of many others. Certainly, there are few periods in English history when the clergy exercised more influence than during the interval between the Resto- ration and the death of Anne. The Agricultural Laborers. — Out of an estimated population of 5,000,000 about one half, including their families, were laborers and small cotters. They lived on intimate terms with the small farmers and yeomen who employed them, and, if unmarried, they ate at the farmers' tables, sharing in all except puddings and special delicacies. Yet their state was a miserable one. Wages were low, though supple- mented to some extent by surviving rights on the common lands, by the domestic system of spinning and weaving, and. the employment of the women in the fields at harvest time. They had no fresh meat during the greater part of the year, no wheaten bread and as yet no tea or coffee. Sanitary conditions were still worse. Their houses were still mere hovels with walls of mud and roofs of thatch, with rarely more than a single chimney and no glazed windows. They slept crowded together in stuffy rooms ; the advantages of bathing and fresh air were not yet understood, and both the atmosphere and the water were contaminated by sewage and refuse. The plague did not cease its visitations till 1665, infant mortality was appalling, and medicine was only emerging into a science. Prevalence of Superstition. — Many superstitions were rife, some of them cruel and terrifying. Even at the close of the century the bulk of the people still believed in witches — malicious, spiteful old women who had sold their chances of future salvation and had leagued themselves with the devil, creatures who blighted the crops and 408 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN maimed the cattle of their neighbors and held nightly revels in cellars and larders. They were supposed to ride on broomsticks, and to be attended by familiar spirits in the form of toads and cats. While in Elizabeth's time, the laws against witchcraft were the mildest in Europe, a new and ferocious Act followed the advent of James I, and during the century thousands of poor creatures were executed. Thanks to the good sense and humanity of Cromwell, the persecu- tion was abated during the Commonwealth, and was not resumed after the Restoration with anything like the old rigor, though many continued to nourish the delusion. If witches were the victims of popular superstition and hatred — though they were often sought for their charms to ward off diseases and, in the case of lovers, to win the affections of some coy village damsel — alchemists, astrologers, and fortune tellers, many of them thieves and sharpers, throve upon the prevailing credulity. Counterbalancing Charms of the Age. — On the other hand, many current beliefs illumined the pervading monotony with touches of poetry. Men told of the lubber fiend, or Lob-lie -by-the-fire, who came down the chimney after the household was asleep, swept the floors and did all manner of work if placated by a bowl of cream by the fireside. It caused pleasant shudders to think that ghosts haunted the churchyards, that goblins peopled the fields after nightfall, and that fairies sported in the dark recesses of the forests. Moreover, there was much that was picturesque and charming about the life of the period. Except for London, there were no crowded cities, and the teeming factories with their ceaseless din and smoke were as yet far in the future. People, even in the provincial towns, were surrounded by orchards and gardens, they were within sight of field, wood, and stream. All this, together with the picturesque and grace- ful architecture — the rambling manor houses, the quaint homes of the lesser folk, and the spacious inns — lent a variety and beauty to life which was reflected in the songs and verses of the period. Be- fore and after the gloomy interval of the Puritan regime, ancient games, festivals and pastimes flourished. At Christmas the Yule log was burned and all classes indulged in brave feasting. There were pretty ceremonies, as for instance, on May Day, when, in the early dawn, the youths and maidens went to the woods and fields and wove gar- lands to hang on doors and windows. There was cockfighting, and bullbaiting, wrestling, and football played with inflated bladders of swine, and there were masks and pageants. The North Country. — The balance of wealth and population was still in the south. The northern counties were scantily inhabited, PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 409 poor and wild. Peel towers continued to be used as refuges, and manor houses were built of stone and fortified. Judges on circuit were usually accompanied by a strong bodyguard. Parishes kept bloodhounds to protect property, and local taxes were levied to main- tain bands of armed men. The Towns. — Except for London, which had a population of not far from half a million, there were, so late as the Restoration, only four towns with more than ten thousand inhabitants. Small as they were, the provincial towns were far more important social centers than they are to-day. The great county families resorted to them instead of to London for pleasure as well as for business. While the assizes, the quarter sessions and the markets occupied the early part of the day, the evenings were made gay with balls and all sorts of social activities. Owing to the restrictive policy of the gilds and the apprentice laws, excluding the unskilled labor from the rural districts, the population of the towns was a picked one. The gild system, inadequate as it was to meet the growing needs of the country, was not wholly without advantages. It kept up the standard of production, and not only furnished skilled workmen but provided a means of education when schools were few and costly. Where the apprentice had a churlish, avaricious master his lot was sad indeed, what with long hours, hard words and beatings, but under happier circumstances, he had the blessings of a sympathetic home train- ing. After his seven years of service he began work as a journeyman. Often he prospered sufficiently to set up in business for himself, or he might marry his master's daughter and take over the very craft or trade to which he had been bound. But, outside the old centers, the gilds were giving way more and more to the domestic system, especially in the cloth industry ; more and more, in the villages and through the countryside, spinners and weavers were working in their own cottages. Moreover, some towns were wise enough to slacken their restrictions. Particularly by welcoming Huguenots — and here London was in the vanguard — they gained an advantage which France threw away. London. — London at the close of the seventeenth century was, with the possible exception of Amsterdam, without a commercial rival in the world, as well as the center of the social, political, and intellectual life of England. Its aspect was very different from to- day, when the great army of those who have business in the City go every night to the suburbs and the adjoining country. In those days, even the wealthy merchants occupied houses surrounded by walled gardens, which have long since given place to crowded streets, banks, 410 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN shops, and warehouses. Artificers and tradesmen lived with their famiUes and apprentices over or behind their shops. The London of the Restoration had few or no suburbs, and most of the now fash- ionable West End consisted of fields and orchards with here and there a great nobleman's estate. Outside the City walls were the " liberties," a region of slums where the poor, the wretched, and the criminals were herded together in miserable hovels in dirty alleys. The City streets were narrow and crooked; the overhanging upper stories of the buildings on either side presented a quaint appearance, but cut off fresh air and sunlight. The rebuilding which followed the Great Fire of 1666 led to improved sanitary conditions at the sacrifice of medieval picturesqueness. However, a touch of varied charm was preserved in the signs which designated different houses — num- bers would have been of very little help, since few coachmen, chair- men, or porters could read. The pavements were wretched, and the gutters, clogged with decayed vegetables and animal refuse, became raging torrents during rainy weather and flooded the streets with watery filth. This was splashed upon the pedestrian by pass- ing coaches and carts, so that " taking the wall " was a much sought privilege which caused many a fight. The street venders kept up a constant din, crying their wares, and the air was choked with the smoke of sea coal which arose from the fires of brewers, dyers, soap- boilers, and lime-burners. Mixed with fog it often enveloped the City in almost impenetrable gloom. At such times, as well as at night, it was dangerous to be abroad, what with the slippery, foul and un- even pavements, the countless thieves and cut-throats, and bands of roistering young men of fashion who took delight in attacking and mauling peaceful citizens. Although dueling, which came in at the beginning of the century, was a custom much to be deplored, it had the merit of superseding, to some degree, the custom of seeking re- venge against an enemy through hired assassins and bullies. Mur- ders and robberies were alarmingly frequent under the shroud of darkness. Until the reign of Charles II the only lights came from links, lanterns and torches, borne by pedestrians or their attendants. Finally, an enterprising person obtained an exclusive patent for lighting the City, placing a light at every tenth door between the hours of six and twelve ; but only on moonless nights and during the season from Michaelmas to Lady Day. A metropolitan police force was as yet undreamed of ; the decrepit constables who served by day, and the night watch, largely composed of superannuated and feeble men, afforded little protection. Prosecutions often failed because witnesses dared not appear for fear of the vengeance of the criminal classes PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 411 who ran riot through the City. The apprentices were a particularly turbulent element. In their pretended zeal for liberty, frequently a mere cloak for lawlessness, they were often on the rampage, cudg- eling those who came in their way, and even pulling down buildings, so that sometimes even the soldiery had to be called out to suppress them. They led in the prejudice of the London rabble against for- eigners, particularly Frenchmen, who were jeered at, pursued by cries of " French dog " and " Mounzer," and pelted with stones and filth. Whitefriars, Paul's Walk, and Whitehall. — Noisy, disorderly and dirty as were the other quarters of the City, there was one dis- trict, on the western edge, that was particularly unsavory and horrid. It was known as Whitefriars, from the site of an old Carmelite mon- astery. Once a sanctuary for criminals, it still retained the privilege of protecting debtors from arrest, and was the haunt of abandoned wretches of all sorts. Officers sent to make arrests were, at the cry of " Rescue ! " set on by furious mobs, so that it often required troops to execute a warrant. Between the hours of eleven and twelve in the forenoon and three and five in the afternoon, " Paul's Walk," the central aisle in the Cathedral, was still the haunt of business and pleasure. Venders of wares, lawyers seeking clients, and beaux, exhibiting their fine raiment, wandered up and down, filling the sacred place with buzz of profane conversation. The Court at White- hall was a center of politics, gayety and dissipation. Those who had claims to press, or who sought offices, together with the gay liber- tines who were boon companions of the " Merry Monarch," thronged at his levees. The galleries of the palace were filled with curious crowds watching him " at his meals or as he and his courtiers and mistresses gambled or danced in the evening." They listened eagerly, too, for scraps of news about affairs, foreign and domestic, and greedily devoured such crumbs of gossip and scandal as they were able to get hold of. Coffee Houses. — What was learned at the royal palace was spread rapidly through the coffee houses which filled the places of the newspapers and public meetings of later times. Originating in the sample room of a Turkey merchant about 1652, coffee houses, in the teeth of stubborn opposition, multiplied so rapidly that there were three thousand in the City and suburbs before the close of the cen- tury. Becoming centers for political discussion, they soon aroused the suspicion of the Government. Charles II, in 1675, ordered them to be closed ; but the popular opposition was so intense that the order was revoked within two weeks, on the promise of the landlords to do their best to stop seditious talk and the circulation of libelous books 4 I2 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN and pamphlets. There were coffee houses for all classes, profes- sions, and shades of opinion, to say nothing of clubs founded by Cavaliers and Puritans respectively. The Newspaper and the Post. — Although newspapers, or rather newsbooks or pamphlets, began to appear about the middle of the century, news was chiefly circulated by coffee houses and news- letters 1 until after the expiration of the Licensing Act in 1695. Postal arrangements were still very primitive and inadequate. The mail bags were carried on the backs of horses who traveled by day and night at an average of five miles an hour. Ordinarily, the mails went and came on alternate days ; but, in the remote districts, letters were not received or dispatched more than once a week. Rates were very high, averaging twopence for a single letter for eighty miles and increasing with the weight and distance. When the Court was traveling from place to place, arrangements were made for a daily service with London. In the reign of Charles II, regardless of the outcries of the porters, a London penny post was established with a delivery six or eight times a day in the City and four times in the suburbs. Dress, Food, and Recreations. — In dress as in many other things, there was, after the Restoration, a decided revolt against the sim- plicity of the Puritan regime. Periwigs appeared for men, and women of fashion began to paint their faces and to adorn them with black patches ; they also adopted the practice of wearing vizards, or masks, on occasion, and, with their features thus concealed, grew more bold in their conduct. There was an inordinate rage for gambling, and all sorts of new card games came in after the return of Charles II. Among the pleasure resorts, Vauxhall Gardens, with a great hall for promenading and dancing and arbors for dining, was the most popular if not the most respectable. There was such an excess of eating and drinking, and medicine had made so little progress, that the fashion- able found it good, at certain periods, to take the waters and live on restricted diet. Bath was the most famous health resort, though its elaborate social code, fine buildings, and elegant appointments did not come till after the advent of Beau Nash in 1705. The ordi- nary London citizen contented himself with Epsom, where for the past hundred years and more the Derby races have been held. There were many fields near the Capital where the lesser folk, particularly the apprentices, went for walks on evenings and holidays. In con- trast to the upper classes, the working people kept very early hours, 1 Written by City hacks to country magnates and to the inns of provincial towns and villages. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 413 beginning the day at six or seven, dining at one, and going to bed at sunset. Anglican Theology. — The drama, the choicest of the choice prod- ucts of Elizabethan literature, began to decline at the end of the reign of James I, and, notwithstanding the appearance of poetry of enduring note, the remainder of the century was preeminently an age of prose : the growing Puritan spirit developed acute religious controversies, and pressing political problems claimed the energies of active minds. The Bible, in the magnificent King James version, became the dominating influence among the graver folk, high and low alike. It fostered independence of thought and stimulated the imagination even of the common man and prompted him to noble forms of expression, while it furnished a literary model of singular dignity and beauty for the man of letters, and provided an arsenal of weapons for the controversialist. Both in political and theological discussions there are hosts of names, some furious partisans only to be remembered in connection with the questions of the day, others whose productions have survived as literary classics. The Latitudinarians. — In theology the golden mean was repre- sented by the " Latitudinarians," who, clinging to the " sweet rea- sonableness " of Hooker, aimed to emphasize the essentials of faith and to minimize minor differences of dogma and Church policy, and to harmonize Divine revelation with nature, reason, and experience. Taking its rise in Holland, Latitudinarianism was promulgated chiefly by a small group of broad-minded thinkers who, on the eve of the Civil War, gathered round Lord Falkland, in his country house near Oxford. Their views were eagerly welcomed by numbers of moderate men who sought a middle way. Outside this group was Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), who owed his early advancement to Laud and was a pronounced Royalist. His Liberty of Prophesying was intended to secure religious freedom against spiritual tyranny, though he is chiefly remembered for his Holy Living and Holy Dying, rare among devotional works for its profound human appeal and the splendor of its style. " Quaint old Tom Fuller " (1608-1661), be- loved in his own day and by generations of readers in after times, for his sprightly wit and playful fancy, was among those who sought to steer a moderate course. His peculiar charm is best manifested in his Worthies of England. The Latitudinarian tradition was continued by the " Cambridge Platonists," a small body of scholars at the University who, oppos- ing the " sourness and severity " of the extreme Puritans on the one hand, and materialism on the other, advocated a sort of Christian 414 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN Platonism. They were mystics whose philosophic temper was held in check by spiritual humbleness. In the troubled days of the Inter- regnum and in the first years after the Restoration, the teaching and influence of the Cambridge Platonists was almost the one oasis in the educational aridity which prevailed at the Universities, where the students had to depend rather upon themselves than their tutors. 1 The principles of the early Latitudinarians and the Cambridge Pla- tonists were preserved and developed by a long line of post-Restora- tion divines. As a body, the Latitudinarians enriched English the- ology with much good literature, they stood for peace in an age of bitter controversy, and for a toleration that was strange alike to the Laudians and their opponents. Moreover, they furnished examples of holy living only equaled by the best among the Puritans. Philosophy. — Among the speculative thinkers of the period, the two greatest names are Thomas Hobbes (i 588-1 679) and John Locke (1632-1 704). Hobbes, during his long and busy life, produced various works on ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. His chief contribution was the Leviathan (published 1657), in which he likens the State to the fabulous sea monster in the book of Job, and then to a mortal god who exercises absolute control over the subject. This power, in his opinion, rested upon an original social compact 2 be- tween the people to obey the Sovereign in return for peace and protec- tion against war and anarchy — the natural state of mankind. In addition, he insisted upon the complete subordination of the Church to the State. His doctrines were such as to expose him to furious attacks from the extremists of both the opposing camps. The Parlia- mentarians were alienated by his absolutism, while the Royalists, with their notions of the Divine Right of kings, would not accept his ex- planation of the origin of government. Moreover, he was denounced as an atheist who conformed to the Church of England merely be- cause it was established by the State. However, his political theories have had far-reaching consequences. They were taken up by Rous- seau and the French Encyclopedists who furnished the intellectual preparation for the French Revolution, while, furthermore, they pro- foundly influenced the English Utilitarians who contributed so much to popular progress during the nineteenth century. The mouthpiece of the Tory absolutists was Sir Robert Filmer, whose Patriarcha, or 1 The pursuit of learning, however, as distinguished from teaching, was far from dead, particularly at Cambridge, since the University furnished many distinguished members to the Royal Society, which began to flourish early in the reign of Charles II. 2 An ancient doctrine, long dormant, which had been recently revived by Hooker, Grotius, and others. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 415 The Natural Power of Kings Asserted, was first published in 1680, twenty-seven years after the author's death. While agreeing nat- urally with Hobbes as to the supreme authority of the State, he sought its origin in the power of the patriarchs beginning with Adam, from whom the Divine Right of kings is derived by hereditary descent. But the only political thinker of the century to compare with Hobbes was Locke, a man of astonishing versatility. He drafted a constitu- tion for the Carolinas; he had a share in the restoration of the coinage ; he practiced medicine ; and, according to John Stuart Mill, he was the " unquestioned founder of the analytic philosophy of the mind." His . writings include four letters on Toleration; two Treatises on Civil Government ; and an Essay Concerning Human Understanding. His political treatises are at once a reply to Filmer and a defense of the Revolution of 1688. Accepting the views of Hobbes as to the origin and end of government, he went beyond him in insisting upon the supremacy of the legislature as the voice of the people ; the responsibilty of the prince to the subject ; and the right of resistance when the governors of the State failed to observe their trust. Economic Theory. — While the seventeenth century marked a considerable output of economic writing, most of the works were written for practical purposes and paid little attention to principles. Political economy as yet had no independent name ; it was regarded merely as a branch of statecraft and business. The writers on the subject were, as a rule, merchants or politicians concerned with in- creasing the power, the treasure, the fisheries, and the shipping of the country. Chief among them was a group which was principally engaged in defending the privileges of the East India Company. Sir Josiah Child (1 630-1 699), who managed the affairs of the Com- pany in the time of Charles II and James II, advanced many steps beyond his predecessors in economic thinking. He recognized that gold and silver were only commodities themselves though used as a measure of other commodities, and, while he defended monopoly on the ground that it made for national power if not for national wealth, he realized the commercial advantages of free trade. Though he succeeded in grasping some of the fundamental principles of polit- ical economy, he was primarily a shrewd, experienced business man who treated the subject as an art rather than a science. His slightly older contemporary, Sir William Petty (1623-1687) — a pioneer in advocating the use of statistics in economic 'Studies — really contrib- uted more toward exposing the fallacies of mercantilism. But per- haps the most advanced thinker among seventeenth century econo- 4 l6 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN mists was Nicholas Barbon (1640- 169 8), who anticipated Adam Smith — the creator of modern political economy and the first great apostle of free trade — in defining such fundamental terms as the true nature of wealth. He further prepared the way for his great successor by developing the argument that restriction of imports meant restriction of exports as well. Scientific Progress. — The early part of the seventeenth century was marked by two notable scientific achievements — the inven- tion of logarithms by John Napier (15 50-16 17) and discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey (1578-1657). These advances, however, were in striking contrast to the survival of popu- lar superstitions, such as the belief in witchcraft shared by many eminent men, while scientific learning continued long in disrepute. Sir Walter Raleigh " was notoriously slandered to have enriched a school of atheism because he gave countenance to chemistry, to practi- cal arts, and to curious mechanical operations, and designed to form the best of them into a college." The study of mathematics was not only much neglected but abhorred as a diabolical pursuit, so that when, in 16 19, a professorship of geometry and astronomy was in- stituted at Oxford, many of the gentry refused to send their sons to the University lest they might be " smutted by the black art." But the dawn was beginning to break. Bacon did much for the ad- vancement of experimental science, though more by what he suggested than by any achievements of his own. Then the work of Galileo and Kepler on the Continent in time produced its effect in England. A new scientific era was heralded by the establishment of the Royal Society for the promotion of " Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning." Really started in 1645, it was incorporated under its present name in 1662. A distinctive feature of the Restoration was a new rationalism, a new scientific temper. Charles II and his boon companion, the versatile Buckingham, toyed with chemistry. The National Observatory was built at Greenwich, and signs of advance were manifested in various fields. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), one of the founders of the Royal Society, and " the father of modern chemistry," established the relation between volume and pressure of gases known as Boyle's Law. The great scientific genius of the age, however, and one of the greatest of any age, was Sir Isaac Newton (1641-1727), who made no less than three contributions to human knowledge — the discovery of the law of gravitation, the theory of fluxions or differential calculus, and the compound nature of white light. The former discovery, his supreme achieve- ment, was made in 1666 and announced in his Principia in 1687. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 417 Altogether, much was being done to wring secrets from " nature's close reserve." Prose Literature. — In pure literature, the age is remarkable for a few rare products of scholarly leisure, as delightful in form as they are learned in content. Among them is the Anatomy of Melancholy of Robert Burton (1577-1640)^ monument of erudition, abounding in fantastic reflections on men and things, and, strangely enough, considering the subject, permeated with whimsical humor. Sir Thomas Browne (1 605-1 682), a physician of Norwich, was a many- sided scholar who ranged over wider fields even than Burton. In his Religio Medici, his Enquiries into Vulgar Errors, and his Urn Burial, he displays not only vast knowledge and richness of imagina- tion, but a pomp and magificence of diction rarely equaled in litera- ture. Izaak Walton (1593-1683), an unpretentious London iron- monger, had a love of nature, a genius for friendship, a sweet simplic- ity and a cheery humor which are reflected in his Compleat Angler and in his lives of Hooker, and other contemporaries. John Bunyan (1628-1688), a humble self-educated tinsmith, while a prisoner in Bedford jail, wrote his immortal Pilgrim's Progress (1678), which stands among the world's great allegories. With a unique gift for direct, vivid narration and realistic character protrayal, as well as an inspired understanding of the spiritual needs and hopes and fears of the people among whom he lived, he embodied them in enduring form in a work which is at once a sublime religious tract and a fore- runner of the modern novel. Non-Dramatic Poetry. — While, as a whole, not so distinctive as the prose, the poetry of the period is noteworthy both in volume and character, and altogether too varied in type to be comprehended within any single generalization. John Donne (1573-163 1) and George Her- bert (1 593-1 633) were the earliest and leading representatives of the " Fantastic School " who essayed the formidable task of employing the poetic medium for interpreting profound metaphysical and religious problems. If, by their " conceits " or far-fetched images and analogies, they heightened the obscurity of their themes, and tended to become extravagant and bizarre, nevertheless, we owe to them passages of rare beauty, flashing light on spiritual aspiration and experience. While none of them were Puritans, the Puritan influence goes far to explain their earnestness and intensity. Then there were " essayists " in verse, who anticipated the prosaic poetry of the eighteenth century ; also there was a group of Cavalier poets who flourished, at the court of Queen Henrietta Maria, men of notoriously profligate lives, and whose verse was mostly on amatory subjects ; and, finally, there were pas- 41 8 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN toral poets who continued their Spenserian tradition. Chiefly to be remembered of these latter is Robert Herrick (1591-1674). After a Bohemian youth he retired to a country parsonage where he wrote exquisite verses breathing forth the sweet air of the English country- side, reflecting the simple pleasures of rustic folk and ennobled at times with touches of delicate religious sentiment. In view of the prose and lyric poetry which appeared about the middle of the century, it cannot be said that either Puritanism or the Civil Wars stifled literary production. 1 John Milton. — The finest flower of Puritan culture was John Mil- ton, in whom the influences of the Renascence and the Reformation were strangely mingled; for he combined finished classical scholar- ship with a profound and reverent knowledge of the Bible. As an undergraduate at Cambridge he began to write Latin verses, and in 1629, the year in which he took his degree, appeared his splendid Ode to the Nativity. This was followed, in 1632, by V Allegro and II Penseroso, which contrast in exquisite lines the joyous mood of morn- ing with the sadness of evening. The next year came his masque, Comus, a hauntingly beautiful double allegory of the perennial struggle of virtue against vice and of the pending conflict of the two parties in the State. His next notable publication was Lycidas, an elegy on the death of a college friend. Here, in the form of a pas- toral saturated with mythical lore and perhaps the most perfect poem in the English language, he fiercely attacked the corruptions of the existing Establishment. As the Civil War approached he became increasingly serious, and, turning from poetry to prose, argued for religious and political freedom in language of harsh or impassioned eloquence. His Areopagitica (1644) is a noble plea for the liberty of the press, and his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano is regarded as the finest defense of the Commonwealth ever penned. While his prose writing is marred by want of method, by bitter partisanship, and occasionally by over-elaboration, his glowing enthusiasm for liberty, guided by Divine order, and the loftiness and magnificence of his best passages give his work a value far beyond any practical importance it may have had. From his youth up, he had contemplated the dedi- cation of his poetic talents to the production of a great religious epic. After the Restoration, living in retirement, embittered by the failure of the cause he had espoused, by unhappy domestic experiences, by poverty 1 Samuel Butler (1612-1680), during the years from 1663 to 1668, published his Hiidibras, in which, detailing the adventures of a Puritan knight and his squire after the manner of Don Quixote, he bitterly ridicules the intolerance and hy- pocrisy which he seems to regard as typical of the party. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 419 and blindness, he completed, between 1663 and 1667, his sublimest literary achievement, Paradise Lost. The vastness of the design and the marvelous harmony of the blank verse give it a place among the highest productions of the world's literature. Yet it is one of the works which all too many are content to admire from afar, rather than to read, and Milton received for it just £10. Paradise Lost, which deals with the temptation and fall of man, was followed in 167 1 by Paradise Regained, which tells of man's redemption through Jesus Christ. John Dryden (1631-1700). — The representative man of letters of the Restoration period was John Dryden, poet laureate and histo- riographer (1670-1689), who reflects in his verses his varying political and religious views; in them he bewailed the death of Cromwell, he welcomed the Restoration, he attacked the " Papists," he warmly defended Anglicanism, and, eventually, becoming converted to the Roman Catholic faith, he denounced the Church he had discarded, and eulogized the one he had adopted in one of his outstanding works — The Hind and the Panther, 1686. The best that can be said of him is, that after the Revolution of 1688, he made no attempt to gain the favor of the new Government by repudiating Roman Catholicism. His highest achievements were in satirical verse, a domain in which he has no peers among English writers. His keen and dexterous thrusts at his opponents have " damned them to everlasting fame." The best known of his political satires are Absalom and Achltophel and the Medal, directed mainly against Shaftesbury. He was, in addition, a busy and productive playwright, though not so pre- eminent in this field. His aim was to cater to the Court and the town, who, influenced by the French taste acquired by the Cavaliers in exile, craved novelty and scorned the great products of the Eliza- bethan and Jacobean age. The Drama. — While the first thirty years of the century witnessed a constant succession of excellent plays, well acted and enthusiasti- cally received by the public, a decline began to set in even during the decade preceding the Ordinance of September, 1642, closing the theaters. This was due, in some degree, to the aggressive hostility of the Puri- tans, who turned the soberer folk against the playhouses, and forced the dramatic authors to appeal more and more to the classes, both among the fashionable and the rabble, who were bound by no scruples of taste or morals. In the Restoration drama — one of the various manifestations of extravagant revolt against the recent Puritan regime — ■ the Elizabethan spirit which the reign of the saints had helped to kill, was not revived. As in so many other fields, a new era of ex- 4 20 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN periment began. Tragedies in heroic couplets and prose comedies of wit and manners — both form and content markedly influenced by French models — took the place of the older tragedies and romantic comedies in blank verse. The French models were frequently im- moral enough; but transformed into English dress, or rather un- dress, they were, all too often, insufferably coarse and cynical. For this Charles II and his courtiers were, to a large degree responsible, by making sensuality and cynicism the mark of a fine gentleman. The comedies, disagreeable as most of them are, have great histor- ical value as reflections of contemporary life, especially of the upper classes in London, and because the prologues and epilogues were used, particularly by Dryden, for airing political animosities. Queen Mary, setting her face against the prevailing tendency, did something toward purifying the drama, and Jeremy Collier registered a vigorous pro- test in his Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the Eng- lish Stage, 1698. Dryden admitted the justice of the rebuke, but im- provement was slow. Real reform only came with the sentimental comedy initiated by Richard Steele. Art, Architecture, and Music. — While pride of ancestry prompted many to employ Dutch and Flemish artists to execute family portraits, and while there were collectors, including Charles I, of no mean repute, there was, nevertheless, no general appreciation of art among seven- teenth-century Englishmen. Nor, except in miniatures, were there any native portrait painters of real note. Of foreign artists in England, the most famous were Rubens (15 77-1640) and Vandyke (1 599-1641). The former, during a brief sojourn, painted several portraits and re- ceived an order for the decoration of Whitehall. The latter remained in England most of the time from 1632 till his death. He was appointed Court painter and executed several fine pictures of Charles I and his family, as well as of prominent men of the time. Cromwell, who was fond both of music and painting, had an official painter, though, in addition, he gave his patronage to the more famous Peter Lely (1618- 1680). Charles II inherited none of his father's taste for art, but Lely became his Court painter and is famous for his portraits of the royal favorites. In architecture, the century was dominated by Inigo Jones (1573- 1652) and Christopher Wren (1632-1723). This fact marks a signifi- cant departure from the traditions of the Middle Ages, when the style and not the man was the distinguishing factor. Jones was profoundly influenced by the Italian Palladio, notable for his composite adaptation of the ancient Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian forms. Almost no new churches were built during the first half of the century ; but Jones did PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 421 much in the way of restoring ecclesiastical edifices and public buildings. Wren, his famous successor, was active as an architect from 1663 to 1718. The fire of London gave him an opportunity to rebuild St. Paul's, as well as about fifty parish churches. Chief among the other works of his long and busy life is the Royal Hospital at Greenwich. Unfortu- nately, his two principal buildings do not show him at his best ; for St. Paul's was not completed according to his original designs, while Greenwich Hospital was decidedly marred by the architect who suc- ceeded him. With the striking exception of Cromwell, the Puritans were notoriously hostile to music. Charles II, in contrast to his indifference to other forms of art, was an enthusiastic patron of music, and Henry Purcell (1658-1695), recognized as England's greatest musical genius, came to the front in his reign. His famous grand opera Dido and Eneas (1675) was the first ever written to an English poem ; but his supreme achievements were in Church music. Final Summary of the Period. — Thus, aside from epoch-making political events, the century was a notable one. It witnessed the later plays of Shakespeare as well as those of Ben Jonson, and hosts of other dramatists ; the writings of Milton, and of innumerable poets besides ; compositions in stately prose of men of letters and divines ; treatises on political philosophy, trade, and economics ; and, what was big in future results, the foundation stones of empire were laid in America and in India. FOR ADDITIONAL READING General Conditions. Traill, Social England, IV. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, chs. I, II, an admirable picture of the life of the upper and lower classes in the early Stuart period. Macaulay, I, ch. Ill, a famous description of conditions in the Restoration period. W. E. Sydney, Social Life in England, 1660-1690 (1892). Social and Industrial. Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce. Unwin, Social and Industrial Organization. Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, V, VI. W. A. Hewins, English Trade and Finance, chiefly in the Seventeenth Century (1892). Elizabeth Godfrey, Home Life under the Stuarts (1903) and Social Life under the Stuarts (1904). A. H. Hamilton, Quarter Sessions from Elizabeth to Anne (1878) relates chiefly to Devonshire. Lady Verney, Memoirs of the Verney Family (4 vols., 1892-1899). H. B. Wheatley, Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In (1880). » Rose M. Bradley, The English Housewife in the XVII and XVIII Centuries (19 13). Eleanor Trotter, Seventeenth Century Life in the Country Parish (19 19). Literary and Intellectual. Moody and Lovett ; Taine ; Jusserand and Cambridge History of Literature. Lodge, Political History, ch. XX. Cam- 422 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN bridge Modern History, IV, ch. XXVI, V, chs. Ill, VI, XXIII (bibliographies IV, 948-950, V, 775-779, 799-808, 903-910). E. Dowden, Puritan and Anglican (1900). Masson, Milton; the standard work. There are short Lives of Milton by Mark Pattison (1879, 1906) and Sir Walter Raleigh (1900). See also Macaulay's essay on Milton. Saintsbury, Dryden (1881, 1902). Religion and Church. Hut ton and Wakeman as above. J. Hunt, Religious Thought in England (3 vols., 1870). J. H. Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714 (1885). Babington, Mr. Macaulay's Character of the Clergy (1849). Tatham, The Puritans in Power. Cambridge Modern History, chs. XI, XXIV (bibliography, 838-839, 911-917). Contemporary. Pepys's Diary; Evelyn's Diary; R. Baxter, Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of His Life and Times (ed. M. Sylvester, 1696) ; and George Fox, Journal (1694, ed. W. Armistead, 2 vols., 1852) a great spiritual autobiography. Political philosophy. Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings (1680, ed. 1903, introd. by Henry Morley). Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (ed. A. R. Waller, 1904). John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government (1903, introd. by Henry Morley). G. P. Gooch, Political Thought in England from Bacon to Halifax (1914). H. J. Laski, English Political Thought from Locke to Bentham. (Home University Library.) CHAPTER XXXVI THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY AND THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR. WILLIAM AND MARY (i 689-1 694) The Significance of the Reign of William and Mary. — ■ The re.'gn of William is significant from the fact that, as " the champion of Prot- estantism and the liberties of Europe against French ascendancy," he plunged England into a whirlpool of European war and diplomacy from which she emerged as the leading Colonial and Sea Power of the world. The internal progress of the period is also noteworthy. Fun- damental constitutional questions were defined and settled : the order of succession was regulated in the Bill of Rights and in the Act of Settle- ment which supplemented it ; a Toleration Act was passed ; the Na- tional Debt was funded ; the Bank of England was established ; the censorship of the press came to an end ; procedure in treason trials was reformed ; and Cabinet and party government began to take modern shape. This last point is of peculiar importance, because the machin- ery of the English Cabinet and party system is the most perfect which has yet been devised for speedily and peacefully voicing the will of the people and because it is the system which has been adopted, with more or less variation, by the chief European governments in recent times. It is essentially a government by an executive committee of Parliament whose members represent and are responsible to the ma- jority party of the House of Commons, which, in its turn, represents the qualified voters of the country. The Reaction against William (1689). — In spite of the joy mani- fested at his accession, a reaction against William soon set in. It was due, partly to the King's own character and policy, partly to the nature of the situation. He was cold and unsympathetic, he loved Dutch- men and Dutch ways, he distrusted Englishmen and chafed at his necessary residence in England as a joyless exile. Patient and courageous in great matters, he was irritable and impatient of opposition in little things, while his manners left much to be desired. Then his policy was a disappointment to the Whigs who had led the movement to place 423 424 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN him on the throne ; for he was no friend of popular liberty and had ousted James primarily to break up the royal alliance with France and to secure English resources for his great work. Furthermore, he had to face a most difficult situation ; for impelled by a common fear of James, the most diverse elements had combined momentarily to sup- port him. Truly, Englishmen and Dutchmen, Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Nonconformists made strange bedfellows. The Eng- lish and the Dutch were old trade rivals who had been three times at war within half a century. The Whigs stood for a limited monarchy and toleration, and had old scores to settle with the party who had op- pressed them during the reign of Charles II and the early years of James II. The Tories, who stood for Divine hereditary right and an exclusive Establishment, directly the excitement was over, came to be ashamed of the part they had taken in expelling the Lord's anointed. Many of the Whigs, too, were dissatisfied, some because they felt them- selves insufficiently rewarded, others because their advice in ordering public affairs was neither sought nor heeded. Although the really disaffected were in a minority, they were so vociferous and busy that they might have caused serious trouble but for the fact that Louis XIV, by undertaking to restore James by force, and with the aid of the dreaded Irish into the bargain, forced the moderates of both parties to cling to William. In selecting his first Ministry, he sought to balance parties, though in view of the critical situation abroad, and the partic- ular interests which he had at stake, he took charge of foreign affairs himself. The Mutiny Act (1689). — The mutiny of an English regiment at Ipswich, in the first year of the reign, led to the passage of a measure which was bound, in any case, to have come before long ; since, accord- ing to the existing law, there were no adequate means of dealing with such crises. The Mutiny Act, which began by declaring courts mar- tial and military discipline illegal, conferred upon William the author- ity to provide for the exercise of such extraordinary jurisdiction for six months. Later the Act was regularly renewed, but never for longer than a year. It is now called the Army Act. The Toleration Act (1689). — Also in this eventful year, the Protest- ant Dissenters for the first time obtained legal recognition and tolera- tion. William, a Calvinist by training but a Latitudinarian by con- viction, was a prime mover ; however, he had the solid backing of a growing rationalistic opinion, voiced by Locke in his Letters on Toler- ation, in which he argued that the State had no right to interfere with the way men might choose to worship. Furthermore, certain influen- tial Tories felt under obligation to redeem the promises they had made THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY 425 to Dissenters in order to detach them from James II. The Toleration Act of 1689, while it did not repeal the existing penal laws, suspended their operation against those who absented themselves from the serv- ices of the Established Church and attended other places of worship, provided they took the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and sub- scribed to a declaration against transubstantiation. Quakers, who scrupled to take oaths, were allowed to hold their assemblies undis- turbed on condition of signing the declaration against transubstantia- tion, making a confession of Christian belief, and promising fidelity to the Government. " Papists," and those who did not believe in the Trinity, 1 were expressly excluded from the benefits of the Act. Al- though the toleration thus granted was far from complete, " it removed a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice." The Bill of Rights (1689). — After a recess of two months, the old Convention met for its second session, 19 October, 1689. The chief work of the session was to turn the Declaration of Right into a bill. A few new provisions were introduced. One provided that any Sov- ereign professing the " popish " religion should be incapable of reign- ing in England, and, in case he married a " Papist," his subjects were to be absolved from their allegiance; but no attempt was made to define the term, nor was any machinery devised for carrying the pro- vision into effect. Furthermore, the dispensing power, which accord- ing to the Declaration was illegal only " as it hath been exercised of late," was now done away with altogether. 2 The Settlement of the Revenue (1690. ) — In a new Parliament which met 20 March, 1690, the Commons, after some discussion, voted that William should have, in addition to the hereditary Crown revenue amounting to £400,000 a year, the income from the excise, which yielded some £300,000 annually. This sum, about £700,000 in the aggregate, which came to be known as the Civil List, 3 was to be devoted to the maintenance of the royal household, the payment of civil officials, and in general, to the non-military expenses of the State. The income from the customs, variously estimated between £400,000 and £600,000, was granted only for four years. Although the outbreak of the war necessitated the grant of extraordinary supplies, Parliament adhered to the principle that a fixed amount only should be allowed to the King 1 I.e. Jews and Socinians, the latter forerunners of the Unitarians. 2 At least, that was the result, for it was provided that exceptions might be enumerated during the session, and none were made into law. 3 Later, Parliament took over the payment of all public expenses, leaving to the Sovereign merely the maintenance of the royal household. The income which he has for this purpose is still, curiously enough, known as the Civil List. 426 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN for the ordinary needs of the State. Moreover, in the future all grants were appropriated for specified purposes. Thus the principle of appro- priation of supply * foreshadowed in the reigns of James I and Charles II became a regular practice. James Appears in Ireland (March, 1689). — The attempts of James, through Tyrconnel, to make Ireland a Roman Catholic stronghold, the transfer of the administration into the hands of the members of that faith, and rumors even of a general massacre had thrown the Protestants into a panic. Many fled to England, others prepared to defend themselves. Tyrconnel, while he dallied with the terms offered by William, hastened to gather his forces, seized cattle and supplies, and sent for James. Meantime, he succeeded in reducing all Ireland except Ulster, winch contained the bulk of the Protestant element. Many of the latter fled for refuge to Londonderry and Ennis- killen, leaving their lands and goods at the mercy of their exultant and infuriated enemies. James arrived in Dublin, 24 March, 1689. Al- though Louis refused him an army, partly because he distrusted his abilities, partly because he needed his troops at home, he gave him a fleet, together with arms, money and officers to drill the Irish. The Irish Parliament. — The Irish Parliament which met 7 May, 1689, was dominated by extremists, men devoid of experience in public affairs and burning to avenge the wrongs of their religion and their race. James succeeded in passing a Toleration Act; but he was obliged to consent to a series of measures calculated to alienate utterly his English supporters. The authority of the English Parliament was repudiated. The tithes of the Roman Catholics were transferred to their own clergy and the Act of Settlement was repealed. All lands forfeited in consequence of the Rebellion of 1641 were restored, and a famous Act of Attainder was passed, comprising over 2000 names. The property of these included on the list was appropriated forthwith, and though the owners were ordered to appear for trial before a cer- tain date to prove their innocence, it was at the risk of being hanged, drawn and quartered, in the event of almost certain conviction. The Siege and Relief of Londonderry. Newton Butler (1689). — Already, 19 April, 1689, the siege of Londonderry had begun. Threat- ened with starvation, and exposed to constant attacks against the weak walls of the city, the dauntless garrison held out with grim de- termination for one hundred and five days, until they were finally re- lieved by Colonel Kirke, who had shown far more celerity and vigor in hunting down the poor peasants involved in the Monmouth rebel- 1 In conjunction with the Mutiny Act it insured, for the future, annual sessions of Parliament. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY 427 lion than he displayed against the troops of James. The joyous news of the relief of Londonderry was immediately followed by the tidings that the men of Enniskillen had saved themselves by repulsing an attacking force at Newton Butler, 2 August. Reinforcements under Schomberg arrived the same month, but his army, consisting largely of raw recruits, was in no condition to fight. What with heavy autumn rains and bad food, supplied by greedy and dishonest English con- tractors, a pestilence broke out. He was obliged to go into winter quarters, while the mass of Englishmen, who did not understand the situation, howled at his inaction and at the sufferings to which his troops were exposed. Such was the situation when William started for Ireland in June, 1690. The Battle of Beachy Head (29 June, 1690). — Scarcely had he gone when a French fleet appeared in the Channel. Admiral Torrington, of the combined English and Dutch fleet, was so unprepared that he dared not fight, and retreated up the English coast, until he received positive orders from the Queen to engage. On 29 June, 1690, he was defeated at Beachy Head, after which he continued to retreat and took refuge in the Thames. The Dutch were furious because he had put their ships where they had to bear the brunt of the fighting. At a court martial, subsequently held, it developed their own recklessness was to blame, and Torrington was acquitted, though he never received another command. Truly it was an anxious time for Englishmen. The Channel was left undefended, the country was swarming with Jacobites, while, to cap all, news arrived that the French had won a victory in the Netherlands. Fortunately, however, the sudden fear that Louis XIV might send over an invading army from Dunkirk was enough to unite practically the whole country in defense of the crown. Many, who wanted to see James restored, had no desire to see it done at the cost of a great national humiliation. The prospect was still dark enough when William sent back word of a notable victory. The Battle of the Boyne (1 July, 1690). — In the famous battle of the Boyne, which took place 1 July, the English scattered their foes in the utmost confusion, in spite of the stubborn resistance of the Irish cavalry. James, who had lost the bravery of his youthful days, watched the fighting from a safe distance, hurried away as soon as he foresaw the result, and speedily sailed for France. The French fleet which had cruised along the English coast unopposed after the Battle of Beachy Head met with a hot reception on attempting to land troops, the militia were everywhere mustered ; indeed, it was not long before all England " was up in arms on foot and on horseback . . . and rang 428 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN with shouts of l God bless King William and Mary.' " The chief result of the attempted invasion was to undo the work of English Jacobites. The Siege and Treaty of Limerick (1691). — After the Battle of the Boyne the bulk of the Irish army took refuge at Limerick. William, failing to take the town by assault, 17 August, was soon forced to raise the siege, owing to heavy rains and lack of powder. He himself returned to England ; but the garrison finally capitulated to his army, 3 October, 1691. Two treaties were framed. By a military treaty, it was provided that all officers who desired should be transported to France. In a civil treaty, the Roman Catholics of Ireland received a promise that they " should enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the law, or as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II." The bulk of the soldiery elected to go to France ; many afterwards deserted, but numbers won high distinction in the ensuing wars. Those who remained in Ireland were so cowed that the country was free from formidable insurrection for over a century. The Violation of the Treaty of Limerick. — Unhappily, England did not temper her victory with mercy or wisdom, but allowed intolerance, greed, and oppression to prevail. A new statute was passed by the Parliament at Westminster, not only excluding Roman Catholics from office, but enacting for the first time that they could not sit in the Irish Parliament. That body, consisting henceforth of the representatives of the Protestant minority, passed laws, in 1695, providing that no " Popish " teacher should be allowed in schools or private houses, forbidding " Papists " to carry arms or to own a horse worth more than £5. In 1697, in distinct violation of the Treaty of Limerick, all Roman Catholic prelates were banished from the kingdom and Roman Catholics and Protestants were forbidden to intermarry. These were the forerunners of a penal code which was carried to completion in the three following reigns. Every inducement was offered to in- formers and to those who would desert the faith of their fathers ; for example, in the inheritance of property the nearest Roman Catholic heirs were passed over in favor of the more remote, provided they were Protestants. All that can be said is that the more ferocious laws were seldom enforced. Added to the religious restrictions, binding shackles were imposed on Irish industry and commerce. The Irish were excluded from the English colonial trade, and by an Act of 1699 the export of their wool and woolen goods was practically prohib- ited. Such tyranny and avarice on the part of the Protestant minority slowly but surely bore bitter fruit. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY 429 The Revolution in Scotland, and the Rising of the Highland Clans. — The Revolution in Scotland was not accomplished without excite- ment, disorder and even a brief period of war. A Convention Parlia- ment which met in Edinburgh 24 March, 1689, having voted that James by his misdeeds had forfeited the government, named William and Mary as his successors. The forces of opposition, however, were various and vehement ; but the only serious armed revolt came from the Highlanders. This picturesque and beautiful region was then, to the mass of Englishmen, and even to the Lowland Scots, an un- known country, described by the few who had dared to penetrate its rugged mountains and bleak moorlands as a grim, unlovely waste, in- habited by savage tribes, utterly ignorant of the ways of civilization and regardless of life and the laws of property. Their southern neigh- bors, who knew them as cattle stealers and murderous enemies, were as little acquainted with their virtues — their courage, their hospitality, their dignity and their devotion to clan and family — as they were with the beauties of their scenery. Thither, Viscount Dundee, for- merly known as Graham of Claverhouse, sought recruits, after he had fled from the Whig-dominated Parliament at Edinburgh. The clans pressed to join him, not so much out of attachment for the Stuart cause as from hatred of the Campbells, whose chief, the Marquis of Argyle, had taken the side of William, though another motive was the prospect of fighting and plunder. They mustered in May, 1689, at Lochaber. Dundee's difficulties were enormous. Each clan was a unit in itself. Many nourished long-standing feuds and jealousies, the chiefs were proud and sensitive, so that it was next to impossible to weld the discordant elements into an army. However, he suc- ceeded in eluding for weeks Hugh Mackay, the commander sent against him. At length, the two armies met in the pass of Killiekrankie, 27 July. Mackay was driven from the pass and retreated over the moun- tains to Stirling; but the victory of the Highlanders was more than offset by the death of Dundee, who was shot during the triumphant charge. Mackay soon rallied his men, 1 but the Highlanders had lost the only man who could hold them together. Before the end of August the whole force had dispersed to their homes. The Massacre of Glehcoe (1692). — Unhappily, William's triumph was marred by a brutal crime, due to his carelessness or indifference, to the vindictiveness of the Campbells, and the desire of the Master 1 Mackay's defeat led him to make a co ribution to the art of war by inventing the modern bayonet, fixed outside of ir i of fitting into the gun barrel. He attributed the loss of the battle large' e fact that his men, after they fired, could not attach their bayonets quick h to meet the charging Highlanders. 430 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN of Stair, the King's chief adviser, to root out the most unyielding of the clans. A proclamation was issued from Edinburgh offering par- don to every rebel who, before 31 December, 1691, should swear to live peaceably under William and Mary. The chief of the Macdon- alds of Glencoe x waited stubbornly until the very last day, when he presented himself before an official not empowered to take an oath, who sent him with a letter to the sheriff of Argyleshire. The sheriff after some hesitation accepted the submission and forwarded the cer- tificate to Edinburgh, 6 January. This the Master of Stair suppressed, after which he secured William's signature to an order authorizing the extermination of the clan. On 1 February a company of sol- diers was dispatched to Glencoe, where they stayed for nearly two weeks enjoying the rude but plentiful hospitality of the clan. Sud- denly, in the early morning of the 13th, they rose and began to mas- sacre their hosts. But they made the mistake of shooting instead of stabbing their victims, while the troops detailed to block the exits of the glen failed to arrive in time, so that a majority escaped. Many of them, however, perished of exposure, their homes were set on fire, and their cattle driven off. Stair's only regret was that so many got away. His enemies, however, and the opponents of the Government raised such an outcry that William, though he regarded the deed as a wholesome example visited on a gang of thieves and outlaws, was forced to consent to a commission of inquiry. Stair was retired and remained in private life till the next reign. The Alliance against France (1689). — Meantime, William, in the autumn of 1689, had completed an alliance against France on which he had been laboriously working for years. It included the Empire, Spain, England and the Dutch. After his authority had been estab- lished in Ireland and Scotland, he departed, 18 January, 1691, to meet the allies in a congress at the Hague. Though his combination seemed an overwhelming one, it had almost no cohesion. Each of the Powers, determined on giving as little and getting as much as possible, counted on leaving the Dutch and English to bear the brunt of the fighting and the expense. They quarreled with one another about points of precedence, they were separated by trade rivalries and re- ligious differences, while Louis, fighting on inside lines, was master of the resources of his Kingdom, and, ably assisted by Louvois, the greatest War Minister, Luxemburg, the greatest general, and Vauban, the great- est engineer of the age, could direct singly and unopposed the opera- tions of his armies. 1 Meaning literally Glen of Weeping. It was a dreary inaccessible spot on the western coast. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY 431 The Dismissal Of Marlborough. — William had not only to manage his allies and to keep up their enthusiasm but to face one Jacobite plot after another. No less than three whom he regarded as trusty supporters entered into treasonable negotiations with the enemy. Marlborough l went to the greatest lengths ; for he actually intrigued with the Jacobites to get rid of William, with the ultimate aim of putting not James, but Anne, in his place. The Jacobites, becoming suspicious, disclosed his designs, which led William to dismiss him, 10 January, 1692. It was a serious loss that, throughout the war, he was deprived of the aid of one destined to prove himself in the next reign the most remarkable of England's generals. The Victory of La Hogue, 1692. — Early in 1692, James, counting on his popularity with the navy and the discontent of Russell, who commanded the Channel fleet, prepared an invasion of England. Hav- ing assembled a fleet and mustered an army to be transported to the English coast, he issued a stupid and ill-timed declaration, in which he not only expressed no regret for the past and gave no promises for the future, but breathed dire vengeance against all who should oppose his return, and even published a list of those whom he had marked out for punishment. Indeed, it was so damning that the English Government had it licensed and freely distributed, which proceeding, together with the prospect of attack, roused the intensest patriotism. Russell, who, though in a fit of dissatisfaction at the grants he had received from William, had corresponded with the enemy, was a stanch Whig and zealous for the fame of the English navy, and de- clared : " Do not think that I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea ... if I meet them, I fight them, aye, though his Majesty himself should be on board." So, when their fleet appeared in the Channel, they were met by a combined force of the English and the Dutch, who drove the French ships back to the Norman coast and burned the bulk of them in the harbor of La Hogue, before the very face of James and his army, 19-24 May. William's Loss of Namur and Defeat at Steenkerke (1692). — The triumph at La Hogue, however, was more than counterbalanced by William's reverses in the Netherlands — his loss, in June, of Namur, commanded by a citadel never before taken, and his defeat by Luxem- burg, 3 August, at Steenkerke on the road from Namur to Brussels. When the King returned to England in October, after narrowly escap- ing an attempt on his life hatched in the French War Office, the situa- tion was altogether discouraging. English merchantmen were suffer- ing from the pillaging of the enemy's privateers, the harvest had failed, 1 John Churchill had been created Earl of Marlborough at the coronation. 432 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN owing to heavy rains, and the insecurity and discontent were aggravated by a startling increase of crime. Housebreakers and footpads were so bold and active that William had to detail cavalry to guard the roads to London and to take the sternest measures to put down dis- order. Having, with the greatest difficulty, secured supplies for the coming campaign from a Parliament torn by faction, he started back for the Netherlands 24 March, 1693. William's Defeat at Neerwinden (19 July, 1693). —This year the allied army took a strongly intrenched position where Luxemburg attacked it, 19 July. The battle of Neerwinden — or Landen, as it is sometimes called from a neighboring village — the bloodiest battle of the century and one of the most terrible ever fought in the Nether- lands, resulted in another defeat for William. But Luxemburg, though he drove him from the field, did not follow him up, either because his forces were too crippled or because he lacked energy. William, with the wonderful power of recovery for which he was famous, rallied his forces at Brussels, and ended the year's campaign in a position fully as strong as when it began. The Failure of the Expedition to Brest. English Successes in the Mediterranean, 1694. — The French plan of war for 1694 was to con- centrate its energies in the Mediterranean against England's Spanish ally. The English, on their part, planned to send out two naval ex- peditions, one against Brest, the other to the Mediterranean. The destination of the first was betrayed by Marlborough, who can by no means be exonerated on the ground that the secret had already been disclosed. He apparently had a double motive ; to secure him- self in case William's enemies triumphed, and to discredit his ablest rival, who was in command. The expedition, delayed by contrary winds in the bargain, failed in its object, and accomplished nothing beyond devastating a few undefended points along the French coast. Russell, however, who went to the Mediterranean, was able to save Barcelona from an attack of a combined French army and fleet and to force them to take refuge under the guns of Toulon. His success marked another step in the rise of the English sea power, and, by check- ing Louis XIV's Spanish designs, exercised an effective influence on the subsequent course of the war. The Death of Queen Mary (28 December, 1694). — On 28 December, 1694, Queen Mary died of smallpox at the early age of thirty- two. By her marriage with William of Orange she became a great factor in frustrating the designs of James II and checking the growing ascend- ancy of Louis XIV. She had endeared herself to the Dutch, and her popularity with the English went far to soften the animosity against THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY 433 her sour Consort and his Dutch favorites. The King's grief at her loss was terrible, though he had only tardily come to appreciate her devotion, especially after she had readily renounced her rights to the throne that he might be the more a King. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Lodge; Trevelyan; Macaulay; Ranke; and Cambridge Modern History. Constitutional. Maitland, English Constitutional History, period IV ; Hallam ; Taswell-Langmead ; and Taylor. Mary T. Blauvelt, The De- velopment of Cabinet Government (1902), a good brief sketch. For scholarly treatments of the origin and growth of the Cabinet, see H. W. V. Temperly and Sir Wm. Anson, English Historical Review, XXVII, 682 ff. and XXIX, 56-78, and E. R. Turner, American Historical Review, XVIII, 751-768, XIX, 27-43. A. S. Turberville, The House of Lords in the Reign of William III (1913). Army and Navy. Fortescue ; Clowes; Mahan, Sea Power; and Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, I. Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown; Turner and Joyce. For a full bibliography, see Cambridge Modern History, V, 825-837. Special. Seeley, British Policy and The Expansion of England (1895), a luminous treatment. Contemporary. Burnet. Church. Hutton ; Wakeman ; and Stoughton. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 23 5-240. Robert- son, Select Statutes, pt. I, nos. XII-XVII. JF CHAPTER XXXVII THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. WILLIAM ALONE (1 694-1 702) The Assassination Plot (1695-1696), and the Attainder of Fenwick (1697). — The death of Mary, by breaking one of the strongest links between William and the English people, revived the hopes of the Jacobites, who planned another attempt to restore James, this time by means of an assassination plot, later coupled with a scheme for raising an insurrection assisted by an invasion from France. How- ever, the Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James, who came to Eng- land in January, 1696, to prepare the way for the projected invasion, failed to induce the Jacobites to rise, while, in February, a design to in- tercept and kill the King was betrayed. Most of the conspirators were arrested, though, owing to the King's wise forbearance, only eight were put to death. Among them was Sir John Fenwick, who while implicated in the projected insurrection, seems to have had nothing to do with the attempt to murder his Sovereign. He was executed, 28 January, 1697, after conviction by Bill of Attainder, the last man in England to suffer by this process. The Restoration of the Coinage (1696). — Meantime, the great war was drawing to a close. During 1695, William had succeeded in re- covering Namur, but in the campaign of 1696 the movements of both armies were hampered by lack of money. France was reduced to a state of downright misery, and England was suffering from a tempo- rary financial stringency, due largely to a restoration of the currency. In spite of severe penalties, old clipped and mutilated coins circulated freely, while new ones with milled edges were hoarded or melted down and sold as bullion. The evil was bound to continue so long as those under weight were accepted at their face value. Through the efforts of four remarkable men, John Locke, Lord Somers, Charles Montagu, and Sir Isaac Newton, a Recoinage Act was passed, January, 1696, and carried into effect, which provided that the old damaged coins should cease to be legal tender by 4 May. The Government agreed 434 THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 435 to replace, at their face value, old coins that were turned in; but, though the new issue was made with unprecedented rapidity, it did not come fast enough at first to supply the place of the money drawn from cir- culation. It was not till March, 1697, that the crisis was past. The Peace of Ryswick (1697). — In order to consider overtures of peace made by Louis XIV a congress of the allies assembled 9 May, 1697, at Ryswick, but it occupied so much time in ceremonious display and trifling points of precedence that William, heartily disgusted, de- cided to open negotiations with Louis on his own account. Accord- ingly, in June, he sent a trusted agent to confer privately with a rep- resentative selected by the French King, with the result that before the end of July they had settled all the terms in which England and France were concerned, while the Congress was still wrangling over tedious formalities. So, 20/30 September, 1697, in spite of the pro- tests of James, the Treaty of Ryswick was signed by England, France, the United Provinces, and Spain. According to the terms of the peace, William was acknowledged as King of England with Anne as his successor, and Louis promised not to aid in plots against him. All conquests made during the war were restored, though Louis was allowed to retain certain places which he had " reunited " * since 1678, and the chief fortresses in the Netherlands were garrisoned with Dutch troops as a barrier against France. The Emperor thus isolated made peace with France, 30 October. In spite of notable victories, Louis had been checked for the first time in his victorious career, .and had been forced to acknowledge William in place of James, thus completing the Revolution of 1688. Internal Progress in England. A New Financial Era. — During the years that war raged on the Continent, a series of measures were passed in England of far-reaching importance in financial, economic, political and legal developments. Louis, during the late war, had declared that the Power with the last gold piece would win, and it was due in a large degree to the effective financial organization begun in this period that England gained her successes in the great European conflicts of the eighteenth century. Moreover, it- resulted in the ascend- ancy of the Whigs and the permanence of the Revolution settlement. The moneyed classes — the merchants and traders — belonged mainly to the Whig party, which grew in strength and influence as the State turned to it more and more- for loans. Then, naturally, men who had invested their funds under the existing Government would struggle to uphold it ; since the return of James meant repudiation of the debts which it had contracted. 1 I.e. appropriated on the ground that they had once belonged to France. ( 436 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The Beginnings of the National Debt (1693). — The new policy was chiefly the work of a remarkable politician and financier, Charles Mon- tagu (1665-1715), created Baron and later Earl of Halifax. At the very beginning of King William's War it became evident that, in spite of new and increased taxes, the annual revenue was insufficient to cover expenses. On the other hand, there was a surplus of capital in the country and few opportunities of placing it safely and profitably. Many were reduced to hoarding their savings in strong boxes or bury- ing them in the ground. In consequence, stock jobbers and fraudulent companies, with all sorts of speculative schemes, began to multiply alarmingly. There were, for instance, a Royal Academies Company for the education of young gentlemen in every branch of human learn- ing, and a Diving Company to recover lost treasure from the sea, to mention only two. Profiting by the example of Italy, France and the Netherlands which had long had permanent debts, Montagu deter- mined to secure for the use of the Government some of the surplus capital which was lying idle or being wasted in futile speculations. To that end, he framed a measure which became law in January, 1693, for borrowing £1,000,000. The subscribers were to receive life annuities of 10 per cent till 1700 and 7 per cent after that date. Such was the beginning of the National Debt. The Foundation of the Bank of England (1694). — Neither the loan of 1693, nor various new devices which were tried, proved adequate to meet the constantly swelling expenses of the war, whereupon Mon- tagu adopted another expedient — the founding of the Bank of Eng- land. Already, in the reign of Charles II, men had begun to intrust their money to the goldsmiths, who had special facilities for the safe- keeping of the precious metals which they employed in their busi- ness. The depositors received notes which they circulated in their transactions, while the goldsmiths frequently let out at interest the funds intrusted to their care. In this way the banking business in England began. Before the close of Charles's reign the question of a national bank commenced to be discussed. At Genoa there had been such an institution for almost three centuries, and there was a bank of Amsterdam nearly a hundred years old. The plan adopted by Montagu was based on a scheme by William Paterson, a Scot, soon to attain unenviable notoriety. The new project provided that the Gov- ernment should borrow £1,200,000 at 8 per cent, and that the sub- scribers should be incorporated as the " Governor and Company of the Bank of England," with authority to engage in private banking, to borrow and lend upon security and to deal in bullion and bills of exchange. The Bank could also issue notes, — a privilege in which, THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 437 for exceptional services, it secured a monopoly in 1697, though such notes were not legal tender. The Triennial Act (1694). — An attempt at parliamentary reform resulted in a new Triennial Act in 1694. The Act of 1641 had been primarily concerned to secure frequent Parliaments, but the practice of passing the Mutiny Act and of appropriating supplies annually had rendered a precaution of this sort no longer necessary. A crying evil, however, was the corruption and bribery which had come to flourish so rankly. If members were only called to account by their constit- uents at long and infrequent intervals, they were bound to barter their votes all the more readily. By the Triennial Act of 1694, the duration of Parliament was limited to three years. The Act Regulating Trials for Treason (1696). — While the Habeas Corpus Act had made it difficult to hold accused persons in prison without cause and while juries were no longer answerable for verdicts contrary to the wishes of the Government, 1 the case of a prisoner brought before the courts was grievous. He was not shown a copy of his indictment before the trial, and so did not know of what he was accused until he appeared at the bar. He had no power to compel the attendance of witnesses, nor to force such as came to testify under oath, and he was denied the benefit of counsel. After the Tories had got a taste of what the Whigs and Nonconformists had long suffered, they began to join in seeking a remedy. The result was a bill for regu- lating trials in cases of high treason, which finally became law in 1696. Its main provisions were : that no person could be convicted of a trea- son committed more than three years before the indictment was found, that every person accused of high treason might be allowed the benefit of counsel ; that he should be furnished with a copy of the indictment at least five days before the trial, and a list from which the jury was to be taken ; that his witnesses should be sworn ; that they should be cited by the same process as those summoned against him ; and that there must be for conviction two witnesses to the same overt act or to two related acts of the same treason. 2 The End of the Censorship of the Press (1695). — Meantime, a long step had been taken toward the emancipation of the Press. For a good while, the Government had sought to muzzle the expression of public opinion by a strict censorship over all printed matter. Nothing could be published without a license, and the official censor exercised a wide and oppressive discretion. Milton, in the Areopagitica, made 1 Decided in Bushel's case, 1670. 2 Prisoners in ordinary criminal cases had to wait till the nineteenth century before their lot was appreciably bettered. 438 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN a noble but futile plea against such a state of things. At length, in 1693, when the Licensing Act came up for renewal, a curious quarrel in which the official licenser became involved, and which had no bear- ing on the merits of the question, led to the first debate in Parliament on the liberty of the Press, with the consequence that the Act was re- newed only for two years and then allowed to expire. This final re- nunciation of the censorship of the Press was based, not on any broad grounds of principle, but was due to petty abuses connected with the administration of the Act. The new era of the modern newspaper began. Hitherto, the only newspaper had been the London Gazette l which contained nothing but such official news as the Secretary of State was pleased to allow to be published. Now appeared the Eng- lish Courant, followed by others in quick succession. With the re- moval of the censorship, the temper of the pamphlets and papers im- proved perceptibly ; for, up to this time, only the violent and reckless had dared to defy the law. Even yet. the Press was far from being absolutely free. The law of libel was strictly enforced, and, from the time of Anne until the nineteenth century, heavy stamp duties operated to keep down the number of cheap newspapers. William Turns toward the Whigs (1693). — The Press came to be the chief organ for informing and expressing public opinion — an essential factor in party government. It was in this period that Min- isters were, for the first time, chosen because they represented the party dominant in the House of Commons. As early as 1690 William had been advised to govern exclusively through Whig Ministers, for the reason that the Tories were chiefly Jacobites. William, however, disliked to bind himself absolutely to the Whigs. While the Tories, as a party, were inclined to the exiled James, they were supporters of prerogative and their leaders were experienced in administration. The Whigs, on the other hand, had been so long out of office that few of their number were well versed in public affairs, and they were opposed to giving the King a free hand either at home or abroad. But, grad- ually, William's own political sagacity and the arguments of Sunder- land, who had wormed himself into his confidence, had convinced him that the success of his contest against Louis could best be secured by confiding himself to Ministers who commanded the support of the Whig party which controlled the Commons, was financing the war, and whose commercial prosperity, property, and religious and political security depended upon its favorable issue. Its leaders at that time consisted of a group of four men of remarkable ability and influence known as the " Junto." 1 Started in 1665 as the Oxford Gazette. THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 439 The " Junto" and the First Party Cabinet ( 1 694-1 697). — Two call for special mention. John Somers was a sagacious, many-sided man', reputed to be the most eminent jurist and statesman of his time. 1 Montagu was already recognized for his financial ability and skill in debate. The Tories, disunited and disorganized, had no effec- tive leaders to pit against this combination, for their ablest men had lost their influence. Yet, William, who disliked certain of the Whig group, and who valued the services of several of his Tory Ministers, only slowly and of necessity supplanted them by Whigs in the Cabinet. The process occupied four years, from 1693 to 1697, and, even then, he continued to consult such unofficial advisers as Sunderland and a Dutch favorite, the Earl of Portland. The Reduction of the Standing Army (1697-1698). — No sooner was the war over than Parliament came into violent conflict with the King by insisting on a reduction of the standing army. The step was due partly to economy, for the public debt had increased to £17,000,000, and partly to a prevalent view that a standing army was not only contrary to the Constitution but dangerous to liberty. People remembered the power that Cromwell had been able to wield with the New Model at his back and the strife which his generals had caused after his death ; they remembered, too, how James had tried to over- awe London with his force on Hounslow Heath. There were angry debates in Parliament and a hot pamphlet controversy as well. In spite of all, the army was reduced from 87,000 to 7000, 2 though a liberal grant was made for the maintenance of the navy. The King, who was firmly convinced that such a wholesale reduction of the army was the surest way to precipitate a new war, was so disgusted that he again talked of quitting the country. The Break-up of the Whig Ministry (1699). — The defeat of the King in his attempt to prevent the reduction of the army and the re- sumption by the State of Irish lands of adherents of James — a struggle in which the King's sharp practice and eagerness to reward favorites was only equaled by the partisan bitterness of the two Houses — are only the chief indications of the failure of his Ministry to control Parliament after the general election of 1698. The Tories did not get an actual majority until the Parliament of 1701 ; but, reenforced by the malcontent Whigs, they were able to obstruct the Junto at 1 Recently, however, some historians have come to think that, owing to the influence of Macaulay, the attainments and integrity of Somers have been over- rated. 2 It was further provided that it should consist of Englishmen alone, thus neces- sitating the exclusion of the Dutch guards. 440 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN every turn. One by one, they left the Government — Montagu 1 resigned in 1699, while Somers was deprived of the Great Seal in 1700. In the later, more developed stage of the party system they would have retired in a body, directly a hostile majority was formed against them, or have appealed to the country in a general election. However, the fact that William dismissed Somers in consequence of a parlia- mentary attack marked another stage in the progress of party gov- ernment. The Act of Settlement (1701). — One measure of great significance stands out in the midst of the strife and confusion of these years — the Act of Settlement, which formed a necessary supplement to the Bill of Rights. It was occasioned by the death, in July, 1 701, of Anne's last surviving child. In providing for the succession, the Bill of Rights went no further than the descendants of Anne. The new Act, ex- cluding all other claimants, provided that, in the event of the death of Anne without heirs, the crown should pass to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her descendants. She was the granddaughter of James I and the nearest Protestant representative of the English royal house. 2 Various limitations were also embodied in the Act, some to take effect only when the new line came to the throne. Six are especially im- portant : (1) Whoever shall come to the throne of England shall join in communion with the Church of England. (2) In case such Sove- reigns shall not be natives of England they shall not engage the nation in war in defense of territories not belonging to the crown of England except by consent of Parliament. (3) Such Sovereigns shall not go out of the realm without parliamentary consent. (4) No person having an office of place or profit under the King, or who receives a pension from him, shall sit in the House of Commons. (5) Judges shall hold office during good behavior and shall be removed only upon an address of both Houses. (6) No pardon may be pleaded in bar of an impeachment. While the first three of these provisions were designed as safe- guards in the event of a foreign Sovereign coming to the throne, the last three deal with distinctly domestic problems. The provision re- lating to office-holders not sitting in Parliament was modified by an 1 He retained, however, the Auditorship of the Exchequer. 2 She was adaughterof Elizabeth and Palsgrave Frederick (see above, p. 295), and had married the Elector of Hanover. Two branches of the House of Stuart were nearer in the line of descent, but were both excluded because of their Roman Catholic faith. The elder line, descended from James II, became extinct with the death of his grandson Henry, Cardinal of York, in 1807. The younger was de- scended from the sister of James II who married the Duke of Orleans ; it is at present represented by Mary, wife of the former King of Bavaria. THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 441 Act of 1705 which remains in force to-day. 1 The fifth provision merely remedied the evil of appointing judges during the royal pleasure, a power which the first two Stuarts had so grossly abused. The last was a legal confirmation of the attitude taken by Parliament in the impeachment of Danby in 1678. The War of the Spanish Succession. The Claimants to the Spanish Throne. — Meantime, England had been drifting into another great Continental war occasioned by a scramble for the Spanish inheritance. Louis XIV and the Emperor Leopold I were impatiently waiting the death of the shadow King Charles II to grab his dominions, the one for the House of Bourbon, the other for the House of Hapsburg. Both had a claim on the inheritance, while still a third claim was advanced in behalf of Joseph Ferdinand, the infant son of the Elector of Bavaria. 2 Since in the interest of the European balance of power, neither England nor Holland would consent to a union of Spain either with France or the Empire, Louis urged the Bourbon claim in behalf of his second grandson, Philip of Anjou, while Leopold put in his for his second son, Charles. 1 The Place Act of 1 705 provided that holders of offices created after that date should be ineligible to sit in the House of Commons, while a member of the Lower House appointed to an office which existed earlier must resign his seat and submit himself for reelection. This, however, does not prevent Parliament, in the Act creating a new office, from providing that the incumbent may sit in the House of Commons. 2 Philip III I I I Louis XIII m. Anna Maria Philip IV Maria Anna m. Ferdinand III burg 3d wife Louis XIV m. Maria Theresa Charles II Margaret m. Leopold I m. Eleanor of New- I . Louis Max Emanuel of m. Maria Antonia Bavaria Joseph Charles Louis Philip Joseph Ferdinand Both Louis XIII and Louis XIV had married elder daughters of Philip III and Philip IV respectively ; but both Infantas had renounced on their marriage any claim to inherit the throne of Spain. Louis XIV, however, denied the validity of these renunciations. Philip IV by will had left the crown, on the event of the death of Charles without issue, to the heirs of Margaret. Her daughter Maria Antonia, however, had renounced her claim in favor of any son that her father might have from a subsequent marriage; but this step was not recognized as legal by the Spanish. 442 SHORTER HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN The First and Second Partition Treaties (1698 and 1700). - The prideof the Spanish demanded that the Monarchy should be handed on intact ; though a partition between the claimants seemed the only solution of the vexed question. The French King played a double game. While his ambassador was laboring at the Spanish court to serine the whole of the Spanish inheritance if possible, he and William negotiated the First Partition Treaty, 1 signed October, [698, whereby the Spanish possessions were divided between the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the Bourbons, and the Hapsburgs. The Spanish were furious when the news leaked out, and Charles II, 14 November, 1O0S, pro- ceeded to confirm the will of Philip IV, leaving the whole dominion to Joseph Ferdinand, This arrangement, however, was upset by the sudden death of the Electoral Prince, 5 February, [609, whereupon, a second Partition Treaty was framed between England ami France which was finally signed in February, 1700. The Emperor, not sat- isfied with the share allotted to him, hung off. King Charles, when the news was communicated to him, " Hew into an extraordinary pas- sion," and French diplomacy, supported by the Church, now worked st> effectively upon him and his advisers that he signed a final will, ^ October, 1700, less than a month before his death, leaving all his dominions to Philip of Anjou on condition that they should never be united to Prance. Louis forthwith threw over the Second Partition Treaty. The Tories Forced to Join the War Party. —War was now inevi- table; but it seemed at first doubtful whether William could carry England with him ; for the Tories, whose policy was peace with. France, were in a majority in the new Parliament which opened in February, 1701. However, the realization that Spain was to be used as a pawn in Louis' great game of establishing the political and commercial as- cendancy of France aroused such a storm of anti-French wrath through- out England that even the Tory House of Commons was forced to join in the cry for war. The Spanish ambassador at Paris first aroused disquiet by declaring: // n*y 36, 46; see also Earl Earls, Anglo-Saxon, 37, 47; after the Conquest, 54 East Africa Company, the Brit- ish, 774 Eastern Association, army of the, 321, 329 East India Company, the Dutch, 272, note; the English founded, 272, 273; growth of, 493; condition of, at Seven Years' War, North's Regu- lating Act, Warren Hastings, 'and Fox's India Bill, 570-573; Pitt's India Bill, 575; reduc- tion of privileges of, 785, 786; powers of, transferred to the Crown, 791; the French, 493, 503 East Indian laborers in South Africa, 779 and note Ecclesiastical Commission, 658, 660; court of, 389-390, 396 Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, under William I and Stephen, 55, 72; under Henry II, 72, 73; under the Tudors, 265 Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker's, 279 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 679 Economic theory, in the seven- teenth century, 415, 416; in the eighteenth century, 558, 559; in the nineteenth cen- tury, 636, 737 Edgar the Peaceful, Anglo- Saxon King, 35, 36 Edgehill, battle of, 330 Edgeworth, Maria, 639 Edict of Nantes, 262, 388 "Edinburgh Letter," Russell's, 671 Edinburgh Review, the, 640, 731 Edmund (Crouchback) of Lan- caster, 100, 103, 116, 159 note Edmund Ironside, 36, 37 Edred, 35 Education, under the Tudors, 226, 227, 235; in the seven- teenth century, 405, 406; Bills of 1870, 1902, 1906, 705-707, 755; made free, 720; Bill of, 1918, 879-880 Edward the Elder, 33 Edward "The Martyr," 36 Edward the Confessor, 38-40 Edward I, King of England, as Prince, 102-103; accession and character, in; subdues Wales, in-112; his French and Scotch wars, 112-113, 116-118; summons Model Parliament, 115; his con- firmation of the charters, 116-117; as legislator and ruler, 112, 118-121; his expul- sion of the Jews, 120; trade regulations of, 138-139; as- serts sovereignty of the seas, 139 Edward II, King of England, first Prince of Wales, 112; as Regent, 116; his reign and deposition, 121-123 Edward III, King of England, chosen King, 123; assumes the government, 125; his character, 125, 126; assumes title of King of France, 126; enters Hundred Years' War, 126-128; victory at Cr6cy, 128; capture of Calais, 128, 129; ceases to take an active part in the war, 129; troubles with subjects, 129, 134-135; his death, 136; secures sover- eignty of the seas, 139 Edward IV, King of England, his struggle for the succession, 173, 174; his reign, 175-178 Edward V, 178-180 Edward VI, King of England, as Prince, 217-218, 233; his reign, 230-235 Edward VII, King of Great Britain and Emperor of India, character and reign, 752-756; his foreign relations, 806-808, 813 Edward, the Black Prince, at Crecy and Poitiers, 128, 132; regime in Guyenne, 133-134; his opposition to the Court party and death, 134, 135 Edward, Prince, son of Henry VI, 172, 177 Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence, 184 and note; see Simnel Edwin, Northumbrian King, 24 Edwin, Earl of Mercia, 40 Egbert, West Saxon King, 29, 30 Egypt, in the Napoleonic Wars, 582, 597, 599; early history and the British occupation of, 780-784; the Anglo-French agreement concerning, 784, 806-807; in the World War, 819, 896-897; British Labor Party demand Home Rule for, 878 Eighteenth century, leading char- acteristics, 543 Elba, island of, 608, 610 Eldon, Lord Chancellor, 615, 625 El Dorado, 273 Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of Henry II, 69, 75 Eleanor of Provence, Queen of Henry III, 99 Election, the Clare, 624 Elections, disputed, see Good- win's Case, Wilkes, and Gren- ville Act; bribery in, 649 Elective Ministers, baronial de- mand for, 100 Electricity, 739-740 Elgar, Sir Edward, 744 Eliot, Sir John, 304, 307, 308 Eliott, General, defender of Gibraltar, 534, 539 Elizabeth, Countess Palatine, 295, and note, 440 and note Elizabeth, Queen of England, as Princess, 208, 210, 234, 237; accession and character, 244-245; her religious settle- ment, 245-246; her Scotch policy, 246-248; relation to Catholics and Catholic Powers, 248-250; plots against, 248, 251, 254, 255, 259; attitude toward Protestant extremists, 255-257; intervention in the Netherlands, 257; support of English seamen, 257-259; her part in Mary's execution, 259; her part in the repulse of the Armada and the final struggle with Philip II, 259-262; de- clining years and death, 26?, qi8 INDEX 263; strength of her monarchy, 264-265; restoration of the coinage, 270; agricultural and trade policy, 271, 274; her progresses, 275; estimate of her reign, 283, 284 Elizabeth of York, 184 Ely, monks of, 37 ; island of, 55 Embargo Act, 608 Emden, German raider, 856 Emigration, 762, 763 Emma, Queen, 37 Empire, see British Colonies and British Empire Enclosures, beginning of, 142; in the fifteenth century, 187; in the sixteenth century, 215, 224, 233, 270-271; in the eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, 554, 635 Encumbered Estates Act, 677, 704 Encyclopedists, the, 414 Engagement, the, 340 England, area, 1; productive- ness, 5; origin of the name, 21; under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 57-61, 65-67; at the close of the twelfth century, 82-87; in the thirteenth century, 104-110; under the first three Edwards, 129-132, 137-152; in the fifteenth century, 186-192; develop- ment of sea power of, 257- 262; under Elizabeth, 264- 284; in the seventeenth cen- tury, 400-422; material char- acter of, under the first two Georges, 473-474; condition of, in the eighteenth century, 543-568; conditions in, 1815- 1830, 615; at the eve of the Reform Bill, 633-643; under Victoria, 727-751; see Great Britain English language, in the law courts, 132, 476 Englishry, presentment of, 55 Enniskillen, 426, 427 Entails, 119 Entente, the Dual, or Entente cordiale, 784, 806, 807; the Triple, 793, 808 Enumerated goods, 514 Episcopacy in Scotland, 291, 314-315 Episcopal elections, 64, 91-92, 95. 265 Epsom, 412 Erasmus, 200-201, 226-227 Erie, Eake, battle on, 609 Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cum- berland, 662 Erskine, John, Earl of Mar, 465- 466 Escheats, 58 Essay on Man, see Pope; on Woman, see Wilkes Essayists, 559, 639 Essex, Earls of, see Devereux, Robert and Capel. Arthur Ethandun, 31 Ethelrleda, 33 Eugene, Prince, 447, 449, 45 i> 454, 458 Euphuism, 278 Evangelicals, the, 727, 729 Evans, Mary Ann, 735, 736 Evesham, battle of, 103 Evolution, see Darwin Exchequer, the, 66, 78, 83; Court, 268, 290 Excise, Walpole's, 477 ; Irish, 717 Exclusion, bills against James, 376, 381-382; of the Ulster counties, 759, 882 Excommunication, of John, 91- 92; of Henry VIII, 208 and note Exhibition, the Great, 679 Ex officio oath, 266, 287 Exploration, under the Tudors, 271-273 Exports, British, 4, 633, 809— 811; duties on, abolished, 669 Eye, the witch of, 170 Fabian Society, 750 Factory, Acts, 656-657, 670, 746 and note; system, 550, 552, 553 Faerie Queene, the, 280 Fairfax, Thomas, Parliamentary Commander, 330, 333"335» 338, 34i, 345 Fairs, 86, 108 Falkirk, battle of. 117 Falkland Islands, battle of, 856 Falkland, Lord, 413 Family Compacts, the, 480, 483, 508 Famines, no, 146, 671, 676 "Fantastic School," the, 417 Faraday, Michael, 739-740 "Farmer George," see George III Faro banks, 641 Fashoda Incident, the, 784 note Fawkes, Guy, 288, 679 Federation, see Australia, Can- ada, Imperial, Ireland Felony, counsel in cases of, 660 Felton, John, 306 Fenians, 703, 712 Fens, draining of the, 403 Fenwick (fen'ick), Sir John, 434 Feorum fultum, 46 Ferdinand of Aragon, 186, 195, 196 Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick, 499, 501, 502 Feud, the, 44 Feudal, dues, 267, 290; griev- ances under John, 93, 95; incidents, 58, 59; system abolished, 362 Feudalism, 57-59 Field, Cyrus, 740 Field deputies, see Dutch in the War of the Spanish Succession Field of Cloth of Gold, 197, 223 Fielding, Henry, 562 Filmer, Sir Robert, 414, 415 Financial effort, Great Britain's, in the World War, 832 and note 875 Fining of juries abolished, 359 Fire of London, the, 368-369, 410 Firma bnrgi, 85 First fruits, see Annates. Fisher, Admiral, Lord, 866-867 Fisher, H. A. L., 879 Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, 209-210 Fitch, Ralph, 272 Fitzgeralds, the, Earls of Kildare, 218-219 Fitzherbert, Mrs., 619 note Five boroughs, the, 33 Five Knights' case, the, 305-306 Five Mile Act, the, 365 Flagellants, the, 130 Flambard, see Ranulf Flanders, 116; in the Hundred Years' War, 127-128, 133 Fleet marriages, 491 Flemish weavers, 139, 140 Flodden, battle of, 195 Flogging illegal for women, 643 Flood, Henry, 538 Florida, 510, 541, 675 Florio, John, 2 78 " Flying Coach," 404 Flying shuttle, 550 Foch, General (later Marshal), 838, 850-853 Folk, see Tribe Folkmoot, 45 Fontenoy, the battle of, 484 Food, 143, 1S8, 412; control of, during World War, 873-874, 893 Forced loans, see Loans Foreign Enlistment Act, 710 note Foreign policy, see various countries Forests, under William I, 55, 56 Forfeiture, 58 Forty-shilling freeholders, see Freeholders "Forwards," see "Die-Hards" Fountains Abbey, 67 Four Days' Battle, the, 467 INDEX 919 Fox, Charles James, 538; char- acter and American policy, 537-538; coalition with North, 570; his India Bill and conflict with Pitt, 573, 574; abolishes slave trade, 578; position on the Regency question, 579-580; attitude toward French Revolution and breach with Burke, 581- 582 ; Foreign Secretaryship and death, 601-602; his dress, 641 Fox, Henry (later Lord Holland), 495, 496, 539 Foxe, John, 239, 280 France, war with Edward I, 113- 114, 117; Edward III assumes title of King of , 126; Hundred Years' War during reign of Edward III, 126-129, 132- 134; under Richard II, 153; under Henry V and Henry VI, 165-170; end of war, 172; relations of Edward IV with, 176-178; relations of Henry VII with, 195-198, 205, 217- 218; Somerset's policy toward, 233; Mary's war with, and loss of Calais, 240; Eliza- beth's relations with, 245, 248,253-262; marriage treaty with, 1624, 299; relations of Charles I with, 304-305, 312- 313 ; Cromwell's alliance with, 351-352; alliance of Charles II with, 360, 366, 373-374; aids Dutch, 368; English feel- ing against, 375; later policy of Charles toward, 377; re- lations of James II with, 385, 388; aids James II, 397, 426; William Ill's war against, 430-432, 435; in the War of the Spanish Succession, 441- 443, 446-451, 453-455, 457- 459; aids the old Pretender, 465; in Triple Alliance, 467; in War of the Austrian Succes- sion, 480-485, 489-490; aids Prince Charles, 484, 485; in the Seven Years' War, 492- 496, 497-504, 508-510; in the American Revolution, 533- 536, 539-54i; significance of eighteenth century wars with, 545-548; Pitt's commercial treaty with, 576-577; Revolu- tion in, and effect on England, 580-585; war with, to peace of Amiens, 585-595; from Amiens to the overthrow of Napoleon, 600-613; inter- venes in Spain in 1820, 627; allied with Great Britain to assist Greeks, 629-630; Revo lution of 1830 in, 630; effect of, on England, 631; Revolu- tion of 1848 in, 677; see Don Pacifico Case; in Crimean War, 682-687; see Orsini; assists in Italian Unity, 688- 689; proposes mediation in American Civil War, 692; see Palmerston; in War with Prussia, 709-710; relations with Great Britain in Egypt, . 780-784; see Entente, Fashoda, and Morocco ; British strained relations with, after 1870, 800; Entente with, under Edward VII, 806-808, 813; Great Britain supports, in 1911, 821 ; in negotiations of 1914, 825- 829; in the World War, 833, 836-854; in Syria, 890 France, Isle de, 493 Franchise, previous to Reform Bill of 1832, 648-650; by Bill of 1832, 653; by Bill of 1867, 699; by Bill of 1885, 714- 715; by Bill of 1918, 880- 881 ; see also Reform Bills Francis, St., 104-105 Francis, Sir Philip, 523 Franciscan friars, 104, 105, 209 Franco-Austrian War, 688-689 Franco-Prussian War, 709-710 Franklin, Benjamin, 515, 526, 527, 533, 54° and note; ex- periments with electricity, 555, 556 Franz Ferdinand, see Serajevo Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, character and aims, 48 r; in the War of the Aus- trian Succession, 481-482, 484, 489; in the Seven Years' War, 495-496,499-504; breaks with England, 509-510; cynical views of, 815 Frederick, Prince, son of George II, 507 Free, Church of Scotland, 730; United Presbyterian, ib. Freedom of Speech, 39S Freeholders, forty-shilling, 649- 650, 653 Free trade, 668-673 French, General (later Marshal, Viscount), 759, 760, 837-838, 841, 844-845 Friars, see Dominicans and Fran- ciscans Friends of the People, 58? note Friendly Societies, 744, 747 and note Frobisher, Martin. 272 Froissart, Jean. 148 Fry, Elizabeth, 745 Fulton, Robert, 634 Gaels, 10 Gage, General, 531 Gainsborough, Thomas, 565 Gallipoli campaign, 840-843 Gama, Vasco da, 272 note Gambling, 412, 567, 641 Game Laws, 642 Gaol Acts, 745 Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, 231, 233, 236, 239 Garrick, David, 565 Garter, Order of the, 129 note Gas, use of, in World War, 834, 844 Gascony, under Henry III, 98- 100; under Edward I, 113-114, 116; in the Hundred Years' War, see Guyenne; shipping law against, 191 ; see also Aquitaine Gaskell, Mrs., 736 Gates, General, 532 Gaunt, see John of Gaveston, Piers, 122 General Assembly, of the Church of Scotland, 241, 286, 315; see Veto Act General Staff, 754 note General warrants, 511 and note, 519 Geneva Award, 710 Geoffrey of Anjou, 69 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 61, 83 George I, King of England, reign of, 463-474 George II, King of England, as Prince, 475; reign of, 475-504 George III, King of Great Brit- ain and Ireland, significance of reign, 506; character and policy, 507-508; ends the Seven Years' War, 509-510; opposition to Wilkes, 511; supports Grenville program, 512, 515 note; dismissal of Grenville, 518; opposes Rock- ingham Ministry, 519; makes Lord North Premier, 523; controls the Ministry, 525; secures Royal Marriage Act, 526; aims to coerce Massa- chusetts, 528; rejoices pre- maturely, 532; refuses to yield to the Opposition, 534; disperses Gordon rioters, 535; wishes to continue the Amer- ican War, 537; attempts to thwart Rockingham, ib.; dis- misses his Ministry, 540; defeat of his policy, 541; op- poses the Coalition, 570; defeats Fox's India Bill, 573; calls in Pitt, ib.; attitude toward Hastings, 578-579; his insanity and recovery, 920 INDEX 579; opposes Catholic relief, 596-597; final eclipse, 60s; his death, 618 George IV, King of Great Britain and Ireland as Prince, 570, 579-580; as Regent, 605, 616; as King, 618-620, 625-626 George V, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, his accession and visit to India, 756-757 ; signs Home Rule Bill, 760; changes name, 871-872 note George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, 176- 178 George, David Lloyd, his social- istic legislation, 748; his budget, 755; his plea for reduction of armaments, 823 note; reiterates British War aims, 850; attempts to save in armaments, 865; becomes Minister of Munitions, 867; becomes Premier, ib. ; see Treasury Agreement; his War Cabinet, 868; his activity in producing munitions, 871 and note; his appointments, 878- 879; his tribute to women's war work, 880; victory of his Coalition, 881-882; offers Irish Convention, 888; calls Imperial Conferences, 906, 907 Georgia, colony of, 566 Georgiana, Duchess of Devon- shire, 574 Gerald de Barri, set Giraldus Cambrensis Geraldines, see Fitzgerald German East Africa, see Africa German, North, Confederation, 700; Empire founded, 709 German raids, 834, 858 German Southwest Africa, see Africa Germanic invasions, 14, 18-21 Germans, condition of the an- cient, 18-20 Germany, Bismarck's social legis- lation in, 746 ; secures Heligo- land for concessions in Africa, 774; activities in the East, 792-793 ; Bismarck's policy, 799-801; attitude in Russo- Turkish War, 801-804; in Triple Alliance, 804; new poli- cies under William II, 804- 805; in the Morocco crises of 1905 and 191 1, 807-808, 820- 821; rivalry with England in trade and naval armaments, 810-815 ; Kultur and Pan- Germanism ,815-818; Eastern policy, 818-822; backs Aus- tria after Serajcvo, 823-824; violation of Belgium, 827- 829; resources of, in 1914, 832-835; disappointment at British entrance into war, 836; campaign of 1914, 836- 839; of 191 5, 839-845; of 1916, 845-847 ; peace drive, 847; campaign of 1917, 847- 849; 1918 drive, 850-851; final repulse, 851-853; the Armistice, 853-854; in naval warfare, 854-859; submarine warfare, 859-862; surrenders her fleet, 862-863 ; production of shells, 867 note; intrigues with the Irish, 884, 885 ; raid in behalf of Sinn Feiners, 886 ; propaganda in South Africa, 895; loses Colonies, 895-896; activity in Egypt, 897; in- trigues in India, 900-901 Ghent, treaty of, 609-610 Gibbon, Edward, 556 Gibraltar, British secure, 450, 459; Spanish attempts to re- cover, 534, 539; government of, 761 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 273 Gilbert and Sullivan, 744 Gilds, origin and growth of, 86; in the thirteenth century, 109; in the fourteenth cen- tury, 140-141, 148, 153-154; In the fifteenth century, 189- 190; under Henry VIII, 224; under Elizabeth, 274; in the seventeenth century, 409; as ancestors of Friendly Societies, 747 note; see also National Guilds Gin drinking, act to check, 566 Giraldus Cambrensis, 84 Gladstone (glad'ston), William E., early budgets of, 682; in Palmerston's second ad- ministration, 689; his repeal of the paper duty, 689-690; in sympathy with South in American Civil War, 690- 691 ; Disraeli on policy of, toward Victoria, 701 ; charac- ter and policy of, 701-702; first Ministry of, 702-709; first Ministry of, foreign affairs, 709-710; campaign speeches, 711; second Ministry of, 712- 715; his Land Act of 1881, 713 ; his Franchise Bill of 1884, 1885, 714-715; fall of his Becond Ministry, 715; adopts Home Rule, 716; his third Ministry and the defeat of his first Home Rule Bill, 717; repudiates Parnell, 719; his fourth Ministry and the defeat of his second Home Rule Bill, 720-721 ; threatens the Lords, 723; his resignation, ib.; death of, 723 note; his High Churchmanship, 729; his dis- astrous South African policy, 773-774; his failure to relieve Gordon, 783 ; denounces the Bulgarian atrocities, 801 Glamorgan, Earl of, 336 Glanville, Ranulf de, 83 Glasgow, 6 Glastonbury, Abbey of, 15 Glencoe, the Massacre of, 429, 430 Glendower, Owen, 162 "Glorious Revolution," the, see Revolution of 1688 Gloucester, 331-332 Gloucester, the Duke of, see Thomas of Woodstock, Hum- phrey, and Richard Godfrey, Sir Edmund Bury, 378 Godwin, William, 639 Godwine, Earl of Wessex, 38-39 Goidels, 10 Gold, discovery of, 742, 770 note Goldsmith, Oliver, 563, 565 Good Hope, Cape of, 272 note, 599 Good Parliament, 134-135 Goodwin, Sir Francis, case of, 289 Gordon, General Charles ("Chi- nese Gordon"), in the Sudan, 783 Gordon, George, see Byron, Lord Gordon Riots, 534-535 Gothic art, revival of, 732, 743 Government, British, growing paternalism of, at Victoria's accession, 661-662; control of industry during the World War, 866 ff . Grafton, the Duke of, his Minis- try, 520-523 Graham, John, of Claverhouse, later Viscount Dundee, 391, 429 Grail, the Holy, 15 Grammar schools, under Henry VIII, 227; of Edward VI, 235 ; see also, 706 Grand Alliance, the, 443 Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, the, 667 Grand Remonstrance, the, 324- 325 Grand Tour, the, 641 Granville, Lord, 783 Grattan, Henry, 538, 592, 593, 595, 840, 842 Gray, Thomas, 564 Great Britain, name of, adopted at the union of England and Scotland, 453 ; territorial gains of, by the peace of Utrecht, INDEX 921 458-459; achievements of, in the War of the Spanish Suc- cession, 459; struggle begins with American Colonies, 512; strength of, in American Revo- lution, 530; isolation of, by formation of "Armed Neutral- ity," 535, critical situation of, in 1796, 1797 and 1800-1801, 590, 598; territorial gains of, at Congress of Vienna, 612; relations to Europe at close of Napoleonic Wars, 626-631; effect of separation of Hanover upon, 662; sentiment in, re- garding American Civil War, 690; problems confronting, 1865, 697; problems in 1901, 725; foreign policy of, after 1870, 799-804; see Entente; also Germany; policy of, previous to World War, 823- 830; in the World War, 832 ff. Great Contract, the, 290-291 Great Council, the, 59; sum- moned by Charles I, 317 Greater Britain, see British Colonies and Empire Great Fire, the, 410, 421 Great Mogul, the, 492 Great Schism, 150 Great Seal, the, 397 Greece, independence of, 628- 630; see Don Pacifico case; in the First and Second Balkan Wars, 821, 822; in the World War, 843, 853 Green Ribbon Club, 376 Greene, Nathaniel, General, 536 Greene, Robert, 279, 282 Greenwich, 416, 421 Gregory I, Pope, 22-23 Gregory XIII, Pope, 491 Grenville, George, 496 note; becomes Prime Minister, 510; his colonial program, 512, 516-518; his dismissal, 518- 519; his Election Act, 525 Grenville, Lady Hester, 496 note Grenville Election Act, the, of, 1770, 525 Grey, Charles, later Earl Grey, becomes Prime Minister, 647 ; Ministry of, secures Parlia- mentary Reform, 651-654; resignation of, 658; adviser to the bishops, 728 Grey, Lady Jane, 224-235, 236- 237 Grey, Sir Edward, Foreign Min- ister, refuses to sign Portu- guese treaty with Germany, 805 ; states British position in 1911, 817-818; forces signa- ture of treaty of London in 1913, 822; his attempts to avert war in 1914, 825, 827, 829-830; his conciliatory at- titude, 865 Griffith, Arthur, 883 Grocyn, William, 200 Grosseteste, see Robert Grote, George, 737~738 Grouchy, Marshal, 611-612 Grub Street, 561 and note Guesclin, Bertrand du, 133- 134 Guinegate, the battle of, 195 Gulliver's Travels, 560 Gunpowder, early use of, 144 Gunpowder Plot, the, 288-289 Gutenberg, John, 192 Guthrum, Danish invader, 3 Guyenne, in the Hundred Years' War, 127/^129, 133-134; see Aquitaine and Gascony Gwledig, British leader, 18 H Habeas Corpus, 94, 96, 305 and note Habeas Corpus Act, 359; passed, 381 ; James II aims to repeal the, 388; suspended, 589, 617 and note; in Ireland, 594 Hadrian's Wall, 13 note Hague Conference, the first, 813 ; the second, ib. Haidar AH, 597 Haig, Sir Douglas (later Mar- shal, Viscount), 845, 848, 851- 853 Haldane (hol'dane), Lord, 814, 818 Hakluyt, Richard, his Voyages, 273, 280 Hales, Sir Edward, the ca9e of, 389 Halidon Hill, battle of, 126 Halifax, Earl of, see Montagu, Charles Halifax, Marquis of, see Savile, George Hal, Prince, see Henry V Halsbury, Lord, 756 Hampden, John, 313, 320, 325, 332 Hampton Court Conference, the, 387-288 Hams, Anglo-Saxon, 42 Handel, George Frederick, 565, 744 Hanover, kingdom of, 602, 662, 700 Hansard, case of Stockdale against, 665 Hanseatic League, 108 Harden, Maximilian, 829 note Hardinge, Lord, Viceroy of In- dia, 892, 901 note, 902 Hardwicke's Marriage Act, 491- 492 Hardy, Thomas, 736 Hargreaves, James, invents spin- ning jenny, 550 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, intrigues with Mrs. Masham, 455 ; leading Minister of Anne, 456 ; negotiates for peace, 457 ; rivalry with Bolingbroke, 460; his dismissal, 460-461; founds the South Sea Company, 469 Harold, son of Godwine, 39-41 Harold Hadrada, King of Nor- way, 40 Hartington, Marquis of, see Compton, Spencer Harvey, William, 416 Hastings, see Senlac Hastings, Warren, 571-572, 578- 579 Havana, 509-5x0 Havelock, Henry, 790 Hawke, Admiral, 501 Hawkins, John, 258, 272 Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 768 Hazlitt, William, 639-640 Heads of Proposals, the, 338-339 Health, public, in the Anglo- Saxon period, 50; in Anglo- Norman times, 60; in the twelfth century, 87; in the fourteenth century, 146; in the fifteenth century, 187-188; in the time of Henry VIII, 225 Hedjaz, King of the, 898, 900 Heligoland, 612, 774, 857 Hemans, Felicia, 730 Henderson, Arthur, 877 Hengist and Horsa, 18 Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I, betrothed to Charles, 299; character of, 303; fosters Roman Cathol- icism, 311; plots of, 322,324; incites arrest of five members, 325; seeks foreign alliances, 328, 336 Henry I, King of England, accession and issue of Charter of Liberties, 63, 64; conquest of Normandy, 64; compromise with Anselm, ib.; character and policy, 64, 65 ; admin- istrative reorganization, the Curia Regis and Exchequer 65, 66; founder of Curia Regis and Exchequer, 78 ; originator of scutage, 79 ; charters to Lon- don, 85; charter to Weavers' Gild, 86 Henry II, King of England, recognized as heir of Stephen, 69; accession and character, problems and policy, 71; 922 INDEX conflict with Becket, 7 2-74 J in Ireland, 74~7S; submission at Avranches, 75; last years and death, ib.; constitutional and legal reforms, 75-78; revenue of, 78-79; summary of his work, 79; literature and learning at his court, 82, 83; grants of borough charters, 85 Henry III, King of England, constitutional importance of his reign, 89; years of minor- ity, 98, 99; successful expedi- tions against Gascony, 99-100; beginning of his personal rule, 99; marries Eleanor of Pro- vence, invasions of foreigners, ib.; breach with Simon de Montfort, 100; baronial war against, 101-103; death and character of, 103 Henry of Lancaster, his conflict with Richard II, 158, 159; chosen king, 159; see Henry IV Henry IV, King of England, 161-162; character and prob- lems, 161-162 ; revolts against, 162-163; last years of, 163 Henry V, King of England, as Prince, 163; accession and character, 164-165 ; sup- presses the Lollards, 164 note; reopens war with France, 165 ; his three invasions of France, 165-166; his death, estimate of his work, 166, 167 Henry VI, King of England, coronation of, 169; marries Margaret of Anjou, 170; struggles with the Yorkists, 170-177; his death and char- acter, 177 Henry, Duke of Richmond, rep- resentative of the Lancastrian line, lands in England, 180; victory at Bosworth, 180- 181; proclaimed King, 1S1; see Henry VII Henry VII, King of England, problems and means of secur- ing his title, 183, 184; trouble with pretenders, 185-185; es- tablishes the Star Chamber, 185; Irish policy of, 185, 186; foreign policy of, 186; mod- ern and medieval traits of, 186-187 ; measures to promote manufactures, trade, and dis- covery, 190-192 Henry Mil, King of England, marries Catharine of Aragon, 1 86; accession and character of, 194-195; joins the Holy Alliance, 195; invades Flan- ders, ib.; allies himself with Louis XII; favor to Wolsey, 195-196; unsuccessful candidate for the Imperial crown, 196; his alliance with Charles V, 197; meeting with Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold, ib.', withdraws from the European war, 198; mo- tives of, for separation from Rome, 198, 199; a patron of the New Learning, 202; his divorce proceedings against Catharine, 203-204; throws over Wolsey, 204-205; takes Cranmer and Cromwell as advisers, 206; summons the Reformation Parliament and brings about the separation from Rome, 207-210; restricts powers of Convocation, 208; marries Anne Boleyn, ib.; secures divorce from Catharine, ib.; persecutions, 209-210; assumes title of Supreme Head, ib.', his dissolution of the monasteries, 210-212; divorces and executes Anne Boleyn, 212; marries Jane Seymour, ib.; imposes the Ten Articles on the Church, 213; attitude of, toward the Pilgrimage of Grace, 214; disposal of the spoils of monasteries, 215- 216; forces the Six Articles on Parliament, 216-217; marries and divorces Anne of Cleves, 217; throws over Cromwell, ib.; Scotch policy, 217-218; war with France, 218; Irish policy, 218-219; closing years and death of, 222-223; nature of his absolutism, his revenue, and his extravagance, 223- 224; attitude toward educa- tion, 226-227; character of his age, 227 Henry, son of Henry II, 75 Henry, Prince, son of James I, 289, 294 Henry, Cardinal of York, son of the Old Pretender, 487 Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV, King of France), 253, 257, 262 Henry, Bishop of Winchester, 68 Hepburn (heb'burn), James, Earl of Bothwell, 247 Heptarchy, 21 Herbert, Admiral (later Earl of Torrington), 427 Herbert, George, 417 Heresy laws, 164, 231, 238; see De Jiaeretico comburendo Heretics, persecution of, 207, 238-240 Heritable jurisdictions, abolished in Scotland, 488 Herrick, Robert, 418 Hertford, Earl of, see Seymour, Edward Hertzog, General, 779, 894 Herzegovina, 801-803, 820 Hide, 42 High Church party, views and aims of, under Charles I, 302-303; under the direction of Laud, 309-310; alliance with Charles II, 376; alienated by James II, 392-395; reac- tion of, against William III, 424; principles of, 446; op- poses the Union, 453; alien- ated by the Education Act of 1870,708; see Sacheverel and Oxford Movement High Commission, the Court of, begins to be active, 249; en- larged powers of, 256; under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts 265-266; abolished, 323; see Ecclesiastical Commission High Court of Delegates, the, 265 High Court of Justice, 342; see also Supreme Court of Judica- ture Act Highlands, the Scottish, 5-6, 429 Highwaymen, 405, 567 Hill, Abigail, see Masham Hill, Rowland, Post Office re- forms of, 665, 666 Historical writing, 280, 556, 731, 737-738 Hindenburg, Marshal von, 847; Hindenburg Line, 852, 853 Hobbes, Thomas, 414 Hogarth, William, 565 Hohenlinden, battle of, 598 Holbein, 217 Holinshed's Chronicles, 280 Holland, joins the Armed Neu- trality of 1778, 535; England declares war against, 1780, ib.; decline of, 547; Orange Party of, in Triple Alliance, 583 ; States General of, appeal to England for aid, 584; France declares war on, 1793, 585; France prepares to in- vade, ib.; Batavian Republic set up in, 589; Belgium de- clares her independence from, 890; see also Netherlands, Dutch and Austrian and Spanish Succession, wars of the Holland, Lord, see Fox, Henry Holies, Denzil, 307-308 Holstein, Duchy of, 693 Holy Alliance, the, 612 INDEX 923 Holy Grail, 15, 148 Holy League, 195 Holy Places, the, in Palestine, 683 Holyrood palace, 247 Holy Sepulcher, the, 683 Home Rule, origin of the move- ment, 712; adopted by Glad- stone, 716; defeat of Glad- stone's first bill for, 716-717; Ulster opposition to, 716 note; the Conservative substitute for, 720; defeat of Gladstone's second bill in the Lords, 720-721; the problem, 721- 723; becomes an issue in the election of 1910, 755-766; revival of the struggle for 757-760; becomes law, 760; suspended during the World war, 880-884; see Sinn Fein and Irish Convention; the Problem of, 889-890 Hong-Kong, 674 Honorius, Roman Emperor, 14 Hood, Admiral, Lord, 589 Hooker, Richard, 279 Home, General, 853 Hotspur, see Percy, Henry Household franchise, 653 House of Commons, see Com- mons House of Lords, see Lords House, the "Other," under the Protectorate, 354 "Hovering Act," the, 576 Howard, Lord Charles, of Effing- ham (later Earl of Notting- ham), 260 Howard, Catharine, see Catharine Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey, poet, 220, 228 Howard, John, prison reformer, 566-567, 745 Howard, Thomas, Earl of Surrey and Duke of Norfolk, 195, 214, 220, 337 Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, 248, 251 Howe, General, 531-532, 534 Howe, Admiral, Lord, 591 Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar, 98-99 Hubert Walter, Archbishop, 81- 83,91 Hudson Bay Company, 766 Hugh, St., Bishop of Lincoln, 82 Hughes, Thomas, 749 Hughes, W. M., 906 Huguenots, 244, 253, 305; intro- duction of new industries into England by, 401, 548 Humanism, 199 Humber River, 4 Humble Petition and Advice, the, 354 Hume, David, 356-357 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 166, 168, 170, 200 "Hundred Days," the, 610 Hundreds, Anglo-Saxon, 44, 45; responsibility of the, 55 Hundred Years' War, the, sig- nificance of, 126; causes of, 126-127; opening campaigns, 127-128; Crecy, 128; cap- ture of Calais, 128; Poitiers, 132; peace of Bretigny, 132- 133 ; turning of the tide against England, 133; long- bow and firearms in, 144; reopened by Henry V, 165; his three invasions of France, 165-166 ; siege of Orleans, and relief of, by Jeanne d'Arc, 168-169; end of, 172; effect on the nobility, 183 Hunt, Holman, 743 Hunt, Leigh, 639 Hunting, in Anglo-Saxon times, 50; in the seventeenth cen- tury, 406; see Game Laws Huskisson, William, 620-622 Huss, John, 151 Hussein, Kamel, 897-900 note; see also Hedjaz Hutchinson Letters, the, 763 Huxley, Thomas, 739 Hyde, Anne, 374, 376 and note Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 883 Hyde, Edward, Earl of Claren- don, leader of the Constitu- tional royalists and author of the History of the Great Re- bellion, 320.325, 360; made Lord Chancellor, his character and policy, 361 ; his Code, 364-366; foreign policy of, 366; the fall of, 368-369 Hyde Park, reform demonstra- tion in, 698 I Impeachments, beginning of, 134; of Latimer and Lyons, ib. ; of Suffolk, r7i ; revival of, 295; of Bacon, 296, 297; of Buckingham, 304; of Laud, 321; of Strafford, 321; of Clarendon, 369; of Danby, 381 ; of Dr. Sacheverell, 456 ; of Bolingbroke, 465; of Warren Hastings, 578, 579 Imperial Conferences, 796 Imperial defense, 754, 891, 905- 907 Imperial federation, 796, 890 Imperial War Cabinet and Con- ference, 903 note, 906, 907 Imperialism, British, 700; Dis- raeli popularizes the idea of, 701, 708, 799; Gladstone op- posed to extreme, ib. ; Victoria as the embodiment of, 725; growth of the idea of, 762- 763; the problem of, 796-797, 907 Imports, Brtish, 809-812 Impositions, 290, 322-323 Impressment, see Search, right of "In and out" clause, the, 720 Incandescent lamp, the, 740 Incident, the, 324 Income tax, the, established by Pitt, 598; Peel's second Min- istry revives, 668; increased by Lloyd George, 755 Indemnity and Oblivion, Act of, 361-362 Independent Labor Party, the, 749, 876 Independents, the, 255, 336, 339, 35o India, opened up by Englishmen, 272 ; beginnings of the English activity in, 492, 493; the struggle with the French for supremacy in, 493 ; triumph of the British over the French in, 502-503; mutual restoration of conquests in (1763), 509; state of, at close 45°. 454-455; see Utrecht, peace of ; helps to defeat the Darien project, 452; see Jenkins' Ear, the War of, see Aix-la- Chapelle, the peace of (1748); joins France in the Seven Years' War, 508-509^ see Paris, the peace of; joins France against England, 534; joins the armed neutrality of, 1780, 535; concludes peace with England, 541; antago- nism between England and, in 1 789-1 790, 583 note; joins First Coalition against France, 1 793 1 588; cedes Louisiana to France, 599; signs peace of Amiens, ib.; Peninsular War in, 603-606 ; Spanish- Amer- ican colonies of, declare in- dependence, 622; revolutions, 626-628; sends expedition to Mexico in i860, 692; see Morocco Spanish Succession, War of the, 441-443, 446-452, 453-459 Speakers of the House of Com- mons to decide on Money Bills, 756 Spee, Admiral von, 856 Speech, freedom of, 398 Spencer, Herbert, 737, 738 note Spencer, Robert, Earl of Sunder- land, 389, 396, note, 438 Spenser, Edmund, 280 Spinning jenny, 550; mule, ib. Spithead, mutiny at, 591 Sports, the Declaration of, 310 Spurs, battle of the, 195 Stafford, Lord William, 380 Stage coaches, 404, 634 Stair, Earl of, see Dalrymple, John Stair, the Master of, see Dal- rymple Stamford Bridge, battle of, 40 Stamp Act, the, 517-518 Standing army, nucleus of the, 562; increased by James II, 388; at the outbreak of the World War, 835; see Mutiny Bill Stanhope, James, first Earl Stanhope, 468, 470 Stanhope, Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son, 563 Stanley, Edward George, Lord Stanley and fourteenth Earl of Derby, Irish Secretary, 655; Colonial Secretary, 656; first Ministry of, 682; second Ministry of, 688 ; third Minis- try of, 698-700; resignation and death of, 700 Staple towns, 139 Star Chamber, Court of, 185, 267-268, 323 Steamboats, 634, 740-741 Steam engine, the, 551-552 Steam railways, 634, 740-741 Steele, Sir Richard, 559-560 Steelyard, the, 87 note Steenkirke, battle of, 431 Stephen, King of England, char- acter and problems, 67-68; attack on the Salisburys, 68; involved in Civil War, 68-69; results of his rule, 69-70; extension of Church courts under, 72 Stephenson, George, develops steam transportation, 634-635 Sterne, Laurence, 563 Steuben, Baron, 532 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 736- 737 Stewart, Esme, 254 Stewart, Henry, Lord Darnley, 247 Stewart, Lord James, later Earl of Moray, 247 and note, 251 Stigand, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 39 Stirling Bridge, battle of, 116 " Stockdale and Darlington," see Steam railways Stockdale vs. Hansard, 665 Stonehenge, 11 Stourbridge Fair, 108 Stow, John, 280 Strafford, Earl of, see Wentworth, Sir Thomas Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 683 Strikes, 549; use of, by British trades unions, 667; in 191 1- 191 2, 757; during the World War, 871-872, 876-879 " Strongbow," see Richard de Clare Stuart, John, Earl of Bute, 507- 509 passim Sturdee, Admiral, 856 Submarines, 834, 857-862, 865 Submission of the clergy, 208 Subsidies, 132, 198, 267-268 Succession, acts of, providing for the heirs of Henry VIII and Anne, 209; relating to heirs of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, 212; see Northum- berland's plot; plan for regulating, in 1689, 398; see Act of Settlement Sudan, the, 780,' 782-784 Suez Canal, the, 780-781, 815, 897 " Suffolk Resolves," the, 528 and note Suffrage, manhood, 667, 880- 881 Suffrage, women's, in Australia, 770; in New Zealand, 771; in the United Kingdom, 746, 881 Suffragists, the militant, see Suffrage, women's Sumptuary laws, 132, 140 Sunday Schools, 558 Sunderland, Earl of, see Spencer, Robert and Charles Superstition, 160, 277, 407-408 Supremacy, Act of, 245, 265-266 Supremacy, oaths of, 245, 249, 379, 425, 624-625 Supreme Court of Judication Act, the. 708 Supreme Head of the Church of England, 209-210, 245 Surgery, in the fourteenth cen- tury, 146, 739; in the nine- teenth century, 739 Surrey, Earls of, see Howard, Henry and Thomas Suspending, royal prerogative of, 398 Sussex, 860 Suttee, 785 Swansea, 5 Swein, Danish invader, 35, 36 Swift, Jonathan, 457, 472, 560 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 733 Sydney, 769; Australian cruiser, 856 Syndicalism, 750, 757, 876 Synods, 241 Tacitus, 18 Taff Vale case, the, 7^8 Tag, Der, 815, 858; see also 836 Talbot, Charles, Earl, and, later, Duke of Shrewsbury, 461, 463 Talbot, Richard, Earl of Tyrcon- nel, 389, 392 Talbot, William, 739 Tallard, Marshal, 749 Tangier, 366 and note, 807 Tanks in the World War, 834. 849 and note Tariff, Huskisson's reform of the, 621-622; reductions of, under Peel, 668-673 J Gladstone's INDEX 939 reductions of, 689-690; Cham- berlain advocates reform of, 753; preferential, 753, 811 note; in the Dominions, 762, 767, 796; German, fear of foreign, 809; German, 810 Tasman, Abel, 769 Tasmania, 770 Taxation, see Revenue and Poll Taxes ; under the Tudors, 267- 268; the arbitrary, of James I, 292; of Charles I, 305-307, 309, 312-314; curtailed, 322- 323; of the American Colonies, 515-520, 521; Huskisson's re- form of, 621-622 Taylor, Jeremy, 413 Tea, the tax on, 521, 527 Telegraph, the, 740 Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 782 Telephone, the, 740 note Telford, Thomas, 634 Temperance revival, the, 745 Temple, Richard, Lord Temple, 496 note Temple, Lord, his son, 573 Tenant farmers, 406, 555 Tennyson, Alfred, 732-733 Tenths and fifteenths, 267 Tenures, see Military Test Act, the, 374, 388, 624 Testament, see New Testament Test and Corporation Acts, 468, 624, 728 Teutonic, see Germanic Tewkesbury, battle of, 177 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 735 Thagi, or thugs, suppression of the, 785 Thanet, 18, 23 Theaters, 282-283 \ see Drama Tliegns, 47 Theobald, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 108, 116, 126 Theology, 106-107, 151, 413, 556-558 Thirty-nine Articles, the, 249, 729 Thirty Years' War, the, 294-295, 297-299, 3Si Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, 156, 158 Thomson, James, 564 Thomson, William, Lord Kelvin, 740 "Thorough," Wentworth and Laud's policy of, 316 and note Thrale, Mrs., 568 Three-field system, 42 Thugs, see Thagi Ticonderoga, 500 Tilak, Mr., 902 Tilbury, 260 Tilsit, treaty of, 602 Times, the London, founded, 640 note; Russell special corre- spondent of, during Crimean War, 6S5; suit of Parnell against, 718; demands "a better machine for running the War," 867 Tin in Britain, 10, 11 Tinchebrai, battle of, 64 ; Tipu, Ruler of Mysore, 597 j Tirpitz, Admiral, 812 j Tithe, Saladin, 79 1 Tithes, English, 658-660; Irish, ! 538, 624, 654-656 Toleration, religious, in Utopia, 201-202; absence of, in the sixteenth century, 238; or in the seventeenth, 302; failure of Charles II to secure, 362-363, 374; and of James II, 392, 394 Toleration Act, the, 424-425 Tone, Wolfe, 593, 595 Tonnage and poundage, 137, 267, 307, 322 Torbay, William's landing at, 396 Torgau, the battle of, 504 Tories, the High Church, ap- proach the Dissenters, 392; changed attitude of, toward lawfulness of resistance, 395; see High Church "Torrens System " of land regis- tration, 770 and note Tory party, the, origin of, 381 and note, 543-545; reaction of, against William III, 424; its relations to William III, 439; make-up and aims of, 446; the eclipse of, under the first two Georges, 471, 473; return of, to power under George III, 506; French Revolution and the, 580; re- forms of the Liberal, 62off.; see Bolingbroke, Pitt the younger, Peel, Disraeli, Conservatives and Liberal Unionists Tostig, Earl of Northumbria, 39-40 _ Towns, in the seventeenth cen- tury, 409 ; see Borough Townshend, Charles, Viscount, 463, 467-468, 470, 471 note, 476, 555 Townshend, General, 898, 899 Townshend Acts, the, 521 Townships, Anglo-Saxon, 42, 43 Towton, battle of 175 Tractarian movement, see Ox- ford movement Tracts for the Times, the, 729 Trade, Anglo-Saxon, 50, 51; Anglo-Norman, 60; in the twelfth century, 86, 87; in the thirteenth century, 107- 109; under Edward I, II, III, 138-141 ; in the fifteenth cen- tury, 189-191; under the Tudors, in the sixteenth cen- tury, 224, 264, 269-275; under James I and Charles I, 401- 402; during the Restoration, 402; rivalry with Germany, 809-812; control of, during World War, 869-873 Trade Unionism, 667 and note, 748-749; during the World War, 871, 876-877 Trading companies, under Eliza- beth, 273-274; justification for, 296, 401 Trades Disputes Act, the, 748- 749 Trafalgar, battle of, 601 Transportation, see Canals, Steamboats, and Steam rail- ways Transportation of criminals, see Australia. Transubstantiation, 227, 331; the declaration against, 621, 880; see also Real Presence Transvaal, the, see Boer War Travel, in Anglo-Saxon times, 50; in fourteenth century, 145 ; in seventeenth century, 404; see Stage Coaches and Steam railways Treasons, Statute of, 131-132; punishment for, 143 ; Acts of, of Henry VIII, 209; Acts of, under Edward VI, 231, 233; under Elizabeth, 255; new theories of, 321-322, 342; see Casement Treason, Act regulating trials for, 437 Treasonable Practices Bill, the, 589 Treasurer, 65 Treasury Agreement, 871, 876, 877 Treitschke, Heinrich von, 816 Trent, the Council of, 250 Trent affair, the, 691 Trial by battle, 55, 78 Trial by jury, 77-78 Tribe, the, n, 19, 32 Triennial Acts, 322, 437 Trinoda necessitas, 46 Triple Alliance, (1716), 467; (1788), 583; of Germany, Austria, and Italy, 804, 822 Trivium, 85 Trollope, Anthony, 736 Trotsky, 849, 900 note Tudor, Henry, Duke of Rich- mond, see Henry Tudor, House of, basis of the new absolutism of, 183-184 Tudor monarchy, strength and weakness of, 264-265 94° INDEX Tull, Jethro, 554 Tun-moot, 43 ' Tunscipe, see township Turco-Italian War, the, 821 Turkey, Russia at war with, 583 ; in the French War, 598-599! Greece revolts from, 628-630; see Crimean War; relations with Great Britain in the last years of Victoria, 818-820; see also Russo-Turkish War; Young Turkish Revolution in, 820; in Balkan Wars, 821- 822; in the World War, 839; in Gallipoli, 839-842; sur- renders, 853; in Egypt and Palestine, 897-898; in Meso- potamia, 899-900 Turner, Joseph Mallard, 640, 732 Turnips, the cultivation of, 403 and note, 554 Turpin, Dick, 567 Tweed River, 3 Two-bottle orthodox, the, 728- 729 "Two-penny Trash," see Cob- bett Two Power standard, the, 812, 815 Tyler, Wat, 154-155 Tyndale, William, 216 Tyne River, 3 Tyrconnel (terc5n'nel), the Earl of, see Talbot, Richard U Udall, Nicholas, 281 Uganda, 774 Uitlanders, the, 774, 776 Ulster, the plantation of, 291- 292; the rebellion in, of 1641, 324; rebellion of 1798 in, sup- pressed, 592-595 ; Tenant Right, 705; beginning of op- position to Home Rule in, 716 and note, 722; growth of the opposition, 757-760; coali- tion attitude to, 881 ; attitude of, during the World War, 882-883, 885; toward the Con- vention, 888-889; as a factor in the problems, 889-890 Ulster Volunteers, 758, 885 Undertakers, 292 and note Unemployment, insurance against, 747-748 Uniformity, first Act of, 231-232 ; second Act of, 234; the Act of Elizabeth, 245 ; the Act of 1662, 364-365 Union, the, of England and Ire- land, 595-596 Union of England and Scotland, project for, 291; brought about in 1707, 451-453 Union of South Africa, 778-780 Unitarians, 425 note United Irishmen, 593~594 United Kingdom, see England and Great Britain United Presbyterians, 730 United States, the, independence of, acknowledged by England, 540-541 ; war of Great Britain with, 608-610; commercial relations of, with Great Britain improve after war of 1812, 622; thwarts European intervention in South American Republics, 627, 628 and note; boundary disputes adjusted with, 674- 675 ; refuses to agree to "Dec- laration of Paris," 687 note; British relations with, during the Civil War, 690-692 ; Eng- land estranged by Palmerston from, 700; Fenian movement in, 702-703 ; Venezuela dispute with, 723, 724; British im- migration to, 763; attempted reciprocity of, with Canada, 767; relations with, under Edward VII and George V, 767— 768; in the World War, 833, 847, 849, 850-853, 859-861, 874; Irish party in, 884, 886 Universities, the, rise of, 84-85 ; in the thirteenth century, 106- 107 ; in the fourteenth century, 147-148; in the time of Henry VIII, 207-208, 227; in the seventeenth century, 393, 405- 406, 413-414, 416 "University Group," the, of Elizabethan dramatists, 281- 282 Uses, Statutes of, 214 note Usury, legislation against, 141- 142, 187 and note; see also 270 Utilitarians, the, 414, 646 Utopia, More's Utrecht, the Peace of, 458-460 Utrecht, the Union of, 253-254 Vacarius, 84 note Valentine, Benjamin, 307-30S Valera, Eamon De, 890 Valhalla, 19 Valley Forge, 532 Vancouver, 583 note, 675, 766 note Van Dieman's Land, 769 Vandyke, 420 Vane, Sir Harry, 320, 361 note Vauban, 430 Vauxhall, 412 Vendome, the Duke of, 451, 453, 454 Venezuela boundary, 723-724 Venizelos, 847 Verdun, 845 Vere, Robert de, Earl of Oxford, 156 Vernon, Admiral, 480-481 Verona, European congress at, 627 Versailles, treaty of, 541 Verulam, Baron, see Bacon, Sir Francis Verulamium, destruction of, 13 Veto Act, the, 730 Veto, the royal, 223, 266, 516, 761 and note Vicegerent, the, see Cromwell, Thomas Viceroy of India, 791 Victoria, Australia, 770 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, early life and accession of, 662; Civil List of, 662- 663 and note; in Bedchamber crisis, 663-664; marriage of, 664-665; opposed to national liberal movement in Europe, 680; memorandum to Palmer- ston from, 681 ; tries to inter- vene on Austria's behalf in war of Italian Unification, 689; in Trent affair, 691 ; in Schles- wig-Holstein question, 694; Bismarck repulses mediation offer of, 700, 709; Disraeli's policy toward, 701 ; attitude toward Gladstone of, ib. ; aids passage of Gladstone's dis- establishment bill, 704; abol- ishes purchase of army com- missions, 708; her mediation in the extension of the fran- chise, 714; her Jubilee of 1887, 719, 763, 796; death and esti- mate of, 724-725; problems of her reign, 725; excludes Prince Albert from political activities, 752; made Empress of India, 792 Victoria, Empress of Germany, 694, 808 note Victorian age, 661-662 ; see also art, historians, literature, phi- losophers, poets, prose, and science Vienna, Congress of, 610, 612-613 Villars, Marshal, 454 Villeins, see Serfs and Villenage Villenage, 59 and note, 87, 94, 109, 131, 142, 153, 155 Villeneuve, Admiral, Nelson de- feats, off Trafalgar, 850 and note Villeroy, Marshal, 449, 451 Villiers, George (later Duke of Buckingham), 294; journey to Spain, 298; adopts an anti- INDEX 941 Spanish policy, 298-299; char acter of, 303; impeachment of, 304 ; his expedition to Rhe, 304-305 ; his murder, 306-307 Villiers, George, second Duke of Buckingham, 372-374 Villiers, George, Earl of Claren- don, 682 note, 686 Vimy Ridge, 848 Vindictive, the, 862, 863 Virgate, 43 Virginia, 273 Visitations, see Metropolitical and Sheriffs Vittoria, battle of, 606 Volta, Alessandro, 739 Volunteers, the Irish, 538 and note; the Ulster, 758 Vorbeck, see Lettow-Vorbeck Votes for women, 746, 880-881 note Vulgate, the, 216 W Wade, General George, 486, 488 Wagram, battle of, 605 Wakefield, battle of, 173 Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 763, 769, 77i Wakes, the Somerset, 310 Walcheren, battle of, 605 Wales, physical features and resources, 5 ; conquest of, by Edward 1, 111-112; Statute of, or Rhuddlan, 112; revolt of, against Henry IV, 162; repre- sentation granted to, 223 note; disestablishment of Church in, 757 Wales, Prince of, origin of title, 112 Wales and the Marches, Council of, 268-269, 323 Wallace, Alfred Russel, 738 note Wallace, Sir William, 116, 117 Wallingford, treaty of, 69 Walpole, Horace, later Earl of Orford, 563 Walpole (wol'pole), Sir Robert, later Earl of Oxford, his scheme for reducing the debt, 469; settles the affairs of the South Sea Company, 471; begin- ning of his ascendancy, ib.; his character and policy, 471-472; becomes Prime and sole Minister, 476; his excise, 476-478; his pacific policy, 478-479; his attitude toward the War of Jenkins' Ear, 479- 481 ; forced out of office, 481 ; influence of, on Cabinet, 545 ; created Earl of Orford, ib. Walsingham (wol'singham), Sir Francis, Secretary of State, 244 Walter, John, 640 note Walter Map, 83-84 Walton, Izaak, 417 War of the Roses, the, opening of, 171-172; the course of, 172-177 ; effect on the nobility of, 183 and note Warbeck, Perkin, 184-185 Wards and Liveries, Court of, 269 Wardship, feudal incident of, 58 Warfare, art of, in the fourteenth century, 144; innovations in, in World War, 833-834 Warwick, Earl of, see Neville, Dudley Washington, destruction of, by British troops, 609 Washington, George, in the Seven Years' War, 494; Com- mander-in-Chief of Conti- nental Army, 530; in cam- paign of 1776, 531-532; at Valley Forge, 532; hardships of army of, 536; receives sur- render of Cornwallis, ib. Washington, the treaty of, 710 Water frame, the, see Arkwright Waterloo, campaign of, 611-612 Watling Street, 31 Watt, James, development of steam engine, 551-552 Watts, George Frederick, 744 Waverlev Novels, see Scott, Sir Walte'r Wavre, 611-612 Wealth, increase of, in the nine- teenth century, 744 Wealth of Nations, see Smith, Adam Wedderburn, Alexander, later Lord Loughborough, 527 Wedgwood, Josiah, 551 Wedmore, peace of, 31 Weekly Political Register, see Cobbett Wei-hai-Wei, 807 Wellesley (wels'ley), Sir Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the Peninsular Campaign, 603- 606 ; at the Congress of Vienna, 610 and note; in Waterloo Campaign, 610-612; becomes Prime Minister, 623 ; Catholic Emancipation passed under Ministry of, 624-625; doom of Ministry of, 626; at Con- gress of Verona, 627; atti- tude and policy of, in Greek revolt, 629; recognizes Louis Philippe, 630; resignation of Ministry of, 647; attempts to form Ministry during Reform Bill agitation, 652; furthers Corn Law repeal, 672; meas- ures of, against Chartist agi- tation, 678 Wellesley, Richard, successively Lord Mornington, Marquis Wellesley, 597, 785 Welsh Church, disestablishment of, 757 note Wentworth, Sir Thomas (later Earl of Strafford), character of, 303 ; his "apostasy," 306-307 ; his rule in Ireland, 315-316; advises Charles to summon an English Parliament, 316; created Earl of Strafford, ib.; advises arbitrary methods, 316-317; impeachment and execution of, 321-322 Wergeld, 44 Wesley, Charles, 557 Wesley, John, 557-558 Wesleyan revival, 557, 558, 727 West Australia, 769-700 and note West Florida, 541 West Indies, 509, 514, 534, 536, see Slavery and Jamaica Westminster, Provisions of, 102, 103; Statutes of, 119, 120- 121; peace of, 375 note; see London, treaty of Westminster Abbey, 103, 107, "3 Westminster Assembly, the, 332- 333 "Westminster Scrutiny," the, 574 Westphalia, the peace of, 351 West Saxons, the, 21, 29-30 Wexford, rebellion in, 594-595 Wheeler, General, 789 Whig party, the, origin and rise of, 376, 381 ; and note, 382, 343, 344; reverse of the, at the close of the exclusion struggle, 382-383; relations of, to William III, 423-424, 435, 438-440, 544-545 ; make-up and aims of, 446; driven out by Anne, 455~457; advan- tages of, in the struggle over the Hanoverian succession, 460; factions of , under George II and George III, 506; North breaks power of, 524; Pitt routs, 573-574. 579-58o; French Revolution and the, 580; split in the, 1791, 581- 582; views of, in 1816-1817, 615-617; rally to cause of Queen Caroline, 619; identi- fied with movement for parlia- mentary reform, 646-647 ; carry Reform Bill of 1832, 651- 653; in first reformed Par- liament, 654; change of name, ib.; advocates laissez-faire in industry, 656; attitude of, toward Victoria upon her accession, 662; advocate free 942 INDEX trade, 671 ; in Coalition Minis- try, 682; Disraeli opposed to commercial aristocracy of, 700; see also Liberal party Whip with six strings, the, 216- 217, 219, 231; see also Articles of Faith Whistler, James McNeill, 744 Whitby, Synod of, triumph, 25 White, General Sir George, 77 White Book, German, 825 Whiteboys, the, 538 Whitefield, George, 557-558 Whitefriars, 411 Whitehall, 342, 4" Whiteley Report, 878-879 Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 256 Wiclif , John, career and activities of, 135-136; development of views, and influence of, 150- 152; attitude toward Peasant Revolt, 154; Bible of, 164-216 Wigs, discarded in England, 641 Wilfrid, leader of Roman party at Whitby, 25 Wilkes, Captain, in Trent affair, 691 Wilkes, John, 510-512, 522 William, Fort, see Calcutta William I (the Conqueror), Duke of the Normans, visits Eng- land, 38; declared heir of Edward the Confessor, 39; claims the Crown, 39-40; victory at Hastings, 40-41 ; captures London and crowned King, 53 ; disposal of lands of conquered, puts down risings and wastes vale of York, 53-54 ; quells a rising of the Earls, 54; method of keeping down dif- ferent classes of his subjects, ib.; relations with the Church. 54-55. 72; his laws, 55-56; orders Domesday Survey, 56; last years and death, 56-57; introduces feudal tenures into England, 57-58; brings jury system to England, 77; charter to London, 85 William II (Ruf us), character and policy, 61-62 ; his rule, 62-63 William of Orange, Stadholder of the Dutch, later William III of England, marries Mary, 376 ; the English begin to look to, 388; sends Dykevelt to Eng- land, 392-393; invited to England, 395 ; issues a Decla- ration and sails for England, 395-396; lands at Torbay, 396; arrives in London, 397; calls a convention which chooses him and Mary as joint sovereigns, 398-399 ; signifi- cance of his reign, 423; re- action against, 423-424 ; works for toleration, 424-425 ; dissat- isfied with the revenue settle- ment, 425-426; victor at the Boyne, 427-428; opposition of the Scots to, 429; sanctions the massacre of Glencoe, 430; forms an alliance against France, 430; his succession of defeats, 431-432; plot to assassinate, 434; arranges the peace of Ryswick, 435; forms a Whig Cabinet, 438-439, 544~ 545'; quarrels with Parliament, 439-440; arranges the Parti- tion Treaties, 442; forms the Grand Alliance, 443; death and character of, 443-444 William IV, King of Great Britain and Ireland, personal traits of, 645 ; attitude toward parliamentary reform, 647- 652; accepts resignation of Melbourne, 658; death of , 660 William I, German Emperor, 709 William II, German Emperor, his accession and early policies, 804-805; asserts himself in Morocco, 807-808, 820-821; attitude of, to England, 808; attitude of, to Hague Con- ference, 813; toward naval program, 812, 814, 815; his utterances, 813, 816, 817; Eastern policy of, 818-819; "in shining armor," 820, 826; in the negotiations leading to the World War, 824; his abdication, 852; to be called to account, 881 William (the Silent), of Orange, 250-251, 254-255 and note, 257 W T illiam Augustus, Duke of Cum- berland, 486-487, 499 William FitzOsbert (Longbeard), 82 William, Lord Latimer, 134-135 William Longchamp, 80-81 William Marshall, Earl of Pem- broke, Regent of England, 9S William of Malmesbury, 61 William of Newburgh, 83 Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 271 Wills, see Probate Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester, 360 Wilson, President, 768, 860 Winchester, court school at, 32 Winchester, Statute of, 1 19-120 Winchester Fair, 108 Wireless telegraphy, 740 note Wishart (wish 'art), George, 242 Witchcraft, 106, 277, 407-408 Wite, 44 Witenagemot, 46 Woden, 19 Wolfe, General James, 499-501 Wolseley, Marshal Garnet, Lord Wolseley, 77 note, 783 Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, and Archbishop of York, rise of, 195-196; concludes the Treaty of Universal Peace, 196; vain attempts to secure the Papacy, 197-198; his policy of alliance with the Emperor, 197 ; unpopularity of his subsidy and of his amicable loan, 197-198; atti- tude toward the New Learning, 202 ; his share in the divorce of Henry VIII and Catharine, 203-204; fall and death of, 204-205 ; dissolves some smaller monasteries, 211 Women, legislation regulating of employment of, 670; condi- tion of, in the nineteenth century, 746, see Votes for Wool, act for burying in, 401; trade, 138-140, 191, 271, 273 Woolsack, the, 273 note Worcester (woos'ter), battle of 347 Wordsworth, William, 636-637, 730 Workingman's Association, the, 667 Workmen's Compensation Acts, 747 Wren, Christopher, 420-421 Writs, legal, 78 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the poet, 228 Wyatt's Rebellion, 237 Yeomen, in the fifteenth century, 188; in the seventeenth cen- tury, 406; in the eighteenth century, 555 York, vale of, wasted by William I, 53, 54 York, Dukes of, see Edward, Frederick Augustus, George James, Richard York, House of, causes of triumph of, 175; causes of fall of, 181 Yorktown, surrender of Lord Cornwallis at, 536 Young, Arthur, 554, 635 Young, Edward, 564 Young England Party, the, 669, 700 Young Ireland Party, the, 677 Young Turks, 820 Ypres, 838, 844 Zamindars, 787 Zanzibar, 774 Zeebrugge, 838, 862-863 Zukunft, see Harden Zulu War, the, 773 Zwingli, Ulrich, 202, 231 Printed in the United States of America.