A 534179
Epochs
Of
English History
DA
32
E64
1886
Edited by
Mandell Creighton
Univ. of Mich.
·

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DA
32
E64
1881

EPOCHS OF ENGLISH HISTORY
IN ONE VOLUME
**
R
I:
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUA!.F
LONDON
1
EPOCHS OF ENGLISH HISTORY
31435
A COMPLETE EDITION IN ONE volumE
EDITED BY
REV. M. CREIGHTON, M.A.
LATE FELLOW AND TUtor of merton CollEGE, OXFORD
WITH MAPS AND TABLES
SEVENTH EDITION
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1886
All rights reserved
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
EARLY ENGLAND.
By F. YORK POWELL, M.A., Law Lecturer at Christ Church,
Oxford, Historical Lecturer at Trinity College, Oxford.
CHAP.
Introduction
I. The Britons
II.
The Roman Conquest
III. The Roman Rule in Britain
VI.
VII.
IV. The English
•
7°
V. The English Conquest
Conversion of Kent
Northumberland
VIII.
The Rise of Wessex
IX.
The Church
X.
Wessex and the Marchland
XI.
Egbert
XII.
XIII.
Ethelwolf and his Elder Sons .
Alfred the Truth-Teller
XIV.
Edward the Elder
•
XV. Ethelstan the Steadfast
XVI.
Edmund the Deed-doer
XVII. Edred the Chosen
XVIII. Edwy
XIX. Edgar the Peace-winner
XX. Edward the Martyr
XXI. Changes in England under the Great Kings
XXII. Ethelred the Unready
PAGB
I
I.
5
ΤΟ
16
22
28
30
39
42
44
48
52
55
66
69
72
73
•
74
75
78
80
82
vi
Contents.
СНАР.
XXIII. Edmund Ironside
XXIV. Canute the Great
Harold-Harefoot and Hardi-Canute
XXV.
XXVI. Edward the Confessor
XXVII. Harold Godwin's Son
BOOK II.
ENGLAND A CONTINENTAL POWER.
By LOUISE Creighton.
Introduction..
I. Settlement after the Conquest
II. William's Government
III. William I. and his Sons
•
IV. Struggle between King and Church
How the Norman Kings governed the Land
The Barons in Power
Settlement of the Disorder.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Henry II. and Becket
IX.
Henry's Government
•
X.
Last Years of Henry II..
XI.
Richard I..
XII. Loss of Normandy.
XIII. John's Quarrel with the Pope
XIV. John's Quarrel with his Barons
XV. Struggle for the Great Charter
·
PAGR
90
92
.96
• 99
•
ICG
·
11y
•
121
•
128
•
134
•
137
141
•
148
151
155
•
163
. 168
•
171
174
•
176
179
181
BOOK III.
rise of thE PEOPLE AND GROWTH OF
PARLIAMENT.
By JAMES ROWLEY, M.A., Professor of Modern History and
Literature, University College, Bristol.
Introduction..
Parliament.
I.
II.
The Fight to keep the Great Charter
i
•
187
188,
192
Contents.
vii
1
IV.
CHAP.
III. The Barons' War
Edward I. and Parliament
PAGE
196
206
V.
Wales
209
VI.
Scotland.
•
213
VII.
VIII.
First and Second Conquests of Scotland
Robert Bruce
•
219
222
IX.
Wiclif
X.
•
The Kings of England and of France
First Stage of the Hundred Years' War.
XI. Second Stage of the Hundred Years' War.
XII. Third Stage of the Hundred Years' War
XIII. Parliamentary Progress
XIV. Rising of the Commons.
XV.
XVI. The Lollards.
XVII. The House of Lancaster
226
230
·
237
•
238
•
244
•
249
253
•
256
•
258
XVIII.
Henry VI.
•
264
L
XIX.
XX.
Wars of the Roses and House of York
Line of York.
270
. 273
BOOK IV.
THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION.
By the Rev. M. Creighton, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of
Merton College, Oxford.
I.
Introduction
Henry VII. (1485-1509).
II. Henry VIII. and Wolsey
III. Separation from the Pope
IV. Henry VIII. and Cromwell
V.
VI.
VII.
Reform of Doctrine
Protestant Misrule
Catholicism brought back
•
VIII. Religious Settlement under Elizabeth
IX. England and Scotland
283
•
285
292
•
• 301
306
311
318
326
333
•
338
X. Troubles in England.
XI. England and Spain
•
· 345
•
354
ea-s
•
XII. England after the Armada.
XIII. Troubles of Elizabeth's Last Years.
360
363
viii
Contents.
BOOK V.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ABSOLUTE
CHAP.
I.
II.
MONARCHY.
By MRS. S. R. GARDINER.
Introduction
Puritans and Roman Catholics
The Spanish Marriage Treaty
III. The King and the Parliament
IV. Buckingham's War Policy.
V. The Petition of Right
Dissolution of Parliament in 1629
VI.
VII.
Laud and the Puritans
VIII.
Sir Thomas Wentworth
•
FAGB
371
372
376
• 379
382
•
385
•
389
•
392
•
395
397
•
400
•
403
407
414
417
420
•
42.f
•
428
433
•
439
•
442
444
447
IX. Ship Money and the Trial of Hampden.
X. The Trial of Strafford
XI. The Grand Remonstrance, and Impeachment of the
Five Members
XII. The Civil War (1642-1646)
XIII. The Army and the Parliament
XIV. The Commonwealth
XV. The Protectorate
XVI. War and Commerce
XVII. The Restoration
•
XVIII. Opposition between King and Parliament
XIX. Exclusion Bills and the Popish Plot
XX. Reaction against the Whigs
XXI.
Catholics and Protestants
XXII. The Revolution (1688)
BOOK VI.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.
By JAMES ROWLEY, M.A., Professor of Modern History and
Literature, University College, Bristol.
Introduction
•
I. England and the Revolution
II. Scotland and the Revolution.
453
•
454
•
459
Contents.
ix
CHAP.
III.
Ireland and the Revolution
IV.
The Williamite War with France
V.
William III. and his Parliaments
PAGE
•
464
•
468
472
VI. The Causes of the War of the Spanish Succession. 479
VII. The War of the Spanish Succession
VIII.
IX.
Constitutional History during the War
The Tory Ministry and the Peace of Utrecht.
X. The First Years of the House of Hanover.
XI. The Ministry of Sir Robert Walpole
XII. The Pelhams
XIII. How the Seven Years' War was brought about
XIV. The Events of the Seven Years' War.
XV. The Rise of the English Power in India.
XVI. The First Ten Years of George III.'s Reign
XVII. George III. and Lord North .
•
483
490
•
495
.
•
499
505
513
•
520
524
531
•
538
544
BOOK VII.
ENGLAND DURING THE AMERICAN AND
EUROPEAN WARS.
By the Rev. O. W. TANCOCK, M.A., Assistant Master of
Sherborne School.
Introduction
I. The Causes of the Quarrel
II. The Fighting in America (1775-1782)
III. War with France and Spain
IV. The Peoples of India .
V. India under Warren Hastings
VI. India (1783–1813)
VII. India under the New Charter
VIII. Pitt as a Peace Minister
IX. England during the French Revolution
X. Pitt as a War Minister
XI. The Demand for Irish Independence
XII. Ireland (1782-1798)
•
XIII. Irish Rebellion of 1798
•
XIV. The European War (1803-1807)
XV. The Peninsular War
556
557
•
563
•
573
•
576
•
579
•
584
590
592
·
597
бог
•
610
·
614
. 617
622
628
,
s
Contents.
.
..
CHAP.
XVI. The Fall of Napoleon
PAGE
. 639
XVII. The Years of Peace
XVIII. The Demand for Reforms.
•
641
645
BOOK VIII.
MODERN ENGLAND.
By OSCAR BROWNING, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of King's
Introduction
College, Cambridge.
·
I. The Queen's Trial
II.
III.
. 651
653
655
. 657
. 659
•
Foreign Policy (1815-1822),
Commercial Reform
IV. The Death of Canning
V. Wellington Prime Minister
VI. Battle of Navarino.
VII. Catholic Emancipation
VIII. European Revolution
IX. First Reform Bill
X. Second Reform Bill
XI.
XII.
Third Reform Bill
Results of the Reform Bill
XIII. Sir R. Peel's First Ministry
XIV. The King's Last Years
XV. The New Reign.
XVI. The Queen's Marriage
XVII. Afghanistan
XVIII. Free Trade
XIX. The Charter
XX. The Great Exhibition
XXI. The Crimean War
XXII. Indian Mutiny
XXIII. Lord Derby
XXIV. Lord Palmerston
XXV. Mr. Disraeli
XXVI. Irish Church and Land.
XXVII. War between France and Germany
XXVIII. Liberal Reverses
661
662
. 663
. 665
. 668
671
. 673
•
674
676
678
679
681
682
•
•
684
687
689
691
. 693
. 695
696
•
•
699
•
701
703
•
704
Contents.
xi
PEDIGREES, &c.
PAGE
•
•
The Tribes of Britain
•
The Three Keltic Peoples
The English Kingdoms
The Keltic Peoples.
The English
The Danish Settlements
The Northmen's Settlements
Kings of England
The Danish Kings
•
The House of Godwin
The House of Leofric.
The House of Siward
The House of Flanders
The House of Normandy
Childre
William the Conqueror and his Children
Henry II. and his Sons
Chief Claimants to the Scottish Crown (1291-2)
Edward III.'s Claim to the French Crown
Descendants of Edward III.
•
12
26
26
64
•
64
64
64
. 115
116
116
•
116
•
. 117
117
118
•
•
185
185
217
228
263
Royal Descent of the Tudors.
The Plantagenet Kings of England
Descendants of Henry VII.
Table showing Mary's claim to the English Throne
The Tudors and Stuarts.
The Houses of Stuart and Hanover
Claimants of the Spanish Crown (1698)
279
281
·
325
342
•
· 370
•
451
The First Ministers, or Heads of the Ministries which held
Office under King George III.
List of Prime Ministers (1820-1874)
480
• 555
650
+
xii
Contents.
Roman Britain
LIST OF MAPS.
The First Home of the English
•
England after the English Conquest
England under the Great English Kings
Dominions of the Angevin Kings
Scotland in the Thirteenth Century
France after the Treaty of 1259
France after the Peace of Bretigny
England under the Plantagenet Kings
The British Isles in the Sixteenth Century
Europe in the Sixteenth Century
England and Wales during the Civil War
English Discoveries in the West in the Sixteenth Century
Puritan Settlements in New England.
The Low Countries and Neighbouring Lands.
enth
Scotland and the North of England
North America and the West Indies
The East Indies
North America (1760-1783)
India (1760-1820)
Ireland (1798).
Europe (1780-1815)
Spain and Portugal (1807-1815)
PAGE
13
17
•
27
65
153
•
225
235
•
242
277
282
327
361
•
408
·
425
488
518
• 527
·
547
• 559
577
. 611
623
629
BOOK I.
EARLY ENGLAND.
INTRODUCTION.
THE chief things which we have to notice in this part
of the History of England are :
1. What England was like and who dwelt in it before
our forefathers came here and called it England.
2. What manner of men our forefathers were, and how
they built up the kingdom of England, driving out the
folk that dwelt here before them.
3. How this kingdom grew so weak that it was con-
quered by foreign kings.
CHAPTER I.
THE
BRITO N S.
1. We do not know much of the first dwellers in Eng-
land, as no history tells us about them; but from the re-
mains of themselves, their tools and weapons,
which are sometimes dug up, we have been
able to find out something. They were rather
small ugly people, like the Esquimaux, and used flint and
E. H.
B
The first
dwellers in
England.
P
2
BK. I.
Early England.
bone arms and tools. They lived by hunting and fishing,
and some of them were cannibals. They dwelt in caves
and in earth houses on the banks of the seas and rivers;
and it is in caves and the great heaps of shells, which
lie near their haunts, that we find remains that tell us
about them.
In their days England was much colder than it is
now, and much wilder. A great many wild beasts lived
here, such as hyænas, lions, rhinoceroses, and elephants,
which have long since disappeared.
We do not know when these people came to England,
but it must have been a very long while ago.
2. The first people we hear about in history as dwelling
in England, which they called Britain, were very different
folk. The land in their time, though not so
The Britons.
cold and wild as before, was still very unlike
the England of to-day. The greater part of it was covered
with thick woods or broad heaths; and where the rivers
now run fast there were often great fens and lakes.
There were still many wild beasts, bears, wolves, and
beavers, great elks and wild cattle, though most of those
we spoke of before had died out. It was hotter in summer
and colder in winter than it is now.
The people were not English at all, but of the same
race as the Irish and Welsh of to-day, who are descended
from them. They were a rude people, but were not
savages, like the first folk. They lived in wattled huts
half-sunk in the ground, without windows or chimneys.
These huts were set together in villages, which had often
a wooden paling and earthen wall round them, and were
placed in the midst of woods, or on islands in the rivers
or marshes, or on hills, so as to be safer against foemen.
Their wealth was in cattle, and they tilled the ground
near their villages, and grew barley. They were great
hunters; but they did not fish in the sea. In the south
and west of Britain they worked to find tin and lead,
-
CH. I.
3
The Britons.
and sold the metal to the Phoenicians, who were the
great merchants of that day and the first civilised folk
who knew of Britain. The Britons also used to traffic
with their kinsfolk in Gaul. They had horses, which they
only used for war, when they drove them in chariots;
and they had dogs like large deerhounds, which they used
for hunting. The Britons were very clever at all kinds
of basket-work, and knew how to make pottery for house-
hold use, and large earthenware vessels in which they
buried their dead. They did not know how to work iron or
copper, but used flint and bone and horn for their weapons
and tools. When they could, they bought bronze swords
and axes from Gaul. They used also to make jet ornaments.
They were tall, big people, and many of them had
blue eyes and light hair. They left their hair long, and
the men wore large moustachios, but shaved their beards.
The men wore shirts and hose and long cloaks of plaid,
and the women kirtles of the same stuff. But when the
men went to war they used to throw off their cloaks and
rush into battle half-naked, painted blue with the juice of
a herb called woad, just as is the habit of some savages
now. They fought with long swords and spears and
darts. Their shields were of wood covered with hide and
strengthened with metal.
-
Their go-
vernment.
3. They were brave in battle, but were never long of
one mind, and so their bravery availed them little. They
did not live together as a nation, under one
rule, as we see the peoples of Europe do now;
but they were divided into tribes. Each tribe had its own
chief and followed its own customs. These tribes were
always at war with each other, and this was one great
cause of the misfortunes that fell upon them.
The chiefs and kings of these tribes could not do as
they liked. When any great thing was to be done the
free men of the tribe were all called together to consider it,
B 2
4
BK. I.
Early England.
and what they wished was done; but the chiefs led them
to war, and had much power over them in peace-time.
There was one tribe very unlike the other dwellers in
Britain in many ways. They were not so fickle, but very
steadfast folk; and they wore dark-coloured raiment, and
were dark-haired and dark-eyed. They lived in what is
now South Wales, and were called Silures.
Their
Britain.
4. We do not know how or when all these tribes came
to Britain; though there are some stories in old Irish and
Welsh books about their coming. Nor do we
coming into know whether the savages who first dwelt in
the land had all died out when they came; but
it is very likely they had. We only know for certain that
the Silures came from the south of Europe, long before
the Keltic tribes (Irish and Picts and Welsh) who landed
on the east coast of Britain c. 500 B.C. and drove the Silures
into the corners of the land. Of the Britons, the Belgians
came last, only about 100 years before the birth of Christ.
The religion of the Britons was very strange. There
was a class of men whom they called Druids, who were
Religion.
had great power among the Britons, but the
Irish do not seem to have given them so much authority.
They taught men to worship the gods, and that the
soul of a man never died, but that after death it passed
through other bodies, and that the wicked were punished
and the good rewarded by what happened to them in the
different bodies which their souls passed through. They
also offered sacrifices, men and beasts, to their gods. If
a man disobeyed them, he was not allowed to assist at the
offerings, but was cast out of his tribe and from the abodes
of men. The Druids had no temples, but worshipped
their gods in dark oak groves or on high hills.
both prophets, priests, and teachers. They
The Druids also in their schools taught bands of
scholars all that they knew about the stars; the healing
B.C. 55.
5
The Britons.
powers of herbs, and the old songs and stories of the
tribes. The chiefs and people asked the Druids' advice
on all things, and gave them gifts and a great part of the
spoil which they won in war. The Druids were held as
holy men, and no man dare hurt or rob one.
In many places in England, there are, still standing,
large stones set up in circles or rows.
Who set them up
been there a very
we do not know, but that they have
long time is certain. There is a story told of one stone
circle, which is perhaps the most famous of all, Stone-
henge, that it was set up by the Britons, about 460 A.D.,
over some of their chiefs who were treacherously slain.
But Stonehenge is one of the latest of these stone rings,
so that very likely, if this tale be true, the Britons merely
copied the work of a much earlier age, and perhaps even
of an earlier race.
CHAPTER II.
THE ROMAN CONQUEST.
were the
Cæsar's first
coming.
B.C. 55.
1. THE mightiest folk in the world, about the time
we begin to hear much about the Britons,
Romans, who had conquered all the nations
round the Mediterranean. Their greatest man
fifty-five years before the birth of Christ was
Caius Julius Cæsar, who had been fighting in Gaul, and had
beaten all the Gaulish tribes from the Gulf of Marseilles
to the Channel. He determined to come over to Britain
because the Belgians of South Britain had sent help to
their kinsmen the Belgians in Gaul, with whom he was
fighting. So Cæsar set sail for Britain with a small
army. When the Britons, who were watching for him,
saw his fleet draw near the shore they came down and
kept the Romans from landing, till a brave standard-
bearer leapt from the galley into the water among the
Britons. When the Roman soldiers saw him in the midst
6
B.C. 54.
Early England.
•
of their foes they followed him to save the standard, and
at last made good their landing and drove the Britons up
into the country. Then Cæsar marched through most of
the land of the people of Kent, fought several battles and
forced the tribes near him to give hostages and make
peace. But he was not able to profit by his success. He
was afraid of the bad weather in the Channel, for it was
getting late in the year. So he went back to Gaul.
Cæsar's
second
coming.
B.C. 54.
2. But when Cæsar was gone the Britons did not do as
they had promised him ; so he came again next surnmer
into Britain with a larger army than before. But the
tribes of the South-east had united under a
brave prince, named Cassivellamnos (whom
the Romans called Cassivelaunus), and re-
sisted the invaders very boldly. But the good order of
the Romans overcame them at last. After several battles
Cassivelaunus' stronghold, Verulam (St. Albans), was
taken and burnt. The Britons therefore were again
forced to make peace. But the Romans, when they found
what a poor country Britain was, and that there was no
rich plunder and much hard fighting, were not inclined
to stay longer. Cæsar, too, had succeeded in frightening
the Britons from interfering further with his plans in
Gaul. He could not afford to stay himself, as he wanted
to keep watch over his new conquests in Gaul, and did
not wish to be too far from Rome. So the Romans went
back again, and when Cæsar was next in Rome he hung
up a corslet of British pearls in the temple of his goddess,
Venus, as a memorial of his victories.
After Cæsar left, the Britons were left to themselves
for about ninety years. They still kept up their trade
with Gaul, which was now a Roman province, and they
now coined much money, copying the Greek and Roman
money which they saw used in trade; for before they had
mostly used metal rings and cattle instead of money.
A.D. 43-61.
7
The Roman Conquest.
Once during this time the Roman Emperor Caius, sur-
named Caligula, gathered together a large army with which
to conquer Britain. He marched as far as the coast of
Gaul, facing Britain, but he never crossed the Channel,
and the only spoils he brought back to Rome were peb-
bles and shells from the seashore.
The con-
quest of
Britain,
A.D. 43.
3. In the reign of Claudius, the fourth Roman Em-
peror, a Roman general was sent with an army
of Romans and Gauls. He landed in the
south, and after much hard fighting Vectis
(the Isle of Wight) was taken, and the whole of South
Britain submitted to Claudius, who came over to receive
the new conquest. Camulodun (Colchester) was taken
and settled with Roman soldiers, and became a Roman
town. South Britain was taken under the Roman rule,
and was made a province of the Roman empire, as Gaul
had been. These Roman provinces were governed by
officers sent out by the Emperor.
Caractacus.
A.D. 47.
4. But in the north and midst of Britain, Caradawg,
whom the Romans called Caractacus, still held out
against the Romans. After fighting bravely
he was at last overcome and driven to seek
shelter with his mother-in-law, who betrayed him to the
Romans, to gain their favour, and he was taken cap-
tive to Rome, with his wife and children. When he saw
the splendid buildings and all the glory of the great city
he said to the Emperor, 'How is it that you who dwell
in such grand palaces envy us poor Britons our thatched
cots?' And the Emperor, who was pleased with his
boldness and bravery, treated him kindly at the prayer of
the Empress. Nevertheless, the Silures, though they had
lost their great leader, would not yield, and the Roman
general is said to have died of grief and rage at not being
able to subdue them.
5. Some years after, while Nero was Emperor,
୫
A.D. 61.
Early England.
Suetonius
Paullinus
and Boa-
dicea.
A.D. 59-62.
Suetonius Paullinus was appointed Governor in Britain.
In A.D. 61 he resolved to go over to Mona
(Anglesey), which was a sacred island of the
Druids, and subdue it. For they had received
there many of the Britons who had fled from
the Roman conquerors. The Druids resisted him stoutly.
The very women withstood the landing of his troops, and
at one time nearly drove them back, frightened at the
strange sight and the dreadful noises and the witchcraft
of the Druids. There were great fires lit along the shore
and mary women with torches rushing to and fro shrieking,
while the Druids called on their gods with loud cries to
help their warriors and overthrow their foes. At last,
however, the Romans landed and took the island, cut down
the groves, and slew the Druids, casting them into the
fires which they had kindled to burn their captives in.
This is noteworthy, because the Romans hardly ever tried
to destroy or change the faith of any folk whom they con-
quered. They did so in the Druids' case because they saw
that if the Druids were allowed to teach their faith and
rouse the Britons against them they could never govern
the country quietly.
While Suetonius was away, the Iceni and their queen,
Bodug, whom the Romans called Boadicea, rose against
the Romans, who were left nearly defenceless. Boadicea
was the widow of a king of the Icenians, who had been a
friend of the Romans, and had given them some of his pos-
sessions. But when he died the Romans seized the inherit-
ance of his daughters, and when Boadicea protested she
was seized and scourged, and her daughters were treated
in the cruellest way. All the Britons who had suffered any
wrong at the hands of the Romans joined her, and she
soon had a great host under her. She burnt London and
Camulodun (Colchester) and other Roman settlements,
and slew all living souls therein, both Romans and
A.D. 61-85.
9
The Roman Conquest.
Britons who had taken up Roman ways.
One Roman
general tried to resist her, but he was routed and driven
into his camp. Then arose a great panic in all the Roman
settlements. All who could fled south before the Britons,
and many even crossed to Gaul. But at length news of
all that was happening was brought to Suetonius, and he
marched back with a large army to fight Boadicea, and
came up with her and set his forces in order against her.
And Boadicea went through her army, when it was in
battle array, in a war-chariot, with her daughters. She
wore a helmet on her long fair hair and a gold collar on
her neck, and bore war-weapons in her hand, and she
prayed her people to fight bravely and avenge her wrongs
and their own. But when the battle was joined the.
Romans, after a hard fight, won the day. For a long time
the Britons would not flee, and the Romans slew them
nearly all on the field; but Boadicea took poison, fearing
capture worse than death. With this defeat the revolt
ceased, and the province, though fearfully wasted, was at
peace. Now when Nero heard of the great revolt and
the causes of it he recalled Suetonius and sent out another
governor in his room.
Agricola
and Gal-
gacus.
A.D. 78-85.
Agricola
6. When Vespasian was Emperor of Rome he sent a
very good governor to Britain, Julius Agricola, who had
served under Suetonius, fifteen years before.
He was the father-in-law of Tacitus, the great
historian, who wrote his life, from which we
learn a great deal about Britain at this time.
won all South Britain for the Romans. And when he found
that the Caledonians (as the wild tribes of the North were
called) were always harrying the lands of those Britons who
had submitted to the Romans he built a line of forts
against them across the island, between the Firth and the
Clyde, and garnished it with soldiers. In the last year of
his government he marched north, and fought a battle
ΙΟ
A.D. 121,
Early England.
with the Caledonians, which he won, though their king,
Galgacus, led them very bravely. Soon after this
Agricola was recalled to Rome. Seven years he ruled in
Britain, and he was not only famous as a general but for
his good government. He tried to get the Britons to
take up Roman ways and customs, and took great trouble
in teaching the sons of the chiefs the Roman language
and wisdom. By showing the Britons that good as well
as evil was to be got from their Roman rulers he brought
them to live peacefully under them. He did not even try
to conquer the Caledonians, for their country was very
wild and poor, but only wished to make them leave the
Roman subjects in peace. Agricola sent his fleet round
Britain to survey the coasts and see what the country to
the far north was like. From their voyage we have the
first accounts of the geography of North Britain.
Hadrianus
and Anto-
ninus' walls.
CHAPTER III.
THE ROMAN RULE IN BRITAIN.
1. WHEN Hadrianus became Emperor of Rome
(A.D. 121) he went round his empire, and put all the
borders in a state of defence. When he came
to Britain he built a wall from the Tyne to
A.D. 121-140. Solway Firth, and made it the boundary of
the province. But some years later, when Antoninus was
Emperor, the governor of Britain built a wall where Agri-
cola's line of forts were, and got back the land between
the walls. Pieces of these two walls remain to this day.
2. Nevertheless the Caledonians, or Picts, as they
were now called, were always making raids southward,
Severus. until the Roman governors took to buying
them off. This only made them come the
oftener. At last the Emperor himself had to be sent
A. D. 210.
A.D. 303.
The Roman Rule in Britain.
Il
for. His name was Severus; he was an old man, but
very wise and brave. He was too ill to ride, and was
borne in a litter at the head of his army. He marched
right through North Britain to the Pentland Firth; and
though he lost a great part of his army through the bad
weather and rough ground and the continual fighting, yet
he made the Caledonians beg for peace and took away a
great part of their land. When he had had the earthen
wall of Hadrianus strengthened with a wall of stone
he was carried back to Eboracum (York), the capital of
Britain, and there he died.
3. About seventy years after this new foes began to
trouble the Romans. These were the Scots, a tribe from
the north of Ireland, which they called Scotia.
These Scots now ravaged the west and north
of Britain.
The Scots,
A.D. 286; the
English,
A.D. 290.
The east also of Britain was laid waste by the attacks
of the English, whom the Britons called Saxons. This
is the first time we hear of Englishmen coming to Britain,
though many Germans had been in Britain as soldiers in
the Roman armies.
Constantine
and Chris-
tianity.
4. The next great man we hear of in Britain was Con-
stantine, who afterwards became Emperor. His mother
was a British princess. He was the first Em-
peror who made the Christian faith the faith
of the Roman Empire. He became a Christian
himself, and after him all the Emperors save one were
Christians. We hear of British Christians before. When
there was a persecution in A.D. 303 it is said that many
were put to death in Britain for the faith, for the Emperor
believed the Christians to be traitors, and persecuted
them. Alban, who was slain at Verulam, is said to
have been the first martyr who died in Britain. In
after days the great monastery of S. Albans arose at
Verulam, where he was slain. Now, this bringing in of
THE TRIBES OF BRITAIN.
The Romans called all the tribes that dwelt in Britain Britons ;
but they were not all of one race.
The SILURES were not akin to the other folks, but rather per
haps to the Basks who dwell in Spain and the South of
France to this day, having been driven into a corner of the land
by the invasion of Keltic tribes.
The other tribes were all KELTIC. Of these some tribes were akin
to the Irish and Highlanders of our times. These were the
Caledonians (afterwards called Picts).
The Welsh or Kymric tribes are the same folk as the Welsh people
of to-day. These were the
Brigantes
Ordovices
Coritanians
Trinobantes
Icenians
Cantians
Damnonians
Belgians
marks the Roman roads.
the divisions of the tribes

Orcades
G
Hebudes Is
HIBERN I A
Mona
Caledonians
NWall
Chester
Wall
Irmins
ROMAN
BRITAIN.
Brigantes
Eboracum
(York)
Lincol
Coritanians
dovices
Watling
TURL
W
aminemians
Foss
H
Icenians
Cumulodun
Trinobantes
Verulan
st London
Cantians
Naman
Aque
Winches
G
14.
A. D. 409.
Early England.
Christianity is one of the most important things that the
Roman rule did for Britain. Christianity also gave the
Roman Empire new strength for a while. Through the
conversion of the German tribes, a very different fate
befell the Roman Empire and the people under it than
would have overtaken them had the Germans been still
heathen.
of the
Romans.
5. After the days of Constantine, in spite of all that
the Romans could do, things got worse. At last the Picts
The leaving and Scots ravaged the whole of Britain as
far as London. They were driven out by
Theodosius, who got back the country be-
tween the walls and called it Valentia, in honour of
Valentinian, who was then Emperor. And so he gave
the land peace for a while.
A.D. 409.
Soon after this the heart of the Roman Empire was
invaded by the German tribes, who at length overthrew
it altogether in the West of Europe. And the Emperors
could not do much to keep the far-off provinces safe, for
they wanted all their troops nearer home. As legion after
legion went away the Britons were at last left to them-
selves. Once or twice a legion was sent back for a while
to help them against their heathen foes, but at length no
more help could be got. Though the Britons, especially
those who lived in the towns and had learned Roman
ways, had been weakened by not having had to fight
for themselves, yet they levied soldiers after the Roman
fashion, and defended themselves very stubbornly for
some time. Especially they tried to keep the walls. But
what had been their bane before was so again, for the
chief men, now again kings, quarrelled among themselves.
Many did evil deeds, and some even called in the Picts
and Scots against their brethren. At last, it is said,
Gwerthigern (or Vortigern), who was the greatest king in
Britain, resolved to copy the plan the Romans had used.
A.D: 409.
15
The Roman Rule in Britain.
They had kept off the Germans a long time by playing
off one lot of barbarians against another. So he called
two English chiefs, brothers-Hengist and Horsa by
name-to help him against the Picts and Scots.
6. The Romans had been four hundred years in
Britain when they left, and had made great changes in
the land. They were great builders and engineers.
Besides the camps and walls they had built many walled
towns, with houses of brick and stone, and large temples
and churches, and theatres and public baths.
The villas or country-houses of the great men
too were often splendidly decorated. It was
through their walls that the towns came off better in the
conquest by the English than the rest of the country.
What
changes the
Romans
wrought.
The Romans made good roads across the country,
running straight from town to town, and it was on these
roads that all the traffic of England was carried on
and soldiers marched in the wars, till the cutting of
canals and the invention of railways. Moreover, if the
map of England of to-day is compared with the map of
Roman Britain we see that the railways often follow the
line of the Roman roads. The Romans also taught the
Britons many other arts. They also worked mines of iron
and lead and tin, and made fine pottery. So much corn
was grown in Britain that it was called the 'Granary of
the North.' Much trade also was carried on at London.
Horses and big British dogs were sent from Britain all
over the Roman Empire.
But still we see that Britain never became quite
Roman, as Gaul did. The Britons still kept up their old
speech and customs except in the towns, although they
learned much from the Romans and had better weapons
and tools than before. This is why the Welsh still speak
their own tongue, and not a Romance tongue, that is,
a tongue learnt from the Romans, as the French and
16
BK. II.
Early England.
Spaniards do. For the people of Gaul and Spain learned
the speech of the Romans, though they changed it in
speaking it, according to their own tongues and ways of
talking.
The population of Britain in the 4th century num-
bered about 1,000,000, of which 22,000 were Roman
troops. There were perhaps 20,000 more foreigners,
merchant colonists, and officials.
BOOK II.
HOW THE ENGLISH WON BRITAIN.
Who the
English
A.D. 449-600.
CHAPTER I.
THE ENGLISH. ·
1. WHEN we first hear of the English, they lived in
the land along the coast of the North Sea between North
Denmark and Holland. They belonged to
the same race as the Norwegians and Danes,
and the German tribes who dwelt to the south
of them. The English had come to their home on the North
Sea from a far land on the other side of the Caucasus.
were.
2. They were not a savage people but a nation of
yeomen, living each in his own homestead, tilling the
Their go-
vernment.
ground and keeping cattle. They did not
dwell in towns, but men of the same kin lived
together in little knots of farms. They called these
villages after the name of the kin that dwelt in it, as
Ashingham, the home of the Ashings, or family of Ash.
Each village managed its own affairs; but once or
twice a-year all the yeomen went up to a great meeting,
when the business of the nation was settled. This was
called the folk-moot or meeting of the tribe. A group of
The English.
17
ten or twelve villages was called a hundred, because in
old times it would hold about a hundred households.
Every hundred had a hundred-moot which met three or

NORTHMEN
THE
FIRST HOME
OF THE
ENGLISH.
EATS
JUTES
OR
GE
N
R.Eider
H
R.Elbe
FRISIANS¦
R.Rhine
REms
SAXON S
FRANKS
GE eser
S
four times a year and settled matters that were of small
account and only concerned those who lived in that hun-
dred. The men of the tribe were either gentle or simple,
E. H.
C
18
Early England.
evrls or ceorls, that is, either of noble birth or just simply
free men. But though the gentlemen were looked up to
they had no power over other free men. There were
slaves, too, whom they called thralls, who used to work
for the free men. They were well treated, especially
when they were not foreigners, or men who had lost their
freedom through debt or wrong-doing, but captives from
some tribe akin to them.
There were no kings among the English; but when
they went to war they chose leaders whom they swore to
obey. Some of their gentlefolk, whom they called elders
or aldermen, acted as magistrates, and sat in the chief
places in their meetings and presided over their affairs.
The great men, too, kept many followers about them,
who used to guard them and fight for them, to whom they
gave rings of gold and silver, and sometimes farms and
cattle. Many gentlemen even used to take service with
the chiefs to win riches and honour.
Their
manners.
3. The English were a very warlike race, and were
often fighting against the neighbouring tribes in Ger-
many and Denmark. They were good seamen
too. In the spring, before the summer field-
work came on, and in the autumn, after the harvest
was carried, they used to sail out and plunder all round
the coasts of the North Sea. It is said that it was while
Hengist and Horsa were on one of these voyages that
they were asked to help Vortigern against his foes.
When the whole people went to war one free man at
least from every household had to go to the meeting-place
and fight under the great men who were chosen as war-
leaders, and led them to battle, beside their guards.
And when the tribe conquered any land or spoil it was
dealt out by lot, a share to every free man, after the share
of the gods had been taken. But the chiefs had bigger
shares than other men, because they had to reward
The English.
19
their followers, who did not take a lot like the rest, but
looked to the chief for their share.
The English were very just folks and loved the law.
They used to settle many disputes at their meetings, where
everyone who was wronged could bring his complaint,
which was judged by the people there, and the evildoers
were punished. But if a man liked he could always fight
against him who had wronged him, or against his kin, and
so seek redress for himself by main force. Evildoers were
fined, and if they could not pay were put out of the law's
protection, and any man who would might slay them with-
out being punished. There was a price fixed for every
man's life according to his rank, which, if a man were
slain unlawfully, was paid to his kinsfolk by his slayer.
This was called the were-gild, or price of a man. But
those who had slain men secretly and done the worst
deeds were hanged or drowned.
Like most of their race the English showed great
respect to women, and the housewife had the ordering
of the house and the women-servants. The husband
might not interfere in those matters, but he ruled in all
greater things. The English, too, were kind to their
children and treated them as men and women when they
were grown up; and did not keep them, as the Romans
and Britons kept theirs, in strict obedience all their lives.
4. The free men were well armed with swords and
spears of bronze and iron, and shields of linden-wood.
The chiefs often had mail-shirts and helmets Arnis and
of bronze or iron, with the image of a wild dress.
boar on the top as a crest. For their every-day wear
they were well clad in linen or woollen raiment, and the
rich folk wore red and blue embroidered gowns or tunics,
and cloaks clasped with bronze brooches often beautifully
wrought, and great gold and silver rings on their arms.
They were shod in leather, and wore leathern belts round
C 2
20
Early England.
their waists with a sheath-knife in them, as the Norwe
gians do now. The ladies sometimes wore a bunch of
keys at their waist. When the free man went from home
he used always to bear his sword and shield, and when
he rode on horseback he would carry a spear also. The
men used to tattoo their arms and breasts with curious
patterns, as our sailors often do still. All free men and
women wore their hair long and were proud of it, but the
thralls' heads were cropped. Married women always wore
a hood or veil over their hair.
They were good smiths and carpenters at all kinds
of work in metal and wood. The women were clever at
all kinds of needlework, and wove beautiful linen. The
English built wooden houses, and the chiefs had great
halls. They were also good ship-builders, and their large
boats, which they called 'keels,' would withstand the
fierce storms of the North Sea. They had plenty of
horses, and dogs, and cattle, and sheep. They used horses
for war and for travelling, but for farm-work oxen.
Though the English worked very hard they were a
merry folk, fond of singing and feasting. They were also
fond of sports, such as hunting and horse-racing, and tock
pleasure in gambling and horse-fighting.
5. The English had no Druids, like the Britons, but
every man was priest in his own household, and the chief
was priest for the tribe. In some places they
Religion.
had women priests and soothsayers. Their
temples were in the great woods or on lonely islands, or
at the meeting-places of the people. Thither they used to
bring a great part of their spoil, and burn or bury it in
honour of the gods. Sometimes the English offered men
in sacrifice to the gods to gain victory or power or long
life, but this did not happen often. Sometimes men would
even slay themselves, that they might not die in bed, but
by the sword, like men slain in battle.
CH. I.
21
The English.
Their gods were Thunder and Hertha, and Tew and
Woden and Frey, and the white sun-god Balder. Some of
these gods' names we still keep in the days of the week,—
as Tuesday and Wednesday, the days of Tew and Woden.
In their temples the holy ring was kept, on which men
swore oaths to tell the truth at trials, or vowed before they
went to battle to fight bravely. These temples were hal-
lowed, and no man dared fight or quarrel in them. The
English faith was that if a man did his duty bravely to
himself and his family and his tribe, and fought his foes
and bore trouble and danger stedfastly without flinching,
his soul would dwell with his kinsmen's spirits, passing the
day feasting with them in his barrow or in the caverns
of the hills, and his nights fighting and hunting over the
earth. But if a man was cruel or base or cowardly they
thought he would dwell with the dark goddess Hell, in
cold caverns full of serpents, in the midst of ice and snow.
When a great man died his tribesmen used to raise a
pile of firewood on some high place and set his body
on it, with his sword in his hand and his helmet on his
head and his shield by his side, and his horse under him.
Then they slew the horse and burnt its body with its
master's. The ashes they put in an urn of earthenware,
which they covered round with huge stones. Then they
heaped a high mound or barrow of earth over it as a
mark for ever.
Sometimes a man's wife and slaves were
slain and buried with him. But some of the English
buried their dead without burning them. It is from the
graves in England and abroad that we have found out a
great deal about our forefathers.
The English knew how to write; but they had no
books, and only used writing to mark their weapons and
houses and boats and rings and cups with. They wrote
also on the great stones which they raised on the grave
mounds the name and death of the body that lay below.
22
A.D. 451
Early England.
Tribes of
English.
6. There were three tribes of Englishmen who came to
Britain. They all called themselves and their tongue
English, but the Welsh and Irish called them all Saxons.
The first tribe, which dwelt in the north of Denmark and
over the south of Sweden were also called Jutes, or Geats,
The next, who dwelt in the south of Denmark and in what is
now called Slesvik Holsten, called themselves
Angles, or English. The southernmost tribe,
who dwelt in Friesland and Hanover, were called Saxons.
It was because the Welsh met with them first that they
called all Englishmen Saxons. Very often peoples have
been called by another name than that by which they call
themselves; thus the Romans called the Welsh Britons,
but the Britons called themselves by the names of their
tribes, or when they wished to speak of all their race they
called themselves Cymry. But the English called them
'Welsh,' or Strangers, as the Germans now call the Italians
'Welsh.' But it is to be kept in mind that they never
called themselves by that name.
CHAPTER V.
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST.
a
1. THE English under their two leaders, Hengist and
Horsa (Horse and Mare), agreed to help Vortigern, and
The Jutes
win Kent
A.D. 451.
they fought for the Welsh, against the Picts,
and won several battles. But, just as had hap-
pened before in other parts of the Roman Em-
pire, the plan of using one foe against another failed. The
English quarrelled with the Welsh, and sent over sea
for more of their kinsfolk, telling them what a good land
Britain was, and how badly it was guarded. So, many
more came over, with their wives and children and cattle.
They settled first in Thanet island, whence they came
over into Kent to conquer it, that they might dwell there.
A.D. 577.
23
The English Conquest.
The Welsh fought against them; but the English won. In
one of their fights Horsa was slain, and his folk raised a
great mound of earth over his burying-place which may
still be seen. At last the Welsh fled out of the land of
Kent, and the English made two kingdoms there, and set
up Hengist and his kin as kings to rule over them.
The Saxons
A.D. 477.
2. Not long after this a band of Saxons under a leader
named Ella landed in the South of Britain, near Regnum
(Chichester); and they fought against the Welsh
and set up a little kingdom. But the great of Sussex.
Roman town Anderida (Pevensey), at the end
of the South Downs, long held out against them; but they
took it at last and slew every soul within it and made it a
waste (A.D. 491). This kingdom of Ella was afterwards
called the kingdom of the South Saxons or Sussex.
The Saxons
of Wessex.
3. Another band of Saxons landed at Portsmouth
and fought against the Welsh, and took the city of Win-
chester, and made the kingdom of the West
Saxons, or Wessex, in the land that is now
called Hampshire. And they set their leader
Cerdic as king over them, of whose blood nearly all the
kings that ruled over all England have come.
A.D. 495.
So the South of Britain was conquered, and from
Wessex there afterwards went out bands of settlers to the
west and north, and drove out the Welsh and founded
Dorset and Wiltset. Their leaders obeyed the king of
Wessex. But these settlers did not win their way easily,
and it was not till 577 that the West Saxons got to the
Bristol Channel. In that year their king Ceawlin won
a battle at Dyrham and got Bath city. He founded
Somerset, and cut off the Welsh of Cornwall from their
kinsfolk the Welsh of Wales. About the same time the
West Saxons conquered the valley of the Severn, and sat
down in the lands which are now called Herefordshire and
Worcestershire.
24
A.D. 547.
Early England.
4. In 547 the Angles, who had for some time been
trying to settle in Britain, began to build up three
kingdoms along the east coast. One, called Bernicia,
the 'land of the Braes,' stretched from the north of what
we call Yorkshire to the Firth of Forth, and from the coast
of the North Sea to the vale of Clyde and the
hills of Cumberland. The second, Deira, ' the
South land,' spread from the south of Bernicia
to the Humber, and ran back to the Pennine
Hills. These were called North English or Northum-
brian kingdoms. The third great kingdom, which they
called East Anglia, or East England, lay further south.
It had two divisions-the North folks' and South folks'
lands (Norfolk and Suffolk).
The English
in North-
umberland
and East
England.
Essex and
5. Two other Saxon bands came up the Thames in
their ships and made the two kingdoms of
Middlesex. the East Saxons (Essex) and the Middle
Saxons (Middlesex), of which the two chief towns were
the old Roman cities of Colchester and London.
6. Still fresh bands of English came to Britain; and
when they found all the land to the east and south taken
Marchland, they went on past the Eastern kingdom into
or Mercia. the middle of Britain. Little by little they won
it all from the Welsh as far as the Severn valley, and
they called their kingdom Middle England, but the other
folk called it the March, or border land, because they
dwelt next the Welsh. And when they grew strong they
took the Saxons who dwelt in the Severn Valley into their
rule. Their chief city was Leicester.
The English also made settlements in Gaul as well as
in Britain, and many villages round Bayeux and Calais
still keep their old English names. But of the history of
these English we do not know much.
Now, these conquests took a very long time-over 150
years. For the Welsh, divided among themselves as they
$
A.D. 547-600.
25
The English Conquest.
were, yet resisted the English very stubbornly, and still
held a great part of Britain.
The Welsh
kingdom
and the
Scots.
7. The Welsh had three kingdoms in the west of the
island: 1. Cumberland, or the Clyde Valley
kingdom, from the Clyde to the Mersey. 2.
Wales, or Cambria. 3. West Wales, that is
Devon and Cornwall.
But their chief power lay in the Clyde Valley, in the
North, between the Walls. There the great king
Arthur is said to have gathered a band of brave warriors
and to have fought many battles against the English.
But after his death (520) the English could not be
checked any longer, and the Welsh had hard work to
hold their own in the west. They lost, too, all the land
they still held in the east, round Elmet and Leeds, which
was added to Mercia and Northumberland.
The English never went beyond the North Wall, but
about 550 there came Scots from the North of Ireland
into Caledonia and took all the West lands and settled
in them. For many years there was war between the
Scots and Picts. At last the Picts were forced to take a
Scottish king, and Caledonia was called Scotland.
8. The towns which the Romans had walled and forti-
fied held out longer than the country. Though many of
them were taken and destroyed, yet some
remained and became the chief towns of the
The manner
of the
conquest.
English kingdoms. But it was long before
was long before
many English folk dwelt in towns, for they still liked
farm life best and loved to dwell in the country.
When the English came over to Britain they brought
with them their wives and children and all their goods and
cattle. When they won the land they parcelled it out into
groups of farms such as they had in their own country.
Now, as the English were always fighting in their new
land, they wanted war-leaders to be always ready to lead
26
Early England.
The three KELTIC peoples :-
Picts.
Scots (from Ireland).
Welsh:
W. 1. Kingdom of Cumberland, or Clyde Valley,
W. 2. Kingdom of Wales.
W. 3. West Wales (Devon and Cornwall).
The ENGLISH Kingdoms :-
The Futes:
J. 1. Kingdom of Kent.
J. 2. Kingdom of Isle of Wight.
The Saxons::
S. 1. West Saxon Kingdom, or Wessex.
S. 2. East Saxon Kingdom, or Essex.
S. 3. South Saxon Kingdom, or Sussex.
S. 4. Middle Saxon Kingdom, or Middlesex.
The English or Angles :
E. 1. Bernicia, the Kingdom of the Braes.'
E. 2. Deira, the Kingdom of the 'South.'
(These two made up Northumberland.)
E. 3. The Kingdom of Lincoln.
E. 4.
The Middle English Kingdom, Mercia or the
Marchland, that is land of the Border."
E 5 The East English Kingdom.

Orkneys
Western
Ιονιά
IRELAND
Dublin
N.Wall
Edinburgh
Lindisfurn
Bamborough
E.1..
W.1.
S.7777
\E.1.
ENGLAND,
AFTER THE
ENGLISH CONQUEST
Whitby)
Dayston
E.2.
W.1.1
York
Elmet De
Godmundingham
E.3.
Caerleon
W.2.
Worceste
icester
W.1.
MARCH
Elnikam
E.5.
"Colchester
S.2.
Gloster Dorchester London
Bristol?
S.1.
S4
Rochester
Winchester
W.3.
Cap barbury
S 3.
Baderidash
Whanes
Tveter
THE
FRENC
KINGDOM
28
A.D. 528-600.
Early England.
them. So they made their aldermen into kings and gave
them more power than they had had before; but the
English who abode at home across the seas never had
any kings at all.
One cause why the fighting was so fierce was that
the English were still heathen, and hated the Christian
Welsh, and burnt their churches and slew their priests
wherever they could. So the Welsh and English never
were at peace; but nearly all the Welsh in the east were
slain or driven into the west, save a few that were made
slaves.
CHAPTER VI.
CONVERSION OF KENT.
sionaries.
I. IN the year 597 a great thing happened in England
-the coming of Christian priests from Rome into Kent,
Welsh mis- to preach the Gospel to the English. For the
English would never learn the Christian faith
from the Welsh, though the Welsh had been great
missionaries to other folks. S. Patrick, a man from the
Clyde, had gone to Ireland, and the Irish had gladly
taken the faith. S. Ninian had preached to the Picts in
the far North. Welsh and Irish preachers went even into
Gaul and Germany, for the Irish wished to spread the
Gospel which they had received, and it was through them
that the Picts were at last turned to the faith.
2. The English became Christians in another way.
There was a king of Kent whose name was Ethelbert,
and he took to wife Bertha, the daughter of the Frankish
A.D. 597.
29
Kent.
She brought in her train to
Pope Gre
gory and
England.
king of Paris, in Gaul.
England a bishop, for her husband had promised that
she should keep her own way of belief. She
built up a little church that had been ruined,
and used to worship there; but none of the
English would leave their old faith. Then came a company
of Christian monks from Rome, and at their head one
called Augustine. They were sent by Pope Gregory I.,
and there is a story told of the way by which he came to
take such care for the souls of the heathen English.
Before he was Pope, about 574, he saw one day for sale
in the market of Rome some beautiful children with fair
skins and yellow hair; for the Romans kept slaves, and
though the English had very few slaves themselves, yet
they sometimes sold people abroad into slavery. When
Gregory saw the children he was astonished at their
beauty, and asked the dealer who they were. He said
they were heathen Angles, or English, from Britain, and
Gregory answered, 'They should be angels, they are so
fair.' Then he asked who was their king, and the man
said 'Ella;' and Gregory said, 'Alleluia should be the
song of those Angles, as it is of the angels in heaven.'
And he became very sorrowful for pity that such fair
folk should dwell in the darkness of sin, and he went
to the Pope and prayed him to let him go to England and
preach to the English. The Pope gave him leave, but
the people of Rome would not let him go, for he was much
beloved. But when he became Pope, in 590, he was mindful
of the English heathen, and he sent his friend Augustine
to England, because he could not now go himself.
3. Augustine came to king Ethelbert and begged him
to hearken to his Gospel. The queen was glad of his
coming, and the king and his people heark- Augustine.
ened to the words of the monks, and in time
were baptized. Augustine crossed to Gaul to be made a
A.D. 597.
30
A.D. 597.
Early England.
bishop, that he might govern the Church in Kent. He
built up again an old church in Canterbury, the chief
town of Kent, and called it Christ Church, and made it
his cathedral; and he built an abbey also, and set monks
therein. He laboured very hard to spread the Gospel
all over England, and Ethelbert helped him much; for he
was a mighty king, and the other kings of the English
looked up to him and were glad to win his favour.
Augustine
and the
Welsh
4. Once Augustine went to the West to meet the
Welsh bishops, to try and get them to help him.
They met under a great oak, at a place now
called Aust, after the name of Augustine; but
priests. the Welsh and Roman priests could not agree
in every point; for though they both held the same faith
yet in small matters they differed. So this meeting came
to nothing, and Augustine was very angry with the Welsh
because they would not join him in his work.
He went
on all his life's day trying to make the English Christians,
and men called him 'the Apostle of the English.'
But though the Kentish men and the kings of East
Anglia and Essex were Christian yet the rest of England
was still heathen; and it was not till the great Northern
kingdom was converted that the success of the Christian
faith was certain.
CHAPTER VII.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
1. WE see England was made up of seven little king-
doms; and it was the same with the Northmen and
Rise of Nor-
thumber-
land.
Danes at this time. But little by little in
England, as in Denmark and Norway, one
kingdom got power over the others and joined
them to itself. For a long time it was not certain which
of the little kingdoms would be the one to rule at last.
In England Northumberland was the first that tried to
A. D. 593-607.
31
Northumberland.
*
become the chief, and it was really so for a while. After-
wards the Marchland, and at last the West Saxon king-
dom, as will be seen, brought about what the others had
tried in vain to do.
First the rise of Northumberland to power must be
told; and it will be seen that this is mixed up greatly
with the change of faith that took place in the North.
Perhaps Northumberland rose first because it was the
biggest kingdom. Perhaps too the fact that the chief
seat of the Roman power had been at York had some-
thing to do with it. There was much good land lying
together in the North which many men might till.
Ethelfrith.
A.D. 593-
2. Howbeit there reigned in 593 a king in Northum-
berland, named Ethelfrith, a very mighty man. In his
days all the other kings feared Northumber-
land and did its king's will, save Ethelbert,
king of the Kentishmen. Ethelfrith fought 617.
against the Scots, who had come with a host into his
kingdom, and beat them. They were so discomfited that
for many years after they dared not attack the English.
This battle was at Dawston, in the North.
In 607 Ethelfrith went down into the Welsh country
and fought a great battle near Chester; and the Welsh
fled before his face. In that battle were slain many monks
who had come to pray that the Welsh might win the day.
Ethelfrith said that although they had not fought,
they had done as much to defeat him by their prayers
as the fighting men with their swords and spears, and he
gave orders to slay them. And men said that the words
of Augustine were fulfilled when he prophesied evil on
the Welsh priests at Aust, because they would not
help him in his good work. By this battle Ethelfrith
pushed his kingdom to the Western Sea, and cut off
Cumberland from the kingdoms of Wales so that they
were never joined again: just as Dyrham battle had cut
•
32
A.D. 607-626.
Early England.
off Cornwall from the Welsh kingdoms and brought the
West Saxons to the British Channel. And now Ethel-
frith was still more feared than before. But Redwald,
king of the East English, would not give up Edwin to
Ethelfrith, his kinsman, who had outlawed him. So
Ethelfrith came against him, and the battle was joined on
the banks of the river Idle, and there Ethelfrith fell.
Edwin.
3. Then the outlaw Edwin was made king of Nor-
thumberland; and of him many famous stories are told.
He became even mightier than Ethelfrith; and
A.D.617-633. though he did not rule over the king of Kent
yet he bade him give him his sister in marriage, and he did
so. This, most likely, Edwin did that he might not be
stopped in his plans by the men of Kent, now that he and
their king were kinsmen. And Edwin sent ships from
Chester to fight against the Welsh in Anglesey and Ivan;
and in the North he built a new city on a hill and called
it Edwin's-borough (Edinborough), after his name. And
he had a plume of feathers borne before him when he
went abroad, after the fashion of the Roman emperor,
and was called Brytenwaida, which seems to mean ‘wide
ruler,' and so to be the same sort of name as Emperor.
But the West Saxons hated him; and Cwichelm, their
king, sent a servant of his named Eomer with a message
of peace to Edwin, but he meant evil. And when Eomer
came before the king he suddenly drew a dagger and
struck at him. When Lilla, one of Edwin's men, saw
him lift his hand he threw himself before the king to
shield him, and the blade passed right through Lilla's
body, so hard was the blow, and wounded the king. Then
the king's followers fell on Eomer and slew him in their
wrath; but the king was little hurt, owing to the faithful-
ness of Lilla.
4. Now Edwin's Kentish wife, Ethelburg, had brought
with her a comrade of Augustine's named Paullinus.
A.D. 627.
33
Northumberland.
Paullinus
converts
Northium-
berland.
A.D. 627.
The very night the king was stabbed, the queen bare
a daughter, who was baptized by Paullinus.
She was the first Christian child in North-
umberland; for the king and his folk were
still heathen. But the words of Paullinus and
the queen moved the king and he became a Christian and
his people with him, so that Paullinus was many days
baptizing them from morning to night, so many flocked
to him desiring to be saved.
Two stories are told of the reasons which moved
Edwin's chief men to become Christians.
One of the aldermen, an old and wise man, while
the king and his chiefs were talking about the new faith,
spoke, and said, 'O King, the life of man which we know
on this earth, if we set it by that life which we know
not of, seems to me even thus. When you are sitting
at meal-tide with your lords in the winter-time, with a
great fire lit in the midst of the hall—so that it is warm
and bright within, but out of doors the blasts of cold sleet
or snow are raging on all sides—sometimes then a spar-
row will fly very swiftly through the hall, coming in at one
door and going out at the other. While it is in the hall
it is at peace and unhurt by the winter storm for a little
space; but it flies out again straightway into the cold
gloom whence it came, and your eyes behold it no more.
So we see for a space the life of man on earth, but what
shall follow after or what hath gone before we know not
at all. Therefore, if this new teaching can tell us aught
of this, we ought methinks to hearken thereto.'
There was also a priest of the temple at Godmun-
dingham whose name was Coifi. When he heard the
words of Paullinus he said to Edwin, 'O King, no man
hath served the gods more faithfully than I, seeking the
truth, but ever the less I found it. Wherefore, since the
gods cannot help us, let us burn their temples and cast
E. H.
D
34
A.D. 633-5.
Early England.
down their altars.' Then he prayed the king to give
him a horse and lance, and he arose and took them and
rode to the temple and flung the lance over the pale of
the temple, where no weapon might come. And the
people thought that he was maḍ, and marvelled, thinking
that the gods would surely slay him. But he bade them
break down the temple and burn the gods. And when
they saw that he got no harm they did so, and believed
no more in the old gods.
5. Now there was a king in Marchland, or Mercia,
named Penda. He and his folk were heathen, and he
Edwin's warred against Edwin. And because Edwin
defeat and
was strong Penda made peace with the king
death.
A.D. 633. of the Welsh, Cadwalla; and though Cadwalla
was a Christian he joined him for hatred of the English.
These two kings fought against Edwin and slew him at
Heathfield (Hatfield), in the North. When Edwin fell his
people forsook the faith and went back to their old gods;
and Paullinus and Ethelburg fled to Kent, and many with
them.
Penda and
Oswald.
A.D.633-642.
6. But Penda became a mighty king, and he joined to
his kingdom the Saxons who dwelt on the Severn. But
while he was fighting in the South, Oswald,
the new king of Northumberland, fought
against Cadwalla and slew him (635), and
cleared the North lands of his foes. He was a Christian,
but he had not learnt the Christian faith from the Roman
priests, but from the Irish missionaries in Iona, whither
he had been driven in Edwin's time because he was the son
of Ethelfrith. When he came to the kingdom he brought
in Irish priests to teach his people anew the faith they
had forsaken. The chief of these priests was Aidan;
and Oswald went about with him and put his words into
English for the people, and they soon became Christians
again. And from Northumberland there went forth
preachers to the rest of England and taught the Gospel
A.D. 635-644.
35
Northumberland.
to many.
In Mercia they did much good. In East Eng-
land an Irish monk named Fursey preached, for there,
too, the people had gone back to their old gods. Even
in Kent, at Ethelbert's death, his son became a heathen;
but before he died he turned Christian again, and tried
to get all his people to believe.
After seven years Penda came North again, and Os-
wald fell in battle against him (642). Then Penda wrought
great ill, and ravaged the land and slew the people.
7. At last Oswy took the kingdom, and gathered his
folk to him and went to meet Penda. Before the battle
he offered him much gold to make peace, for Oswy.
he was sore in dread of him. But Penda A.D.642-670.
mocked him. Then Oswy vowed to make his daughter a
nun, and to give twelve estates to the Church if he won
the day. And when the fight began the Marchmen fled
before the Northumbrians, and Penda fell as he fled over
the river which ran by the place of battle. So the last
great heathen king died, and Oswy sent lords to govern
his land. But after a little the Marchmen drove them out,
setting up Wolfere, a Christian son of Penda, as king.
Synod of
Whitby.
A.D. 644.
8. Moreover, in Oswy's reign, the Christians all over
England were set at one amongst themselves. This
happened in this way. A priest named Birinus,
who was sent to England by the Pope, had con-
verted Cwichelm, the king who had sought to
have Edwin slain, and he set up a bishopric at Dorchester.
So Wessex also believed. And when Penda died S. Chad
was sent by Aidan in 655 to Mercia, and he turned the
Mercians to the Christian faith, and his church was at
Lichfield. Only the South Saxons were still heathen.
But some of the English had been converted by the Irish,
as Mercia, Essex, and Northumberland, and the others
by the Roman priests. Now the Irish, like the Welsh
priests, differed in many customs from the Roman priests.
D 2
36
A.D. 644-668.
Early England.
But though Oswy held to the Irish customs he had wed
the daughter of Edwin, who had been brought up in Kent
under the Roman customs. So Oswy called a great meet-
ing of all the bishops and chief priests to settle which
customs should be followed throughout England. Among
others there came Wilfrith, a Northern man by birth, and
he persuaded the king to take the Roman customs, and
all the people agreed. But Colman, the bishop of Holy
Island, when the meeting had given their votes against
his wishes went away with many of his brethren and left
Northumberland. So the king asked the Roman priests
to send him, in their stead, teachers to order the churches
in his kingdom. But the new bishop the king had made
soon died, and Oswy sent another priest to Rome to be
made bishop, and there he died. So the Pope sent him a
priest of Tarsus, named Theodore, who went to England
in 668, and with the help of Wilfrith set the Church in
order. He set bishops in each kingdom, who were under
the chief bishops (archbishops) of York and Canterbury.
He also set priests in each district, as far as he could, to
dwell among the people. Theodore worked so hard and
so well that when he died he left the Church in England
ordered in the sort of way that it ever afterwards kept to.
9. Though many of the Irish priests and their dis-
ciples had departed some still remained. Of these the
S. Cuth-
bert, S.
Hild, and
Cadmon.
chief was Cuthbert, who had been a mis-
sionary in Bernicia. After the Synod of
Whitby, he went to the islands on the coast
and continued there steadfast in good works, so that he
was counted a saint.
At Whitby, Hild, a lady of royal blood, built a con-
vent, and it became a holy place, and the kings of the
North were buried there. To Hild it was that Oswy had
sent his daughter when he fulfilled his vow. Near Whitby
lived Cædmon the poet, of whom this story is told. He
A. D. 644-670.
37
Northumberland.
was but a poor cowherd, and knew not how to sing or
play the harp or make verses, as men were used to do at
feasts. And when it was his turn to sing at a feast he
would leave the room, because he was ashamed of his
little knowledge. Once when he had thus gone sorrowful
to the cattle-shed, where he slept, he had a dream. When
he woke he went to Hild, the abbess, and told her that
he had been bidden in a vision to sing of holy things,
and that he had been given the power of song. Then
Hild told him a Gospel story, and he put it into verse
and sung it, and all were astonished at the beautiful songs
that he sung. And he became a great poet. He put the
stories out of the Bible into verse, so that the men who
could not read might remember them; and we have some
of his verses still.
10. Wolfere, the son of Penda, ruled very well and
wisely, and he joined Essex and Middlesex and all the
land as far as the Thames to his kingdom. Wolfere.
The South Saxon king too obeyed his will, and A.D.657-675.
was often at his court; and he gave him the island of
Wight to rule under him. In his reign many abbeys and
houses of monks were founded; and he built Peterburgh,
one of the most famous abbeys in England. Crowland
Abbey, too, was built about this time. The West Saxons
at this time had a brave king also, under whom they fought
many battles against the Welsh in the West, and won
nearly all the land by the Mendip Hills and on the
Parret.
11. When Oswy died Egfrith took the kingdom. Soon
after Wilfrith was banished. Then he went to Sussex
and taught the people, for though their king Egfrith.
was Christian, they were still heathen. They A.D. 670-85.
listened gladly to him, for he was very wise as well as
good, and taught them many useful things; amongst
others how to fish in the deen sea after the Northern
•
}
38
A.D. 670-685.
Early England.
.fashion, for before they only used to fish in the rivers.
And men called Wilfrith the Apostle of Sussex.
Egfrith and Wolfere were not very good friends, for
Wolfere wished to become free from the overlordship of
Northumberland. They warred against each other, and
Egfrith put Wolfere's host to flight, and made him make
peace and give up Lincoln and the land round it.
When he had made peace with the Marchmen he
warred against the Welsh in Cumberland, and took Car-
lisle, and over it he set S. Cuthbert, whom he called from
his cell in Northumberland. Moreover, he made himself
overlord of the Vale of the Clyde; and sent ships also to
ravage Ireland, where they got great spoil. At last he
went against the Picts, beyond the North Wall, and there
he fell, with all his host, in a great battle near Fife (685).
And S. Cuthbert fell ill when he heard the news and went
back to his cell, where he died two years after.
When Egfrith was dead the power passed from Nor-
thumberland, and Wessex and Mercia became great in
its stead.
12. There are several things to notice in this part of
English History:—
Northum-
the Church.
(1.) It is hard to see why, when the greater part of
England had been converted by the Irish, all
berland and the English took up the Roman customs in
Church matters. But the Romans certainly
kept the Church in better order than the Irish. Moreover,
the rest of Western Europe had taken the Roman custom.
Kent, too, which was a strong kingdom, and had many
dealings with the Franks, helped the Romans very much.
(2.) We see that the English were not made Christians
by force, as many heathen nations were, but they were
persuaded by the teaching of the Gospel. This made
them love the Faith more, and keep it more steadfastly
afterwards, though they wavered a little at first.
A.D. 685.
39
Northumberland.
(3.) Though neither Northumberland nor Kent was
ever strong enough to bring all England into one, yet it
was a help towards this that all the English became of
one faith and one rule. The Church also tried to stop
cruel war and draw all men together peacefully.
(4.) When the English became Christians they did not
kill or enslave the Welsh as they had done before; but
when they conquered them they suffered them to remain
among them, and made laws to protect them. So, though
in the rest of England the Welsh names of places are nearly
all lost, those parts of England which the English won
after their conversion are still called by Welsh names.
(5.) When the English became Christians, they learnt
from the Irish and Roman missionaries many useful arts
which they had not known before. They also mixed
more in trade with the other Christian nations, who had
hitherto disliked the fellowship of heathen men.
X
BOOK IV.
WESSEX AND THE MARCHLAND.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 685-728.
THE RISE OF WESSEX.
The rise of
Wessex.
1. AFTER the death of Egfrith the strongest of the
three great kingdoms was Wessex, which was under Cead-
walla. His forerunners had beaten back the
Welsh, and had won new lands for the West
Saxons, till their realm reached the borders of Devon.
Under them Wessex had become so great a kingdom,
that it was able, as time went on, to gain the overlordship
of all England.
·
40
A.D. 685-688.
Early England.
Ceadwalla.
2. Ceadwalla reigned but a short while; then he re-
pented him of his sins, laid down his crown,
A.D.685-688. and went to Rome. There he was baptized
by the Pope, and there soon afterwards he died. He
had been a Christian and so had his brother who reigned
with him, but he had not been baptized before, nor did
he seem to understand the life of a true Christian. For
when he found that the Jutes in the Isle of Wight were
still most of them heathen he fought against them to
make them Christians. And he prevailed against them
and took their king and slew him, with all his kin and
most of his people. When Wilfrith heard of it he begged
him to spare some of them, and he did so, and Wilfrith
by kindness converted them. But Ceadwalla would not
spare the lives of the Jute king's two children, for he
feared that when they were grown up they would avenge
their father's death upon him; so when they were baptized
he slew them also. Perhaps it was for this evil deed that
he was sorry, and so left his kingdom. This was the
only time that an English king ever tried to turn people
to the Gospel by the sword; though in other lands there
were kings who did so, not knowing that they were doing
an evil work.
Ini.
3. But Ini, who reigned after him, was a good man and
mild of heart, and a very mighty king. He was obliged
to wage many wars. Especially he fought
A.D.688-728. with the Cornish men, who had then a brave
king at their head, who tried to drive the English back.
But Ini prevailed against him.
Ini took great care to rule well the lands that he won.
When he saw that the bishop of Winchester had too
great a charge, he set up a bishop in Sherborne to help
him. And he built a house for holy men at Glaston-
bury, where there was a ruined British church, and this
house became very famous in after days.
A.D 688.
41
Rise of Wessex.
Ini fought too with the men of Kent, and got from
them a fine for slaying Ceadwalla's brother, whom they
had burnt in his house. And he made the men of Essex
and the East English bow to his rule. But the king of
the Marchmen fought against him, so that he was not
able to become overlord of that land also.
And Ini made good laws with the help of the wise men
of his kingdom, so that his people might dwell in peace;
and in all that he did his wife Ethelburg helped him.
She was a wise and brave woman; and once when the
Cornish men had taken Taunton, which Ini had built,
she went down with a host against them and took
back the town. When they had both reigned long
and gloriously she won over her husband to lay down.
his crown, as Ceadwalla had done, and go to Rome, to
live there in peace, praying and doing good works till
they both died. There is a story told of the way she
did this. In those days the kings' palaces were not all
garnished with furniture, but when the kings went from
one of their great houses to another they took all their
household goods with them, and left the house empty
behind them. For they used to travel all over their
realm, and stay awhile at each of their houses to do
justice to the folk of each part of their kingdom and
hear all complaints. One day when king Ini had left
one of his houses, and his servants had packed up all
the household goods, the queen prayed him after a while
to ride back to the hall with her, and he did so.
When they came there the house was bare, and cattle
and pigs had been driven into the empty hall. And the
king was astonished at the changes since the day before,
when the hall was fairly decked out, and he and all his
valiant men had sat there at meat in great state. Then
the queen said to him, 'After this manner the glory and
pleasant things of this world pass away; so that I hold
42
A.D. 688-728.
Early England.
him foolish who cleaves to the things of this world and
takes no thought of the life everlasting. And we, who
fare gloriously in this world, should not forget the world
that is to come.' And the king was won by her words
to do as she wished.
Mission-
aries.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CHURCH.
1. IN the days of Ini there went forth from England
many good men to preach the Gospel to the heathen
Germans and Frisians. For just as the Irish,
when they had heard the Gospel wished that
all men would hearken to it, and sent many mission-
aries to the heathen in Germany and the land we now
call Switzerland, so the English did in their turn. And
they were the more moved to do this because the Ger-
mans were near of kin to themselves. Wilfrith, when he
was cast on the coast of the North Sea, had preached the
Gospel to the Frisians and the Saxons who had stayed
behind when their brethren went to England. Chief
amongst the English missionaries were Willebrord and
Winfrith (who in the Latin tongue is called Boniface).
When Boniface had converted the Germans in their own
land, set bishops over them, and put priests among them
in their villages, as Theodore had done in England, he
was made their first archbishop, and lived at Mainz, on
the Rhine, in their midst, and did much good. But after
nearly forty years' work, when he heard that many of the
Frisians were still heathen, he set out to visit them and
preach to them also, and soon after he died (757). And
men numbered him among the saints, and called him the
Apostle of the Germans.
2. In England also there were many great Churchmen
in those days, and chiefly in Northumberland, where at
A.D. 728-757-
43
The Church.
The
of the
North.
this time there was peace for a short while. One called
Benedict taught the English how to build
fair churches of stone, for the English before Churchmen
used to build chiefly with wood, and were
not skilled in stonework. He also brought over glass for
the church windows, which the English did not know of
before, but used horn and parchment instead. And he
built houses for monks to dwell in to do good works; and
in one of these, at Jarrow, lived Bede, the first great Eng-
lish scholar. He was learned in all the wisdom of the
time, and taught many disciples and wrote many books of
those things which he wished them to know, some in Eng-
lish, and some in Latin; he wrote songs and hymns also.
And it is from one of his books, 'A History of the English
Church, that we learn much about the Early English.
He put the Gospel of S. John into English that all men
might read it; this was his last work. When he died
(743) all the wise men in England mourned for him.
He had many friends who helped him in his work, and
the king of Northumberland was among them. And the
good king Alfred, many years after, put some of his
Latin books into English, so useful did he think them for
all men to know. Of other English Churchmen, Wilfrith
was perhaps the greatest. He had made the first library
in England at York. He was also much beloved, though
he was quick of temper, for he did many good deeds and
was never idle, but always would be doing what he could
to help the people and preach the Gospel. He was a great
traveller, and had seen many lands, and everywhere he
went men honoured him for his goodness. He died 709.
3. In Ireland too at this time were many good and
wise men, and it was from the Irish that the Irish
Northumberland men had got much of their Churchmen.
learning. For this reason Ireland was called the 'Isle
of Saints.'
44
A.D. 728.
Early England.
CHAPTER X.
WESSEX AND THE MARCHLAND,
1. AFTER Ini, there reigned other kings over the
West Saxons, of whom it is not needful to speak
Ethelbald
of the
Marchland.
here. They were not very powerful, and in
their days Ethelbald, king of the Marchmen,
was the mightiest man in England.
But of one of these kings, whose name was Sebert, it
is to be noted that he reigned ill and so lost his king-
dom. For his folk, who had chosen him to be king, took
his crown from him and gave it to Cynwulf.
2. Cynwulf was a brave king and ruled well. He
overcame Ethelbald in battle and slew him. But Offa,
Cynwulf. who reigned next in the Marchland, forced
A.D. 757-86. Cynwulf to bow to him and do his will. Cyn-
wulf was slain after a long reign, and his death happened
in this way. One day he went to stay at the house of a
lady at Merton, and took few men with him. And when
Cynhard, brother of Sebert, who wished to be king himself,
heard of it he gathered together a band of those. men
that hated Cynwulf and loved him, and suddenly beset
the house where Cynwulf was. When Cynwulf was aware
of them he went out to the door and kept it bravely
with his sword, and he wounded Cynhard; but he was
borne down by Cynhard's men, for he was alone, and
slain. And when his men heard the cries of the lady they
ran up and found their king dead, and Cynhard standing
by. He offered them gold rings and lands and goods if
they would follow him and help him to be king, and
death if they would not. They chose death, for they
would never help their master's slayer. So Cynhard and
A.D. 757.
45
Wessex and the Marchland.
his men fell upon them, and they fought till they were all
slain save one, a Welshman, a hostage, and he was badly
wounded. Then Cynhard locked the gates and kept the
hall fast that night. But news was brought to Osric,
Cynwulf's alderman, that Cynhard had slain the king, and
was at Merton, and some of his own kinsfolk with him.
So he gathered all the men he could and rode to
Merton in haste, and there he found the gates shut.
Cynhard offered him and those with him to be their king,
but they would not, though Osric's kinsmen, who were
with Cynhard, prayed him to listen to him. And Osric
offered his kinsmen peace if they would leave Cynhard;
but they said they would stand by Cynhard to the death,
as Cynwulf's men had done by him. Then Osric and his
folk broke down the gates and fell upon Cynhard and his
folk, and they fell there fighting to the last, and only one
was saved, Osric's godson.
And Bertric was chosen king by the Wise Men of the
kingdom, and he reigned seventeen years (786-802).
Offa of the
Marchland.
A.D. 757-96.
3. When Ethelbald fell Bernred took the March
kingdom. He reigned but a short while, for Offa, who
was of the royal blood, and alderman in the
Severn valley, drove him out and took the
crown. He had the most power of any man
that had yet been in England, for all the other kings
bowed to his rule; and now England was as one for the
first time. Offa led his host against the Welsh and took
one of their chief towns. He called it Shrewsbury, and
made it strong against them. And he drew a great dyke
across Wales, from the Dee to the Wye, that it might be
a bulwark and a boundary after the fashion of the two
Roman walls. He married one of his daughters, Edburg,
to Bertric, and another to the king of Northumberland,
that they might be the more easily ready to do his will.
Now, Edburg, who married Bertric, was an evil woman,
46
A.D. 757-796.
Early England.
and she hated those whom her husband loved, for she
wished him to listen only to her. She put poison in a
cup for a friend of the king to drink, and by chance Bert-
ric drank of it also, and they both died. When this was
known the West Saxons drove out Edburg, and made a
law that no other king's wife should have power or be
called queen.
As for Edburg she went to the court of
Charles the Great, and he gave her an abbey to rule, but
she ruled it as ill as she had ruled the West Saxons, so
he took it from her. And she went to Italy and wandered
about in great need there, begging her bread till she
died.
At this time Charles the Great was the king of the
Franks, and was the mightiest man in West Europe.
He and Offa were friends at first, but afterwards they fell
out because Charles was jealous of Offa's power and
would always help Offa's foes, for he wished to be over-
lord in England himself. Egbert also, who fled from
Bertric-for he was of the roval blood of the West Saxon
kings—was received at his court, and there learned many
things which were afterwards of use to him.
And when Offa and the men of Kent quarrelled,
Charles stirred up the Archbishop of Canterbury against
Offa, and promised to help him with soldiers. But Offa
put down the men of Kent and set up an archbishop at
Lichfield to rule over the Marchmen's Church, as the
archbishop of Canterbury ruled over the Church in
Wessex, and the archbishop of York in Northumberland.
But the archbishop of Canterbury was sorely grieved at
this.
But Charles and Offa were made friends once or
twice by Alwin or Alcwin, a scholar of Northumberland,
whom Offa had sent to Charles to teach him the learning
of the English.
In Offa's days there lived in England a great poet
A.D. 802.
47
Wessex and the Marchland.
named Cynwolf, some of whose songs we have now. We
have, too, other poems written about this time by men
whose names are lost. So it would seem that in Offa's
days men found peace and leisure for writing and making
poetry, which they had not again till long after his death.
Offa ruled his land very well, and cared much for the
good of his people, and made laws for them by the help
of his wise men, as Ini had done. He was good to men
of learning and Churchmen, and built a great abbey at
Verulam, where S. Alban was slain in the Roman time,
and the town is called S. Albans to this day. But one
abbey he built because of an evil thing he did. He slew
Ethelbert, king of the East English, by craft, for he
asked him to come and see him and marry his daughter,
and when he came he had him murdered; but men say
that the queen persuaded him to do this evil. And
Ethelbert was held a saint and martyr for his cruel death,
But Offa repented sorely afterwards, and sent gifts to the
Pope. Soon after this he died, and his son Cenwolf
ruled after him. He made friends with the archbishop of
Canterbury, and when the archbishop of Lichfield died
he never made another. He fought with the Welsh, and
went far into Wales, both North and South, after his
enemies. He also fought with the men of Kent. But
after his days Egbert became king of Wessex, and brought
the Marchland into his own kingdom; and those kings
who reigned there after Cenwolf he drove away.
48
A.D. 802.
Early England.
CHAPTER XI.
EGBERT.
1. EGBERT came to the throne of Wessex in 802, and
reigned many years. He was grand-nephew to Ini, and
became so famous for bravery in his youth
Egbert's
work.
that King Bertric grew jealous of him and
sought to slay him. At first he fled for safety to Offa,
and when after Bertric's marriage Offa sent him away,
he went over sea to Charles the Great, whence he was
called on Bertric's death to be king in his room. He put
all the kings in England under him, as Offa had done;
but he was so powerful, and things fell out so well for
him, that the kings never got free again at his death, as
they had done when Offa died. So he gained at last for
Wessex the overlordship of England which the Northern
kings had tried to win for Northumberland, and the
kings of the Marchmen for Marchland. So under Egbert
England became one in rule, as it had at Whitby become
one in faith. Moreover, the kings of Wessex now brought
the kings of the Welsh and Scots under them, and so
became overlords of all Britain. There were still Scotch
and Welsh kings; but they obeyed the English kings and
acknowledged their rule. So with the reign of Egbert
finishes this part of English History, in which has been
told the story of the kingdoms which the English founded.
The history which follows is the history of England under
one king, and its struggles against foes who came from
without.
2. For in Egbert's reign the Danes began to show
themselves bitter foes to the English, as will afterwards
be seen. The year that Bertric married Offa's
daughter Edburg three Northern ships came
to the English coast, and when the alderman
of the place where they landed came down to see who
The Danes
and Nor-
wegians.
.I
A.D. 802-838.
49
Egbert.
they were they slew him.
of the Danes and Northmen plundering in England.
They lived on the eastern coasts of the North Sea, in the
same way as the English had done before they came to
England. They were of the same kin and spoke the
same tongue, though little by little it grew different, till
now an Englishman has to learn Danish as he would
French. The reason why the Danes, as the English
called them (for the Norwegians plundered chiefly Scot-
land and Ireland and the Western Islands), began to
come about this time, is partly because of their troubles
at home, and partly because of the wars which Charles
the Great and his house waged against the heathen
Saxons and Danes in the North.
This is the first time we hear
In Denmark and Norway, just as in England, there
were many small kingdoms, and now one king in each
land was trying to put the small kings under him. So
there were many wars, and men fought cruelly with each
other, because they were still heathen. So many of the
small kings and chiefs took to the sea, and sailed about
with their followers plundering everywhere they came, only
sometimes going back to Norway and Denmark.
But after about a hundred years, when the head kings
were firmly set on their thrones, they ruled more strictly.
Then many great men, with their followers, left their homes
altogether. Some settled in the islands of the North
Sea, Iceland and the Faroes, and lived there as they
had done at home, only they would have no king, but
the chiefs ruled. Others went to England and Ireland
and Scotland and fought against the people of the land,
and took part of their land and dwelt in it.
3. Egbert had been long at the court of Charles the
Great while Bertric was king of the West Egbert and
Saxons. And no doubt what he had seen there Charles.
helped him when he became king in England. For Charles
E. H.
E
50
.A. D. 802-838.
Early England.
was a great warrior and statesman, and conquered many
peoples, and built up a mighty empire, and of him, his
valiant men, and the deeds they did, many stories are told.
And just before Egbert, by Charles's help, became king of
the West Saxons, Charles was crowned by the Pope Em-
peror after the old Roman fashion, for he was now ruler
over great part of the old Roman Empire. Henceforth
there were two Emperors, one in the West, the Frank
Emperor, who lived a great deal at Aken (Aachen); and
the other ruling the Eastern part of the old Roman
Empire from Constantinople.
4. Egbert had a very busy reign. First he fought
with the Welsh of Cornwall, the old foemen of the West
Egbert's
Saxons, in 815; then against the king of the
Marchmen at Ellandune (825). This was a
very great battle, and many men fell there, so it is said
in the old rhyme :
wars.
Ellandune flood ran red with blood.
After this battle the Marchmen were obliged to bow to
Egbert's rule; and though they resisted him again they
never could free themselves. Perhaps this was be-
cause the Frank kings hated the Marchmen and would
not help them, but also it was through the hatred of the
East English, for when they found the March kingdom
growing weak they rose against it, and sent to Egbert
and took him as their overlord. When the March king
And afterwards, when
came against them they slew him.
the next king with a great host and five aldermen sought
to avenge him, they slew him and his aldermen with
him. So they became free from their old overlords; but
they were obliged to take Egbert as overlord in their stead.
Egbert also sent his son to Kent with an army, and he
drove out the Kentish under-king, and was made king by
A.D. S02-838.
51
Egbert.
his father in his stead, and over Sussex and Essex also.
That same year too, the English won a victory over the
Welsh and Danes at Gafulford.
Two years after (827) Egbert gathered a great host,
and went north, and the Marchmen solemnly took him
as their lord, and the men of Northumberland when
they saw his might did likewise. The next year he
went against the Welsh of Wales, that he might give
peace to the Marchmen, whom they were always attack-
ing; so that it was seen that Egbert not only dared to rule
but also to be of use to his subjects. And now for a short
while there was peace.
At the end of his reign Egbert was harassed by the
Danes and Northmen. This was the Danish way: they
would sail up some river and there build an earthwork fort
on some island or safe place for their camp, and from it
they would row farther up the river in their ships, or seize
horses and ride over the land, and plunder; driving off
all the cattle, and taking all the gold and silver and pre-
cious things. Most of all they hated the priests and slew
them, and burnt and robbed the churches wherever they
could; for they remembered how Charles the Great and
his kin had warred on their heathen brethren and slain
them cruelly because they would not be Christians.
Charmouth
and Hen-
gist's Down.
5. After this they ravaged the South country two or
three years. Once Egbert fought with thirty-five ships'
crews at Charmouth, and was beaten, and
many of his great men were slain (835).
Moreover, the Danes joined with the Welsh
against him, but he gathered a host and went against
them, and had the victory over them at Hengist's Down
(837). Soon after this he died (838), full of honour,
and when he died he parted his kingdom, as the kingdom
of Charles was parted afterwards, among his sons. Ethel-
wolf took Wessex and became overlord of Britain, and
E 2
52
A.D. 802-855
Early England.
Ethelstan took the land which Ethelwolf had ruled before,
Kent and Sussex and Essex, as under-king.
Egbert is called in the old books by the title of Bry-
tenwalda, as Edwin had been. This title is only given to
seven kings before Egbert.
6. In Egbert's days lived a great Danish king named
Ragnar Rough Breeks, because he once clothed himself
in skins to fight a wild beast. Of him it is said
Ragnar
Rough
Breeks.
that he was shipwrecked in England, and that
the under-king of Northumberland took him
and cast him alive into a pit full of snakes, where, in spite
of his sufferings, he sang a wonderful song telling of all
his great deeds, till the snakes stung him to death. It
was to revenge his death, some say, that his sons after-
wards came to England and waged a cruel war against
the English.
CHAPTER XII.
ETHELWOLF AND HIS ELDER SONS.
1. ETHELWOLF reigned many years, and nearly all his
time, like his father's, was taken up by war.
Ethelwolf.
First, he had
to fight the Danes all along the South coast.
A.D.839-858. Then a band of them landed in Kent, broke
into London and Canterbury, and drove the March
king away.
In 851 Ethelwolf and his son Ethelbald
fought the greatest battle that had been fought in the
memory of man, at Oaklea, in Surrey. There the
Danes fled before them, and they cleared the land of
them for a while, though they came back again; and
not long after a band of them wintered in Sheppey, just
as the English had once stayed in Thanet before they
began to conquer Britain. In 855, Ethelwolf, seeing that
his kingdom was at rest for a little-for he had won a
A.D. 858.
53
Ethelwolf and his Elder Sons.
battle against the Welsh also-went to Rome as a pilgrim.
Two years before he had sent thither his little son Alfred,
and the Pope had received him very kindly, and made
him his godson and hallowed him as a king. After he
had stayed a year at Rome, Ethelwolf brought him back
with him to England. He gave the Pope gifts, and pro-
mised to set aside a tenth of his land for the Church and
the poor. On his way back Ethelwolf married Judith, the
daughter of Charles the Bald, king of the West Franks,
and grandson of Charles the Great. This Charles after-
wards became Emperor, like his grandfather; but now he
was ruling over only a part of the realm of Charles, which
had been divided between him and his brothers by their
father, Louis. It is said that when Ethelwolf was coming
home his son Ethelbald and bishop Alstan made a plot
against him, and he was obliged to give Ethelbald Wes-
sex; taking Kent, Sussex, and Essex for himself, for his
brother Ethelstan was now dead. So his queen Judith
reigned over Kent with him, but over Wessex since
Edburg's days there was no queen. Soon after Ethel-
wolf died; and before his death, with the goodwill of his
wise men, he divided his realm among his sons. To
Ethelbert he gave Kent, and to the others Wessex, and
the head-kingship to Ethelbald, Ethelred, and Alfred,
one after another; but Ethelbert was never to be head-
king.
2. So Ethelbald was made king, and he ruled for two
years only. He married Judith, his stepmother, after the
custom of the heathen kings, who used to Ethelbald.
marry the widow of the king who reigned A.D.858-860.
before them. When he died all the people mourned
greatly for him, so that though we know little of him we
may believe he ruled his people well. But Judith after
her husband's death, went to Gaul and married the Count
of Flanders, and from her are sprung many famous folk.
54
A.D. 870.
Early England.
3. Ethelbert, king of Kent, now became head-king,
though his father had bid him be content with his own
Ethelbert. realm. In his days the Danes began to
A.D. 860-866. plunder again. Once they broke into Win-
chester, the royal city of the West Saxons; but the alder-
men came upon them and put them to flight. They also
ravaged Kent sorely. Ethelbert reigned but a short
while, and then he died, and Ethelred was made king.
Ethelred.
4. Soon after he began to reign the sons of Ragnar
Rough Breeks came with ships and men, plundered the
East and North, and set up a king over part of Northum-
berland who ruled under them; but at York one of Ragnar's
sons reigned. The sons of Ragnar also made raids in
Ireland and Scotland, and set up a kingdom
A.D. 866-871. at Dublin, on the coast of Ireland. Soon after
the taking of York the Danes went south into the March-
land, where they took all the towns north of Watling
Street. People, when they came, now began to try and
make peace with them, for they could not withstand
them. But though the Danes would make peace for a
while they soon began to plunder again.
In 869, Alfred the Etheling (which is the old English
word for Prince) married a daughter of a Lincoln alder-
man, who was of the blood-royal. On the day of his
wedding he was smitten with a disease which harassed
him all his life after, so that it is very wonderful that he
was able to do so much in spite of his illness.
In 870 the Danes took horse and rode into East
England, where they took the under-king Edmund
prisoner, and because he would not become under-
king to them nor forsake his faith they slew him with
arrows. His body was buried in a town near, which has
been since called by his name, S. Edmundsbury. For
he was counted a saint. And the Danes took East
England and settled in it, and it became a Danish king-
A.D. 877. Ethelwolf and his Elder Sons.
55
dom. Yet they did not drive out the English, but the
East English became, as it were, Danes.
Ashdown
5. The Danes next came into the middle of England,
where Ethelred and Alfred, his brother, fought oft-
times with them. Of one of these battles
there is a story told. Two Danish kings and battle.
five earls with a great host were plundering Middle Eng-
land.´´Against them came Ethelred and Alfred; and the
Danes set their battle in array by a hawthorn that was on
Ashdown, in Berkshire; but the English were below.
Ethelred's men were set against the two kings, and Alfred
and his men against the earls. Before the battle Ethel-
red went to prayers, and when the battle began he was
still praying. They called him out to the fight, but he
would not go till his prayers were done, for he said he
must first serve God and then his fellow-men. When
his prayers were finished he went to help Alfred, who was
fighting like a wild boar against the hunters. And he
brought him great help, and slew one of the Danish kings
with his own hand. And at last the Danes fled before the
English, who chased them many miles. There fell also
the five Danish earls.
But the Danes were so many and strong that they
fought two battles soon after against the king, in one of
which he is said to have got his death-wound; and Alfred,
his brother, was made king in his stead.
CHAPTER XIII.
ALFRED THE TRUTH-TELLER.
Alfred the
Truth-teller.
1. ALFRED's reign falls into two parts, the first down to
880, in which he was fighting chiefly with the
Danes who were settling in the North and
East of England under Ragnar's sons and A.D.871-901.
Gorm; the last part (881 to 901), when he was chiefly
56
A.D. 875.
Early England.
fighting with Hasting and those who were trying to settle,
though the settled Danes helped them sometimes.
Soon after he became king, he had to fight the Danes
and there was a drawn battle; but the Danes found that
it was hard work fighting with Alfred, so many of them
went away and plundered other lands, where the people
did not withstand them so well. Then Alfred fought the
Danes at sea and took a ship of theirs, which was a great
thing to do, for the Danes had splendid ships, and men
dreaded them even more on sea than on land.
Halfdan and
the Danes
settle in
York.
A.D 876.
2. Next year (876) Halfdan, Ragnar's son, settled with
his Danes in Deira (Yorkshire). He shared it among them
and they ruled it as their own. And the other
Danes, under Guthorm, or Gorm, the Dane
king of East Anglia, came back to plunder
Wessex. But Alfred made peace with them,
and they swore oaths to him on the holy ring, heathen
fashion. Next year many of them broke this oath. But
one of their fleets was wrecked, so they did not attack
Wessex again, but ravaged the Marchland, that still held
out for king Alfred, south of Watling Street.
But in 878 they came in such strong bands into Wessex
that Alfred had to fly from them into Somerset, where he
lived in a little island, called Athelney (Princes' Island),
among the marshes which then covered that land. There
he kept himself concealed till he could get together
a force to drive the Danes out of England again. Near
here was found, not long ago, a jewel which had be-
longed to a staff or sceptre, and on it the words, 'Alfred
had me wrought.' It was about this time, when he was
here hiding, that a story is told of him. He took refuge
with a poor man one day and stayed with him for some
time, but the poor man's wife did not know he was the
king. She told the king to watch, while she was out of
the room, some cakes which she put on the fire; but the
A.D. 878.
57
Alfred the Truth-teller.
king forgot the cakes, for he was thinking and mending
his bow and arrows. When the good-wife came back
the cakes were spoilt. Then she was very angry, and
told the king that he was ready to eat them when they
were done but was too lazy to help to do them properly.
For she knew not that he had been thinking of greater
things.
Edington
and Clip-
penham.
A.D. 878.
3. Soon things began to look brighter, and Alfred
was able to come forth as a king again. First one of
Ragnar's sons was slain in Devon, and his magic banner,
that had been worked in one day by his sisters, was taken.
It was the image of a raven embroidered and fixed on a
pole; its wings waved in the wind, and wherever it went
it was said to bring victory to those who owned
it. Soon after this victory Alfred gathered a
great host at a place he fixed, and then
he went after the Danes, and they fought at Edington,
in the West Saxon land, and Alfred won the day; and
there is still to be seen the figure of a horse cut in the
turf, on the side of the hill, which is said to be a mark of
this great battle. And after this battle he followed the
Danes and shut them up in a fortress which they had
made, till they promised to make peace and take the
Christian faith. For Alfred could not trust their oaths
as long as they were heathen. So the Danes and
their king were baptized, and Alfred was godfather to
Gorm, and gave him a new name, Ethelstan, which had
been the name of his own father's brother. Peace also
was made between the two kings at Chippenham. Gorm-
Ethelstan was to keep East Anglia and the north half of
the Marchland above Watling Street, and be Alfred's
man; and Alfred was to keep all the rest. And that part
of the Marchland which Alfred had he gave to Ethelred,
an alderman of his, for there were no longer kings there;
and he gave Ethelfled, his eldest daughter, to him to wife.
58
A. D. 885.
Early England.
Next year very few of the Danes stayed south of
Watling Street, but most of the Christians went to Gorm-
Ethelstan's realm. Those who were still heathen went to
join Hasting, a famous sea-rover, who was now in Gaul.
So there was peace in England; but the Danes from
abroad would still plunder the coast now and then, and
Alfred fought once against them at sea.
Now the Danes ruled Yorkshire, East Anglia, and
part of the Marchland. The rest of Northumberland and
all south of Watling Street was under Alfred and his
aldermen. But the Danes who lived in England had
become Christians. That was a great gain to the English,
for they no longer plundered cruelly, but began to settle
down quietly with the English.
Alfred
over-lord of
the Welsh.
A.D. 885.
4. In 885 the kings of Wales are said to have made
peace with Alfred and to have become his under-kings, and
this is not unlikely. About this time Charles
the Bald becarne Emperor, but he reigned
weakly and his kingdom was divided and never
brought together again, and in the north of Gaul the
Counts of Paris ruled, who after a hundred years became
kings of France. They deserved it, for they saved Gaul
from the Northmen.
Harold
Fair-hair
and Rolf
Ganger.
5. There was at this time in Norway a great king
named Harold Fair-hair, who had smitten the small kings
and made one great kingdom, and he had a
friend, earl Ronwald, who had helped him
much in this work. This king got his name
in this way. He fell in love with a lady who was so
proud that she would not marry a small king, as he was
then, but laughed at him and said she would wed him
when he was king of all Norway. He took this in
earnest and swore he would never cut or comb his hair till
he was head king of Norway; and after many years' hard
work he became so. Then he combed out his hair and
A.D. 891.
59
Alfred the Truth-teller.
trimmed it, and it was so long that he could tuck it under
his belt, and it was as fair as gold. Then he married the
proud lady, and she became queen, according to her
words. Now, one of Ronwald's sons was so wild that the
king thrust him out of the land. His name was Rolf, and
he was called Ganger, or Walker, because he was so big
and heavy that he could not easily find a horse to bear
him. Rolf took to sea-roving, and joined Hasting, a great
rover also, and they plundered the coasts of France and
England, and began to be very famous. After Alfred's death,
Rolf took a large tract of land in the North of France and
settled there, as Gorm-Ethelstan had done in the East of
England. Men called that land Northman's Land, or
Normandy; and Rolf, like Gorm, was baptized with his
men, by the name of Robert, and he married the King of
France's daughter. The Normans soon began to speak
French, for they had not slain all the Frenchmen, but had
settled down among them and parcelled out the land,
though the French still worked on the land and paid rent
to the Normans. Had it not been for the Counts of
Paris no doubt the Normans would have conquered all
the North of France; but Paris always withstood them,
and they could go no further.
Alfred and
6. Once before 893 the Danes came over from Hol-
land, where they were plundering, and tried to take
Rochester, and ravaged Essex; but Alfred
came to the Englishmen's help and drove them Hasting.
away. In 886 he rebuilt the walls of London. In 890
Gorm-Ethelstan died; which was an ill thing for Alfred,
for while Gorm lived he tried to keep the peace. In
891 was fought in the Netherlands the great battle of
Loewen or Louvain. between the Danes and the East
Frank king, who discomfited them and smote thein with
a great slaughter, so that they dared not ravage in
the Frank land for many years. This made them go
бо
A.D. 893-6.
Early England.
back to England and try and settle there. So in 893
they came back under Hasting, the sea-rover, built
forts of earthwork in Kent, and tried to hold the land.
The Danes of Northumberland and East England
helped them, and Alfred was hard beset, but he faced
them boldly. Next year, while he was fighting against
one band in the West, another band came from the East
of England up the Thames and rode across the land.
Alfred pursued them and won a battle, and they went
back to East England. There they left their spoil, and
wives and children-for they came, like the English, with
all their goods, wishing to make a new home—and then
rode across England to Chester, whence they could not
easily be driven. But in 896 the Sussex folk put to
flight one band that came up out of the west. The next
year the Danes brought their ships up the Lea, and made
a fort and sat down there; but the English made a great
cutting and turned the water another way, so the Danish
ships were left dry. This was by Alfred's counsel, for
he had come there to protect the corn against the Danes,
for it was harvest-time. When the Danes saw that they
could not go back by the river they took horse and rode
across to the Severn Valley, and there made another
fort and waited for ships. But the men of London went
up to fetch the ships the Danes had left, and those that
were seaworthy they kept, but the rest they broke up.
Soon after the. Danish host left Alfred's kingdom; some
went off to their brethren on the East coast, and some
went over sea to the Seine, where Rolf was setting up
his earldom.
Alfred's
fleet.
7. But Alfred found that the best way to keep off the
Danes was by having good ships to fight
them at sea, and follow them round the coast.
So he built long ships against the ships of
the Danes, fullnigh twice as long as they, and swifter,
A.D. 897.
A.D. 897-901. Alfred the Truth-teller.
61
steadier, and higher.
shipbuilder, for we are told that he did not copy the
Danish nor Frisian ships, but made them as he thought
best for the work of keeping the coasts. Through the
unskilfulness of their crews they were not able to beat the
Danes who came and plundered the Isle of Wight and
Devon. Yet, though the Danes escaped once from them,
they were not willing to risk themselves as they did
before Alfred had a good fleet; and soon he was better
able by this means to keep the coast.
He seems to have been his own
In 901 he died, and his son Edward was made king.
8. Besides these wars of Alfred and the great troubles
of his reign he found time for many things, so that he got
as great a name as ever English king before Alfred's
or after got. He was called the Truth-teller, character.
and the Great. He was a very just king, and took great
trouble to make good laws, which he chose out of the laws
of Ethelbert and Ini and Offa. Some of his own laws
also he set with them by the counsel of the great men of
England. He made strict laws against robbery, vio-
lence, and evil-doing, and against those who broke the
commandments of the Church and the Bible.
He was a very learned man for his day, and protected
scholars, so that his fame spread abroad. In 891 there
came to see him four of the chief scholars of Ireland,
which was then a great place for learning. He always
had learned men about him, such as Grimbald the
Frank, and Asser the Welshman, who is said to have
written his life. When Alfred found that the Danish
war had driven learning out of the North and destroyed
the schools which had been there from the days of
Bede, he set about finding teachers for his people.
He did what he could to teach them himself, for he
set many books out of Latin into English for them,
that they might learn wisdom; and he added to
62
Early England.
ར
these books what he thought useful out of his own
knowledge. He Englished Bede's Church History, the
Pastoral of Pope Gregory, and the philosophy of Boethius,
and a book by Orosius, who wrote of the world and its
geography. In his reign too the English Chronicles were
put into shape and a full history of Alfred's own time
written therein.
Alfred was very careful of the Church. He often sent
messengers and gifts to the Pope, and there went mes-
sengers from him to the Churches in India and Jerusalem.
He built two monasteries, and over one he put his second
daughter as abbess. The other he built at Athelney, out
of thankfulness for the great deliverance he had after the
evil days he passed there in hiding.
He was fond of hearing about foreign lands, and in
his translation of Orosius he tells us of the travels of two
sea-captains whom he sent to the North Sea and the
Baltic. He was also very fond of music.
He was very hard-working, and never lost a moment,
but always had something to do, and he carried a little
book with him to put down anything that seemned useful
to remember. He governed wisely and chose good
officers, and took care of rich and poor alike. For he
said that in a well-ruled kingdom the priest, the soldier,
and the yeoman should each be taken care of, that each
might do his appointed work as well as possible.
He was very mild of heart and forgiving. Once when
Hasting had broken his oath to him and was fighting
against him he took his wife and children prisoners;
but he sent them back to him and would not keep them
in bonds. He was loved for his good heart as well as for
his wise head; and when he was dead men often wished
that the days of good king Alfred, 'England's darling,'
would come again.
9. Though the Danes were still troublesome after
Alfred the Truth-teller.
63
The Danes.
Alfred's death they were not able to do much harm for a
long time; most of the Danes who had been
seeking a fresh home had found ore, or had
gone back, or had been slain, and so there was rest; and
under the kings who reigned for the next hundred years
England was greater and more peaceful than it had been
before. The reasons why the Danes had been able to
conquer and settle down in so much of the land were:
(1.) They were able to move about more swiftly in their
ships than the English could move along the roads, and
so they often took the English unawares.
(2.) The land of England, though it was under one over-
lord was not yet quite one kingdom. Each part of the
country still acted by itself a good deal, and so the Danes,
though not strong enough to beat the great king, could
often drive away the under-kings or aldermen.
(3.) The Danes were near akin to the English. So,
though the English fought very bravely for their land and
their homes, yet they felt that if the Danes would only
make peace and dwell among them quietly as neighbours
they would be safer than if they had them as foes.
(4.) In the first days of the Danish inroads the English
king had no regular fleet nor army, like our armies of
to-day always ready to fight any foe. He had only his
own guards, and when he wished to go to war he had to
send round and summon all the armed men of the king-
dom and wait till they came together before they could do
anything. They would not stay together very long, but
went back to their business whenever they had won a
battle or lost one, or had served as long as they thought
fit. But the Danes were under better discipline than the
English. When men live much on board ship, they learn
to act together and to obey their captain, and so it was
with the Danes, who often beat the English merely because
they kept better order and were steadier in battle.
•
64
Early England.
F
}
The KELTIC Peoples:
Scotland
Cumberland (now put under the Scottish Kingo)
Wales (North and South)
The ENGLISH:
E. 1. Essex
I.
E. 2. Marchland
E. 3. Wessex
E. 4. Sussex
E. 5. Kent
The DANISH Settlements:
D. 1. Northumberland
I.
D. 2. The Five Boroughs and Lincoln
D. 3. East England
The Lothians, where the Danes did not hold rule, was put
at last under the Scottish Kings.
The NORTHMEN'S Settleinents:
N. 1. The Orkney Earldom and the Kingdom of Man
N. 2. Northmen's Irish Kingdom
N. 3. Normandy.
12.J
·

Western
M
E
N
T S
N1
Orkneys
N. 1.
ENGLAND
UNDER THE
GREAT ENGLISH
KINGS.
Iona
I R
N
AND
N.1
Southern
Island
G I
TLAND
yth Wall
Man
N.1
D. 1
York
DANISH SETTLEMENTS
Edinboro
Lothians
D. 1.
Lindisfarn
SuWall
Bamborough
CUMBERLAND
Dublin Anglesey
N.
N.2.
Stamford Bridge
Chester D.2.
Lichfield
Walling
Worcester
OS Davi
avid
Hereford
S.
Exeter
Lincoln
Leicester
Warwick
Street
Norwich
Ely D.3.
Colchester.
E.1
London
Thanet
Rochester Canterbury
Bristol
Winchester
E.4.
E. 3.
E. 5. Dover
Tarlings & Baldwin's
Land
E.H
F
N.3.
Rouen
90
A.D. 901.
Early England.
CHAPTER XIV.
EDWARD THE ELDER.
1. KING EDWARD, called the ELDER, is said to have
been in learning less, in honour and worth equal, in glory
Edward and greater than his father, for he spread his king-
Ethelfled. dom much farther than Alfred had done.
At first he had much trouble; for one of his cousins,
Ethelwald, son of Ethelred, wished to be king in his
stead. He seized the nunnery of Wimborne which Ini's
sister had founded, and fortified it; he also took one of
the nuns to wife, without leave of the king or bishops.
When Edward heard of this he marched against him.
When Ethelwald saw the number of the king's host he stole
away by night and went into Northumberland, where the
Northern Danes received him kindly and made him their
king. He made an alliance with Yorick, king of the
Danes in East England, and ravaged Kent and the
Marchland. So Edward went up against him, and many
Kentishmen with him, and there was a great battle
fought. When Edward was obliged to give way the men
of Kent would not draw back, they were so angry at the
wasting of their land; but though Edward sent seven
times to them to tell them of their danger, they stayed
and fought on. They could not win the battle, but
Ethelwald and Yorick and many of the chief Danes fell;
and so the danger was stayed. Next year Gorm, the son
of Yorick, and Edward made peace, as Alfred and Gorm-
Ethelstan had done. They also set Watling Street as a
boundary between their lands, and agreed to put down
all witchcraft and heathendom among their people.
Now, Edward and his sister Ethelfled, the Lady of
Mercia, set about fortifying all the towns along the border.
The Lady built up Chester, which was a waste city, and
A.D. 912 922.
67
Edward the Elder.
many towns she walled throughout her land, and some
new ones she built; and Edward did the like in his land.
They fought many battles with the Danes who came
from without, for Gorm kept well to the peace. In 912
Ethelred the alderman died, but Ethelfled governed his
land after his death very bravely and wisely.
+
2. In 913 Charles the Simple, king of the West
Franks, gave Normandy to Rolf and made peace with
him. Of the peace between Charles and Rolf Rolf in Nor-
it is told that when Rolf became Charles's mandy.
man, and swore to hold Normandy of him, he was told to
kiss the king's slipper in token that he took him as his
lord. But he said he would never do that, and he bade
one of his men do it for him. The man, instead of
stooping down, lifted up the king's foot so that he fell
backward on the ground. At this the Northmen laughed,
for they thought it wrong that a man should be so
proud.
3. In 915 a large Danish fleet came to England, and
the Danes tried to land, but they were driven
off and went to Ireland.
The Danes.
And now there was war again between the English
and Danes on the Border; but the Lady was everywhere
victorious, and she took all the Danes' land up to York,
and brought Middle England into Edward's power. At
last just as she was laying siege to York she died. She
had fought too with the Welsh, and taken the Welsh
queen prisoner. When she was dead Edward joined the
Marchland to his kingdom and governed it himself. As
before, Edward was victorious over the Danes, and
though they tried hard they could never take his new
castles and walled towns, for he had at last found the true
way to stay them. So one after another they came to
make peace-first, some Danes from abroad, then the
Danes on the borders of Northumberland. At last, in 922,
F 2
68
A.D. 922-925.
Early England.
the Welsh, who had tried in vain to get hold of Chester,
took him as father and lord. So did the Dane king of
York, and the Welsh of the Clyde Valley, the English
lord of the North who ruled in Bamborough, and the king
of the Scots. So now Edward ruled over all Britain as
overlord, and over a great part as his own kingdom. This
happened in 923, and soon after he died. Men called
Edward the Unconquered, because of his glory in war.
Edward's
children.
4. Edward had many children, and some of his
daughters became queens also, for they were married
to the great kings over-sea-one to Otto the
Emperor, another to Charles the Simple,
another to Louis, king of Arles, and one to Hugh, great
Count of Paris. But one was married to Sigtric, the Dane
king in the North. When Charles the Simple, king of
the West Franks, was driven from his kingdom, Edgif,
his wife, came to England with her little son Lewis, who
was afterwards king in his father's land, and he was
called Lewis 'from over-sea,' because he was long at the
English court.
This shows that the English kings were now great
people, and were thought much of abroad. Also it shows
that the kings after Egbert took much care to be friends
with the kings abroad. Thus England was no more shut
out from the rest of the Western world, as it had been
when there were many small kings in England.
Edward, like his father, made good laws and was
especially careful that the peace should be kept and that
the judges should act uprightly. He also favoured the
Church, and one of his daughters became a nun. And
he set a new bishop in the west of his land, at Wells.
Edward died in 925, and his son Ethelstan was made
king, and there was great joy when he was crowned,
A.D. 925-937. Ethelstan the Steadfast.
69
CHAPTER XV.
ETHELSTAN THE STEADFAST.
wars.
1. ETHELSTAN had some trouble at the beginning of his
reign, for a cousin of his tried to get made king instead,
but he was driven away. Soon the Dane Ethelstan's
king Sigtric died, and the Danes' war broke
out afresh in the North; but Ethelstan took Northumber-
land and joined it to his own kingdom, though the Eng-
lish men of Bamborough tried to withstand him. The
sons of Sigtric fled to Ireland and Scotland and tried to
get help there against him, but Ethelstan made the Scot
king keep the peace. And now Ethelstan took Exeter,
and made it strong, and set Englishmen in it; so the
Welsh had only Cornwall in the West.
But in 937 there gathered a great host against him, for
the Scots and Welsh of Strath Clyde joined the Danes.
Ethelstan and his brother Edmund marched north to meet
them, and they fought at Brunanburg. Of this battle
there is a famous song which tells how Ethelstan slew the
Scot king's son, and five Dane sea-kings (kings of fleets),
and many great men. All day they fought, but when
evening came the English won the fight.
Before the battle it is said that Olaf, one of the Dane
kings, disguised himself as a harper and went into Ethel-
stan's camp to spy out his array. But a soldier who had
fought for Olaf in former days saw him and thought he
knew him. So when the Englishmen gave him money
for his playing he watched him, and when he saw him
bury the money-for Olaf thought it not kingly to take
money from the English when he was acting as a spy-
he was sure it was the king. When Olaf was gone he told
Ethelstan who it was. But Ethelstan asked him why he had
let him go, and the soldier said, 'If I had betrayed him
70
A. D. 937-940.
Early England.
whom I once served how shouldst thou have trusted me,
whom I serve now?' And Ethelstan was pleased with his
answer. But Olaf gathered his men and fell upon Ethel-.
stan's camp that night, and slew a bishop who lay where
Ethelstan had lain. For Ethelstan moved his tent when
he knew that Olaf had spied out his camp. But the
Englishmen woke up, and at last drove out the Danes
and slew many of them. After this great battle the Scot
and Welsh kings made peace with Ethelstan again, for
they feared his might.
Ethelstan
and his
brother.
2. Ethelstan was a very good king, and we never hear
of any evil deed of his doing, save that some say he
caused his brother Edwin to be put in a boat
with one servant and turned adrift at sea,
because he had plotted against him. Edwin
threw himself overboard in despair and was drowned, and
the servant came to land and told of his death. We
do not know certainly that this is true; and as we find
Ethelstan very kind to all his other kinsfolk it is rather
unlikely.
Ethelstan
and foreign
kings.
3. Ethelstan had many friends abroad, as his father
and grandfather had, and it was in his days that mes-
sengers came from the great Count of Paris
to ask the hand of the fairest of his sisters.
They brought him many splendid gifts, one of
which was the sword of Constantine, the Emperor, with
his name in gold letters graven on it; they brought also
the spear of Charles the Great and a beautiful cup
carved marvellously with figures, and horses with fine
trappings, and many fair jewels. The like of these trea-
sures had never been seen in England before. The
Northern books say too that Harold Fairhair sent his
little son Hakon to be brought up by Ethelstan. He sent
too as a present to Ethelstan a great ship with a gilded
prow and a purple sail, and around the bulwarks was a
A.D. 940.
71
Ethelstan the Steadfast.
row of shields, gilt and painted. It is certain that Hakon
was brought up in England, and that he was called from
that Ethelstan's foster-son; but some men say that
he was with Gorm-Ethelstan, the Dane king of East
England, and not with Ethelstan, the English king.
Hakon afterwards became king in Norway, and tried
to make his people Christian, as he was; but they would
not.
birth.
4. The mother of Ethelstan was a poor girl, who was
brought up by the nurse of his father, Edward. One day
while Edward was on a journey he passed Ethelstan's
near the house of his old nurse, and stopped
and went to see her; there he met this poor girl, and fell
in love with her for her great beauty. When Ethelstan
was born his grandfather Alfred was still alive; and when
he saw him grow up a good boy he became very fond of
him, and often prayed that he might be a good and great
king. He gave him a purple cloak and a beautiful sword
with a golden sheath that hung from a jewelled belt. It
was then the custom that when a boy grew up and ber
came a young man he was girt with a sword and belt
like a soldier, and was allowed to fight by the side of the
men in the day of battle. But Ethelstan was made a
soldier when he was yet a boy only six years old.
5. He was very handsome, like his mother, and had
long hair that shone like gold. He was very kind and
good-natured to the poor people, and very Ethelstan's
ready to listen to the priests, to his nobles he character.
behaved as a king should, and towards his enemies he
was very brave and steadfast. He was open-handed, and
when he took spoil in war he dealt it out among his
followers. He would never hoard up riches, but all he
had he gave away that it might be used as wisely as possi-
ble. When he died all men mourned for him, and his
days, though few, were glorious.
72
A.D. 940-944.
Early England.
Edmund
and
Dunstan.
CHAPTER XVI.
EDMUND THE DEED-DOER.
1. EDMUND, his brother, was made king after him; but,
by the counsel of the archbishop of York, the Danes in
the North rose against him, and took Olaf of
Ireland for their king. Edmund went against
them and won back the five great towns in the
north of the Marchland. The English that dwelt therein
and had been so long ruled by the Danes were very glad,
and there was a fine song written on this great deed.
In 943 Olaf made peace with Edmund and was bap-
tized, and Edmund gave him great gifts. In the same
year Dunstan was made abbot of Glastonbury. He was
the son of a great man who lived near Glastonbury, and
was brought up at the abbey there. He had been at the
court of Ethelstan; but some folks there hated him, so he
did not stay long with the king, but was persuaded to
become a monk. And now Edmund took him into his
favour and gave him Glastonbury to rule. He ruled it
well, rebuilt the church, and kept the monks in good
order. He was a very wise man and skilled in all things
for he played and sung well, was a good smith, and painted
very well. He was also wise in ruling men.
Edmund's
2. In 944 Olaf of Ireland died, and Olaf, son of Sigtric,
ruled in his stead. He fought against Edmund; but
Edmund drove him out, and joined all North-
umberland to his own kingdom, so that there
were no more kings there, but only earls, or governors who
ruled for the kings of England.
wars.
In the next year Edmund took Cumberland, and gave
it to the king of the Scots to rule, and the king of Scots
promised in return to be his man and help him in all that
he did.
D
73
A.D. 946.
Edred the Chosen.
3. In 946 Edmund was slain in this way. He was
sitting at meat with his men, and there came in Leof, an
outlaw, for it was the feast-day of S. Augustine, Edmund's
and no man would hurt him on that day, and death.
he sat down with the rest. But the king was wroth when
he saw his boldness, and bade his cup-bearer turn him out.
When he tried to do so Leof withstood him and would
have slain him; but the king leaped up from his seat and
caught Leof by his hair and threw him down. Then
Leof drew a knife and wounded the king to the death;
but the king's followers slew Leof on the spot. Dunstan
had the king buried at Glastonbury, and mourned greatly
for him. Edmund, though he reigned for so few years,
did many great deeds, so that men called him Edmund
the Deed-doer.
CHAPTER XVII.
EDRED THE CHOSEN.
Edred's
I. THEN reigned Edred, his brother. He was a pious
man and ruled well, though he was infirm of
body. He hearkened to the words of Dunstan
and did what he counselled.
wars.
A.D. 946-955.
The Danes in the North rose against him, and the
archbishops with them; but Edred fought against them
for three years, till they asked for peace and became his
men. They had chosen Eric Bloodax, son of Harold
Fairhair of Norway, to be their king; and he withstood
Edred, but Edred drove him out. And Edred put the
archbishop of York in bonds for the harm he had wrought
against him; but after a little while he set him loose.
Edred set two earls over Northumberland, one in
the north, the other in the south of it, to keep it for
him; but that part of it which is called the Lothians,
between the Firth and Tyne, he gave to the king of Scots
74
A.D. 955-958.
Early England.
to hold under him, in the same way as he held Cumber
land already. Edred was as generous as his brother, and
gave much to the Church. In 955 he died, and Dunstan
and all England mourned for him. He has been called
the 'Chosen,' or 'Excellent, for his goodness, and there
have been few kings like him. For he was, like his
grandfather, humble and brave and hard-working.
Edwy's
troubled
reign.
A.D. 955-9.
CHAPTER XVIII.
EDWY.
1. WHEN Edred died, Edwy, the son of Edmund,
was crowned king, and his brother Edgar was
made under-king in the North. Edwy was
very headstrong, and quarrelled with those
who had been the greatest friends of Edred.
He married Elfgif; and Oda, the archbishop, did not
like this marriage, for he held it was against the law.
On the day of Edwy's crowning, when there were many
gathered together at the feast, suddenly the king arose
from the midst of them and left the hall and went to his
wife's bower, where he sat with her, leaving his nobles by
themselves. They were very wroth at this, and bade
Dunstan go and fetch the king back, and he did so.
Soon after this the king drove out Dunstan, who went
to Flanders; but Edgar sent for him, and made him a
bishop in his part of England. Edwy had another reason
for his dislike of him: Dunstan and the best men of the
Church at this time were trying to make the monks
live better, for they had grown lazy and gluttonous.
Edgar and the men of the North were pleased with this;
but Edwy and the men of the South set themselves
against it. At last the quarrel rose so high about this,
and also because of Edwy's foolish acts, that Edgar
rose against his brother and would not obey him. It was
A.D. 958-960. Edgar the Peace-winner.
75
not till Oda persuaded Edwy to put away his wife and do
as he wished that they were reconciled. Some say that
the Marchmen took her prisoner and treated her so
cruelly that she died; and some say this was done by
order of Oda, but others deny it. Soon after this Edwy
died, or was slain, we do not know how, and his brother
became king of all England. Edwy is said to have been
so handsome that he was called the Fair.
CHAPTER XIX.
EDGAR THE PEACE-WINNER.
friends.
1. EDGAR'S rule was very prosperous, and he had
peace for the most part of his reign. The first year of
his reign Dunstan was made archbishop of Dunstan
Canterbury, and he continued the king's friend and his
and adviser all the days of his life. With him
were Oswold, archbishop of York, the nephew of Oda,
and Ethelwald, bishop of Winchester. These men also
did many good works, for they were very wise and skilled
in all arts, as Dunstan was. But one plan they had,
which was to turn out from the cathedrals the priests
who were not monks and put monks in their stead, for
they thought that the monks from their strict life would
do more good. But the parish priests and those priests
who were not monks did not like this, so that there was
a quarrel in the Church.
wars.
2. Edgar at first had to fight against the Scots and
Welsh. He made the greatest of the Welsh kings sue
for peace, which he gave on condition of his Edgar's
promising to pay him three hundred wolves'
heads every year. In those days there were still wolves
in England, and they were a great trouble to the farmers
and shepherds. Once the men of the North revolted,
but Edgar ravaged their land; and some say it was
76
A. D. 973.
Early England.
he, and not Edred, that gave the Lothians to Kenneth to
govern.
The crown-
ing of
Edgar.
3. In 973 Edgar was solemnly crowned. Some say
that the reason he had not been crowned before was that
he had done an evil thing. When he repented
and confessed his sin the archbishop had told
him that he should not be crowned for seven
years, as a sign of repentance. However this was, it is
certain that there was a very grand feast; and after it
Edgar went with his fleet to Chester. There he was met
by the kings over whom he was over-lord-five Welsh
kings, and Kenneth, the king of Scots, and the under-
king of Cumberland, and the Danish king of the Southern
Isles. These eight rowed him on the river in his barge,
and he sat and steered. So Edgar held greater state
than ever any English king had held before. Even the
Danish kings of Dublin bowed to him, and money was
struck there in his name. Every year while Edgar lived
his fleet sailed round England to guard it, so that no foes
could land without a fight.
4. When he was dead there began evil
English, so that men looked back to his
there was peace and good laws.
Edgar's
rule and
character.
days for the
reign when
Edgar, like
all great kings, was very careful about good
laws, and, with the help of Dunstan and the
wise men of England, he made many such, and saw
that they were kept, and anyone who broke them was
sternly punished. Once the men of Thanet plundered
some foreign merchants, and when Edgar heard of it
he sent an army to punish them, and laid waste all their
island.
In his days Peterborough was built up again, which
Wolfere had founded, but it had fallen into decay through
the long Danish wars. He made it so rich with precious
gifts and lands that it was called the Golden Borough.
A.D. 975.
77
Edgar the Peace-winner.
Many stories are told about Edgar which, if they were
true, would make him not a very good man; but whether
they be true or not he was certainly a good king and
ruled his people well, if he could not always rule himself.
He was a little man, but very strong, and afraid of
nothing. One day while the king of Scotland was
sitting at drink with his men he said, 'Wonderful it is to
me that so many lands should obey one little man.' A
certain minstrel heard this, and told it to Edgar, mocking
him. When Edgar heard it he sent for Kenneth, saying
that he had certain matters to say to him alone. When
he came he took him into a wood apart, and brought out
two swords, and gave Kenneth one of them, saying,
Now let us try which of us is the best man, and see
whether I am unfit to rule taller men than myself.
Neither shalt thou leave this wood till we have proved
this; for unkingly it is to say that at a feast which thou
wouldst not hold to in a fray.' And Kenneth was as-
tonished and fell at his feet and prayed his forgiveness,
saying that he had spoken but in jest. Then Edgar was
content and forgave him.
5. There is another story told of Edgar which, though
if not perhaps true, yet there was a ballad about it, and
it is a famous story. There was a beautiful
The story of
lady in Edgar's days whose name was Elfth- Elfthrith
rith, and the fame of her beauty was so great that the
king heard of it. So he sent a friend of his, whose name
was Ethelwald, to ask her hand for him of her father.
But when Ethelwald saw her he fell in love with her
himself; so he told the king that she was not so fair as
people had said, and instead of the king's marrying her
he married her himself. After some time the truth was
told the king, and he was very wroth; but he did not
show it, and spoke kindly to Ethelwald, and told him
he would come and see him. When Ethelwald heard
78
A.D. 975.
Early England.
that he was sore afraid. So he went home and told his
wife Elfthrith the whole truth, and begged her to make
herself as ugly as she could, and dress herself in mean
raiment, that the king might not suspect his deceit. But
she was very angry because he had prevented her from
being a king's wife; so when the king came to the house
of Ethelwald she dressed herself in fine raiment and
made herself look as handsome as she could. When the
king saw how fair she was he was the more enraged, and
while he was hunting with Ethelwald he thrust a spear
through him so that he died.
Ethelwald had a son before he married Elfthrith, and
the young man was by when his father was slain. When
the king saw him he said to him, 'What think you of this
kind of hunting?' for he was very angry. And the young
man answered 'My lord, how should I be displeased at
what pleases you?' The king was appeased by his ready
answer, and his anger left him. Afterwards he was very
kind to him, and gave him great gifts, that he might
atone for the slaying of his father. Edgar sent for
Elfthrith and married her, so that she became a king's
wife after all. She founded a house for nuns also where
Ethelwald was slain, that the sin of Edgar might not fall
upon her.
Dunstan
ward.
CHAPTER XX.
•
EDWARD THE MARTYR.
1. WHEN Edgar died he left two sons. Elfthrith was
the mother of the younger, whose name was Ethelred;
the name of the other was Edward. By his
and Ed- will he desired that Edward should be king;
and though Elfthrith wished that her little
son, who was only seven years old, should be king, Dun-
stan and the Wise Men chose Edward. Before he was
crowned there arose a great quarrel between the North
A.D. 975-979.
79
Edward the Martyr.
and South of England about the monks; for Elfhere,
alderman of the English March, drove out the monks
and filled their places with simple priests; but the great
aldermen of Essex and East England gathered a host to
defend them. It was the Northern folk that had helped
Edgar against his brother; so now they stood out for
Edward, while the Southern folk wished for Ethelred.
But Dunstan and Oswald, the two archbishops, prevented
a war, though Elfhere did many evil deeds against the
monks all the days of Edward.
There were many meetings of the great men of Eng-
land throughout this reign to try and settle things peace-
fully. At one of these a strange thing happened. While
the elders of England were sitting together in an upper
chamber the floor suddenly fell, save one beam on
which Dunstan was standing. So he was not hurt; but
of the others some were sore hurt and others killed.
After this men believed more in Dunstan than they did
before, for they thought that God had kept him from
harm for a sign to them.
death.
2. In 979 an evil deed was done, so that the song of
that day says 'no worse deed was done among the English
since they first sought the land of Britain.' It Edward's
is said that it happened in this
happened in this way. Edward
had been out hunting, and as he was riding home weary
from the chase he came near the house of his stepmother
and rode to it. There she met him and received him
well, and gave him to drink, for he was very thirsty; but
as he was drinking she bade one of her followers stab
him in the back, and he did so. When the king felt that
he was wounded he spurred his horse and rode off as
fast as he could; but he was so faint that he could not
sit in his saddle. So he fell off, and his foot caught
the stirrup, and he was dragged along by the frightened
horse through the rugged wood till he died. Men said
that Elfthrith and Elfhere had plotted to slay him as they
80
A. D. 979.
Early England.
best could. But Edward was held a martyr; and soon
Elfthrith repented her of her evil deed and went into a
house of nuns, where she stayed all her days praying for
the forgiveness of her sins. Elfhere afterwards brought
the body of the king in great state to Shaftesbury Minster,
which Alfred had built. Soon after he died of a dreadful
disease, and men said God so punished him for his sin.
Edward is said to have been a good king on earth,
and after his death a saint in heaven. He was fair to
look on, like most of the men of his race.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHANGES IN ENGLAND UNDER THE GREAT KINGS.
The Church.
1. UNDER the great English kings many changes had
come about. First, the Church had brought men toge-
ther for one great purpose, and had taught
that all Christians were brothers whether
they spoke the same tongue or were of the same tribe
or not. Moreover the monks, who lived together in
minsters or large houses, with great lands round them, had
kept alive the learning which king Alfred restored, and
had taught the English many useful things, so that build-
ing and the arts and trades were all improved. The monks
too were great gardeners, and brought into England many
new herbs and plants which were useful for medicine or
for food. It is to monks that we owe the famous Old
English Chronicle, a book which tells us most of all others
about Early England. Many other books, chiefly written
in Latin, have come down to us from their hands.
2. Next the kings had grown more powerful; for not
only did they now rule a people instead of a tribe, but
they held stricter sway over their subjects, and
were more looked up to. Edward and Ethel-
stan had divided the Marchland into shires, for the old tribe
The King.
CH. VIII.
81
Changes in England.
kingdoms in the Marchland had been swept over by the
Danes and their governments destroyed. So these kings
divided the land round the great towns which they had forti-
fied, and put a sheriff or shire-steward over each shire by the
side of the alderman to look after its rule. The towns too
had grown more important, and more people dwelt in them,
Moreover, now that so many kingdoms were joined
together, there was one great council which helped the king
to govern the land. This council was made up of the wise
and great men out of all England, and was above all the
little councils which each small kingdom and each shire
had. Over it the king and the archbishop presided, just
as the bishop and the alderman and sheriff presided at the
shire-meetings or folk-meetings. This great council was
called the Witena-gemôt, or Meeting of the Wise Men.
It met usually once or twice a year, and made laws and
chose the kings, and if a king behaved badly turned him
out and put another in.
The nobles.
3. The great men of the kingdom were different too
from what they had been. The officers of the king's
household became great nobles, and the ser-
vants of the king became nobles also; so that
the nobles were no more called eorls, but thanes, that is to
say servants. It was no longer gentle birth that made
men nobles, but service done to the king. From these
thanes the king and the wise men chose the sheriffs and
aldermen for the shires and under-kingdoms. The nobles
too had grown more powerful, for many poor men sought
the help of them and their followers, and to gain this they
gave their lands to the nobles, who gave them back to
them on condition that they worked for them; so that
few small men now held their lands quite freely.
4. In the villages and small towns the old family
feeling of the clan had died out; and the villagers often
made clubs, which managed their business, as the old
E. H.
G
82
BK. VII.
Early England.
council of elders had done. These clubs were called
The vil- guilds. They were made for helping each
lages.
other, and for safety against robbers and the
like. They held a pastime in every year, which became
the village feast.
5. The coming of the Danes and their settling among
the English helped also to change England. It bound the
English more together, for they were all ob-
The Danes. liged to work together against their common
foe. The Danes stirred up the minds of the English
among whom they settled, for they were more active
and restless than they. They also prevented the Eng-
lish where they settled from becoming too much the
servants of the great men, for they were too fond of their
freedom to let it go easily.
Ethelred
and Dun-
stan.
CHAPTER XXII.
ETHELRED THE UNREADY.
1. ETHELRED, the next king, was not at all like the
great kings before him. He was cruel and foolish, and,
above all, would not take good advice, but
always listened to those who pleased him
at the time. He was called the 'Unready,'
which did not mean then what it would now mean, but
'Ill-advised.' Men said that his reign was cruel at its
outset, wretched in its course, and disgraceful in its end.
In the first ten years of his reign Dunstan was alive;
and though when he crowned him he is said to have pro-
phesied evil of him, because of the cruel deed by which
A. D. 979-991.
83
Ethelred the Unready.
he came to the throne, yet he helped him with his advice,
so that he did no very evil thing while Dunstan lived.
When he was crowned the South English were very glad,
because they were against the monks, and because the
last two kings had been chosen by the Northern Eng-
lish. But the Northern English were very wroth, for they
did not like the South Englishmen to rule over them, so
they broke away from Ethelred's government.
When Elfhere died Elfric was made alderman of the
Marchmen. He was a bad man and a traitor, and did
little good to England. The king had a quarrel too during
this time with the bishop of Rochester, and Dunstan tried
to pacify the king; but he would not be stayed. Then Dun-
stan sent him a gift of money, and he made peace with
the bishop. Dunstan was very wroth, and sent to the
king this message: 'Because thou hast preferred silver
to righteousness therefore those evils of which I spake
shall come upon thee, but not while I live, for so hath the
Lord told me.' Dunstan died three years after this (989)
And the words which he spake were fulfilled.
The Danes.
2. Already the Danes and Northmen had begun to
attack England again; and now Olaf, the Northman,
came to England with a great host and did
much evil. But in 991 Bertnoth, the alder-
man of Essex, fought a great battle with the Danes at
Maldon. There he fell; but his men stood and fought
over his body, and though they lost the day they saved
his body from the heathen, as the Song of Maldon tells us.
In this same year the Wise Men, by the advice of
archbishop Sigric, did a very foolish thing-they laid a
tax on the people and raised 10,000l., which they gave to
the Danes to buy them off. This tax was called the
Dane-gild or Dane-money. The Danes took the money
and went away for awhile, but next year came back
and ravaged England again to get more, and so it went
4
6 3
84
A. D. 991-99%.
Early England.
on.
There was a fleet gathered; but Elfric sent word to
the Danes of it and joined himself to them when they
came to London to fight the English. The English beat
them, and Elfric fled. Then Ethelred put out the eyes
of Elfric's son for the evil deeds of his father, which was
a cruel and unkingly deed.
Olaf, the
Norwegian
king.
3. Soon after Olaf, the Northman, was joined by
Sweyn Fork-beard, the king of Denmark. He had passed
all his early days in fighting with his father, but now
that his father was dead and he was king be began to
make war upon England, and a sore foe he was. He and
Olaf beset London with ships, but the London-
ers beat them off. Soon after, by the good
advice of Elfheg, bishop of Winchester, Ethel-
red made peace with Olaf, who was confirmed, and
Ethelred became his god-father. Olaf had been baptized
in the Scilly Islands; but the Norwegians were still
heathen. Ethelred gave him great gifts, and Olaf swore
to him that he would never ravage England more. He
kept his word, and departed to Ireland, and there he
married, and soon after was made king of Norway. His
rule was stormy, for he tried to make his folk Christians
by force; and they would not. In the end he fell in a great
sea-fight against his former friend Sweyn, whom his people
had called in to help them against Olaf. Olaf was the
strongest, handsomest, and most accomplished man of his
time. He was very steadfast to his word; but he was
cruel and headstrong. To the host of Sweyn and Olaf
16,000l. was given to bribe them to sail away when peace
was made with Olaf.
4. In 997 and the next two years Sweyn came again
and plundered Wessex, Sussex, and Kent. At last the
Wise Men took counsel and got together a
other wars. large fleet; but the captains fell to quarrelling
among themselves, so nothing was done.
Ethelred's
A.D.1000-1002. Ethelred the Unready.
85
Next year Ethelred, instead of making his realm safe
against the Danes, sent his fleet to fight the Normans.
There it sped ill and was driven back. This he did
because the Normans had received the Danish ships in
their ports.
He himself and his army went north and
laid waste Cumberland, because Malcolm, the under-king,
would not pay him money to help buy off the Danes;
for Malcolm said that he was bound to fight for the Eng-
lish king, and would gladly do so, but he would not pay
money. Ethelred was wroth, and perhaps ashamed, and
so he warred against him.
5. The quarrel with Normandy was soon made up, for
in the year 1002 Ethelred married Emma, whom the
English called Elfgif, the sister of the duke of Nor-
mandy. She was very fair, but she was not a good
woman.
The mas-
sacre of
S. Brice.
That year the English paid 24,000l. to the Danes for
peace. So we see they had to give more and more each
time, and it was of little avail. Then the king
did a very evil deed, by the advice of one of his
favourites, Edric Streona (the Gainer). He
had all the Danes slain who had remained in the South of
England on the day of S. Brice. It fell on Saturday, the
day the Danes used to bathe; so many were slain defence-
less in the evening while they were in their baths. Among
the rest was slain Gunhild, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, who
was married to an earl in England named Pallig. They took
her and slew her husband before her, and thrust spears
through her son so that he died also. She never turned
pale, but bore the dreadful sight bravely, and told the
English that this deed of theirs would bring great evils
on their land also. When she was slain men marvelled
that her face was not altered by death, but that she looked
as fair as if she were alive.
6. When Sweyn heard the news of this he was wroth,
86
A. D. 1002–1006.
Early England.
Sweyn's
revenge.
and got together a mighty host to avenge her and fulfil
the vow which he made once at a great feast
that he would drive out Ethelred or die him-
self. He laid siege to Exeter, and Hugh, the French-
man, whom queen Emma had set over it (for the king
had given it to her as a marriage gift), betrayed it to
him, and he took and plundered the city and broke down
the wall. Thence he went on to Wessex, where Elfric
came against him. Here again was treason, for when the
armies were in array Elfric feigned to be suddenly taken
ill, and so would do nothing. Sweyn passed by and
burned Salisbury, and ravaged the West Saxons' land.
7. But Wolfkettle, alderman of the East English,
resisted the Danes in the East. When they broke their
Wolfkettle. promise and would not go away, but left their
A.D. 1004. ships and rode up the country, Wolfkettle
ordered men to go to the Danish ships to burn them.
Sweyn was just hurrying back to them, when Wolfkettle
fell upon him, and there was a hard fight, so that the
Danes said they had never had harder work since they
came to England; but neither side could beat the other,
so they both drew off. But because of the disobedience
of Wolfkettle's men the Danish ships were left whole,
and the Danes sailed off in them to Denmark.
Danes and
Scots.
8. There was a great famine all over England the next
year, so that much folk died of hunger, and that famine
was long remembered. In 1006 the Danes
came again, and went up to a place called
Cuckhamsley, far into England, to defy the old prophecy
which said that any foe who got as far as that spot should
never come back alive. The king and the Wise Men
gave them 36,000l. to go away that year. In these days
Elfheg became archbishop, and Elfhelm, the Northum-
brian earl of York, was treacherously slain by Edric; but
the king made Edric earl of the Marchland.
A.D. 1006–1009. Ethelred the Unready.
87
.
The Scottish king also invaded England, but the earl
Utred of Bamborough drove the Scots from Durham,
which they had attacked, and slew many of them. He
cut off their heads and set them on spikes round the
walls of Durham; and gave the two women who washed
the heads before they were set up a cow for a reward.
9. In 1008 Ethelred gathered a great fleet again, and
ordered that many new ships should be built, and that all
those who held land should pay for them, and this seemed
good to the Wise Men. Indeed, if Ethelred had always
kept a strong fleet like Edgar's he might have Ethelred's
often stopped the landing of the Danes. But fleet.
quarrels broke out, and the chief men fought among
themselves. There came too a great storm which de-
stroyed many ships, and some were burnt in the strife
(1009), so all the people's trouble was brought to nought.
This was the last chance which Ethelred had of beating
the Danes, for from now till he fled away to Normandy
there was war, and chiefly with Thorkettle, or Thorkell,
who came to England with a fleet of pirates, till in 1013
Sweyn came back.
Archbishop
Elfheg's
death.
10. Many towns were taken and burnt, and many men
were sold into captivity or slain. The good archbishop
Elfheg was taken prisoner by Thorkell's host,
and they would have him pay a great sum for
his ransom; but he said that he would not rob
the poor for the sake of himself. They were very angry
with him, and one day they brought him to a feast,
and after the feast when they were heated with wine they
flung at him bones and the heads of the beasts which
they had feasted on, till one of them pitying him slew
him with a blow of his axe. This happened at Green-
wich, so the London people sent for his body, which
the Danes gave up to them. It is said that Thorkell
offered the soldiers all that he had, except his ships, if
88.
A.D. 1009-1013
Early England.
they would let Elfheg go unhurt; but they would not
When Thorkell saw his holy death he went over to Ethel-
red with forty-five ships and a great host, and served him,
for he would no more be with heathen men, and he be-
came a Christian.
Then the king sent Edric against the Welsh, and he
marched through South Wales and laid it waste. And
so it always was with Ethelred: when the Danes came
he would do nothing but buy them off; but he would
always be ready to fight with the other princes of Britain
who were his own under-kings, with whom he should have
been at peace.
11. When Sweyn heard that Thorkell had joined
Ethelred he was ill-pleased. So he came again to Eng-
land with his son Canute, and they now set about con-
quering England, according to Sweyn's vow. First he
got the men of the North to submit to him. They had
Sweyn never much liked Ethelred, though they had
Forkbeard
wins Eng-
fought hitherto against the Danes when they
land.
came as plunderers or settlers to oust them
from their homes. Now that Sweyn came with fair
promises, wishing to be king of England, they took him
as their king. Leaving his son to rule them while he
went south, Sweyn rode right across England and over
the Marchland and took Winchester; but Thorkell and
Ethelred drove him from London. He went on, into
the far South and took all the West Saxons' land, and
now he was king over all England save London. When
Ethelred saw that he fled in Thorkell's ships, with his
wife and children, to his brother-in-law's court in Nor-
mandy; and the people of London took Sweyn for king.
Thorkell stayed with part of his fleet and still took
king Ethelred's part; but all he could do was to lay
taxes on the English to keep his fleet, so that they liked
that ill.
A.D. 1013-1014. Ethelred the Unready.
89
Sweyn Forkbeard was not long king, but died as he
was on his way to plunder S. Edmundsbury. He thought
he saw S. Edmund ride against him and smite him
because of his evil errand; but no man saw that sight
save the king only, who fell off his horse and was never
whole again, but died that night in great pain.
Ethelred
and Canute.
A.D. 1014.
12. Then the Wise Men sent over to Ethelred, in
Normandy, to ask him to come back. They told him
that they would be glad to have him as king again if he
would promise to rule them better; and he promised that
he would do as they wished in all matters. The Wise Men
said that no Danish king should rule England
again, but that if any tried he should be held
an outlaw, and any man who could might
slay him. Yet the chief men of the Danish host chose
Canute to be their king; but he was driven out by Ethelred
and his brave son Edmund, who was called Ironside, and
went away to Denmark. Ethelred gave the Danes who
had served him so well under Thorkell a great sum of
money, so that men said the Danes were as greedy and
evil friends as they were foes.
Brian's
battle.
A. D. 1014.
13. In this year there was fought on Good Friday a
battle in Ireland, at Clontarf, hard by Dublin, between
the Northmen of Dublin and the Western
Islands and the head king of Ireland, Brian.
There were many heathen among the North-
men, but Brian and his folk were Christians. The North-
men fled before the Irish, and as they fled one of them
broke into the tent where Brian was praying for his men,
for he was an old man and stricken in years, and there he
slew him. So the prophecy was fulfilled which was in
men's mouths, that the Northmen should lose the battle,
but that Brian should fall. There was a great slaughter,
for it was a very high tide, and many men were drowned
in the Liffey, which ran very high. This battle also the
90
A. D. 1014–1015.
Early England.
Northmen took for a sign that the Christian faith was the
best; so after this those who were still heathen turned
from their old gods and were baptized.
The burn-
ing at Ox-
ford,
14. In 1015 there was a meeting of the Wise Men at
Oxford, and there Edric wrought another wicked deed.
He slew the two chiefs of the five great
boroughs of the North Marchland, and when
their followers fled to the great tower of the
minster he set fire to it, and there were they all slain or
burnt. Eldgyth, the widow of one of the chiefs, was
spared, and was set in keeping as a prisoner. When
Edmund Ironside, the king's son saw her he married her
against his father's will, and ruled the Five Boroughs as
her husband. Edric is said to have hated Edmund and
to have always acted treacherously towards him. Now,
both Edric and Utred had married daughters of Ethelred.
Edric and his brothers always advised the king ill; but
Utred helped his brother-in-law Edmund.
Ethelred's
death.
15. Then Ethelred fell sick; so Edric led the West
Saxons against the Northern English under Edmund.
Soon he went over to Canute, who now came
back with a mighty host, and they marched
over the land plundering it, while Ethelred was in London
doing nothing. At last Utred also joined Canute. And
soon after Ethelred died.
CHAPTER XXIII.
EDMUND IRONSIDE.
1. THEN the Marchmen chose Edmund king at
London; but some of the English chose Canute as king
Edmund at Southampton. Utred gained little by not
and Canute. staying with Edmund, for Canute sent for him
as if he would speak with him; and when he was come
A. D. 1016.
91
Edmund Ironside.
to the king's hall, there suddenly sprang out upon him a
band of men who slew him and the men that were with
him, forty souls; and his earldom was given to his
enemies. Then Edric turned round again and joined
Edmund, but was of little use to him. Canute and Ed-
mund fought five pitched battles this year, all along the
borders of Wessex; but Edmund nearly always won, for
he was both brave and skilful. Once he met Canute in
battle and clove his shield in two with his sword. But
the fifth battle at Assandun in Essex was the most
famous. Both kings were there, and fought each under
his own banner. Edmund's was the golden dragon, and
Canute's the magic raven. The raven's wings moved in
the wind, which the Danes took for a sign of victory; but
when the battle was joined the Danes at last gave way
before the English, and they would have been defeated
entirely, had not Edric with his men left the battle. Then
the Danes came on again, and in the end the English
were obliged to leave the field to them. In that fight
many good men fell, and among them Wolfkettle, the
East English alderman, brother-in-law of Edmund.
A.D. 1016.
2. There would have been another battle, but the two
kings, by the advice of the Wise Men of England, agreed
to make peace, and to divide the kingdom Peace of
between them. Edmund was to be the head Olney.
king, and to have the East and South, while
Canute was to have the Marchland and Northumberland.
It is said that the two kings at first agreed that they
two should fight alone, to see who should have all Eng-
land; but, when they had fought a short while Canute
offered to share the realm with Edmund, and he agreed
thereto, and they exchanged swords and cloaks and were
made sworn friends. This peace which was made at
Olney-on-Severn, lasted only a short while, for Edmund
died suddenly, and men said that Edric slew him by craft
92
A. D. 1016.
Early England.
to gain the favour of Canute; and this was the worst of
all his evil deeds.
Edmund Ironside was a very big man, bold, quick,
persevering and never discouraged; but in one thing he
seems to have been foolish, in that he trusted Edric, the
alderman of the Marchland, though he knew what evil
deeds he had wrought. Perhaps this was because he
could not help it, but was afraid of his going over to
Canute again. For though Edric was so bad he seems
to have been very powerful in his own earldom, and
he was a man of such guile that Edmund may have
thought it better to have him as a friend than as a foe.
It is to be remembered too that we only have the story as
told by Edric's enemies. So that after all he may not
have been so bad as they would make out. For that he
should have been so wicked, and yet so much trusted, it
is very hard to believe.
Canute and
Edmund's
CHAPTER XXIV.
CANUTE THE GREAT.
1. CANUTE began his reign by trying to settle his
English kingdom, for of all the kingdoms that he had
then and afterwards he loved England best.
First he outlawed those of the English blood-
children. royal that were in England; and when the
wise men gave him the care of the children of Edmund
Ironside he sent them to Sweden, to his half-brother
king James. It is said that he asked him to slay them;
for he would not slay them himself for the brotherhood
that he had sworn with their father. But king James
would not, and sent them to Stephen, who was the first
Christian king of Hungary, that he might take care of
them. And they abode a long time at his court.
A. D. 1016-1017.
93
Canute the Great.
death.
2. Canute set earls as governors over the land; but
he kept Wessex himself, for there he chiefly lived.
He gave the Marchland to Edric; to Thorkell he gave
East England; to Eric, when he had mar- Edric's
ried his sister, he gave Northumberland;
and these great men ruled the land under him. But
Edric was angry because the king did not give him more
power, and it is said that he told the king that he had
slain Edmund Ironside for his sake. When Canute
heard these words he bade his followers slay Edric,
saying that he who had betrayed his lord for lands and
gold would never be faithful to him. So Edric was
slain in the king's sight, and was cast out of the window
into the river that ran below. Men held that Canute had
done very rightly, for through the evil deeds of Edric
many good men had met their death; and he was so
crafty and powerful that he was able to do much evil.
Canute also soon sent Thorkell from England into Den-
mark, for he was so great a man that he feared lest he
should do evil.
Canute and
3. In the same year, 1017, Canute sent to Normandy
and asked the duke to give him Emma, Ethelred's
widow, in marriage, for she had fled thither
with her children. He did so; and Emma Emma,
came back and was again Lady of the English; and she
bore Canute two children, Gunhild and Hardi-Canute.
Gunhild married king Henry, who was afterwards made
Emperor; but Hardi-Canute became king.
Canute and
4. Canute now set two Englishmen in power, who
became very famous men, Leofric and Godwin. Leofric
was made earl of the Marchmen, and God-
win was made earl of Wessex, under the king. the great
Leofric was a good man, and tried to bring
about peace in England whenever the great men fell out.
Godwin was a very wise man, and became the greatest
earls.
94
A. D. 1017-1027.
Early England.
man in England next the king, and his sons became
earls as well as himself. Canute was so pleased at his
wisdom and bravery in a war which he had in the Baltic,
one time when he was away from England, that he
singled him out and trusted him with an earldom.
5. Canute was not only king of England and Den-
mark but he also drove out the king of Norway, and
was chosen king there also; and over the
Swedish king his will had great weight.
Canute's
mighty
power.
The
Scots also acknowledged him as their over-
lord; but he had to make war with them for attacking
England while he was away at Rome. Then they made
peace and submitted to his commands.
6. Canute went twice to Rome, it is said, to atone for
his evil deeds. While he was there in 1027 he wrote a
long letter home to the English people, in
Canute's
rule.
which he told them all about his journey and
the kings whom he had met, and how he had spoken
with the Pope. He also promised to rule them well, and
never take money unjustly from them, and to make all
his great men do right also. He said too that he had never
spared any trouble for his people's good, and that he
never would. These promises he fulfilled; for though he
had done some cruel things to the great men he had
never done harm to his people since he was made king.
He set good laws very strictly against all evildoers, so
that in after-days his name became famous as a law-giver.
To the Church he was very open-handed, and he gave a
splendid altar covering, embroidered with peacocks, to
Glastonbury, where the body of king Edmund Ironside
lay. He built a church at Assandun, and set Stigand,
who afterwards became a famous man, to pray and preach
in it. This he did as a token of thankfulness and remem-
brance of the battle that he had fought there. Canute
was a great friend of the monks also.
A.D. 1027–1035.
95
Canute the Great.
It is said that when Emma's brother was dead his
son, duke Robert, who soon after reigned in Normandy,
gathered together a fleet to conquer England, drive out
Canute, and put on the throne Emma's two sons, who
were still in Normandy; but the weather was bad, and
such of the ships as were not destroyed were obliged to
put back.
Canute's
character.
7. Canute was a little man, but strong of body, and
exceeding wise and crafty, so that no man knew his real
mind. He was very good to strangers, but
careful of his money, and not fond of useless
spending, for he was not willing to burden his people.
He was more loved by the English than by the Danes, for
he set Englishmen, and not Danes, as earls in England;
and he would not suffer the Danes to spoil England, as
they wished, but he ruled as an English king and not like
a foreign conqueror. He was fond of music and singing,
and made verses. One day while he was being rowed in
his barge to Ely he heard the song of the monks at their
service in the minster ringing across the water, so he
made a song :-
Merry the monks of Ely sing
As by them rows Canute the King-
Row, men, to the land more near,
That we these good monks' song may hear.
Other verses also he put to it; and this song was held in
remembrance by the monks of Ely, for he was a good
friend to them and gave them many gifts.
He was a very godly man at the end of his reign.
It is told of him that one day he ordered his chair to be
set on the sand by the sea when it was low water.
When the tide began to rise he spoke to the sea and
forbade it to rise; but the water rose till it washed round
his chair and wetted his feet and garments. Then he
·
96
A. D. 1027–1035.
Early England.
1
arose and said to those that were with him, 'Though
kings be mighty and rule wide realms yet will not the
seas obey them; therefore to God alone be honour and
praise, for he rules all things, and the wind and the seas
obey Him.' This he did as an example, lest men should
honour man and forget God who made them. And
never after that day would he wear his crown ; but he set
it on the head of the image of Jesus on the Cross that was
in the old church at Winchester.
Canute was very fond of hunting, and made laws
that no man should hunt in the lands which were under
the care of the king.
Canute's
guards and
priests.
8. Canute kept a great many men always about him,
like a little army, and men came from all the North lands
to serve in his guards, so that there were not
in all the world at that time such soldiers as
they. He made rules for them also that
all things might be done in order; and it was by help
of this guard that he was able to do such great deeds in
war. He sent to Denmark many English priests, who
taught his own people several English customs which he
thought would be useful to them; for the English were
not so rude a folk as the Danes were.
CHAPTER XXV.
HAROLD-HAREFOOT AND HARDI-CANUTE.
1. CANUTE had two other sons besides Hardi-Canute,
Harold, called Harefoot for his swiftness, and Sweyn; but
Emma was not their mother. He divided his
Canute's
sons.
kingdoms among the three. To Sweyn he
gave Norway, and to Hardi-Canute, Denmark, but he
gave England to Harold. When Canute was dead it
A. D. 1035–1040.
97
Harold Harefoot, &c.
was not at all sure what men would do; for Godwin and
Emma and the English in the South were for Hardi-
Canute; but the men of the North and Leofric and the
seamen of London, who were most of them Danes, would
have Harold for their king, as Canute had wished. It
was settled at last, by Leofric's advice, that Harold should
rule in the North, and Hardi-Canute in the South. But
Hardi-Canute stayed in Denmark, and his mother and
Godwin ruled for him in England.
2. Next year, 1036, Alfred and Edward the Ethelings,
sons of Ethelred, came to England out of Normandy, and
a train of Normans with them. It is not cer-
The death
tain why they came, for their mother loved of Alfred.
Hardi-Canute rather than them. Some say it was to gain
the kingdom of the south part of England, as Hardi-
Canute was away. But Godwin stopped them, and Alfred
was seized by some men of Harold, who blinded him
and brought him to Ely, where he died; and his men
they slew cruelly with torments. But his mother sent
Edward back to Normandy. It was said that both God-
win and Emma had a hand in this evil deed, though it
was done by Harold's men. And there was a song made
about it which says no darker deed had been done in
England since the Danes came.
Emma
banished.
A.D. 1037.
3. At last men grew weary of waiting for Hardi-
Canute, and his mother was not much liked; so the South
English also chose Harold as their king, and
drove Emma out of England. She went to
Flanders, where Baldwin ruled, and he received
her kindly, and thither came her son Hardi-Canute to
visit her. Not long after this Harold died (1040), and
the great men of England sent messengers to Flanders
to pray Hardi-Canute to come and reign over them; and
he came over, and was crowned king; and he brought his
mother back with him.
E. H.
H
98
A.D. 1040.
Early England.
Hardi-
Canute.
4. Hardi-Canute did not reign long. He was a very
stern king, and not much liked, save by those about his
court, for he kept great state, and gave them
all four meals a day. He ordered the body of
his brother to be dug up and cast out into a
sewer, that he might dishonour it as much as he could.
A heavy tax was laid upon England to pay for the Danes
of the fleet which he brought with him.
A.D. 1040.
At that time Godwin was accused of having caused
the death of Alfred the Etheling; but he denied it on
oath, and most of the great men took an oath that they
believed him guiltless. So nothing was done to him; and
he gave the king a great ship as a gift, that he might not
bear any anger against him. It was beautifully painted
and gilt; in it were eighty soldiers, clothed in red, with
gold rings on their arms and gilt helmets on their heads,
and on one shoulder they bore a Danish axe (for the
Danes at that time used to fight with great axes, which
they wielded with both hands), and in their right hand a
spear of iron. Round about the ship were laid their
shields, painted and gilt. This was the finest ship that
had been seen in England since the ship that Harold
Fairhair sent to Ethelstan.
The king sent his guard to gather in the tax which
had been laid upon England; but the people at Worcester
rose against them and slew two of them. When the
king heard it he was very angry, and bade Godwin and
Leofric and Siward, the Danish earl of the North, for earl
Eric was now dead, ravage Worcester. So they burnt
the city; but they let the people go.
Soon after this Hardi-Canute sent for his half-brother
Edward to come to England to live with him and his
mother, and he came over.
One day king Hardi-Canute went to the wedding
feast of one of his great men, and while he was standing
A.D. 1042.
99
Harold Harefoot, &c.
up to drink he was seized with an illness, and fell to the
earth and never spoke word more.
He was a king of whom we know very little, and not
much good. Neither he nor his brother Harold left any
children.
CHAPTER XXVI.
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.
rule.
1. WHEN Hardi-Canute died, Edward, his half-brother,
was chosen king, This was chiefly done by the help of
Godwin and his men; for some would have Edward's
had Sweyn, king of Denmark, cousin of first years of
Hardi-Canute, as king. Many of those who
had been against Edward were outlawed when he be-
came king. Edward took away a good part of his mother
Emma's riches because she had not helped him in his
need; but he suffered her to live quietly at Winchester.
She was a greedy woman and could not bear to part
with her money; and she had always disliked her son
Edward, because of the hatred she bore to his father
Ethelred, her first husband.
In 1045 Edward married Edith Godwin's daughter,
and thus bound himself closer to the house of Godwin.
At this time the three greatest men in England were
Godwin, Leofric, and Siward the Big, the earl of North-
umberland; and they ruled all England under the king.
But Edward did not long remain friendly to the house of
Godwin; for he was too fond of foreigners, and especially
of the Normans, and from this arose great trouble after-
wards.
There was now reigning in Norway king Magnus,
who had been a friend of Hardi-Canute. They two
had agreed that whichever of them died first the other
should have his kingdom. When Magnus got neither
Uorm
H 2
100
A.D. 10 12-1046.
Early England.
Denmark nor England he was angry and gathered a
great fleet to come to England; but Sweyn, the Danish
king, stopped him; so the English fleet which Edward
had summoned had nothing to do.
Earl
Sweyn's
outlawry.
2. Godwin had many children; and of these the two
eldest, Sweyn and Harold, were now earls in England,
Harold over the East English, and Sweyn
over the West border over against the Welsh.
Sweyn kept his earldom well, and defeated
the Welsh when they attacked the English; but in 1046
he took the abbess of Leominster away from her abbey
and wished to marry her.
This shocked people very
much, because it was against the laws of the Church; so
he was forced to leave England and went off to Flanders,
and his earldom was given to Harold his brother, and to
his cousin Biorn or Bear, brother of Sweyn, king of Den-
mark, who had had an earldom in the middle of England.
After he had been away but a little while he came home
and prayed the king to forgive him and give him back
his earldom. But Harold and Biorn would not give
up the rule of it to him, so the king would not let him
stay in England. Then Sweyn enticed Biorn to come
on board his ship and go with him to plead for him
to the king. But when Biorn was on board he slew him.
For this evil deed Sweyn was outlawed by all the people,
and most of his friends forsook him. And Harold had
Biorn buried in great honour. But Sweyn repented of
the treacherous deed that he had done in his wrath, and
the good bishop Eldred prayed the king and the Wise
Men to forgive him, so he was inlawed, and his earldom
was given back to him.
3. Now, Sweyn king of Denmark and king Edward
King Sweyn
were friends; for they were related through
the house of Godwin, and Sweyn had helped
Edward against Magnus; but king Magnus gathered
of Denmark.
Maou
A. D. 1046-1050. Edward the Confessor.
101
another great host against Sweyn, so that he was hard put
to it to hold his own. So he sent to pray Edward to help
him. Godwin spoke for his kinsmen, and would have fifty
ships sent; but Leofric and most of the Wise Men were
against this. So no help was sent to Sweyn; but when
Henry, the Emperor, quarrelled with Baldwin of Flanders,
the English sent him help. Sweyn was driven from his
kingdom; but Magnus died not long after, and his uncle
Harold Hardrada (the stern of counsel), who had reigned
with him part of his reign, reigned alone in his stead.
Then Sweyn soon got back his kingdom.
4. In Wales about this time there were two great
kings called Griffith, who were nearly always fighting
against each other and against the English. Welsh and
While Sweyn Godwin's son was away, the Eldred.
South Welsh king joined the fleet of the Danish sea-
rovers and made a raid into England. But Eldred
gathered together against them all the men who dwelt on
the border; but the Welsh that were with him turned
upon him and joined their brethren when the battle
began, and he was defeated and most of his men slain.
The
foreigners
in England.
Godwin
outlawed.
5. In 1050, Edward made Robert, a Norman monk,
archbishop of Canterbury. He had before been bishop
of London. He was a great foe to Godwin
and his house, so that he filled the ears of the
king with stories against them. By his advice
many Normans were set in bishoprics and
high places in England. They did no good, but built
castles and strongholds, that they might be safe against
any attack from the English, and could oppress them as
they would.
One day the king's brother-in-law Eustace, who was
a Frenchman, had been to see the king, and was riding
back to the sea to pass over to his own earldom of
Boulogne. When he and his men came to Dover
102
A.D. 1050.
Early England.
they behaved lawlessly and wished to make the towns-
men lodge them where they would. And one of them;
struck a townsman. Then a fight began, and many were
slain on either side; but at last the men of Dover drove
them out of the town. Then Eustace rode back to the
king and complained of the Dover folk, and told the story
his own way. The king was very angry, and bade God-
win the earl go and punish them. But Godwin said he
would not till they also had been heard, and he told the
king that the Frenchmen ought to be punished. Then
the king sent for Leofric and Siward; and Godwin sum-
moned his folk, and it was like to have come to a battle
between the two armies. But Leofric thought it better
that the Wise Men should be called together to settle the
matter. When the Wise Men met they outlawed Sweyn
again, and called Godwin and Harold, his son, to come
alone before them; but they would not come unless safe-
conducts were given them. So the Wise Men outlawed
Godwin and his kin. Then Godwin, Sweyn, and Gurth,
his sons, went to Flanders, where Tostig, another son of
his, had just been married to Judith, Baldwin's daughter.
But Harold went to Ireland, to Dermot, king of Leinster,
a great friend of the house of Godwin. And Edward sent
his wife, Godwin's daughter, into a nunnery, and Harold's
earldom he gave to Elfgar Leofric's son.
6. While Godwin was away William duke of Nor-
mandy came to visit Edward in England, and the king,
who was childless, is said then to have pro-
William of
Normandy mised him the kingdom at his death. This
in England. William came to the dukedom when he was
but seven years old, after his father Robert who died
while he was away on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He had
hard work to keep his dukedom when he was young, for
the Norman nobles were very proud and restless, and
looked down on him because his mother was the daughter
A. D. 1050.
103
Edward the Confessor.
of a tanner. And when he grew older, his neighbour
the king of France coveted his duchy, though at first he
had helped him, because he thought he could do as be
liked seeing that William was so young. But by his great
skill and bravery he had overcome all his foes, and was now
one of the greatest men of the age. He was very tall and
strong, and a strict but just ruler, who had the gift of
choosing good men for his servants, unlike Edward in
this. He was very good to the Church, and built splen-
did minsters. But he was very stern, and when he wished
anything he would have it, and recked of no man or thing
that stood in his way. He was very fond of hunting, and
passed as much of his time as he could spare in that
sport. He was a great archer, and his bow few men but
he could bend. In this taste Edward was like him;
for though he was a pious man he thought more of hunt-
ing than anything else but the Church.
Godwin
7. Things went ill while Godwin was away. Griffith
of North Wales broke into England and did much
damage; and Harold ravaged the South coast.
At last Godwin and Harold gathered a great inlawed.
fleet and sailed to London; and the king gathered all the
men he could against them. But Stigand proposed as
before that the Wise Men should judge between them.
They inlawed Godwin and his kin, and the queen was
taken back by the king. But Robert the Norman and the
Frenchmen, whom Edward loved, took horse when they
heard this news and rode through London, cutting and
hewing at all in their way till they got to the river; then
they took ship and went to Normandy. Stigand was
made archbishop in Robert's room, for he was a great
friend of Godwin. But Robert was very angry at this,
and never ceased complaining to the Pope and the
duke and the princes abroad of the loss which he had
suffered. And as he told the story his own way many
104
A.D. 1053-1055.
Early England.
thought the English had done wrong and that they were
impious folk.
8. Soon after this, in 1053, it is said that Godwin was
sitting at meat with the king, and the king was being
served by Harold and Tostig, Godwin's sons. One of
them slipped, and the other helped him. Then said
Godwin, 'So brother helps brother.' But the king said,
Godwin's
death.
'My brother would have helped me hadst thou
not slain him.' And Godwin said, 'If I slew
thy brother or had a hand in his death may this piece of
bread choke me.' Then he broke a piece of bread and put
it in his mouth, but it stuck in his throat and choked him,
and he fell down and never spoke again. And all men
marvelled that the words which he had spoken were ful-
filled. Then the king bade them cast his body out like a
dog's for his false oath and his evil deed. But this story
is told by the Normans, who hated Godwin, and it is not
likely to be true. The English mourned greatly for Godwin,
for he upheld England and did right while he ruled, and
advised the king well; and he hated the foreigners, whom
they also hated. Now that he was dead all men's eyes
were turned to Harold, and he was made earl of Wessex
after his father, and had the greatest power all Edward's
days, so that no man did anything against his will, and
he advised the king well.
9. In those days Macbeth slew king Duncan and
became king of all Scotland in his place. But Duncan's
kin went to Siward the Big, who received them well, and
fought for Malcolm against Macbeth. In the end Mac-
beth was slain, and Malcolm Big-head became king of
Scotland. In 1055 Siward died. When he felt that his
death was near he arose from his bed and called for his
coat of mail, and put it on, and took his sword in his
hand, and died so, sitting in his chair; for he said he
would not die like a cow, but like a soldier in mail. His
A.D.1055-1063: Edward the Confessor.
105
earldom was given to Tostig Godwin's son, for Waltheof
the Big, Siward's only living son, was as yet a child.
10. About this time earl Elfgar, son of Leofric, was
twice outlawed, and twice he got the Welsh king to join
him in attacking England. But peace was made by his
father, who soon after died; and Griffith, king of Wales,
married Elfgar's daughter Edith. Earl Harold
was at this time on a pilgrimage to Rome.
The Welsh.
And now Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, and his
children came home to England. But he died soon after
he landed, and his children were brought up by the king.
In 1063 there was a great war with Griffith, the Welsh
king, who was now king of all Wales, for he would not
keep the peace, but plundered the English border; so
Harold and Tostig went against him with a fleet and an
army. At last they beat him, and he bowed to the Eng-
lish king. But his own folk slew him soon after because
of the trouble he had brought upon them. His head and
the prow of his ship were sent to king Edward; and his
realm was given to his brothers, and they swore to be
faithful to the English king.
Harold at
liam's court.
II. About this time Harold was out in a ship with his
brother, and was driven to the coast of France. The
earl of the place where he was wrecked put
him in prison. But William, the Norman Duke Wil-
duke, made the earl set Harold free, and
brought him to his court. There he stayed some while
and helped William in his war against the people of
Brittany. And William made him swear that he would
help him to be king of England when Edward died, and
Harold had to swear this, for he was in William's power.
12. Soon Tostig and the Northumbrians fell out, for
they were a very wild and lawless folk, and Earl Tostig
Tostig was over-stern, and at last slew some
of them at a feast to which he bade them. So the men of
outlawed.
106
A. D.1063–1066.
Early Englana.
Northumberland chose Morcar Elfgar's son to be their earl
in Tostig's stead. Then Tostig went to king Edward, to
pray for his help; for Edward and Edith loved him best of
all the house of Godwin. And Edwin, Morcar's brother, who
had succeeded his father Elfgar in his earldom, brought
an army of Marchmen and Welshmen to help Morcar.
Harold tried to make peace, and get the Northumber
land men who had marched South to take back Tostig;
but they would not. When the Wise Men judged the
matter they outlawed Tostig; and he went away to Bald-
win, his father-in-law; but Edward was very wroth at this.
13. In 1066 Edward died, and he was buried in West-
Edward's
death.
minster Abbey, which he had built. And all
men held him a saint, and he was called Con-
fessor for his zeal for the Church.
Edward was a handsome man and of goodly presence;
his hair and his beard were white as snow. He was very
pious, and did his best to rule well, and in his days
England was mighty and at peace from foreign foes. But
he was weak and often took bad advice; he was quick-
tempered also, and through this sometimes unjust. Yet
men loved his memory, for they remembered the good
days when he was a king in the evil days that fell on
England after his death.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HAROLD GODWIN'S SON
1. BEFORE Edward died he advised the Wise Men to
choose Harold king after him, and they did so, and Eldred,
Harold and archbishop of York, crowned him. Soon
William. after he married Griffith's widow, the sister of
Edwin and Morcar. When William heard all this he was so
angry that he could hardly speak, for he remembered the
A. D. 1066.
107
Harold Godwin's Son.
promise of king Edward and the oath that Harold had
sworn. And he determined to be king of England and
thrust Harold out. So he persuaded his nobles to join
him; and he fitted out a large fleet and hired soldiers from
all parts till he had a large army. And he sent to the
Pope and told him how Harold had broken his oaths.
Also, he promised the Pope great gifts and much gold when
he became king of England, if he would bless his enter-
prise. The Pope, hearing these things and the complaints
of Robert, and all the evil stories that the Normans told
of the English and the house of Godwin, blessed Wil-
liam's undertaking and sent him a holy banner.
Harold, also, gathered a large fleet to defend England,
and it is said that the two fleets fought a battle, and that
the English drove the Normans back.
Tostig and
Kings of
Denmark
and
Norway.
2. When Harold was made king, Tostig went to
William to ask help to get back his earldom, which
Harold would not give him. But William
would promise nothing; so he went on to the
king of Sweden and prayed him to try and
conquer England, as his kinsman Canute had
done. But Sweyn said he had much ado to keep Den-
mark. Then Tostig sent to Harold Hardrada, king of
Norway, and prayed him to try and conquer England,
which had been promised to his nephew Magnus.
Harold Hardrada at last consented; though some of his
great men advised him not to try this great deed and
jeopard his life and kingdom; for they said the guard of
Harold Godwin's son were the best soldiers in the world,
and that one of them was as good as any two other men.
3. King Harold Hardrada was a very famous warrior;
he had fought by the side of his brother when he was
only fourteen, and was wounded in the great Harold
battle where he fell. He had passed a great Hardrada.
part of his youth in Russia, where kings of Swedish blood
108
A. D. 1066.
Early England.
then ruled. Afterwards he had gone into the service of
the Emperor of the East at Constantinople and had com-
manded his guards. He had been to Jerusalem also, and
fought with the heathen in the Mediterranean, and had
slain a great snake or crocodile. He was wise as well as
brave, a good poet and a good speaker; and so strong
and big of body that there were few men his match. He
was also very rich, for he had brought great spoil from
his sea-roving; and he got great wealth while he served
the Emperor of the East.
4. Harold, with a great fleet, set sail for the Orkneys,
and Tostig met him off Northumberland. They landed
at the Tyne-mouth, a mighty host. Then Edwin and
Morcar met them; but Harold beat them in a fierce fight,
and the men of York then made peace with him.
But when Harold Godwin's son heard of this he
gathered his guard and such men as he could and
marched north up the Roman Way against
his brother and the king of Norway.
Stamford
Bridge.
He
came on them unawares, as most of the Northmen were
at their ships, and those that were with the king and
Tostig had not their coats of mail on, for the day was very
hot. When the English host came in sight Tostig coun-
selled Harold to go back to the ships to the rest of the
army and fight the English there. But Harold Hard-
rada would not give way, but he sent messengers to
the fleet to bid Eystein bring up his men. Then he
rode through his host on a black horse and set his men
in array.
As he rode his horse slipped and he fell; but
he got up citing a verse from an old song, ‘A fall is
lucky for a traveller.' But when Harold Godwin's son saw
him fall and knew who it was, he said, 'That is a big man
and fair of face, but his luck has left him.' Then he and
a few men with him rode between the two hosts up to the
Northmen's army, and called out, 'Is Tostig Godwin's
•
A.D. 1066.
109
Harold Godwin's Son.
son here? And Tostig came forth. Then he said, 'Harold
offers Tostig peace and a third of his kingdom, for he
would not that brother should fight brother.' Tostig
answered, 'What shall be given to Harold of Norway for
his journey hither?' And Harold said, 'Seven feet of
English ground, or a foot over, for he is taller than other
men.' But Tostig answered, 'It shall never be said that
Tostig left his friends in the lurch for the offers of his
foes. We will either win England by our swords or die
here like men.' Now, Harold Hardrada was by them
and heard all that was said, and he asked who it was
that spoke so well. Tostig told him, 'It was my brother
Harold.' Then said the king, 'If I had known this he
should not have gone back to tell of our folks' death.'
But Tostig said, 'He did unwisely in this; but I might
not betray my brother who offered me such great things;
and I would rather that he should slay me than I him,
if one of us two must die.' Harold Hardrada said
to them that were with him, 'That was a little man, but
he sat well in his stirrups.' Then he put on his coat
of mail and took his sword in both hands, and stood in
front of his banner, which was called Land Waster. And
the English fell upon the Northmen; but they kept their
array till the fight waxed so fierce that they grew too
eager and broke their ranks. Then the English drove
them back to the River Derwent behind them, and they
fell back across the river as well as they could. And the
English pressed hard on them. But one Northman kept
the bridge against the English till most of his fellows
were across, and many Englishmen he slew, till one got
under the bridge and thrust up a spear through the
plank, and it struck him under the belt, and then he fell.
When the English got over the bridge, the Northmen
formed up again, and king Harold Hardrada went in
front of his host, and fought so fiercely that no man
IIO
A. D. 1066.
Early England.
could stand before him, for he slew all that he could
strike at. At last an arrow hit him in the throat over his
mail coat, and that was his death-wound. Then Tostig
went up to the banner in his place. Harold Godwin's son
again offered his brother peace and quarter to the North-
men. But they all cried out,' We will take no peace from
the English, but rather fall one man over another where
we stand.' And now Eystein came up from the ships
and the fiercest fight began, and the English were hard
put to it, till the Northmen grew so wroth that they threw
down their shields and fought like madmen. But the
English kept cool and fought on warily; and at last when
Tostig and the chief men were slain the Northmen gave
way and fled to their ships. And it was now evening.
Next day Harold Godwin's son made peace with Harold's
sons. Then they put to sea and went back home. And
Harold king of England went to York and kept a feast
there.
William's
landing.
5. Four days after this battle William landed with all
his host at Pevensey, for the English fleet was up North
with Harold. He set up a castle of wood
at Hastings and ravaged the land all round.
When news of this was brought to Harold, he marched
South to London with his guard, bidding Edwin and
Morcar gather their men and follow him. But they held
back; for they thought that if Harold was slain they
would share England with William. Then Harold
gathered the men of Kent and of London and many
country folk, and marched from London to Senlac, near
Hastings, and lay on the hill there by a hoar apple-tree.
There were with him Gurth and Leofwin, his brothers, and
most of his kin. Gurth begged Harold to lay waste the
land, that William might not get food or march on, and
then go back himself to London and gather forces there
and leave him to fight William, instead of Harold, because
A. D. 1066.
III
Harold Godwin's Son.
of the oath which Harold had sworn. But Harold said,
'I was made king to cherish this folk; how shall I lay
waste this land of theirs? Nor does it befit an English
king to turn from his foes. But thy advice is wise.'
6. Now, William and his men lay in the open land
below. And both hosts made ready for the fight that
was to be fought on the morrow. The Eng- Battle of
lish spent the night watching by their fires, Hastings.
singing merrily, and eating and drinking. The Normans
did not feast; but Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's
brother, went through the host praying with the men.
On the morrow both hosts were set in array. Harold
had made a strong pale of stakes along the front of his
line, and in the centre, by his two standards (the golden
dragon of England, and his own with the image of a
fighting man on it) he set his guard and the men of Kent
and London. They were all armed in coats of mail, and
had great two-handed axes and broadswords and javelins.
But at the back and sides of the hill he put his worst sol-
diers and the country folk, who were ill-armed with darts
and slings and clubs. The English all fought on foot, as
was the custom in the North. Harold bade his men keep
the pale and drive off their enemies; but he told them not
to leave their posts, or the Normans would get inside and
drive them off the hill.
William set his men in order also. In the midst he
and his brother were with the Norman knights, all on
horseback, clad in coats of mail, with long lances in their
hands, and broadswords by their sides; there too was the
banner which the Pope had hallowed. In front were the
archers, of whom he had a great many, but they were
on foot. On the right he put the French knights who
were with him, and on the left the men of Brittany; for
he was over-lord of Brittany. The first man that began
the attack was a Norman minstrel, who rode up against
II2
A. D. 1066.
Early England.
the English, throwing up his sword and catching it, and
singing a war-song of Charles the Great Emperor's mighty
deeds. He slew two Englishmen who came forth against
him before he was slain himself. Then the battle was
joined. The Normans charged up against the English;
but the English kept the pale and cut down man and
horse with their great axes. In vain the Normans
tried twice over to break their line. Then they began to
give back, and men cried out that William was slain ; but
he threw off his helmet, that all might know him and cried,
'I live, and will yet win the day by God's help.' And he
and his brother Odo again got their men in array and
charged again up the hill. William and Odo fought ever
foremost, and at last they got close up to the English
standards. Gurth threw a spear at William, which missed
him and slew his horse. But William slew Gurth with
his sword; there fell also Leofwin, his brother, and many
Normans and English. But the Normans got on best to
the right, for there they broke down the pale.
Then William, to make the English leave their post,
ordered his men to pretend to flee.
And when the Eng-
lish saw them turn they disobeyed Harold and rushed
down after them, leaving the hill bare. Then the Normans
turned and smote them in the open field and pressed on
to the hill-top, where Harold and his guard were nearly
alone; but though they were now fighting on level ground
they could not drive back Harold and his guards. So
William ordered his archers to shoot up into the air, that
the arrows might fall upon the English; for they could not
use their shields, as they had both hands to their axes.
One arrow struck Harold in the eye, and he fell dying at
the foot of his standard. Then the Normans made a last
rush, beat off the English and broke down the stan-
dards, and Eustace and three other knights slew Harold
as he lay on the ground and mangled his body. But the
A. D. 1066.
113
Harold Godwin's Son.
English drew off fighting to the last, and many of the
Normans that followed them were slain, for they turned
on them in a swampy place, where their horses were of
no use.
Harold's
7. William pitched his tent among the dead on the
height where the standards had stood, and his host
stayed there all night. Next day there came
many English women to bury their dead; burial.
for William gave them leave; but though Harold's mother
offered its weight in gold for his body he would not give
it her. But when it was found mangled under a heap of
dead by an English lady-Edith Swan's-neck, whom
Harold had dearly loved-he bade them bury it under a
stone-heap on the cliffs, for he said, 'He kept the shore
well while he lived; let him keep it now he is dead.'
So fell the last Old-English king fighting against
the foreigners. And after a while William was chosen
king of the English, for there was no man now that could
withstand his might; and Edgar, the son of Edward
Etheling, Edmund Ironside's son, whom some would
have made king, was hardly old or wise enough to rule,
even if they could have driven out William.
Harold was a strong, handsome, and accomplished
man. Like his father he was a good soldier, a good speaker,
and a good man of business. As Edward's minister
he was much beloved by the English for his good rule
and the way in which he put down the Welsh and forced
them into peace. But, like his father, he did not get on
well with the Church; for he disliked Edward's foreign
priests and bishops, and did not favour the monks. It
shows what a good ruler the English must have thought
him that they made him king; though he was not of the
royal blood of the West-Saxon kings who sprung from
Cerdic, but only of kin to the Danish kings.
E. H.
I
114
Early England.
8. We have brought the History of England and the
English folk down through six hundred years. And we
see that our forefathers were very like the
Summary.
English of to-day. There was the lord, like
the squire and rich folk of to-day; and the yeoman, like
our farmer; and the thralls and landless men, like our
labourers and workmen. There were traders too, for the
English under their later kings began to go abroad much
more and trade with other lands.
The cities, also, by the time of the Norman Conquest,
were filled with folk; for the English as they became less
rude began to live in towns, and to trade more with foreign
countries. Moreover, the coming of the Danes and the
forming of the great empire of Canute on the coasts of
the North Sea had brought the English to take more to
the sea and a seafaring life, which they had given over a
good deal when they came and settled in England. The
Danes who settled here were great sailors, and at London
there were many of them, so that it soon became the
mightiest city in England.
There were parish priests in every village, and besides
these there were many houses of monks; so that the
Christian religion had quite as much power as it has
to-day, and perhaps more.
But the great change that took place during the time.
we have written of is, that the Englishman became the
citizen of a great nation instead of merely the member of
a tribe; that he was learning to care not only for the
welfare of his family and his tribe but for the good of the
whole state and of every other Englishman.
:
Ethelbald
+ 860
KINGS OF ENGLAND.
Egbert
(sprung from Cerdic)
802 | 838

Ethelwolf
+1858
Ethelstan
K. of Kent
Ethelbert
+ 866
Ethelred
+ 871
Alfred the Great
+ 901
Edward, Elder Ethelfled, Lady of the Marchland

+
925
+922
Ethelstan
+ 940
Edwy
+ 959
Edmund
+ 946
Edward the Martyr
Edmund Ironside
+ 1016
+ 979
Alfred
+ 1036
(Emma's son)
Edred
+ 955
Edgar
+ 975
Ethelred the Unready
(mar. Emma of Normandy)
+ 1016

Edward the Confessor
+ 1066
(Emma's son)
other sons, and
three daughters mar. to
Edric, Utred, Wolf kettle.

Edmund
+ before 1056
Edgar Etheling
Edward
+ 1057
Margaret
(mar. Malcolm Bighead
King of Scotland).
་
THE DANISH KINGS.
Sweyn Forkbeard
Harold Bluetooth
King of
(King of Denmark and England)
+ 1214
Denmark
Canute the Mighty
Gunhild
(mar. Pallig)
(King of Denmark, England, and Norway)
+ 1035
Sweyn
Harold Harefoot
(King of Denmark)
+ 1040
Hardi-Canute
Gunhild
(son of Emma) (mar. Emp. Henry III.)
+ 1042
(dtr. of Emma)
THE HOUSE OF GODWIN.
Edith Sweyn
(m. Edward +c. 1053
Confessor)
Godwin
(mar. Canute's sister's daughter)
Harold
+ 1053

Tostig
(m. Edith (m. Judith
Elfgar's dtr.)
+ 1066
Baldwin's dtr.)
+ 1066
Gurth
+ 1066
Leofwin
+ 1066
Wolfnoth
THE HOUSE OF LEOFRIC.
Leofric

Elfgar
Edith
Edwin
Morcar
(mar. 1. Griffith, King of Wales
2. Harold Godwinson).
THE HOUSE OF SIWARD.
Siward
(brother-in-law of Duncan, K. of Scots)
Osbern
+ 1053
+ 1055
Waltheof
(mar. Judith, William Conqueror's niece)
+ 1075
Maud
(mar. 1. Simon of St. Lis
2. David, K. of Scots, Duncan's
grandson).
THE HOUSE OF FLANDERS.
Baldwin I.
(mar. Judith, dghtr. of Charles Bald
widow of 1. Ethelwolf
+ 879
Baldwin II.
2. Ethelbald)
(mar. dghtr. of Alfred the Great)
+ 918
Arnulf, Bad
+
965
Baldwin III.
(ruled with his father)
+ 962
póz
Arnulf, Young
+ 988
Baldwin IV., Fairbeard
(mar. Ogive, dghtr. of Richard Good of Normandy)
+ 1036
Baldwin V., Kind
+ 1067
Judith
(mar. 1. Tostig

2. Wolf of Bavaria)
Baldwin VI., Good
Matilda
(mar. William the Conqueror
THE HOUSE OF NORMANDY,
Rolf Ganger
(son of Earl Ronwald)
+ 927
William Longsword
+ 943
Richard, Fearless

+995
995
Richard, Good
+ 1026
Emma
(mar. 1. Ethelred the Unready
2. Canute the Mighty

Harlotta
Ogive
(mar. Herlwin) (m. Baldwin Fairbeard
of Flanders)
Richard
+ 1028
Robert, Magnificent
+ 1035
William the Conqueror
(mar. Matilda
dr. of Baldwin of Flanders).
Odo
(Bishop of Bayeux)
Robert
(Earl of Mortain)
BOOK II.
ENGLAND A CONTINENTAL POWER.
INTRODUCTION.
Important
points in
DURING the years which we are going to talk about
England went through great changes. She
grew very powerful, and gained a strong
government, and order was made to reign
in the land. To see how this came about we shall have
to notice
this epoch.
1. What the Norman Conquest did for England.—
We shall see that much good came to England from
the Normans, even though at first they treated the
people hardly and cruelly. They gave the English new
life; and the Norman kings, though harsh and stern,
loved order and good government, and knew how to
make wise laws.
2. How the Conqueror and his sons kept the Barons
from gaining too great power.-This is a very important
point. It shows us why the history of England and
the history of France are so different. In France the
120
England a Continental Power.
barons were almost as powerful as the king himself,
and treated the people very harshly; but in England the
barons were not allowed to grow too powerful, and when
in after-times they wanted to go against the king they
had to get the help of the people, and so they had to
treat the people as friends.
3. How the English and Normans became one people.
-The Normans did not drive out the English, as the
English had driven out the Britons, but they mixed with
them and became one people, and what was good and
strong in them made the English people greater and
stronger than they had been before.
4. How the kings made order and good governmeni
in the land. The Norman kings did not make sudden
changes in the government of the land. They made use
of what seemed to them good in the English customs and
laws; but they brought in many new ways of govern-
ment, for they knew more about law than the English
did. They ordered things wisely and firmly, and began
to build up our present laws and ways of government on
the old foundation, on which they have slowly risen since
that time.
5. What steps the people made towards governing
themselves.-At first sight it will seem as if the people
themselves had very little power, and as if the kings
had things all their own way. But we shall see that
the Norman kings had to keep up the old English
forms of freedom. At first these were only forms, but
in time the people grew stronger, and learnt how to
make them something more. The people grew so strong
that when King John tried to govern badly and treat
them unjustly, they were able to make him promise
them good government. He had to sign the Great
Charter, to which Englishmen have always looked back
as one of the great steps in the growth of their liberties,
CHAPTER 1.
SETTLEMENT AFTER THE CONQUEST.
William
after the
battle of
1. WILLIAM, Duke of Normandy, had won the battle of
Hastings, but still he did not wish to come before the
English as a conqueror. He claimed to be
rightful heir of Edward the Confessor, and
he thought that now that Harold was dead, Hastings.
the English would crowd to his camp and hail him as
their king. But no one came. The chief of the Eng-
lish met in London and chose for their king Edgar the
Atheling, the grandson of Edmund Ironside, who was a
mere boy.
2. William did not march direct on London. He
wanted to frighten the English, to show them his power
and make them feel their weakness, that they Submission
might own him for their king themselves. He of London.
marched first to Romney, and as he marched his soldiers
spread havoc round their path. At Romney we read,
'he took what vengeance he would for the slaughter of
his men.' Next he marched to Dover, and that strong
fortress yielded without a blow. He stayed there eight
days, and went on to Canterbury and Winchester, and
made them submit to him, so that London stood alone.
London was very helpless, for the great Earls of the
Marchland and of Northumberland, Edwin and Morcar,
had gone away to their earldoms, and there was no
strong man left in the city. At last the chief men came
out, and Edgar the Atheling with them, and met William
at Berkhampstead. They bent humble knees to him and
122 England a Continental Power.
1067..
:
begged him to be their king. So William accepted the
crown, and promised to be their loving lord.
3. William entered London as the chosen king of
the English. On Christmas-day he was crowned in the
Abbey at Westminster by the Archbishop
William
crowned.
of York. When the Archbishop turned to
the crowd gathered in the Abbey and asked whether
they would have William for their king, they shouted
'Yea, yea, King William' So loud was their shouting,
that the Norman soldiers who stood outside thought
they meant some evil, and set fire to the houses round
the Abbey. The English rushed out to save their
homes, and none were left within but William and the
trembling bishops. In haste and fear the crowning was
finished. Meanwhile there was fighting and bloodshed
between the Normans and English when William most
wished for peace.
♦
Though William was now the crowned king of the
English, very little of the land was really in his power.
He had only subdued the South-eastern shires. But
little by little the English from other parts came to
bow before him and own him for their king, and the
great Earls Edwin and Morcar came with the rest.
He let all those who submitted to him take back from
his hands their lands and possessions. But he seized
the lands of all those who had fallen in the battle of
Hastings, for he looked upon them as traitors who
had fought against their rightful king. He gave these
lands as rewards to his own Norman followers.
4. Only three months after he had been crowned, he
felt so sure of his position that he dared to leave England
and go back to his own duchy of Normandy.
He wanted to show his people his new power
and to fetch his wife, whom he dearly loved.
He took with him some of the chief of the English, so
William
visits
Normandy.
1069.
123
Risings of the English.
that he might be sure they did no mischief whilst he
was away, and he took much spoil of gold and silver and
gorgeous robes. The Normans wondered and rejoiced
when they saw these things, for the English had much
gold and silver, and knew how to work it very cleverly.
The English women too were very skilful with their
needle, and William brought home much of their beau-
tiful embroidery, which he gave to the churches and
monasteries in Normandy.
5. But whilst William was away troubles began to
arise in England. He had left his most trusted friend
William FitzOsberne and his half-brother
Risings of
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, to rule in his name. the English.
They treated the people harshly, and made them hate
the Norman rule, so that everywhere risings against
William were planned.
In 1067 William had to come back to put down these
risings. We shall see that in his reign he had three
great struggles before he could make his power really
strong: (1) the struggle with the native English, (2) the
struggle with his own Norman barons, who wanted more
power than he would give them, (3) the struggle against
his own sons, who rebelled against him.
Till 1071 William had to struggle against the Eng-
lish. They gave him a great deal of trouble, but they
could not really put his power in danger, for they had
no union amongst themselves, and fought with no plan.
6. In 1069 Swend, King of Denmark, sent a mighty
fleet under his brother to help the English. Swend was
nephew of the great Canute. Many of those
who had fallen at the battle of Hastings and the
were his kinsmen, and he wished to revenge
their death. But William bribed the Danish com-
manders, and the fleet sailed away without striking a
blow.
William
Danes.
124
1072.
England a Continental Power.
Harrying of
Northum-
berland.
The
7. Then William marched northwards to put down a
great rising in Northumberland. He wished to frighten
the English, so as to teach them not to rise
against him again. To do this he laid waste
the whole of the north of England.
houses and all that was in them, the stores of corn,
even the living animals, were burnt. The whole land
was left desolate. Many of the people died of hunger,
whilst some sold themselves as slaves, that they might
get bread. For nine years the land remained untilled.
It was a terrible deed, and men said that the wrath of
God was sure to follow upon it. But the north never
dared to rise against William again.
Hereward.
8. One by one the risings all over the country were
put down. The man who gave William most trouble was
Hereward, a great chieftain, who fortified him-
self on an island in the fens near Ely, so that
none could get near him. Many of the English took
refuge with him, amongst others Earl Morcar. At last
William had to make a great causeway of stones and
trees and hides over the fens to get at Hereward. Then
Morcar and the others surrendered, but Hereward es-
caped, and many strange stories are told of his after
life, but we know nothing more with certainty about him.
Morcar was kept in prison till his death. Malcolm,
king of Scotland, tried to help the English several
times. Edgar the Atheling and many others fled to
his court. At last in 1072 William marched over the
border and made Malcolm submit to him.
9. In many of the towns which he took William built
great castles, in which he put soldiers to watch over the
citizens, lest they should rise against him.
In London he built the Tower, which has
always been famous in English history. He took away
the lands of all the English who rose against him, and
William's
castles.
Feudalism.
125
he gave them to his Norman followers, so that by degrees
the lordship of nearly all the land passed out of English
into Norman hands.
Feudalism.
10. Now, all the men who got lands from William
held them in the feudal way. Lands held in this way were
called fiefs, and their holders had to make
certain promises to the lord who gave them
these fiefs. They were called his vassals, or tenants,
from the French word tenir, meaning to hold, and the
lord was called their superior. The vassals were bound
to follow their lord to war, and to pay him certain
services, whilst he in return took them under his pro-
tection and defended them against their enemies. When
land was granted to the vassal by his lord he had to do
homage to him for it. That means he became his man,
from the French word homme, which means man. The
vassal knelt before his lord, and, putting his hands be-
tween his, swore to be his man for life and death, so God
help him. When he died his son had to do the same
homage, and then his father's lands were given him by
his lord.
II. These feudal customs had been growing up all
over Europe, in England as well as in other countries; but
they had grown more quickly in France and Feudalism
Normandy than in England, and William had in France.
there seen what they came to at last. There the vassals
might give away part of their lands to their followers, who
then were their men and not the king's men, and had not
to do homage to the king at all. The great vassals of
the king, too, had their own courts, where they judged
their own vassals and laid on taxes at their pleasure. In
this way the great vassals grew very powerful and did
not care much for their lord, to whom little more than the
tie of homage bound them. They were called tenants
in chief, because they held their lands directly from the
126
England a Continental Power.
king. In this way William himself, as Duke of Nor-
mandy, was a vassal of the King of France, and had to.
do him homage.
William and
feudalism.
12. William did not wish things to become like this
in England. He wanted to have one strong government,
which should rule the land. He wished all
the law courts to depend upon himself. He
let the barons hold the land in the feudal way, because
it seemed to him the best and simplest way, and the old
English ways had not been at all simple. But in other
ways he tried to prevent his barons from gaining as much
power as the barons had gained in France.
(1.) He made every holder of land, and not only the
tenants in chief, take the oath of obedience to him and
become his man.
(2.) He let no man hold much land together. If he
gave a man many lands he gave them to him in different
counties, so that he might not form one strong power.
Canute had divided the country into great earldoms, but
William broke these up. He made very few earls, and
governed the counties by the sheriffs, whom he chose
himself, and who could not leave their office to their
sons. He only made four great earldoms, where the
earls were allowed to have all the royal rights and name
their own sheriffs.
These were Chester and Shropshire, which were to
defend the border from the Welsh; Durham, to keep off
the Scots; and Kent, where the coast had to be defended
from foreign invaders. But Kent and Durham he gave
to bishops, who might not marry, and so could not found
great families.
(3.) He did not let the courts of justice of the barons
become too powerful. The barons had courts of law for
each of their manors, as their estates were called; but
as William took care that their estates should be far
1075.
127
Struggles with Rebellious Barons.
from one another they could not set up one strong
central court.
Now, the barons did not like all this at all. They
had never loved William's rule. They had followed him
to England because they hoped to get more lands and
more power. They thought that they would rise in
power as much as William had done; and when they
found that he would not let them become great and
powerful, like the barons in France, they grew discon-
tented and seized every opportunity to resist his power.
Struggle
rebellious
barons, 1075.
failed him,
with the
13. At last two of the great Norman barons made a
plot, into which they tried to draw Waltheof, Earl of
Northampton, the last of the English earls.
They agreed to divide England amongst
themselves, and that two of them should be
dukes and one king. But Waltheof's heart
and he told all that they had plotted. This did not save
him, and he was beheaded as a traitor. The English
mourned much for him, for he was a good man and gave
much to the poor, and they revered him as a saint and
as the last of their great earls.
Another time the discontented barons in Normandy
made William's own son, Robert, rebel against him.
Robert wanted to have the Duchy of Normandy for his
own, even in his father's lifetime; but his father would
not part with it. In time the barons gathered round
Robert, who took up arms against his father. He found
a friend, too, in the king of France, who feared the power
of his great vassal William.
After a while the tears and prayers of Queen Matilda,
who loved both husband and son very dearly, brought
about peace between them. But it lasted only for a time,
and Robert's rebellions and disobedience were the trouble
of his father's last years.
William had to spend much time during his reign in
128 England a Continental Power. 1082.
his lands in France. He had most difficulty with the
province of Maine, which did not like his rule. His
neighbour, Fulk, Count of Anjou, made plots to get
it from him. There was always great enmity between
the Angevins, as the people of Anjou were called, and
the Normans, and we shall see the results of this enmity
later on, when a king of Angevin blood came to rule
over England.
William's absences in Normandy were not very good
for the people of England. We have seen how the rule
of Odo of Bayeux made the English discontented in
the first year after the Conquest. It was worse even
in 1082. Odo wished to be made Pope, and for this
end he tried to get money in every possible way. He
oppressed the poor and spoiled the Church. When Wil-
liam heard of this he was much angered. He came back to
England and seized Odo with his own hands, for no other
man dared lay hands upon him, because he was a bishop.
He had him carried to prison at Rouen, where he stayed
till the Conqueror's death.
William was too strong for all his enemies. They only
struggled against him that they might gain more power
each for himself, and had no common object for which
all would have fought; so they could do nothing against
William's power.
CHAPTER 11.
WILLIAM'S GOVERNMENT.
I. ALL this time William had only one trusted friend and
adviser. This was the man whom he had made Arch-
William and bishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc, an Italian.
Lanfranc. Lanfranc was one of the greatest scholars of
his day, full of zeal both for religion and learning. He
Lanfranc.
129
had gone to live in peace away from the world at the
humble monastery of Bec, in Normandy. But he was too
great a man to be left quiet. The fame of his learning
drew many to Bec, and a great school gathered round
him, so that Bec grew rich and famous. Then William
learnt to know Lanfranc, and soon saw his greatness.
He saw that whilst he was as strong as a Norman, he
had all the learning and cunning wisdom of an Italian.
He made him his friend and adviser, and trusted him
with all his plans. When he built the great Abbey of
St. Stephen's at Caen, he made Lanfranc its abbot; and
when, soon after the Conquest, he had to choose a new
Archbishop of Canterbury, his first thought was of Lan-
franc.
When William planned the Conquest of England, he
spoke much of his wish to reform the English Church.
The Pope encouraged his plans, for great disorder had
crept into the English Church, which cared little for
the words of the Pope. Stigand, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, had not, they said, been rightly elected
according to the rules of the Church, so William put
hin aside, and bade Lanfranc come to fill the office.
2. Lanfranc came to England and threw himself heart
and soul into the Conqueror's work there. The two men
had the same aims, and they worked together William and
to bring them about. The change brought the Pope.
the English Church much closer to Rome; still neither
William nor Lanfranc allowed the Pope to interfere too
much in English matters.
The Popes at that time were seeking to get more and
more power in all the countries of Europe. They claimed
greater powers for the Papacy than had ever been claimed
before. This was mainly the work of one man, Hilde-
brand, who, after being the intimate friend and coun-
cillor of several popes, at last became Pope himself, as
E. H.
K
130
England a Continental Power.
་
*
Gregory VII. He and the Conqueror were the two
greatest men in Europe, and Gregory soon found that
William was as strong as himself. William treated the
Pope with great respect, but he meant to rule his own
Church, and he would not let Gregory interfere in Church
matters in England without his consent.
In all this Lanfranc agreed with William, but neither
of them would allow disorder in the Church. by de-
grees they turned most of the English bishops out of
their sees and filled up their places with Normans. Most
of the new bishops were wise and good men, scholars
chosen by Lanfranc for their learning and piety. Nor-
man abbots, also, were placed over many of the abbeys;
but this did not work so well, for the abbeys were full of
English monks, who did not like to have a foreigner set
over them.
Courts of
3. The greatest change which William and Lanfranc
made was that they allowed the bishops and archdeacons
to hold law courts of their own, in which they
the Church might judge all cases which had to do with
the clergy or the law of the Church. Before the Con-
quest the bishop had sat with the sheriff in the court of
the shire, and had helped him to do justice. Now the
bishops had courts of their own, and no longer sat in
the county courts. In the bishops' courts they did justice
according to the Canons-that is, the law of the Church
-not by the common law of the land. This worked very
well at first, when king and archbishop were of the same
mind; but it had great evils, which showed themselves,
as we shall see, in after-years, when the Church tried to
take too much upon herself.
Lanfranc's zeal in spiritual matters gave new life to
religion in England. New orders of monks were brought
in, and many new monasteries were built. On all sides,
too, new and beautiful churches began to rise, for the
Taxation.
131
Normans were well skilled in building. Their churches
were strong and massive, with bold ornaments, and much
of their work remains in England to this day. Great part
of many of the English cathedrals was built by the Nor-
mans, and so were many parish churches. The finest of
their churches is the great cathedral of Durham.
4. During the last eleven years of his reign William
had no foe to fear in England. He kept strict peace
throughout the land. It was said that in his William's
day a man might go through the country with government.
his bosom full of gold and no one would dare to rob him;
neither did any man dare slay another, even though he
had done him great evil.
5. Still the Conqueror's hand was very heavy upon the
people. Love of money was the great sin laid to his
charge by the men of his time, and many and
Taxation.
severe were the taxes he laid on the land. He
raised the same sums as the English kings before him
had raised from the royal estates; and besides this he
made the people pay the Danegeld again, which Edward
the Confessor had done away with.
Danegeld.
6. The Danegeld was an old English tax which
had been raised in times of danger from the attacks of
the Danes. It was paid by all the holders
of cultivated land for the defence of their
country. William raised the tax, as it had often been
raised before, when there was no question of an attack
from the Danes, and he made it three times as great as
it had ever been before.
-
But besides the old English ways of getting money
William used the Norman ways too. These were feudal
aids, that is moneys which the great vassals were bound
to pay their lord on fixed occasions, as on the marriage
of his eldest daughter and the knighting of his eldest son.
The barons could only raise these moneys from the people
K 2
132
1085.
England a Continental Power.
who depended on them and worked on their lands; and
so all these heavy burdens fell upon the poor, ind no class
was left untaxed.
Forest laws.
7. William's great love for hunting also brought much
trouble upon the people. To make a good forest to hunt
in, he laid waste one of the most fertile
parts of England, from Winchester to the
seacoast, 17,000 acres of land. It was called the New
Forest, and has kept its name till this day. He made
a law that whoever killed a hart or a hind should be
blinded. 'He forbade killing the deer and the boars,'
the old English chronicle tells us: he loved the tall
stags as if he were their father. The rich complained
and the poor murmured, but he was so stark that he
recked nought of them; they must will all what the king
willed, if they would live.'
Domesday
Book.
8. That he might better know the state of the coun-
try, and how much money and how many men-at-
arms he might raise from it, William sent
officers to enquire into the condition of each
county. They caused to come before them the chief
landowners of each county and representatives from the
hundreds and towns, who were called jurors, because
of the solemn oath they took to speak nothing but the
truth. These jurors told the names of all the manors
and towns in the county; how many freemen there were
and how many serfs; how much meadow, wood, and pas-
ture, how many mills, what kinds of fisheries, and what
was the value of each holding of land. All that they told
was carefully written down by the king's officers, and
when it was all put together the record was called the
Domesday Book; for men said it was so complete that it
would last till the day of doom or judgment.
We can easily see how useful the Domesday Book
was to William, for it told him exactly the state of the
William's Government.
133
country, how rich it was and how it was cultivated, and
so he learnt to know what he might get out of it. To all
after-times also the Domesday Book has been of great
use and interest. We can learn all about the England
of the Conqueror's time from it, what the people grew in
the fields, and how they lived; from it any landowner
may learn who held his land in those days, and in what
state it was. The whole was done carefully and well, as
William had everything done about him, for he liked no
half-measures.
Norman
customs
mixed
9. William had no wish to vex the people by many
changes in the government. He showed great wisdom
in making use of the best parts of both the English and
Norman and the English customs. The great
strength of the English system lay in the way
in which the whole country was bound together in one
government by the different courts, the shire moots and
the hundred moots, of which you have heard in the early
English history. The strength of the Norman system
lay in the close ties which bound the great vassals to the
king. So William kept what was good in both, and this
made his government very strong.
He kept up all the forms of the old English govern-
ment, and confirmed the laws which had been in use in
the days of King Edward the Confessor. It was this
that made the English people bear patiently with his
rule. They felt that from the lawlessness of the barons
they would have nothing to gain, and they saw that
William's enemies were their enemies. After the last
risings of the English had been crushed in 1071, they
never tried again to take away the crown from their
Norman king. All the after-troubles in the Conqueror's
reign and in the reigns of his sons came from the discon-
tent of the Norman barons, and not from the English
people at all.
134
England a Continental Power.
It was his stern love of order and the strict obedience
which he made the people pay to his laws, but imost of all
his heavy taxes, that made William's rule so harsh. We
have said that he kept up the old forms of government;
but they were little more than forms, for his will was law,
and no man might go against it. But he did not wish
one thing one day and another the next, like a tyrant.
He ruled himself as well as other men, and Iris rule was
wise as well as strong.
William I.'s
person and
character.
CHAPTER III.
WILLIAM I. AND HIS SONS.
1. IN body William was as strong as in mind. He was
of middle height, with a fierce countenance. Men trem-
bled at his look when he was angry. His fore-
head was bare of hair. Whether he was stand-
ing or sitting his look was kingly. So great
was his strength of arm, that when his horse was at full
gallop he could draw a bow which no other man could
draw standing on the ground. Till his death he never
had any serious illness. He loved grandeur and magni-
ficence. Three times a year he wore his crown at the
three great cities of Gloucester, Winchester, and West-
minster. Then he gathered round him all the great men
in the land, and gave royal feasts and showed his power
and his wealth to the ambassadors who came from
foreign lands. Then he was affable and bountiful to all,
that men might say he was as generous as he was
rich. But as a rule he was a hard man, and it is not
wonderful that men should have looked upon him with
fear and wonder rather than with love. The one tender
side of his character that we read of is his love to his
1087.
135
William I's Death.
queen. They seem to have loved and trusted one another
perfectly all through their lives, and when she died he
caused a rich tomb of gold and gems to be put over her
grave at Caen, and mourned for her till his death.
William I.'s
2. In his last years William grew very stout, so that he
was quite deformed by his great size. He
heard that the King of France made jests death and
at his figure, and he swore to be revenged
for this jest.
burial.
In the month of August, when the corn was ripe upon
the ground and the orchards and vines hung heavy with
fruit, he entered France. To revenge an idle jest he laid
the whole country waste, and so made the people suffer
for their king's fault. He set fire to the city of Mantes;
but whilst he was looking with joy at the flames, his
horse trod on a burning ember and stumbled. William
was thrown heavily forward against the saddle and was
so severely hurt that he was carried away to Rouen
only to die.
On his deathbed he said that his son Robert must
have Normandy, since he had promised it to him; but he
gave it to him sadly, for he knew that he was proud and
foolish and would not rule the duchy well. He hoped
that William, his second son, would have England. He
did not name him; he said that as he had won the kingdom
by the sword, he dared leave it to no one but to the dis-
posal of God. Then he thought of his sins, of his harsh-
ness to the English, of the lands he had burnt and
plundered, of the vast numbers he had slain by hunger
or the sword. To atone for his sins he left his treasures
to the poor and to the churches in his lands. He gave
orders that all prisoners should be allowed to go free, even
his brother Odo of Bayeux.
He dictated a letter to Lanfranc telling him what he
wished about the government of England, and gave it to
his son William, who started on his way to England even
136
1087.
England a Continental Power.
before his father's death. To his youngest son, Henry,
he gave money from his hoard and bade him be patient
and trust in the Lord and let his elders go before. At last
one morning, as the bell rang for prime, he stretched out
his hands in prayer and his soul passed away. He was,
says the English chronicler, a 'very wise man and very
great, and more worshipful and stronger than any of
those who went before him.'
As he lay ill, the enemies of peace had rejoiced, think-
ing that now they would be able to seize on the goods of
other men at their pleasure; but those who loved peace
were filled with dread. In truth the strong man was
no sooner dead than those who had stood around his bed
rushed to their own homes to save their goods from the
plunderers. In the royal chamber everything was car-
ried off, clothes, vessels, and furniture; and the body of
the great man who had been so feared during his life-
time, was left alone and wellnigh bare on the floor of the
chamber. Not a man of his household came forward to
bury him each man thought only of himself. At last
a humble Norman knight, at his own expense, took the
body by water to Caen, and there it was buried in the
Conqueror's great abbey of St. Stephen's.
William the
Red chosen
King of
England.
3. The barons both in England and Normandy would
have liked to have for their king Robert, the Conqueror's
eldest son. But William the Red, as the se-
cond son was called, from the colour of his
hair, had a powerful friend in Lanfranc.
William was ready to do anything to get the crown; and
as the barons were against him he threw himself upon
the support of the English. He swore to Lanfranc that
he would rule with justice and mercy, would care for the
Church, and follow his advice in all things. So Lanfranc
crowned him king, and his promises of good government
bound the English people to him.
4
1089.
137
William II., the Red.
The barons still clung to Robert, and it took much
fighting, both in England and Normandy, to put them
down. Many of the great Norman barons in England
lost their lands and liberty by rebellion. At last, like
so many other men of his day, Robert grew eager to go
to the East on the Crusade and fight to win back Christ's
Sepulchre from the Saracens. He made peace with
William, and left him his duchy during his absence in
return for a large sum of money.
CHAPTER IV.
STRUGGLE BETWEEN KING AND CHURCH.
I. WILLIAM THE RED was, like his father, a strong man,
who knew how to make himself obeyed, but he had not
his father's virtues. As long as Lanfranc lived
William II.'s
he kept him in order, so that his vices did government.
not show themselves. William soon forgot the promises
of good government which he had made to the English
people, and when Lanfranc reminded him of them he
answered angrily, 'Who is there who can fulfil all that he
promises?' To the great loss of the country, Lanfranc
died less than two years after the Red King came to
the throne. Then William showed himself in his true
light-a man who feared neither God nor men, who gave
way to all his passions, and openly scoffed at religion and
virtue.
For his chief minister and adviser he chose Ranulf
Flambard, a priest, an able and crafty man, who cared
no more for virtue than the king himself. He used every
means to get money for the king, who loved it as much
as his father had done, and cared not how he got it.
'In his days,' says the chronicler, 'all justice sank and
138
1093.
England a Continental Power.
+
all unrighteousness arose.' When an abbot or a bishop
died, the king and his minister did not choose one to
fill his place, but drew all the rents for themselves and
took all the money that belonged to the office.
After Lanfranc's death nearly four years passed and
no new archbishop was named, till all men murmured.
Even the rough barons at William's court asked him to
fill the see. But he would not, till falling very sick he
feared to die, and the thought of his many sins came
to frighten him.
2. It chanced that at that time there was a holy man
in the land, abbot of that same monastery of Bec from
which Lanfranc had come, Anselm by name.
Anselm.
He had been a friend of Lanfranc's, and was,
like him, an Italian and a learned man. He had long
been spoken of as the man who should be archbishop.
So in his sickness the frightened king sent for him and
told him that it was his will that he should fill the see
of Canterbury. But Anselm had no wish for this honour.
He was a simple monk, he said, and wished to live in
peace he had never mixed with the business of the
world. The bystanders had to use force before they
could make him take the cross in his hands, and it was
against his will that he was made archbishop.
3. When the king got better of his sickness he forgot
his vows to lead a new life, and behaved worse than before.
But in Anselm he found a man bold enough
Anselm and
William. to rebuke his crimes. When all the land
trembled before the tyrant, the archbishop spoke out for
the cause of liberty and good government. That the two
should live in peace side by side was impossible. The
King grew to hate Anselm and quarrelled with him, be-
cause he rebuked him for his vices, and because he
would not give him the money he wanted. Moreover,
there were at that time two Popes in Christendom, each
1100.
139
Henry I.
claiming to be the rightful one. Anselm had said that
he would obey Urban II. as Pope, but William forbade
him to look upon either as Pope till he allowed it.
not come
William II.'s
oppression.
4. At last William grew so bitter against him that
Anselm had to leave the country and did
back till the Red King's death. For twelve
long years of misery William ruled over the
land. The barons imitated his vices, and on all sides
the people were oppressed. Ranulf Flambard found
out ever new ways of burdening the country with taxes.
Law was almost silent, and only money weighed with the
Judges.
William loved hunting as much as his father had
done, and his forest laws were very cruel. One day
whilst hunting in the New Forest he was shot by an
arrow and killed on the spot. Whether this was done
by chance or on purpose was never known, and perhaps
no man cared to ask, from joy that the tyrant was dead.
5. Henry, William's younger brother, was hunting with
him when he was killed. Robert was still
away on the Crusade, and Henry had him- Henry I.
self chosen king by the few barons who
were round William at his death.
1100.
chosen king.
6. But Henry knew well that the barons really wished
Robert to be king, and so hastened to make himself
sure of the people. At his crowning he swore
Henry I.'s
to give the land peace, justice, and equity. charter.
Afterwards he gave the people a charter in which he
promised to free the Church from all unjust burdens,
and the land from all evil customs; he gave back to
the people their old laws, and promised to reform all
the abuses which had crept in during the Red King's
reign.
We must remember this charter, because it states
very
clearly for the first time the rights of the people.
140
1103.
England a Continental Power.
It puts bounds to the power of the king by saying that
the freedom of the people cannot lawfully be interfered
with. It gave the people good hope that their troubles
were at an end.
Henry's
marriage,
1100.
7. Henry had been born in England, and the English
people joyfully welcomed him as in truth an English
king. Still greater was their joy when he
took for his wife an English maiden, Edith,
daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, and
Margaret, the sister of Edgar the Atheling. She took
the name of Maude on her marriage, and her virtues
made her very dear to the English people, who spoke of
her as the 'good Queen Maude.'
8. One of Henry's first acts was to send for Anselm
to come back. The archbishop came full of hope that
Henry I. and now he might do something to reform the
Anselm.
Church and the monasteries. Henry was
willing to reform the Church, but he meant to keep the
old customs that had been in force in his father's reign.
He wanted the bishops and abbots to do him homage
and be his men, as the laymen were; he meant himself
to fill up the vacant posts in the Church and give the
bishops and abbots the ring and the staff, the signs of
their office. But Anselm had quite other views. He
said that the election of the abbots and bishops belonged
to the monks and chapters, that the clergy owed the
king no homage, and that no layman could give the ring
and the staff. On this point neither would give way,
and so they quarrelled. Henry had the strong will of
his father, and would give up none of his powers. Anselm
felt that he was fighting for the liberty of the Church. He
had seen how she had suffered from being quite in the
king's power in the last reign.
It was the same quarrel that was then troubling all
Europe, and is called the dispute about investitures.
1109.
141
Death of Anselm.
The point was whether it was the lay power or the
Church which had the right to invest or clothe a man in
the dignities of a spiritual office.
We need not follow out the quarrel between Anselm
and Henry, which lasted for many years. For three
years Anselm was banished from England, because he
would not give way to the king. At last they came to an
agreement by each side giving way a little. The impor-
tant thing about the quarrel is that the Church was able
to make so hard a fight against such a strong king as
Henry, and in the end really made him give up some-
thing. This showed him that he could not always do just
as he willed, and it taught the people, too, that they were
not so much at the king's mercy as it seemed.
Anseim did not live quite three years after his return
from exile, but during that time Henry listened to him
when he spoke of the sorrows of the poor, and some-
thing was done to help them. Anselm was known all
over Christendom for his learning and his piety. Men
mourned much when he died, and in after days the
Church made him one of her saints.
CHAPTER V.
HOW THE NORMAN KINGS GOVERNED THE LAND.
The
Struggle
with Duke
Robert.
I. HENRY I. was hardly crowned when Robert reached
Normandy on his return from the Crusade. He listened
to the barons, who urged him to try and take
the English crown from his brother. The
barons saw that Henry's rule would be strict,
while they knew that Robert, though a brave soldier,
was weak and foolish. If they had Robert for their
king they hoped to be able to have things more their
142
England a Continental Power.
own way. In the whole quarrel the barons looked only
for their own gain and cared little for Robert, but the
English held firmly by Henry. The fighting was mostly
in Normandy, where at last Henry won the great battle
of Tenchebrai (1106), and took Robert prisoner. Henry
I. now ruled over both Normandy and England, and kept
Robert in prison till his death.
Henry I.
and the
barons.
2. Still he was not left undisturbed, for the King of
France feared his power, and the barons were always
discontented. Robert's son claimed Nor-
mandy, and the King of France fought for
him; but he died young, and Henry had no
other rival to fear. The wars in France really strength-
ened his power at home. He was able to seize the
lands of those barons who rose against him, and in this
way the descendants of many of the great men who had
taken part in the Conquest lost their lands in England.
Henry did not, as a rule, seize their lands in Normandy
also. He was afraid that if he did so he would drive
them to seek help from the King of France.
Henry I.
and the
people..
3. These struggles with the barons brought much good
to the English people. Henry had to trust to their help,
and, that he might be sure of it, he had to
give them the good government which they
wanted, and give them back the old laws
and customs which they had had under Edward the Con-
fessor. It is in this reign that we find the beginnings of
English liberties. It was not that Henry loved his people;
his aims were quite selfish. He wanted them to help
him, and he was wise enough to take the right means to
get them to do so. He began his reign by arresting
Ranulf Flambard, William the Red's wicked minister,
and this seemed to the people to promise good govern-
ment. He made friends with the Church by filling up
all the sees which William had left empty, and, except
Henry I''s Government.
143
for his quarrel with Anselm, worked with the Church
to do away with the abuses in the land.
4. Henry was a hard, selfish man, but fortunately for
the people his interests were the same as theirs. He
knew what he wanted, and he knew how to
Henry I.'s
get it. He kept his aims clearly before him character.
in all that he did. He wished to build up a strong power
out of the firm union of England and Normandy. Men
did not love him, but they feared and trusted him, for
they could see and understand his aims.
"Great was
the awe of him,' says the chronicler; 'no man durst
illtreat another in his time: he made peace for men and
deer.'
Henry I.'s
govern-
ment.
5. The Conqueror had loved order and made peace in
the land. But time had tried his system and showed the
points in which it failed, so that Henry could
see where it would be well to make changes.
In his plans for reform his chief adviser was
Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. He was a very wise and
able man, a Norman by birth, who had risen in Henry's
service from being a poor clerk to be Bishop of Salis-
bury and chief minister of the king. In Henry I.'s
time these ministers of the crown first grew up to help
the king in all that he had to do.
6. The chief minister in those days was called the
Justiciar. At first the Justiciar only existed when the
king was away from England and some one The
had to take his place there. The Conqueror Justiciar.
wanted no minister, for he liked to look after everything
himself. But as the business of the government grew
greater, some one was much oftener wanted to fill the
king's place and look after things for him. Roger of
Salisbury was Justiciar to the end of Henry's reign, and
it is in his time that the Justiciar seems to have grown
to be chief minister of the crown.
144
England a Continental Power.
The
Chancellor.
7. In later times the Justiciar became only a judge-
the Lord Chief Justice, as he is now called. Most of his
duties then fell upon the Chancellor, who was
at first only the head of the royal chaplains,
the priests in the king's service. They were the king's
secretaries. He got his name from the screen—cancelli,
as it is called in Latin-behind which he and the chap-
lains did their work. The Chancellor also became in
time only a legal officer, but is still a minister of the
crown.
8. The Treasurer was simply the keeper of the king's
treasure, and had to look after the accounts.
Still the office was important, and Roger of
Salisbury got it for his nephew, the Bishop of Ely.
The Trea-
surer.
These were the chief men who did the business of
the government for the king. They were generally
clergymen, for the kings did not wish to give these offices
to any of the great barons, for fear they should grow too
strong and hand on the offices to their sons.
The Great
Council.
9. Most of the government was really in the king's
own hands, though it was always said that he acted by
the advice of his Great Council, the Wite-
nagemot, as it had been called under the
English kings. But it had changed its nature since the
Conquest. It was now not a meeting of the Wise Men,
but a court of the king's chief barons. It had only the
forms of power; and though the king asked its advice, it
does not seem to have dared to do more than agree to
what he said. But by right it had the power to make
laws, and it was important for the growth of English
freedom that it kept even the forms of its rights; for
when the people grew stronger they could make these
forms real powers.
Besides the Great Council the king had two other
courts, the Exchequer and the Curia Regis
The King's Revenue.
145
The Ex-
10. The Exchequer was the court which managed the
accounts of the government and received the taxes.
The Justiciar was the head of the court.
The Chancellor and all the great officers of chequer.
the king's household sat in it, and were called Barons of
the Exchequer. The Exchequer got its name from the
checked cloth which covered the table round which the
barons sat. Its chief meetings were held twice a year,
when the sheriffs came up from the counties with their
accounts. Each sheriff had to bring up the money due
to the crown from his county. This money came chiefly
from the rents of the land belonging to the king in each
county, and from the fines paid by offenders to the county
courts. The sheriff agreed to pay the king for his dues a
fixed sum, which was called the Ferm of the county. If
he got more out of the county he kept it for himself, if
less he had to make it up out of his own purse. Accounts
between the sheriff and the Exchequer were kept on a long
piece of stick, in which notches were made marking the
pounds, shillings, and pence paid in by the sheriffs; the
stick was then split in half, half was given to the sheriff,
and half kept by the Exchequer.
11. The King's revenue, as the money which came in
every year to the king was called, was made up of the
following payments: 1. The Ferm of the The King's
counties, which has just been explained.
2. The Danegeld; this in time was done away with under
that name, but the kings still laid a tax of much the
same kind on the cultivated land. 3. The fines which
had to be paid to the king by certain kinds of criminals,
and the fees and other profits of the law courts. 4. The
feudal aids. The vassals of the king had to pay him
fixed sums when bis eldest son was knighted, when his
eldest daughter was married, and when their lands passed
from one hand to another. 5. Henry I. got a great deal
E. 11.
L
146
England a Continental Power.
of money by fining those who broke the forest laws
and killed the king's game. These forest laws were
so very harsh that they brought much suffering upon
the people. All these different moneys were paid into
the Exchequer, and made a very large revenue for the
crown.
12. The Curia Regis was the King's Court, as its Latin
name means, in which the king sat at the head of his
barons to give justice. It acted as a sort of
The Curia
Regis. committee of the king's Great Council, as
the Great Council did not meet often. The usual court,
therefore, was made up of the officers of the royal house-
hold. The same men who were barons of the Exchequer
also sat in the Curia Regis, and were then called Justices.
If the king was not present at the meetings of the court,
the Justiciar took his place and heard the cases for him.
The business of this court was very great. It had to hear
the cases of persons who had interfered with the king's
interest; it had to settle the disputes of the chief vassals
of the crown, and suits were brought up to it from the
county courts which could not be settled there. Out of
this court sprang, in the next century, the three courts
of Westminster, which we still have: the Exchequer,
King's Bench, and Common Pleas. Besides being a court
for doing justice it was also an assembly of the King's
advisers, and as such it still remains in the Privy
Council.
The chief reason which led the Norman kings to order
this court so carefully was because they found that it
brought them in a great deal of money. They did justice
very much because of the large profits made by the fines
which the offenders had to pay. Henry, too, was wise
enough to see that the country would be safer if justice
were done in it, and so he would be able to tax it more
easily. So we see that the Norman kings did not do
The County Courts,
147
justice for the good of the people, but because they found
it profitable and useful for themselves.
Circuit of
13. Henry I. felt as strongly as his father had done
how necessary it was to keep the power of the barons
from growing too great. He saw that the Con-
queror had not gone far enough in this way.
the Justices.
He went on to make it impossible for the barons to get
strong powers of their own in the counties. He did this
by connecting all the county courts with the Curia Regis.
He sent his justices through the country on circuit, as it
is called. They went first to fix what sums of money
were due to the king. They sat in the shiremoot, the
old English county court. At first they only had to look
after money matters, but in time they sat as judges in
the court as well, in the same way as our Judges do now
when they go on circuit. Their circuits did not become
very regular till the reign of Henry II., when we shall
have to speak about them again.
The important thing to notice is how the whole country
was bound together under one system. Through his
justices the king could make his power felt in every part
of the kingdom..
The county
courts.
14. The county courts were much the same as they had
been in the days of Edward the Confessor. They were
presided over by the sheriff, who was chosen
by the king, and who represented the king—
that is, stood in his place-in the county. Below them
was the court of the hundred, which was a division of
the county; and lastly came the manorial courts, the
courts of the greater barons. These courts were all
steps up to the Curia Regis, and were now all closely
connected with it by the circuits of the justices.
So you see how orderly was the government of the
Norman kings. The people were very safe under it, but
they had to pay dearly for their safety. The taxes were
L 2
148 England a Continental Power.
the Norman
rule.
very heavy, and men often found it hard to pay them.
Character of But there was no war in the land, so that
men had rest, and Normans and English
began to grow into one people and feel that
they had the same interests. The kings were harsh, but
their hand weighed equally on all. The king's wars in
Normandy cost large sums, and the English people had
to pay for them. The chief object of the king in his
government of England was to keep the people con-
tented and get plenty of money out of them. In this he
succeeded, for they never tried to go against him.
he had to give them the liberties, or forms of liberties,
which afterwards helped them to govern themselves.
But
This account of the Norman government may per-
haps seem very dry and hard to understand. But it is
not hard to see why it should interest every Englishman.
It tells us about the way in which the government we
now have came to exist. Our English constitution has
grown up gradually and naturally out of the mixture of
the old English and the Norman customs. We have
traced how the Normans made use of the forms of
government they found in the land: they added order
and strength to what they found, and put new life into
it by their great energy; so that the whole nation grew
stronger through them.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BARONS IN POWER.
1. A GREAT sorrow came upon Henry I. The ship in
which his son William was coming home from Nor-
1135.
149
Death of Henry I.
Death of
Prince
mandy struck on a rock and sank, and all in it were
lost. After this terrible blow, the story tells us, Henry
never smiled again. William was his only son, to whom
he had hoped to leave his strong power.
The only child now left him was Matilda,
who had been married to the Emperor
Henry V., King of Germany. Henry I. hoped that she
would succeed him, but in those days it seemed a strange
thing that a woman should rule over the lawless barons.
William.
1120.
Henry did all in his power to make her sure of the
crown. He made all the barons and clergy swear to
be faithful to her, and he married her after the emperor's
death to Geoffrey of Anjou, the son of the man he most
feared, Fulk, Count of Anjou. You will remember that
the Counts of Anjou had always been foes of the Normans,
and so the Norman barons hated this marriage.
No
Stephen of
Boulogne be-
comes king.
2. When Henry died in Normandy, in 1135, all seemed
uncertain. There was an end to the peace and order
which the king loved, for the strong hand
which kept the barons quiet was gone.
one remembered the oaths which they had
sworn to Matilda In the midst of the confusion Stephen,
Count of Boulogne, son of the Conqueror's daughter,
Adela, persuaded the English to choose him to be their
king.
Stephen was a brave soldier, very generous and af-
fable, so that men readily loved him. He swore to give
the land peace and good government, and all England
took him for her king, whilst no one took up Matilda's
cause.
3. Stephen was nothing but a soldier; he had no idea
how to govern the country. All was disorder
Stephen's
in the land. The barons built strong castles, misgovern-
and plundered the poor at their pleasure.
ment.
Stephen, who wished to make firm friends for himself,
150
1138.
England a Continental Power.
made many new earls. He took no care, as the Norman
kings before him had done, to keep the barons from
growing too powerful. For once feudalism got the upper
hand in England, and the disorder and suffering that
followed showed how wise had been the government of
the Conqueror and his sons. The clergy alone tried to
make peace in the land. But Stephen managed to make
them his enemies.
Stephen's
quarrel with
the Church.
4. Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the great minister of
Henry I., had gone on being Justiciar under Stephen.
He, too, that he might be safe in those law-
less times, had built and fortified castles.
His nephews, who were bishops too, had
done the same, and they came to court with long trains
of servants as if they were princes. Stephen was afraid
of such a powerful subject as Roger, so he seized him
and made him give up his castles. This made the clergy
very angry. Soon afterwards the Empress Matilda
landed in England, and war began again. Even Ste-
phen's brother Henry, Bishop of Winchester, a rich and
powerful man, went over to Matilda's side, because
Stephen had done wrong to the Church.
Civil war.
5. The disgrace of Bishop Roger put the whole country
in disorder, for he alone had looked after the govern-
ment. The laws were no longer carried out,
and justice was not done in the land. For
fourteen years there was war between Stephen and
Matilda. First one side met with success, then the
other. Once Stephen was taken prisoner, but was let
go again in return for other prisoners. Once Matilda
was so hard-pressed in Oxford by Stephen, that she had
to flee over the frozen floods clad all in white, so that
she might not be seen against the snow.
The barons fought first. on one side, and then on the
other. They did not care either for Stephen or Matilda,
1152.
151
Henry of Anjou.
but only wanted to get power for themselves. The clergy
spoke up for peace, but they were not strong enough to
do much.
In the meanwhile the misery of the people was very
great. One chronicler says: 'Some did what was right
in their own eyes, but many did what they knew to be
wrong all the more readily, now that the fear of the law
and the king was taken away.' Another says: 'The
barons greatly oppressed the wretched people by making
them work at their castles. They took, by night and by
day, those whom they thought to have any goods; seizing
both men and women, they put them in prison for their
gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeak-
able. Many thousands they killed with hunger. Then
was corn dear, and cheese and butter, for there was none
in the land. Wretched men died with hunger; some
lived on alms who before were rich; some fled the
country. Never was more misery, and never acted heathens
worse than these. Men said openly that Christ slept
and his saints.'
CHAPTER VII.
SETTLEMENT OF THE DISORDER.
war.
1. THE country at last wearied of the struggle, and there
came to England a man who seemed fitted to bring it to
an end. This was Matilda's son, Henry of End of the
Anjou, who had now grown to manhood.
Already he held many lands in France. His father's
death had given him Anjou. From his mother he had
Normandy, which Stephen had never been able to hold
He had married Eleanor of Guienne, the heiress of the
county of Poitou and the great duchy of Guienne. In
152
1154.
England a Continental Power.
this way he was lord of a greater part of France than
was the French king himself.
Henry began by making war on Stephen. But the
misery of the country stirred up the clergy to try and
make peace. Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, was
sincerely moved by a wish to help the people, and Henry
Bishop of Winchester aided him in persuading Stephen
and Henry to come to terms.
Peace of
1153.
2. By the Peace of Wallingford it was agreed that Ste-
phen should keep the crown as long as he lived, on con-
dition that it went to Henry on his death. A
Wallingford, plan of reform was also made, most likely
by Henry, so that means might be taken to
bring back order and lessen the people's sufferings. Ste-
phen did not live to carry out this plan, and probably would
have been too weak to do so. He died the year after
the Peace of Wallingford, and the crown passed quietly
to Henry.
The Angevin
3. With Henry II. came in a new race of kings—the
Angevin Kings, as they were called, because of their
descent from Geoffrey of Anjou. From Geof-
frey too they got their surname of Planta-
genet, because he had a habit of wearing in his hat a
piece of broom called in Latin, Planta Genista.
kings, 1154.
Under the Angevin kings England made great pro-
gress. First of all Henry II. by his wisdom made her
strong, for he knew how to make use of what the Nor-
man kings had done, and how to make their work better.
Afterwards the weakness and bad government of John
did as much for the people as Henry II.'s wisdom had
done, for it taught them their own strength, and led them
to make it felt.
It was under these kings that England became one.
She learnt to feel that she was one country, under one
government. The Normans and the English too became

DOMINIONS
IRELAND
SCOTLAND
B.Tay
R.Forth
Channel
Irish C
ales
Alravice
of the
ANGEVIN KINGS
Angevin, Possessions
Shewn thus
North Se a
ENGLAND
Rumbar
Wash
Flanders
Severn
B.Thames
Farby
artinge
English Channel
R. Sein
R.Loire
Bay of Biscay
Garonne
SPAIN
London: Longmans & Co.
Elois
Bourines
Toulous
EMPIRE
4
Edw-Weller
52
56
1154,
155
Henry II's Character.
England be-
comes one.
one people. They had married with one another, and
very few families were still of pure Norman
blood. Men no longer spoke of 'the Normans';
the two people shared the name of English. French was
the language used at court; Latin was the language of law
and learning, but English was the language of the great
mass of the people. It was used too by poets, and the
Norman Conquest did not stop the growth of English
literature, though it made it slower for a time.
CHAPTER VIII.
HENRY II. AND BECKET.
difficulties.
1. HENRY II. came to the throne of England quite peace-
ably. He came to it as king of the whole Henry II.'s
nation, not brought to it by any one party
out of the nation. Amongst his own people he must
know neither friend nor foe. To bring peace and order
into the land was his first object.
This would have been a difficult task for a wise and
experienced ruler, and the new king was only twenty-
one years old. But he seems to have known by nature
how to govern and make laws, and besides this he had
the gift of knowing how to choose his ministers wisely,
and how to get out of them the best work they could do.
Henry's
character
2. Henry II. was a little above middle height, a stout
man, with a short, thick neck, and quick eyes full of ex-
pression; his round head was covered with
close-clipped reddish hair. He was a busy
man, of active habits; he never sat down
except at meals or on horseback. He was rough and pas-
sionate, a man of strong feelings, careless of his dress
and appearance, though he liked his court to be magnifi-
and person.
156
1155.
England a Continental Power.
cent. He cared little for religion, but whispered and
scribbled at mass. He had a distinct aim in life, and
kept to it steadily: this was to strengthen and bind to-
gether the vast dominions over which he ruled. To
do this, he saw that, in the first place, he must govern
England as an English king. His foreign possessions
were much larger than England; but he hoped to keep
them all together by wise alliances and marriages. Fo-
reign affairs often called him away from England, and
whilst he was away his ministers ruled the country in
his place. But he himself was always the centre of all
power. He remembered everything, he thought of every-
thing, he cared for everything. When busy with foreign
wars he found time to think of reforms in English law;
nothing escaped his eye and his hand.
3. England welcomed Henry to the throne, because he
promised to bring back order in the land. He gave the
Henry II.'s people a charter of liberties in which he con-
reform. firmed all that Henry I. had granted, and he
at once set about the work of reform. In this he was
helped by Archbishop Theobald, and also by a young
English clerk in Theobald's service, Thomas Becket.
Thomas was tall and handsome, a man of ready wit,
whom the king soon grew to like, and whom he made
his Chancellor. The two became intimate friends, who
joked and laughed together whilst they managed the
business of the country.
In his first reforms Henry followed the plan which
he had agreed upon with Stephen. He sent out of the
country the foreign troops which Stephen had brought
to England. He bade the barons destroy the castles,
which they had built in the time of disorder. When
some of them refused, he quickly led his troops against
them and made them obey. Stephen had granted to
1162.
157
Henry and Becket.
many of the barons parts of the royal lands.
now had to be all given back to the king.
These
The courts of justice began to work again. New
sheriffs were put over most of the counties, and once
more justice was done in the land. Under Henry's rule
a staff of able men grew up, fitted to do justice and
reform the laws. For the first ten years of the king's
reign all went smoothly, and peace and order reigned in
the land.
4. In all Henry's reforms Becket was at his right
hand, and got rich rewards for his services, so that the
Chancellor became one of the richest and
most powerful men in England. Never, it
was said, had the world seen two friends so thoroughly
of one mind as Henry and Becket.
Henry and
Becket.
Once as they rode through the streets of London
side by side on a cold winter's day, they met a beggar
all in rags. 'Would it not be charity,' said the king, 'to
give that fellow a cloak and cover him from the cold?'
Becket agreed; so the king, in jest, plucked from Becket's
shoulders, in spite of his struggles, his rich furred mantle,
and threw it to the beggar. It was in this way that the
two jested together like friends and equals.
Becket lived like a prince; every day he kept an open
table, to which every man was welcome. His household
was like that of a great baron, and the nobles sent their
sons to be brought up as pages under his care, though he
was only a merchant's son.
5. When Archbishop Theobald died, six years after
Henry II. became king, all men spoke of Becket as the
man to succeed him. Henry let a year pass,
and then told Becket that he was to be the
new archbishop. Becket warned the king
that as archbishop he must put God before the king.
Becket
made arch-
bishop, 1162.
1
J
158
1162.
England a Continental Power.
But Henry thought that by choosing the man whom he
had raised from a humble rank in life and made his
friend and favourite, he would get an archbishop who
would obey his wishes, and so he would have the Church
in his power.
For the same reasons the Church was afraid of having
Becket for its head. The clergy thought that the king's
friend would put the king's interest before theirs, and
that they would have a primate whose mind was given
up to the world.
Becket's
life as arch-
bishop.
6. But when Becket became archbishop he showed
that he meant to live as one of the strictest of the clergy.
He wore a haircloth next his skin, he fasted
and prayed much, and at mass often melted
into passionate tears. He gave very large
sums to the poor, and every night he washed the feet of
thirteen beggars. He no longer invited knights and
barons but learned clerks to his table, and whilst they
ate, grave Latin books were read aloud to them.
He gave up the Chancellorship, and in this way
seemed to cut himself off from his old friendship with
the king. Henry was not pleased; he had hoped to keep
Becket as his minister, but now the archbishop seemed
to mean to act by himself apart from the king. The
two soon began to quarrel. Henry wanted to bring the
Church under his rule, as he had brought everything
else. Becket clung closely to the rights of the clergy.
He would not allow clerks who had been guilty of crimes
to be judged in the lay courts.
We have seen that the Conqueror had given the
bishops courts of their own, and so had separated the
Church law from the common law of the land. The evils
of this were now seen. Many clerks who were guilty of
crimes and many laymen who had harmed clerks were not
punished at all. Henry wished to put a stop to this dis-
1164.
159
Henry II. and Becket.
order by bringing them to trial before the king's courts.
But Becket refused to lessen the power of the bishops'
courts. Henry grew more and more angry with him, but
could get him to agree to nothing.
Constitu-
Clarendon.
7. At last, in January 1164, Henry bade all the bishops
meet him at Clarendon. A list of the customs which
Henry said the Church had observed in the
time of his grandfather, Henry I., was then tions of
drawn up. This was called the Constitutions
of Clarendon. They were much the same as the cus-
toms which the Conqueror had brought in. They said
that bishops and abbots should be chosen before the
king's officers, with the king's assent, and that they were
to hold their lands like other feudal vassals and do
homage to the king. They went on further to say that
the king's court should decide whether a suit between
a clerk and a layman should be judged in the Church
court or the king's court. A royal officer was to be present
in the Church courts to see that they did not go beyond
their powers, and men might appeal from the arch-
bishop's to the king's court.
At first Becket would not agree, but he stood alone.
All the other bishops bent to the king's will, and at last
they persuaded Becket to put his seal to the Constitu-
tions.
The moment afterwards he repented. He wrote to
the Pope to ask him to forgive him and free him from his
oath.
8. Then the king's rage knew no bounds, and all
Becket's enemies felt that the time was come when his
power might be destroyed. He was bidden to
appear before the king at a great council held at
Northampton. There was no one on his side,
Quarrel of
Henry II.
and Becket.
and all kinds of charges were brought against him. In
the midst of his enemies he showed his true courage and
160
1170.
England a Continental Power.
pride. As a sign that he looked for martyrdom, he
came in carrying his cross himself, in spite of the other
bishops, who tried to wrest it from him, before the king
and all the bishops and barons sitting in council.
He forbade the bishops to sit in judgment on their
primate, and said that he appealed to the judgment of
the Pope. My person and my Church,' he said, 'I put
under the protection of the Pope.'
He blamed the barons too for daring to sit in judg-
ment on their spiritual father, saying, 'I am to be judged
only under God by the Pope.'
Then he rose, and amid the murmurs of the crowd
walked slowly down the hall. Some took up straws and
threw them at him. One muttered 'Traitor.' 'Were it
not for my order,' said Becket, fiercely, 'you should rue
that word.' Outside the people greeted him with loud
cheers, for they loved him for his charities.
9. So great was the anger of the king and the barons
that Becket feared for his safety and even for his life.
Becket's He fled in disguise that night, and after a
flight.
journey full of hardships arrived in France.
There he could make himself known, and was well
received. The King of France, Lewis VII., hated
Henry II., and was glad to be able to show honour to
his enemy. The Pope was very much puzzled what to
do; his own position was not very sure, and he owed
much to the support of Henry II. He did not dare to
go against so powerful a king.
For six years the quarrel went on, and Becket stayed
in exile. Henry at last got into difficulties with his
enemies in France. The Pope, too, had grown stronger,
and threatened to excommunicate Henry—that is, to
put him outside the communion of the Church-and this
would have given the king's enemies new courage. So
Henry was led to make a hasty peace with Becket, who
1170.
161
Becket's Murder.
went back to England. The people greeted him with joy.
But Becket's pride had not grown less in exile, and he
could not come back to forgive and forget. His first
thought was to punish the bishops who had opposed him
by excommunicating them.
10. Henry was very angry when he heard what Becket
had done. In one of his wild bursts of passion he cried
out, 'Is there none of my thankless and Becket's
cowardly courtiers who will free me from the death, 1170.
insults of one lowborn and unruly priest?' He was in
France at the time, and four knights on nearing his words
hastened at once to Canterbury. At first they went to
the archbishop in his chamber and spoke to him angry
and violent words. But he defied them, and they rushed
away shouting for their arms.
Becket's friends persuaded him to seek safety in the
cathedral. There in the dim twilight the din of armed
men was heard outside, and soon the four knights rushed
into the church shouting, 'Where is the traitor?''Behold
me,' answered Becket through the gloom, as he turned to
meet them; 'no traitor, but a priest of God.' They tried
to drag him from the church, for they feared to do violence
in the holy place, but Becket clung to a pillar. In the
struggle he even dashed one of them to the ground. But
they quickly got the better of him. Kneeling on the
steps that led to the choir, Becket cried, 'Lord receive
my spirit.' Blow after blow fell upon him, and not till
they were sure their work was done, did the murderers
leave the place.
The news of this terrible outrage filled all Christen-
dom with horror. Henry II. trembled at the storm that
was raised, and he himself was filled with anger and
horror at the deed which his passionate words had
caused. Becket was hailed as a martyr and was made a
saint, under the name of St. Thomas of Canterbury. He
E. H.
M
162
1173.
England a Continental Power.
soon became the most popular saint in England, for
the common people had always loved him, and many
miracles were said to be done at his tomb.
By his influence with the Pope and his readiness to
humble himself in every way, Henry succeeded in getting
the Pope's pardon. When next in England he made a
solemn pilgrimage to the martyr's tomb, walking three
miles with bare feet along the stony road. As he knelt
at the tomb, he was scourged by the monks on his naked
back as a sign of his penitence.
Results of
II. But it was not only sorrow for Becket's death that
made the king humble himself so much. He wanted
the help of the English against his enemies;
Becket's and though the English liked their king,
neither the clergy nor the people would help
him heartily till he had repented of the murder he had
caused.
death.
Henry's enemies all chose the moment after Becket's
murder to rise against him. His sons had long been dis-
contented with him, because he did not give them enough
power. It is true he had had his eldest son Henry
crowned King of England. But he had soon shown him
that he did not mean him to have any real power.
Young Henry was so angry that he fled to Lewis VII.,
King of France, who was very glad to receive him.
12. And at this time, when he thought Henry would be
very weak, Lewis invaded Normandy. Henry's younger
Henry II.'s sons, Richard and Geoffrey, took up arms
danger.
against their father in Aquitaine. Meanwhile
the King of Scotland entered the north of England with an
army. The great barons rose in revolt in different parts
of England. At the same moment all the different forces
against which Henry II. had to struggle all his life rose
against him.
These were (1) his rebellious sons, helped by the King
1174.
163
Henry II's Reforms.
*
of France; (2) the King of the Scots; (3) the rebellious
barons.
Henry's great energy saved him in this danger. The
English people and his ministers were true to him.
Hardly had he risen from his knees before the tomb of
St. Thomas at Canterbury, when news came that Ranulf
de Glanvil had surprised William the Lion, King of
Scotland, in a mist, and had taken him prisoner at
Alnwick. This seemed to the people a sign that the king's
repentance had been accepted. His foes had no common
cause, and were beaten one by one with wonderful speed.
Henry was always moderate in his use of victory. But
though he spared his enemies he never let them out of
his hands till he had so weakened them that they could do
nothing against him. After this revolt the barons lost
still more of their power, and Henry was more powerful
than he had been even at the beginning of his reign.
CHAPTER IX.
HENRY'S GOVERNMENT.
1. HENRY II. was a true lover of peace and never went to
war if he could help it; though when he had to do so he
showed himself an excellent soldier. But it was by his
wise measures more than anything else that he got a firm
hold over all his possessions, and made himself the most
powerful ruler in Europe.
When he had crushed his enemies Henry went back
at once to his work of reforming the law. Henry's re-
Never in all his busy reign did he forget
this.
forms in the
low
2. Like his grandfather, Henry I., he sent his Justices
through the country; they were called itinerant from a
M 2
164
England a Continental Power.
Latin word which means journeying from place to place.
Itinerant Henry II. divided the country into districts
Justices.
or circuits, places through which the judges
should journey; and several judges were sent to go
through each. They did not now go only to collect taxes,
but they judged cases and heard pleas in the county
courts. As the justices were members of the Curia Regis,
their circuits brought the county courts into close con-
nexion with the Curia Regis.
3. The greater importance of the itinerant justices
naturally took away from the power of the sheriffs.
Henry found that the sheriffs used their
Sheriffs.
office to gain power and wealth for them-
selves. At one and the same time the king removed
all the sheriffs from their offices, and then had an inquest
or inquiry made into the way in which they had done
their duties. The sheriffs do not seem to have met with
great blame, but they did not get their places back again.
Henry chose his new sheriffs from the officers of his Ex-
chequer, men whom he knew and trusted. In this way
the Curia Regis and the shires were brought still more
closely together; and the barons, as they were now no
longer sheriffs, lost much of their power in the shires.
These reforms all tended to make the country more
and more one, for they made all the government centre
round the Curia Regis, and let no independent powers
grow up in the shires.
4. It is to Henry II.'s reforms that we owe the first
clear beginnings of the English custom of trial by jury.
Origin of
Henry's law reforms were all put together
juries. into short codes, lists of rules, and orders,
which he called Assizes, and which were given out at
the councils which he held so often.
In one of these assizes he ordered that the sheriff
should name four knights, who were to choose twelve
Henry II's Armics.
165
men out of their neighbourhood to give evidence
on trials. These men swore to speak truth, and
were, therefore, called jurors, from the Latin juro, ‘I
swear.'
Another assize ordered that the twelve jurors from
each neighbourhood and four from each township were
to bring to trial before the king's justices, when they
came round, all in their neighbourhood who were
thought guilty of any crime.
We see, therefore, that the jurors were at first wit-
nesses more than anything else. But as time went on and
it was found that the jurors often had not enough know-
ledge about the matter in question, they were allowed to
call eyewitnesses, who had seen the thing themselves, to
help them. So in time they came to fill the position
which they do now, of deciding as to the truth of the
matter from all that witnesses can tell them about it.
5. Henry had much need of soldiers for his foreign
wars, and he made some important changes Henry's
in the way in which he got armies together.
armies.
6. You will remember that the feudal vassals of the
crown had to bring their followers to aid the king in
his wars.
This was all very well for a war in England,
but it was different for foreign wars, when men had to be
taken out of the country for long and dangerous expe-
ditions. In early English times the man who did not
follow his king to war had to pay a fine. Henry now
brought back this custom; but the payment of money
instead of bearing arms, was no longer a punishment
but a favour. The vassal who did not wish to go to
war paid the king a fixed sum of money, according to
the amount of land he possessed. This was called
scutage, and with the money so raised Henry
hired troops to fight his wars. These troops
Scutage.
were raised from different countries; at that time they
166
England a Continental Power.
!
were mostly Flemings, from Flanders. Henry II.'s habit
was to hire troops for his foreign wars, but to trust to
the national force in England.
Assize of
Arms.
7. This national force was not a feudal force. In raising
it Henry went back to the old custom by which every
freeman was bound to serve for the defence
of the country. The Assize of Arms of 1181
fixed the way in which each freeman was bound to arm
himself when summoned by the king. This large force
the king could use as he willed to defend his kingdom.
8. It will be well to notice how among all these changes
made by Henry II. things were slowly moving
on towards the government of England as it
is now-by a Parliament which represents or
stands in the place of the people, who have
Preparation
of the peo-
ple for self-
govern-
ment.
chosen it.
(1.) The king never made a change in the laws or did
anything of importance without the advice of his Council.
It is true that the Council seldom dared to oppose him,
but still the fact remains that he held very many councils,
and asked their advice on every point.
(2.) The jurymen were chosen out of their neighbour-
hood to stand in the place of their neighbourhood, and
this accustomed the people to see a few men representing
many. It was the same in the county courts, where each
township was represented by four men.
(3.) The Itinerant Justices brought the county courts,
or shiremoots, and the Curia Regis into close connexion.
In the county courts there was representation, and the
Curia Regis was part of the Great Council, by the advice
of which the king governed. The bringing together of
representatives of the counties and the towns to advise
the king made in time our House of Commons.
The idea of representation-of one man standing for
many-had been present in early English customs. It is
Growth of the Towns.
167
by carefully watching how this idea grew that we shall
understand how the government of England as it now is
came about.
9. It was in the towns at this time that the people were
most quickly growing in wealth and prosperity. At the
time of the Conquest the towns, like the rest
Growth of
of the county, had been under the rule of the the English
sheriff. Little by little they made their way
towns.
to independence. They were allowed to pay their taxes
direct to the Exchequer, and not through the sheriff, and
the sum of money demanded from them was called the
Firma Burgi; the citizens were allowed to have their
own magistrates and courts of law; their Guilds also were
recognised by the king.
Guilds.
10. These guilds were in early times bodies of men
bound together by oath for some common purpose, such as
taking part in some religious service, and help-
ing one another when in difficulties. As trade
increased there grew up Merchant Guilds of all the mer-
chants of the town, to watch over the interests of trade.
These Merchant Guilds were now the chief body in the
towns, and filled the same sort of place as the corpora-
tion filled afterwards. Craft Guilds also began to spring
up, in which the members of any particular craft, such
as weavers or goldsmiths, bound themselves together to
watch over the interests of their craft, and allowed no
man to practise it who was not a member of the guild.
11. The different privileges of the towns were given
them by the king in form of charters, which were
bought from him by the town with large Charters.
sums of money. The poorer towns, which
could not pay so much, could not buy such great privi-
leges as the richer ones. The barons who had towns in
their lands followed the king's example and sold char-
ters to them. This was done very often at the time
168
England a Continental Power.
of the Crusades, when the barons wanted to raise as
much money as they could to help them to go to the
East. All over Europe many towns gained their liber-
ties at that time.
Henry II. and his sons greatly favoured the growth
of the towns, and did all they could for the good of
trade and manufacture. As the towns grew richer they
could tax them more and get more money out of them,
whilst by granting charters they also got money. Henry
was repaid for what he had done for the towns by the
way in which they stood by him when the barons re-
belled against him.
London was, of course, the largest and most impor-
tant of the towns and had the greatest privileges. In the
time of King John she obtained her Communa; that is,
the right herself to elect the corporation or body of men
who should govern her, with the mayor at their head.
London was already a city of merchants and traders,
and from them the mayor was chosen. The importance
of London throughout the history of England is chiefly
owing to the fact that, because of the great riches of
her merchants, she acted constantly as the purse of the
nation.
cf Ireland.
CHAPTER X.
LAST YEARS OF HENRY II.
1. HENRY II. loved his children dearly, but he did not
know how to win their love. The last sixteen years of
Conquest his life were made bitter to him by their con-
stant revolts, in which their mother encouraged
them. Whilst the elder ones rebelled against him he
clung with all the more tenderness to the youngest, John.
Many of the quarrels with the elder ones came from
Henry's attempts to get lands and money for John's mar-
1155.
169
Conquest of Ireland.
riage-portion. For John's sake most likely he took in
hand at last the conquest of Ireland, which he had long
been planning, hoping that John might at least be King of
Ireland. Besides this Ireland was in a very lawless
condition, and needed a strong ruler.
State of
Ireland.
2. Some few hundred years earlier, Ireland had been
in a very much better state. In 432 St. Patrick had gone
from Gaul and laboured amongst the Irish to
make them Christians. This was more than
a hundred years before Augustine preached Christianity
to the English. The Irish soon became very zealous
Christians. Many churches, monasteries, and schools
were founded all over the land, and arts and letters
began to flourish. Foreigners came to study in the Irish
schools, and Irish missionaries carried the Gospel into
distant lands. They laboured in Northumbria, and they
went even to Gaul and Germany.
But when the Northmen at last found their way to
Ireland, they soon destroyed all the refinement and
learning they found there. Ireland became again wild
and barbarous. There were several kings ruling dif-
ferent parts of the land, and struggling together which
should be the most powerful. But these kings had
little real power even in their own kingdoms; the clan
system was very strong in Ireland, and the different
clans and their chieftains were always fighting together,
and cared very little for their king. So there was no-
thing but disorder in the land. The Popes sent legates
and missionaries, who tried to bring back order and
reform the abuses of the Church; but it was of no good.
3. When Henry II. proposed that he should lead an
army into the land and conquer it, and rule Henry II.
the people well, the Pope made him a grant
and Ireland.
of Ireland, for he claimed in a strange way to be the
lord of all islands.
170
1185.
England a Continental Power.
For a long while Henry was too busy to trouble him-
self about Ireland. At last, in 1166, Dermot, an Irish
king, who had been worsted in a struggle with a rival,
came to Henry and asked to be allowed to get English-
men to help him win back his power. Henry agreed,
and love of adventure led many to go and help Dermot.
Chief amongst these was Richard de Clare, surnamed
Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke. He at last became so
powerful in Ireland that Henry grew alarmed. But
Strongbow hastened to Henry's court and promised to
hold all his lands in Ireland as vassal of the English
king.
It was soon after this, in 1171, that Henry himself
went to Ireland.. Perhaps he was glad to go there for
a while and let men have time to forget Becket's death.
He kept his court in a great wattled palace outside
Dublin. He ordered castles to be built over the land,
and made many of the Irish kings and chieftains sub-
mit to him. He also gave away lands to many of his
followers. If he had been able to stay, he would doubt-
less have gained a firm hold over the country, but he left
Ireland to meet the legates whom the Pope had sent to
bring his pardon for Becket's murder.
John
in Ireland,
1185.
4. Later on he sent John there to be overlord. But John
did not know how to make friends of the Irish chieftains.
He laughed at their rough dresses, and pulled
their long beards, with rude jests. He made
so many enemies that he had to be called
back to England. So far Henry's plans for John had not
been very successful; but the English possessions in
Ireland went on gradually increasing for the next two
hundred years.
Death put an end to the plots of two of his other
sons-Henry, who had been crowned King of England
under his father, and Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany. Richard
1189.
171
Richard I.
still went on plotting against his father with Philip Augus-
tus, King of France. At last they entered Maine, where
Henry was, with an army, before which Henry had to
fly; his flight filled England and all Europe with sur-
prise.
Henry's
The hand of death was upon the conquered king.
The cup of his sorrow overflowed when he was shown
in a list of the conspirators against him the
name of his favourite son, John. 'Now,' he death, 1189.
said, 'let things go as they will; I care no more for myself
or for the world.' He was borne on a litter to Chinon,
and as he lay dying there he cried out from time to time,
'Shame, shame on a conquered king!' At last he bade
them carry him before the altar of the chapel, and his
fiery soul passed away after he had taken the last sacra-
ments of the Church.
CHAPTER XI.
RICHARD I.
Richard I.
1. RICHARD succeeded his father without any difficulty,
though Philip of France, his friend before, became his
foe the moment his father's death made him
King of England. His mother kept order
for him in England whilst he settled matters with Philip.
When he passed over to England, his one wish was to
go on the Crusade, and with this object to raise as much
money as he could.
Richard was very little in England either before or
after he became king. We do not even know whether he
could speak English. He was nothing but a soldier,
with splendid tastes, a great love of fine clothes, and
some feeling for poetry. But he had no care for his
f
172
1192.
England a Continental Power.
people; all that he wanted was their money. He loved
adventure and thirsted for the glory of victory. The fame
of his brave deeds filled Christendom with wonder, and
made the English proud of their king, though he cared
nothing for them.
His minis-
ters.
2. Fortunately for England he handed her over to the
care of a number of wise ministers, who kept good peace
and order, though they made the people pay
dearly for it. Richard only stayed a few
months in England and then started for the Crusade.
He left William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, whom he
made Chancellor and Justiciar, to rule England in his
absence. Longchamp was faithful to Richard, but he
taxed the people heavily, and the barons envied his
power and wealth.
Whilst Richard was away, his brother John began to
plot against him with the help of Philip of France. He
got the barons on his side, and then took away Long-
champ's offices from him and made him leave England.
But new ministers were named, and the Queen-mother
Eleanor managed to keep some order in the land.
3. Then news reached England that Richard on his
way back from the Holy Land had been seized and thrown
into prison by the Duke of Austria. A large
Richard's
imprison-
ransom was asked for him, a sum far more
ment, 1192. than twice the whole revenue of the crown.
The money was got together in England with great diffi-
culty, whilst Philip and John did all they could to destroy
Richard's power now that he was in prison. The Devil
is loose: take care of yourself,' Philip wrote to John when
he heard that at last Richard was free. The Justiciar,
Hubert Walter, who was also Archbishop of Canterbury,
crushed John's revolt. Hubert Walter was an old servant
of the court who had been trained under Henry I1.'s
ministers. He was faithful to the cause of order and good
government, and Richard put great trust in him.
1199.
173
Death of Richard I.
4. When Richard came back to England John was ba
nished, and those who had rebelled were punished. The
king did not stay long in England, but went
Richard's
to make war against Philip in France, and for return, 1194.
the rest of his reign the government was left to Hubert
Walter, who carefully worked out all Henry II.'s reforms.
Richard was always sending for money, and Hubert
Walter was forced to use every way that he lawfully
could for getting money out of the people. England was
kept very peaceful. A good many of the great barons
were away with the king; those who stayed at home had
now learnt that they must obey the laws and the govern-
ment, for it was of no use to rebel.
5. Richard was busy in France making war on King
Philip and punishing those of his subjects who had risen
against him. The better to defend Normandy Chateau
against the King of France, he began to build
Gaillard.
a great fortress on the Seine. It came to be called
Chateau Gaillard, or Saucy Castle, and was one of the
strongest and finest fortresses of the Middle Ages. As
Richard saw its walls rise he cried with joy, 'How pretty
a child is mine!' But Philip's anger was great, and he
said, 'I will take it, were its walls of iron.' 'I will hold
it,' answered Richard, 'were the walls of butter.'
6. Richard was always in want of money; and hearing
that there was rich treasure in the Castle of Chaluz, he led
his troops against it. But the castle was strong Richard's
and would not fall. Richard rode round the death, 1199.
walls in anger, and as he rode an arrow struck him in the
shoulder. It was a fatal wound. The king lay dying
while the castle was taken. He was always generous,
and when the man who had shot the arrow was brought
to his bedside, he forgave him.
So ended his quarrelsome and stormy life, which had
little effect upon English history, since he was little in
174
1199.
England a Continental Power.
England and left the government to his ministers. Eng-
land was proud of his brave deeds, but he was in all
ways a stranger to her, and she only felt his hand in the
heavy taxes which burdened her.
CHAPTER XII.
LOSS OF NORMANDY.
I. JOHN succeeded his brother without any difficulty. Ac-
cording to our ideas young Arthur of Brittany, the son of
Succession John's elder brother, Geoffrey, Duke of Brit-
of John.
tany, was the rightful heir. But in England
men knew nothing of him but his name, and no voice
was raised for him.
2. We have seen how John deceived his father and
betrayed his brother, and he had no idea of treating the
English any better. The men of his time
John's
character.
tell us nothing but evil of him. He had all
the faults of his family and none of their virtues. Even
his vices were mean. He is the worst of all the kings
who have ruled over England-a man for whom we can
feel no sympathy, even when he suffers most. Like
Richard he loved money, but unlike him he was miserly
and mean. He did not care for truth or honour, but
tried to get on by cunning. He cared neither for law
nor religion, though he was very superstitious. He was
savage and violent, and punished his foes with horrible
cruelty. Even to the ministers who served him well he
showed no gratitude, but rather dislike.
John's
ministers.
3. He was kept at first from going far wrong in
England by the Archbishop, Hubert Walter,
who became Chancellor that he might
the more easily keep John in order. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter
1203.
175
Loss of Normandy.
was Justiciar; he too was a wise minister, who had been
trained under Henry II., and knew how to care for law
and order.
John's mother, Eleanor, was of great use to him. She
was a very able woman; and even now, though eighty
years old, was full of activity and energy. She had not
loved her husband, Henry II., and had quarrelled with
him and brought much evil upon him. But she loved
her sons and did much for them. She helped John to
keep together all his possessions in France, which were
attacked both by King Philip and by young Arthur of
Brittany, who claimed some part of them.
4. John, with the help of his mother, got from Arthur
the provinces which he claimed. When Arthur again
took up arms, he was defeated by John and Death of
taken prisoner. He was carried to Rouen, Arthur, 1203.
and there mysteriously disappeared. Everyone believed
that he had been murdered by the command of his
uncle. This cruel act made the barons of Normandy
and the neighbouring provinces all the more ready to
turn away from John to Philip II. of France.
Philip II. had made it the aim of his life to strengthen
the power of the Kings of France by humbling the great
vassals of the crown. Now he seized his chance of
striking a blow at the King of England, who, as Duke
of Normandy and Aquitaine, was the greatest and most
dangerous of his vassals.
Loss of
Normandy,
5. Philip's troops entered Normandy whilst Queen
Eleanor lay dying. Even from her deathbed she wrote
letters to the chief barons of Normandy,
urging them to be faithful to her son. But
it was of no use. The barons were quite
willing to welcome Philip. They had no feelings of
loyalty to one who was of the house of Anjou, which had
1203.
always been their enemy. John himself was not a man
176
England a Continental Power.
to bind them closely round him. He did not even try to
gather a force to lead against Philip. One by one the
barons went over to Philip's side, and Normandy was lost
without a struggle. It settled down quite peaceably to
be a French province, for Philip had the wisdom to let it
keep the customs and liberties which it most valued.
When John saw that Normandy was lost he fled to
England, and there tried to get together an army to
attack Philip, but nothing came of it. In the year 1204
England and Normandy were separated for ever.
The loss of Normandy did much to unite the English
people. The Norman barons had to choose whether they
would keep their lands in England or in Normandy.
Those who stayed in England were quite cut off from
Normandy, and this made them thorough Englishmen.
The king, too, had to find his home only in England.
He stood face to face with his people, and had no other
power to fall back upon. He was not far above them,
the ruler of a mighty empire, as Henry II. had been.
They knew his strength, and then learnt to know their
own too, and to feel in time that they could resist him if
he went too far.
CHAPTER XIII.
JOHN'S QUARREL WITH THE POPE.
1. KING JOHN had lost his mother before he lost Nor-
John and the mandy. Not long afterwards, in 1205, he lost
Church. his wisest adviser, Hubert Walter. After
Hubert's death there was a quarrel about the election
1208.
177
England under the Interdict.
of a new archbishop. The younger monks at Canterbury
chose one man; John, on hearing this, made the elder
ones choose another. Both these men hurried to the
Pope at Rome with their claims. The Pope at that
time, Innocent III., was perhaps the greatest and wisest
Pope there has ever been. John thought he would get his
own way by bribing the men who were to lay the case
before the Pope. But Innocent was not a man against
whom cunning was of any use. He put aside both the
men who claimed to be archbishop and caused the monks
of Canterbury to elect a third, Cardinal Stephen Langton.
His choice was a wise one. Stephen Langton was an
Englishman, and one of the first scholars of his day.
2. John's anger knew no bounds when he heard what
the Pope had done. He said that he would never receive
Langton as archbishop. Innocent used a ter- The Inter-
rible means to force him to submit. He laid dict, 1208.
the kingdom of England under an Interdict, which means
that he forbade the clergy all through the land to do any
of the services of the Church. Only the baptism of chil-
dren was allowed, and that in private. The dead might
not be buried in consecrated ground. The people sud-
denly lost all the help and comfort which they got from
the clergy, and were left as sheep without shepherds. John
was filled with fury. He answered by seizing the lands
of the clergy who obeyed the interdict. He treated the
clergy as his enemies, and allowed those who robbed or
murdered them to go unpunished.
He did all he could to show men that the Pope might
do his worst-he would not care; and all the while the
people suffered for his obstinacy. At last five of the
bishops fled out of the country, and loud murmurs of
discontent were heard amongst the people. To make
sure of the barons John took the children of many of
them and kept them as hostages, so that if their fathers
E. H.
N
178
1213.
England a Continental Power.
rebelled he could punish them by making their children
suffer.
John's ex-
communica-
tion, 1209.
3. After two years the Pope went farther and excom-
municated John; that is, he put him out of the communion
of the Church, so that no Christian should
henceforth have anything to do with him.
Even for this John did not care. At last, in
1212, when the interdict had lain on the land for four
years, the Pope bade Philip of France lead a crusade
against John, the enemy of the Church. He also caused
it to be publicly declared that John was no longer king,
and that the English owed him no obedience.
John's sub-
mission,
1213.
4. In the end John seemed to grow afraid; he could not
trust his people, and he knew that Philip was very strong.
He was very superstitious too, and was much
frightened by hearing that it had been pro-
phesied that on the next Feast of the Ascen-
sion he would no longer be king. His terror seems to
have been quite abject. He gave up at once every point
for which he had been struggling. He accepted Stephen
Langton as archbishop, and promised to give back the
money which he had plundered from the churches.
humble himself utterly he gave up his crown to the Pope
and took it back again, doing homage for it as if he were
the Pope's vassal. He also promised to pay a fixed sum
of money as tribute to Rome every year.
To
This act filled the people with disgust. They did not
ke to see their country so humbled before Rome, and.
the general dislike and distrust of John grew greater
every day.
!
John and his Barons.
179
CHAPTER XIV.
JOHN'S QUARREL WITH HIS BARONS.
Several
I. THE barons were beginning to complain very much of
the way in which John treated them. All through his reign
they had been most heavily taxed.
John and
times he had bidden them bring together the barons.
their forces to follow him to war, and then had made
no use of them. The northern barons took the lead in
complaining. They were not the men who had sprung
from the great Ncrman families of the Conquest, and
who had so often fought against the king for power.
They were humbler men, who had grown into impor-
tance later, and who till now had been always faithful to
the king.
In 1213 John's faithful minister, Geoffrey FitzPeter,
who had long been Justiciar, died. He had done his
best to keep peace between his master and the barons,
and to provoke the barons as little as possible, whilst he
did John's bidding. With him John quite lost his hold
upon the barons; but the king felt no sorrow for the
death of his faithful servant. He was glad to have lost
him, because it left him free to oppress the people as he
liked. When he heard of Geoffrey's death he exclaimed,
'When he arrives in hell he may go and salute Hubert
Walter, for by the feet of God now for the first time am
I King and Lord of England.'
The new Justiciar was Peter des Roches, Bishop of
Winchester, a native of Poitou, and the barons did not
like the choice of a foreigner.
2. John had for long planned a great attack upon
Philip of France. He had allied himself with the Em-
N 2
180
1214
England a Continental Power.
•
to John.
peror and the Count of Flanders, and hoped that to-
gether they would be able to crush Philip. When his
Opposition quarrel with the Pope was settled, he called
upon the barons to follow him to France and
help him to win back the lands he had lost there. The
northern barons refused. They said they were not
bound to follow the king out of England. At a great
council held at St. Albans for the sake of settling Church
matters, the barons and the clergy spent much time in
talking about the state of the country and the abuses of
the government. The same talk went on in another
council held in London soon after. In this the lead was
taken by Stephen Langton. He was a true lover of his
country, and tried in every way to help the people and
bring back order and good government. He had tried
speaking to John about the abuses of his rule, but found
that it did no good. He was now willing to help the
barons to force the king to reform.
War with
France.
3. John was enraged when the barons refused to follow
him in his French war, and when he saw how they and
the clergy were banded together against him.
But he felt that it was no good doing anything
to punish them then. He made up his mind to go abroad
first and make war upon Philip. He trusted that he
would gain a great victory and easily win back Nor-
mandy. Afterwards, crowned with success, he would
come back to England and punish the barons for their
disobedience. Meanwhile, too, he hoped to get time to
part his enemies, either by threats or bribes, so that there
might not be so strong a party against him in the country.
4. Philip of France was attacked by many enemies at
once, and was in great danger, but this danger
roused his subjects to defend their king. At
the battle of Bouvines, on the northern frontier
Battle of
Bouvines,
1214.
of France, he defeated a great army made up of Germans,
1215.
181
Opposition to John.
Flemish, and English. John was in Anjou at the time.
When he heard of the battle of Bouvines he saw that all
was lost, and that he should be able to do nothing against
Philip.
CHAPTER XV.
STRUGGLE FOR THE GREAT CHARTER.
I. WHILST John was away the barons and clergy had met
together again. Stephen Langton had brought to their
notice the charter which Henry I. had given Opposition
the people. It promised just the good go-
to John.
vernment which they wanted, and made their cause
stronger by giving them something clear to ask and
fight for. The barons swore that unless John would give
them a sealed charter, granting them their laws and
liberties, they would make war on him till they made
him do so. They agreed at once to begin to get a force
together to help them in their struggle with the king.
They had little hope that they should be able to get
anything from him except by force.
In all this the clergy, with Langton at their head,
were quite at one with the barons. John hoped to be
able to part the Church and the barons. To do this
he granted the Church the privileges which it had long
asked for. But it was of no use. Langton was too true
a lover of liberty to be bribed to forsake the people's
cause.
2. John went on trying to put off the struggle. He took
the vow of the Crusade, that none might dare to take up
arms against him. But the barons were not Success of
frightened. They got their army together the barons.
and met at a place called Brackley, in Northampton-
182
1215.
England a Continental Power.
shire. The clergy had not, of course, taken up arms,
and had not been forced to break with the king out-
wardly. The archbishop, therefore, was one of the men
whom John sent to ask the barons what they wanted.
He came back with a long list of their demands, which
John in anger refused.
Then the barons marched to London, and the
Londoners greeted them with joy. This was not, like
the revolts of the barons which we have spoken about
before, a struggle to gain power for themselves. It was
a struggle to get good government for the whole country,
for the people as well as the barons. Everyone left
John, even the men of his court and household. The
whole country was against the king, who had shown
himself to be nothing but a brutal tyrant.
3. John was at last obliged to bid the barons meet
Runnymede, him at Runnymede, that they might talk
together about their demands and come to
1215.
some agreement.
Runnymede was a meadow through which the Thames
ran, between Windsor and Staines. On one side of the
river the barons spread out their forces and put up their
tents. On the other side was the king. On an island in
the middle of the river, the messengers from either side
met and discussed the disputed points.
John, deserted on all sides, was ready to grant any-
thing that was asked, though probably he did not mean to
keep his promises. In one day he agreed to the Charter
which the barons proposed, and put his seal to it.
4. This charter, which is so important in the history
of English liberty that it has always been called The
Great Charter, was as it were a treaty be-
tween the king and his people. In it the
interests of the people were considered side by side with
the interests of the barons. This is the important point
The Great
Charter.
1215.
183
The Great Charter.
to mark about it, that for the first time the whole nation,
and not only one class in it, rose against the king to fight
for its liberties.
5. Till now we have always seen the people on the
side of the king against the barons. Now the nation had
become one. The Normans and the Eng- Union of
lish were one people: they felt that they had the nation.
the same interests, and that they could get on best by
working together.
Under Henry I. and Henry II. the barons had learnt
that it was useless trying to get power for themselves,
like the great barons in France; and the people had
learnt what good government was. The order that had
reigned all over the country had educated the people.
They had learnt what law was, what good government
was. They had seen the Church resist the king with
success even when he seemed most powerful, and from
this they had learnt that they too might struggle for
their liberty. So it came about that the nation met the
king at Runnymede and forced him to put his seal to
the Great Charter. The barons in no way acted selfishly.
and we do not see in the Great Charter that they tried
at all to get new power for themselves.
6. The Great Charter was very like the Charter of
Henry I. The barons had taken that charter for their
model. But the Great Charter went farther Articles of
than that had done, for since its day many the Charter.
new rights and new claims had sprung up, and now all
these had to be thought of.
First of all the Great Charter promised to the Church
all its rights, and said clearly that the English Church
was to be free. Then it went on to promise that the
king would not go beyond his feudal rights in the treat-
ment of his vassals, and would not use unlawful means
to get money from them.
184
1215.
England a Continental Power.
The Great
Council
7. Its most important articles are those in which
the king promised that he would not try to raise
money from the nation by a scutage or
other aid without the consent of the Great
Council. To this council were to be called by name all
the great clergy, the earls, and the greater barons. The
lesser barons were to be summoned generally in a writ
which was to be sent to the sheriff of their shire. This
is important, because it clearly states that the consent of
the council was to be given to all taxes, and also states
how the Great Council was to be made up. There was
nothing new in it, but it had never been put so clearly
before. To have the means by which they could hope
to govern themselves so clearly put, must have been a
great help in the future progress of the people towards
liberty.
Abuses
remedied.
8. Legal abuses were also put right by the Great
Charter. John had got together a great deal of money
by laying very heavy fines upon offending
persons. This was now forbidden, and the
old order was brought back into the Exchequer and
the Curia Regis.
An end was put to some of the forest abuses. The
forests that John had made were to be destroyed, and all
the bad customs of the forest law were to be done away
with.
One great rule was clearly laid down, that no free man
was to be taken and in any way punished save by judg-
ment of his peers, or equals, or by the law of the land.
Twenty-five barons were to be chosen by the whole
number of barons to see that the charter was carried
out. If the king would not hearken to what they said to
him, they might make war upon him, so as to force him
to observe the Charter.
William the Conqueror and his Children.
WILLIAM I. (born 1027)= Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V., Count of Flanders.
Robert, Duke of Normandy
(d. 1134).
William
(d. 1128).
WILLIAM II.,
Rufus
(1087–1100).
HENRY I.
(1100-1135).
Matilda of
Scotland
=
Adela Eustace, Count of Blois.
William
(d. 1119).
STEPHEN
(1135-1154).
Matilda (1) Emperor Henry V.
(d. 1167.)=(2) Geoffrey Plantagenet,
Count of Anjou.
Henry, Bishop
of Winchester.
HENRY II.
Henry II. and his Sons.
HENRY II.=Eleanor of Guienne.
(1154-1189).
Henry
(d. 1183).
RICHARD I.
(1189-1199).
Geoffrey
(d. 1186).
JOHN=Isabella of Angoulême.
(1199-1216).
Matilda=
Henry the Lion.
Eleanor =
Alfonso of
Castile.
Arthur
(d. 1202)
HENRY III.
Joanna=
William II.
King of Sicily.


BOOK III.
RISE OF THE PEOPLE
AND GROWTH OF PARLIAMENT.
INTRODUCTION.
IN the period of history which this little work deals with,
the things that are most worthy of notice are these :—
1. How Parliament grew up into its present shape.
2. How Wales was joined to England; and how an
attempt was made to join Scotland also, but without suc-
cess.
3. How some English kings strove to win the kingdom
of France; and how the English people were thus drawn
into a war which lasted for more than a hundred
years.
4. How great changes came over the people in social
matters; how Parliament grew stronger, and some men
tried to reform the Church.
188
1213.
Rise of the People.
:
5. How the barons, towards the end of this period,
divided into two parties, and fought for different kings,
and how the land was filled with disorder and blood-
shed.
To show all these things as clearly as possible, the story
of each has been told, apart by itself, as much as could
be done. Thus, when the growth of parliament is spoken
of, no notice is taken of the other things which happened
at the same time, because it seems better to tell these
under other heads. So the reigns of the different kings
have not been kept apart, as is done in many histories; and
in passing from one subject to another the order of time
in which things happened is not followed. It is seldom
found in history that events of great importance start
into being all at once; the causes that lead to them go on
working for a long time before; and to understand the
way in which they take place, it is often needful to begin
very far back indeed. In this way the chief things that
happened under each head have come to be told under
their own head.
CHAPTER I.
PARLIAMENT.
1. In many ways the thirteenth century is the most inte-
resting of the Middle Ages. It was a century of great men,
great thoughts, and great deeds. But to all
of English birth or descent its great glory is,
that in it the institution which it is England's
chief pride to have founded—Parliament—first grew and
was shaped into the form which it still keeps. We might
The
thirteenth
century.
1213.
189
Parliament.
almost think that this century had been set apart for this
special purpose; it had hardly well begun when the
movement towards the building-up of parliament set in,
and a few years before it ended Parliament received its
finishing touch from the hands of its most intelligent
builder. Edward I. Parliament is, moreover, the one
abiding result of all the seemingly blind struggling and
fighting, in the battle-field and elsewhere, of all the fore-
cast and effort, which made the reigns of John, Henry III.
and Edward I. among the most stirring in our history.
2. In one sense Parliament was no new thing even at
the beginning of the thirteenth century. Already—indeed
it might be said from far earlier times-every- Parliament:
thing that goes to the making of a perfect what it is.
parliament was to be found in England. By a parliament
is meant a national assembly in which all the classes
which make up the people of a country are brought
together, either in person or by men chosen to represent
them. When so met together they talk about, and give a
common opinion upon, matters of importance to the whole
people. To make this assembly worthy of the name of
parliament, no part of the kingdom, and no class of the
people whose affairs it deals with, can be shut out from
it. Now it is clear that the vast bulk of the people can
be present at such an assembly only through their repre-
sentatives—men chosen by them, and having full power
to act for them, and to bind them as completely as if they
were themselves present. A full parliament is the whole
nation gathered together to do the business of the state.
To Parliament are entrusted all the rights and lawful
powers that belong to the nation; whatever it does the
nation does.
3. Now in the reign of John, and earlier, England had
a Great Council of the nation, and had also councils in the
shires or counties. At the national council men from
190
1213.
Rise of the People.
Parliament
no new
thing in the
thirteenth
all parts of the country had a right to be present, but
those who had this right could only be present themselves,
and could not send representatives. At the
shire-moots, or county courts, groups of men
sent from the various parts of the shire for
century. the purpose, represented the whole free folk of
the shire, and did business for them. Now Parliament
grew up by mixing together the great council and the
county courts. When men were sent to the great council
to represent the folk of the shire, in the same way as men
had long been sent to represent different parts of the
shire in the shire court, then we have Parliament. This
was done in the thirteenth century; the men who helped
most to do it were Simon de Montfort and King Edward I.
•
4. The National Council in John's time was a gathering,
at the king's bidding, of all who held their lands directly
Thenational from the Crown, both clergymen and laymen.
council. It was like the Meeting of the Wise Men in
early times, only more people sat in it, and they were the
king's feudal vassals, no longer merely the men of weight
in the kingdom. But already the body of tenants-in-
chief—as those who held their lands direct from the king
were called-had split up into two groups, the greater and
the lesser. The greater barons held large lands, and had
a right to do business directly with the king. The lesser
barons held smaller lands, and dealt with the king only
through the sheriffs of their counties. The greater barons,
being made up of the greater nobles and the chief digni-
taries of the Church, became the House of Lords in the
full-grown Parliament. The lesser barons, as time went
on, seem to have mixed with the other folk who held
lands in the shires. Their representatives were the
knights of the shire who sat in the House of Commons.
*
5. But the Shire-moot even in the twelfth century was
a perfect parliament of the shire. To it came not only all
1213.
191
Parliament.
The
shire-moot.
the landholders of the shire, clerical and lay, but also
twelve lawful men from each borough, and four men with
the reeve from each township. They were
bound to meet the king's justice when he came
into their shire, and help him to do the king's business, in
judging lawsuits and other matters. Thus in the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century we have all that is needed
to make a full parliament of the kind that now meets at
Westminster. We have a national assembly, and we
have the custom of doing the nation's business through
men whom the people have chosen to act for them. We
have, too, little parliaments in the shires which might be
used as patterns for making a national parliament.
First
national
representa-
tion.
6. As early as 1213, signs that the National Council was
about to take the shape of the Shire-moot began to show
themselves. In this year John summoned to
the great council which he called at St. Al-
bans not only the bishops and the barons,
but also the reeve and four lawful men from each town
ship in the royal demesne, as the lands the king kept
in his own hands were called. A few months later he
commanded the sheriffs of the several counties to 'cause
to come' to him at Oxford, 'four discreet men' from each
county, to 'talk with him' on the affairs of the kingdom.
The parliament of St. Albans is believed to be the first
clear case in our history of a national representative
assembly.
Parliament
a native
7. It is, moreover, worthy of notice that everything
that went to make up our Parliament is of English origin.
The notion of giving certain classes of the
people a place in the highest assembly of the
nation, by means of men chosen to represent
them, was nothing new. It was only the same principle
that had been acted upon in the local meetings of the
English from the earliest times The national council
growth.
+
192
1215.
Rise of the People.
was what the Meeting of the Wise became after the Nor-
man conquest; and the shire-moot was among the very
oldest institutions of the country. But the word 'parlia-
ment' (from the French word 'parler,' to talk) is foreign,
and was in use on the Continent long before it appeared
in England; and the parts that make it up were brought
together by the way in which our foreign kings ruled the
nation. If the Norman conquest had not taken place,
an assembly like our parliament might have come into
being, but it could hardly have been the same as that
which we now have.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIGHT TO KEEP THE GREAT CHARTER.
Baronial
war breaks
out again.
-
1. WHEN the barons parted from King John after making
him sign the Great Charter in June, 1215, their work was
not even half done. They had won the Great Charter ;
but a harder task was still before them-to
keep it. England had to endure two years
of civil war, disorder, and misery before the
Great Charter could be made sure. For John was as
false to his word in this as in every other thing he did
or said. A few months after the day of Runnymede he
put himself at the head of an armed force that had been
hired for him on the Continent and had gathered on the
southern coast. The barons marched against him with
their followers. At first John was everywhere successful.
Pope Innocent took upon himself to condemn the con-
duct of the barons and annul the Charter ; and when the
barons would not submit to his judgment he excommuni-
cated them. At the same time the great archbishop,
Stephen Langton, went to Rome to plead before Inno-
1215-16.
Fight to keep the Great Charter. 193
$
He took
Earl of
cent the nation's cause and his own; but he was for-
bidden to go back to England until the troubles were
ended. The barons, too, acted feebly and began to look
to France for help. John was thus able to work his
wicked will upon the country for a season.
Rochester, and then setting his brother, the
Salisbury, with a part of his mercenaries, to keep watch
on London, where the strength of his enemies lay, he led
the rest northwards. For the moment there was nothing
to stop him. He went through England, burning and
ravaging; entered Scotland, whose king had taken part
with the barons, set Berwick on fire, mercilessly wasted
the Lowlands, and turning southwards while it was still
winter, recovered Colchester, which had been lost in his
absence. London was now the last shelter of English
freedom.
Lewis of
France
comes to
came
2. Soon, however, the tide turned. The barons had
been for some time in treaty with France; and in May,
1216, the heir to the French crown, Lewis,
landed in Thanet with a powerful army.
Lewis was the husband of Henry II.'s England.
granddaughter, Blanche of Castile, and now
to England to try and win the crown which the
English nobles had offered him as a means of escaping
from the power of John. John, distrusting his foreign
troops now that a prince of their own race confronted
him, fell back upon the western shires; and Lewis led
his army to London, where he was warmly welcomed.
For a time all went well with the barons and their ally.
John's hirelings deserted him in great numbers; even his
brother Salisbury passed over to the enemy; and in a
few months little of his kingdom remained to him except
the Welsh marches and a few strongholds, such as Dover,
where Hubert de Burgh fought nobly for a cause that
seemed utterly lost.
E. H.
194
1216.
Rise of the People....
3. But John was not beaten yet. The barons became
after a time suspicious of their ally and jealous of French
influence; the national dislike of foreigners began to
work in the minds of the people; and Lewis was losing
ground in England. John was able to march into the
midland counties, to drive off the besiegers of Windsor,
and even to relieve Lincoln. The relief of Lincoln was,
Death of however, his last exploit; as he was on his
John.
way back he was seized with a serious illness
at Swineshead, and died at Newark (October, 1216).
William
་
Pope
4. The men who were on John's side at once set up
his son Henry, a lad nine years old, in his place.
Henry III.
Innocent III. was now dead; but Pope Hono-
1216-1272. rius, who came after him, behaved in the
same way. His legate, Gualo, crowned the young king
at Gloucester, received from him the oath of fealty to his
master, and threw all the influence of the Roman Church
into his scale. William Marshall the elder,
Marshall, the great Earl of Pembroke, an old states-
man who had taken part in the troubles of Henry II.'s
time, was chosen 'ruler of the king and kingdom.' One´
of his first acts in his new office was to re-issue the
Great Charter in a great council at Bristol. It was not,
however, quite the same charter as that which
Great Char- John had granted; something was added, but
still more was taken away, the sixty-three
clauses of the original charter being cut down to forty-
two. Most of the points which were left out were of small
importance; but two of them were a real loss. These
were, (1) that which set bounds to the royal will in raising
scutages and aids, and (2) that which bound the king to
call together the national council in a formal manner
when he wanted to assess other than the lawfully fixed
scutages or aids. The final clause, however, held out a
hope that these might afterwards be restored.
First
re-issue of
ter.
1216-17.
Fight to keep the Great Charter. 195
This acceptance of the Charter by the king's friends
was an act of great wisdom. It shook to its base the
alliance between Lewis and the barons, and for the first
time in the struggle enlisted the papal power in the cause
of English freedom. First in the list of distinguished
men who appear as advising that the king should give
way and agree to the Charter, was Gualọ, the papal legate.
5. The death of John in reality gave the victory to the
party of the young king, which now came to be looked on
more and more as the national party. Many who had
taken up arms against the tyranny of the father, saw no
reason to continue the struggle with the son, especially
as great part of what they were fighting for had been
freely granted them. So they at once joined the king.
A short truce gave both sides time to gather together all
their strength for the decisive struggle. When the truce
was over the main body of the French moved, under the
Count of Perche and Robert Fitzwalter, to the siege of
Lincoln castle. Whilst so engaged they were fiercely
attacked in the town by Pembroke's army Fair of Lin-
and utterly routed. The Count of Perche
was killed; Fitzwalter and many other men of high
rank were taken; and the besieging force slain or
scattered. So easily won was the victory, and so great
was the spoil gained by it, that it was called the Fair of
Lincoln (May, 1217).
coln, 1217.
6. Yet Lewis did not give up the contest; it needed
another defeat to drive him from England. By the
efforts of his wife, Blanche, a fresh force was raised in
France and sent towards the English coast in a fleet of
eighty ships, commanded by Eustace the Monk, a notable
pirate of the day. But this force never landed. For in
the meantime Hubert de Burgh had slipped out of Dover,
gathered together about forty ships from the southern
ports, and pushed after Eustace. He overtook him off
02
196
1217.
Rise of the People.
Sandwich, and at once fell upon the French fleet. Partly
by skilful seamanship, partly by valour and
daring, he entirely overthrew it (August,
1217).
Battle of
Sandwich,
1217.
Peace of
Lambeth,
1217.
Second
re-issue of
Great Char-
ter, 1217.
Some
7. Lewis was now closely besieged in London. Seeing
no hope of relief, he yielded. A treaty was made at
Lambeth, in which he and his English
followers received favourable terms. No
one of them was to suffer for the part he
had taken against the king. Lewis was to be paid a
certain sum, which was said to be owed him, but was,
perhaps, really given to get him to go away sooner.
This treaty was followed soon afterwards by
a second re-issue of the Great Charter.
new clauses were added, raising the number
to forty-seven ; but those which had been left out in the
Charter of 1216 were not restored. Six weeks later
another charter, that of the Forest, was published.
In this the forest clauses of the Great Charter were
embodied; and it disforests, or puts again under the
common law of England, all the forests created in the
two previous reigns. By this charter, also, the men who
dwelt within those forests that were left could no longer
be punished so brutally for killing the king's deer as they
had formerly been, and were allowed to plough their
lands and do other things that were needful for making
their farms productive.
CHAPTER III.
THE BARONS' WAR.
1. AFTER the peace of Lambeth the land had rest from
civil war for forty-six years. Often during these years
there was disorder and discontent on every side; but from
1217-46.
197
The Barons' War.
It
1217 to 1263 there was peace so far that no class of the
people took up arnis against injustice in high places.
seems indeed to have been a fairly prosperous Reign of
and happy time for the folk who dwelt in the Henry III.
country; and it is certainly a time of great importance to
the men of after-days; for in it gradually grew up those
forces which created Parliament.
Let us notice the important things which helped on
the growth of Parliament: (1) There was a slow but
steady advance of the custom of representatives of the
people going to the great assembly of the nation. (2)
There grew up for the first time a practice which
became very common and very useful in later days-that
of granting money to the king in return for his solemnly
acknowledging the nation's rights. (3) The wrongs which
the nobles had to endure from the Court became so
manifold and were so galling to their pride as to rouse
them at last to take steps to put a stop to them.
2. (1) The first of these points is seen in the greater
frequency with which the counties were called upon to
choose 'discreet knights' to instruct the king, or to attend
on behalf of their county in the national council. Thus
in 1226 it is directed that four be chosen from each
county to instruct the king; in 1254 two were to be
chosen to attend the great council. Indeed it may be
safely said that before this period ended, chosen knights
of the shire had come to be looked upon as a needful part
of every lawful parliament. The word 'par-
liament' was first used in 1246 as the name
of the common council of the kingdom, and
is at this time so often found in historical writings that it
may be regarded as having taken the place of the old
name of great council.
First use of
word 'parlia-
ment,' 1246.
3. (2) Of the way in which money was given to the
king in return for his granting liberties many instances
198
1225-32.
Rise of the People.
Third
1e-issue of
Great Char-
ter, 1225.
might be given ; but one will be enough. The last clause
of the third re-issue of the Great Charter-which was
made in 1225, and is noteworthy as giving the
Charter its final shape-states that in return
for the king's grace in bestowing the liberties
contained in the charter, his subjects have given him 'a
fifteenth of their moveables.' Formerly land only had
been taxed; but as wealth increased the king thought he
might raise money from his people's 'goods' as well, and
sent his servants every now and then throughout the
land to ask the towns, freeholders, knights, and even the
clergy for a share of their goods. If it were granted him
it was assessed and levied by the king's officers, and paid
into the treasury.
Hubert de
Burgh,
1219-1232.
4. (3) The dealings of the king with his nobles must be
told at greater length. William Marshall died in 1219. The
management of affairs then passed to Hubert de Burgh, a
wise, just, and vigorous ruler. In spite of many
difficulties and much opposition, Hubert beat
down the wild spirits that the strife of 1215-17
had given birth to. He drove out of the kingdom the rem-
nant of the armed hirelings whom John had brought over,
and did much to bring back the authority of the law.
He was not popular, however; and in 1232 he lost the
favour of the king, who was now grown to manhood, and
so fell from power.
By this time Henry's character had shown itself ;
and he proved to be, if not one of the worst, yet cer-
tainly one of the most useless of our kings. He had
many good qualities, was kind-hearted, generous, and
pious; but he was also thriftless, unsteady, without judg-
ment, and—perhaps from weakness of purpose-too often
false to his word.
5. Accordingly, when Peter des Roches, bishop of
Winchester, took Hubert's place as the king's chief
1232-39.
199
The Barons' War.
For
Peter des
Roches,
adviser, he did not succeed in keeping it for more than
a few years. And soon after this we find Henry un-
dertaking to carry on the work of government
without any settled adviser whatever.
twenty-four years (1234-1258) the post of chief 1232-1234.
justiciar-from the time of the Conquest the highest under
the Crown-and for seventeen years (1244-1261) that of
chancellor, were left unfilled. But, like all men of feeble
character, Henry loved favourites; and during these
years he seems to have been like clay in the hands of
foreign adventurers, who flocked to England from many
parts of the Continent, from Poitou, Provence, and
Savoy.
Foreigners
rule Eng-
land.
6. Indeed, the willingness of Henry to let foreigners
do what they chose in England was his great wrong-doing.
It was an outrage upon the feelings and in-
terests of the native English nobility which
they could not forgive. It made them take
the rule of the country out of the king's hands for a time,
and at last drove them to make war upon him. Henry
was a good son, and was willing to provide for his foreign
half-brother. For after John's death, his wife Isabella
wedded the Count of La Marche from whom John had
once carried her off, and bore him many children. Four
of her sons came over to England and received lands
and honours that ought in justice to have gone to Eng-
lishmen. Henry was also a good husband; and when
(1236) he married Eleanor of Provence, his wife's needy
kinsmen had to be provided for in England. One
of her uncles, Boniface of Savoy, became Archbishop of
Canterbury, an office for which his extreme youth and
violent temper made him quite unfit; another, Peter of
Savoy, got large estates-among others, that part of
modern London which is still called the Savoy; and a
third, William Valence, became so powerful with the
200
1239-53.
Rise of the People.
king that only his unexpected death in 1239 is believed
to have saved the nation from an earlier outbreak of the
Barons' War. The success of these foreigners drew over
others, who also prospered. The evil went on growing
until the leading men of the nation could bear it no longer
and set about devising means of checking it.
Papal exac-
tions and
7. Another mischief of a similar kind worked to the
same end, and is important as having helped to set the
English Church on the side of the national
party. The Pope claimed the right not only
usurpations. of levying money from the English clergy
under the name of tallages, but also of providing for his
Italian servants by presenting them to benefices and
preferments in England. This latter usurped right he
used with so little moderation that at one time Italian
clergymen drew every year from the revenues of the
English Church 50,000 marks, worth more than half a
million of pounds now.
Henry's
want of
thrift.
8. Added to all this, the king was very often asking
for money, so that every class of the people felt much of
their wealth slipping away from them. Henry
spent a great deal of money on his own wants
and pleasures. He was also for a long time
at war with France, and once or twice tried to win back
the dominions of his forefathers that John had lost. He
always failed disgracefully in these attempts, after spend-
ing a great deal of money. At last in an evil hour for
himself he was tempted by the Pope to go blindly into a
scheme for making his second son, Edmund, king of Sicily,
and soon found himself pledged to pay large sums to the
Pope for this purpose. He twice asked the great council for
an aid, but both times it was refused. Then the angry
barons, believing that the king's misrule could not be met
by ordinary ways, began a movement which led in the
course of a few years to the great Barons' War and to the
1258.
201
The Barons' War.
meeting of the first national assembly that had in it all
the elements of a full parliament. It is this which makes
the rising of the barons so important.
Simon de
9. The soul of the movement was Simon de Montfort,
Earl of Leicester. The great earl, known in later times
among the common people as Sir Simon the
Righteous, was himself the. child of foreign Montfort.
parents. He was, however, the grandson of an English-
woman, Amicia, daughter of Robert, Earl of Leicester.
Thus, the great champion of England against foreigners
was himself but one-fourth an Englishman. It is remark-
able, too, that he belonged originally to the very class
which he afterwards made it the fixed purpose of his life
to withstand. Born early in the century, and being a
younger son, he came to England in 1232. There he
found favour with the king, and found still greater favour
with the king's sister, Eleanor, the widowed Countess of
Pembroke, whom, to the great disgust of the native
nobility, he succeeded in making his wife. Then Henry
began, seemingly without cause, to dislike and fear him ;
but he steadily rose in the good opinion of the nation.
By his conduct in various parts of the world-England,
Gascony, the Holy Land-he showed that he had all the
qualities of a great leader; and in 1258 he was felt to be
the one man best fitted to stand at the head of the party
of the barons.
10. The Barons first took action in the parliament that
met at London in April, 1258. It was a stormy meeting,
and lasted for an unusually long time, almost a month ;
but the upshot was that the king agreed to give to twenty-
four barons full powers to reform the course of govern-
ment. Of these barons half were to be chosen
by himself, half by the Barons, in a second
parliament, which was fixed to meet at Oxford.
The Oxford parliament came together in June. The
Provisions
of Oxford,
1258.
202
1258-63.
Rise of the People.
.
twenty-four were chosen. From these four others were
sifted; and these four in turn named a council of fifteen,
who were to advise the king in all things. Two other com-
mittees were made, one of them, twelve in number, to
represent the commonalty in three annual parliaments.
These and some other regulations then made are known as
the Provisions of Oxford. The king swore to observe
them; and all the king's friends-his elder son, Edward,
among them—took the same oath. The council of fifteen,
led by its greatest member, Earl Simon, now drew to them-
selves all the king's powers. They called upon the foreigners
to give up the king's castles; and Earl Simon loyally
surrendered Kenilworth and Odiham. When the De
Valences—the king's half-brothers-resisted the demand,
they were driven from the kingdom.
II. For a time this council ruled England. But they
were slow in making the promised reforms; and when,
towards the end of 1259, they yielded to the
The
baronial
council.
pressure put upon them by Edward and the
other barons, and published a paper of Re-
forms, called the Provisions of the Barons, these did not
give satisfaction. Henry longed to break loose from their
control, but was for a time kept in check by the refusal
of his son Edward to join him in throwing off the yoke
of the council. This body, therefore, though weakened
by a quarrel that sprang up between Earl Simon and
Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, still held supreme
sway. But in 1261 the king was released from his oath
by the Pope, and wrested the authority from the barons,
whereupon De Montfort withdrew to France.
12. A time of confusion followed, lasting for two years,
Civil war
breaks out,
during which many fruitless efforts were
made to settle the dispute. This came to va
head in 1263. Richard de Clare was now
dead; his son Gilbert warmly supported Leicester; and
1263.
1263-64.
203
The Barons' War.
civil war broke out in the west and south. There were
marchings of armies, sieges, and takings of towns and
castles, but no pitched battle. Then an agreement was
made to refer the whole quarrel to King Lewis of France,
son of the Lewis who had come to England in 1216, and
who was known in later times by the name of St. Lewis,
because he was a very holy man. Both sides solemnly
undertook to abide by his decision, whatever it might be.
Lewis came to Amiens, and after hearing the case of each,
gave judgment in January, 1264.
By it,
Award of
Amiens,
January,
13. His judgment, which was known as the Award of
Amiens, was altogether in favour of the king.
the provisions of Oxford were annulled, Henry
was allowed to keep as many foreigners as he
liked in his service ; but at the same time the
Great Charter was declared to be binding on the crown.
1264.
War breaks
out again,
1264.
14. The barons easily found reasons for refusing to
abide by the Award; and war broke out a second time.
While Henry was making head in the midland
counties, Earl Simon was besieging Rochester.
This was
a valuable post; and Henry
marched to relieve it. Learning, however, whilst on his
way, that the earl had left Rochester, he went on south-
wards to attack the southern ports, which were on the
baronial side. De Montfort followed, and came up with
him at Lewes. There, in May, 1264, he gained
the great victory which made possible the
meeting of what is generally called the first
English parliament. The loss of the battle is usually said
to have been owing to the blindness of Prince Edward's
wrath. He was furious with the men of London for the
way in which they had irsulted his mother some time
before. Having broken their division in the first onset,
he chased them for miles in his rage, and when he came
back found that the battle was lost. The king and his
Battle of
Lewes,
May, 1264.
204
1265.
Rise of the People.
Q
brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall who had been
chosen king of Germany in 1257-were made prisoners;
and Edward, in accordance with a treaty that followed,
called the Mise of Lewes, gave himself as a ransom for
his father.
Earl Simon
rules
England.
15. Thus de Montfort once more became king of Eng-
land in all but name. He kept Henry in his power, and
was therefore able to carry out such measures
as he pleased, without seeming to set the king
aside or make any change in the old way of
governing. A parliament met in June, and put the
government in the hands of the king and a council of
nine. The year 1264 was a very eventful one; but its
most fruitful event was its latest. In December writs
were sent in the king's name to certain churchmen, earls,
and barons; to the shires, cities, and boroughs through-
out England, commanding the former three to come in
person, the latter three to send representatives, to a par-
liament that was to be held at London in the following
January. This meeting took place at the appointed time
in due course. Thus came together the first
common council of the kingdom that con-
tained everything which a full English parlia-
.ment ought to contain. It may not have been fairly
summoned: only 23 members of the lay nobility received
writs, whilst 117 members of the higher clergy were called
to it. It may have been force that brought it into being,
as the king was not master of his actions at the time. It
may have been nothing new, and perhaps only used what
had been already common on a smaller scale. But there
is no doubt that it was the first meeting together of the
lords spiritual and temporal, knights of the shire, and
citizens and burgesses, for the general purposes of the
whole nation. The lower clergy certainly had no voice
in it; but the lower clergy, though in name still a part of
First Eng-
lish parlia-
ment, Janu-
ary, 1265.
1265-6.
205
The Barons' War.
parliament, in practice have never, except for a short
time, been represented in it as a separate estate.
War breaks
out a third
time.
16. The parliament of 1265 sat a good while, and did a
good deal to strengthen still further the power of Leices-
ter. But shortly after it broke up, his power began to
decay. The Earl of Gloucester took offence at the con-
duct of his chief, and, like his father, went over to the
enemy. Edward, too, escaped from his keepers; and the
royalists, thus encouraged, rose in arms. The
earl, though a practised warrior, proved no
match in the field for his young and active
foe-once his pupil and friend. In August he crossed
the Severn from Wales, to join his troops to those of his
son Simon, who had brought a force from the south-east
to meet him. Halting for a night at Evesham, he was
just getting ready to start the next morning when Edward
appeared. Edward had surprised and scattered the
younger Simon's army at Kenilworth two days before;
and now he came down suddenly to destroy the elder
Simon's in overwhelming force. He gained
his object; de Montfort's army was over-
thrown; de Montfort himself and his son
Henry were slain (August 4, 1265).
Battle of
Evesham,
August,
1265.
The
War of the
Disin-
herited.
17. The day of Evesham did not end the war.
remnant of the baronial party, made desperate by the re-
fusal of the victors to grant them terms, still
held out in Kenilworth Castle and elsewhere.
Edward fought on with his usual earnestness,
and stormed Winchelsea with a cruelty not usual with him ;
but war still lingered. The royal party began to be less
stern; and towards the end of 1266 they issued the
'dictum de Kenilworth,' in which terms of restoration to
their honours and lands-hard, indeed, but still not un-
reasonable—were granted to those of the rebels who
would lay down their arms. The de Montfort family
*
206
1266-74
Rise of the People.
alone was treated with great severity; every member of
it was to leave the kingdom. Kenilworth surrendered:
but some little time passed before the terms were finally
Barons' war accepted by all. At last, in July 1267, Ely,
where the most obstinate held out, was
yielded to the king; and the Barons' war ended, seemingly
in the utter defeat of the principles for which the great
Earl of Leicester had laid down his life.
ends, 1267.
•
Rebuilding
of parlia-
ment, 1267.
CHAPTER IV.
EDWARD I. AND PARLIAMENT.
1. BUT de Montfort's cause did not die with him. Par-
liament, indeed, had fallen to pieces once more; but
before the century was over its parts were to
be again gathered together into a firm and
lasting shape by the very hand that crushed
de Montfort. In a few years (November, 1272) King Henry
died; and Edward, then absent on a crusade, was raised
to his place. Shortly after the new king's return to
England (August, 1274), the forces that had before 1265
been steadily making parliament a necessity of the Con-
stitution set to work again, and never paused until, in
1295, Edward found it advisable to call an assembly
which represented all classes of the nation even more
thoroughly than that of 1265 had done. Edward loved
power well and to have his own way; yet he loved his
people too, and doubtless he would have helped on the
growth of parliament, even if it had not served his own
ends. But what did most to bring about the great result
was the discovery which he made, that the consent of the
various classes of his subjects could be gained to taxation.
more readily through an assembly in which those classes
1274-83.
207
Edward I. and Parliament.
should be present either in person or by the men whom
they chose to act for them, than by any other way.
2. After the growing wealth of the country had begun to
tempt the king to raise money for his uses from 'moveables,
it became customary for the king's officers, whenever the
king was in need of money, to visit the counties and towns,
and ask them to make him a grant. Even then, however,
he dealt with the people through their representatives. The
county court was dealt with as having power to bind the
county, the magistrates of a town as having power to bind
their town, and the archdeacons as having power to bind
the lower clergy. The knights of the shire had come to
be looked upon as a part of the national council or par-
liament; and a grant of money made by this body was
supposed to be made by all classes in the realm except
the boroughs and lower clergy. These latter classes had
still to be treated with separately—a course which caused
much delay and other inconvenience; and a feeling grew
up that it would be much easier to get all that was wanted
from one assembly. For instance, in 1282, King Edward I.,
while in Wales warring with Llewellyn, first gained through
an agent from the counties and boroughs a supply which
turned out much smaller than was needed. When he
wanted more he called together, by writs addressed to
the archbishops and sheriffs, two meetings of clerical and
two of lay representatives; those of the southern province
at Northampton, those of the northern at York. The
laymen of both assemblies readily voted him a thirtieth of
their 'moveables,'
Parliament
3. Still, these bodies were not even provincial parlia-
ments; they lacked the higher clergy and lay nobility to
make them such. Next year (1283) Edward
brought together at Acton Burnelanother body,
called in history a parliament; but, though re-
presentatives of the shires and of twenty-one towns sat in
of Acton
Burnel,
1283.
208
1283-97.
Rise of the People.
it, this assembly has no right to the name of parliament;
for not only were the clergy of every rank absent from it,
but also the royal summons was sent direct to the towns,
and not through the sheriff, which would have been the
constitutional method. Other central assemblies followed;
but to each was wanting something that a lawful parlia-
ment could not be without.
Edward's
first full
parliament, to be uneasy about Scotland.
1295.
4. At last, in 1295, King Edward took the final step.
He had in that year a French war and a Welsh rebellion
on his hands; and had, moreover, grave cause
To win the
hearty goodwill of his own subjects was an
important point; and accordingly, towards the end cr
1295, he gathered at Westminster an assembly that was
in every sense a national parliament. The writs calling
it together were issued in the way that the Constitution
directed. The three estates were present; even the
lower clergy were represented. On its coming together
it straightway fulfilled the sole duty of a parliament in
those days-voted the king a supply. Edward seems to
have been fully aware of the importance of the step he
was taking. In the writ addressed to the archbishop he
uses language which shows his sense that parliament was
to become a necessary part of the State in England. 'It
is a most just law,' he says, 'that what concerns all should
be approved of by all, and that common dangers should
be met by measures provided in common.' The lower
clergy ceased to sit in parliament after a time; but, with
this exception, since 1295 every national council worthy
to be called a parliament has been made up of the same
parts as that of 1295.
5. Two years later (1297) the one thing still wanting to
give the finishing touch to the building-up of parliament-
a solemn acknowledgment by the king that it alone had
power to tax the nation-was gained. The great Scottish
1297.
209
Edward I. and Parliament.
Confirma-
tion of the
charters,
1297.
war had broken out; and Edward, in his extreme need
of money, acted rather tyrannically. He demanded a
large grant from the clergy, and when they
would not give it, withdrew from them the
protection of the law. He seized the wool in
the hands of the merchants-though only as a loan-and
did many other things which set at naught the rights of
the people. The barons resisted; the Earls of Norfolk
and Hereford refused either to lead an army to Gascony
—which, as marshal and constable, Edward thought they
were bound to do-or to go with the king to Flanders.
When Edward went to Flanders they took advantage of
his absence to force on the Government at home, and
finally on Edward also, a confirmation of the charters (the
Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest). But there
were added seven new clauses, in which the king promised,
among other things, to take from his people no ‘aids,
tasks, or prises, but by the common assent of the realm
saving the ancient aids and prises due and accus-
tomed.' This was a full grant to parliament of what has
been called the power of the purse, which for many years
simply meant that without a vote of parliament the crown
had no lawful means of adding to its fixed income raised
from feudal and other sources.
CHAPTER V.
WALES.
1. FOREMOST among the events that hastened the growth
of parliament are the conquest of Wales (1277–1283),
and the attempt to conquer Scotland (1296–1328). The
king's income was too small to enable him to do more
E, H.
P
.•
210
1274-6.
Rise of the People.
than meet the outlay which his duties as a king made
necessary. When he wanted to carry on war, he had to
ask his people to give him more money. The need of
an easy way of getting at the different classes of the
people, or the Estates of the Realm, as they were called,
made the use of the parliament to be more felt than it
would have been in peaceful times.
2. The Wales that was conquered by Edward I. was
only part of the country formerly and now so called.
From the time of the Norman Conquest it
Origin of
Welsh war. had been steadily lessening before the almost
constant war which the English barons, settled on
its borders, waged with its princes. They had pressed
especially into the southern parts and laid hold of them.
In 1277 Wales had shrunk into little more than half its
former size; and even the ruler of this region had been
for a long time a vassal of the English king, bound to do
him homage when it was asked from him.
3. Now, when Edward became king, he summoned
Llewellyn, then the Prince of Wales, to come up to his
coronation and do him homage. Llewellyn refused.
He was again and again summoned, but in vain. He
either made groundless excuses, or would come only on
conditions which could not be granted. Edward had,
moreover, an old grudge against him, because he had
helped the baronial party in the wars of Earl Simon.
Llewellyn did his best to bring the quarrel to a head.
He more than once broke across the borders of his prin-
cipality, and plundered the lands of his English neigh-
bours. Edward bore this for some time; but in 1276 he
could bear it no longer. He called together his great
lords, and told them all that Llewellyn had done. These
lords were Llewellyn's peers or equals, for they and
Llewellyn alike held their lands from King Edward; and
by law they alone had power to pass judgment on a
1276–82.
211
Wales.
brother peer who was charged with having sinned against
the king. They gave Edward authority to go upon
Llewellyn'; and the war with Wales began.
4. A single campaign was enough. In the summer of
1277 Wales was assailed at the same time from the
south, east, and north. The king in person led an army
from Chester to Anglesey. The Welsh prince was
forced to his knees without a battle. Edward was a
generous foe; he was content with getting from
Llewellyn a promise to do homage to him at Rhuddlan
and at London, to pay a fine of 50,000l., and a yearly
rent of 1,000 marks (a mark was the two-thirds of a
pound). These sums were about equal in value to
1,000,000l. and 13,000/. of our money. He took back also
into his own kingdom some lands east of the Conway
which had been lost in an earlier war. The first and
last of these conditions he meant to be kept; the fine
and the yearly rent for Anglesey he afterwards gave up.
Llewellyn came to London, did homage, and was
allowed to marry Eleanor de Montfort, Earl Simon's
daughter. She had some time before fallen into English
hands when on her way to Llewellyn, to whom she had
been betrothed. The Welsh difficulty seemed thus to be
fairly ended.
Second war
1282.
5. It was not so, however. In 1282, Llewellyn's brother,
David, who had taken the English side in 1277, and who
thought that the broad lands which had been
given him in England were a poor reward for in Wales,
his services, burst with a body of followers
into Hawarden Castle on Palm Sunday. There he seized
Roger Clifford, one of the king's justices, and killed the
knights and esquires that were with him. Then the
united forces of David and Llewellyn passed across the
marches, wasted the lands, burnt the homesteads, and
slew the inhabitants, men and women, young and old
P 2
212
1282-4.
Rise of the People.
alike. Edward was taken by surprise, but at once went
to Shrewsbury, with his mind made up to end his Welsh
troubles by entirely doing away with Wales as a separate
state. Again Wales was attacked from different points
at the same time. One army pierced it from the south-
east, whilst the king in person followed his old line of
march along the northern coast, and again entered
Anglesey. But Llewellyn still held out. The English
primate tried in vain to persuade him to throw himself
on the king's mercy. A check which the English re-
ceived in making their way across the Menai Straits
from Anglesey gave him fresh courage. In reality this
small success only led him to his ruin. He was em-
boldened by it to go southwards and face the army which
Mortimer and Gifford were leading along the line of the
Llewellyn Wye. Near Builth he was caught unawares
killed, and
at a distance from his own men, and cut down,
Welsh war
ends, 1282. in a desperate effort to get back, by an Eng-
lish knight called Frankton. His fall ended the war.
When the summer of 1283 came, the last Welsh castle
had surrendered, and David was a prisoner. Later in
the year a parliament, called together to deal with
David's case, met at Shrewsbury. In its presence the
Welshman was found guilty of murder, treason, and
sacrilege. For these crimes he was doomed to be
David of
Wales exe-
cuted, 1283.
drawn to the gallows, hanged, disembowelled,
and quartered—penalties that were until very
lately the legal punishment of treason.
was executed accordingly.
He
6. Edward took great pains to settle the future govern-
ment of Wales wisely and justly. He passed a whole year
in the country that he might do so. His aim
was to rule Wales in the same way in which
he ruled England, without actually joining it to
his kingdom. He gave his eldest son, Edward-called
Settlement
of Wales,
1283-4.
1284-95.
213
Wales.
' of Caernarvon,' as having been born there in 1284-the
title of Prince of Wales. He cut up the principality into
shires after the English fashion. He set up English law
so far as he thought it would suit a folk like the Welsh.
But Wales was still kept apart from England. Except
on two occasions (1322 and 1327) it had no voice in the
national parliament until Henry VIII., himself of Welsh
descent, gave it, in 1536, the right of sending up members
to the English House of Commons. Edward's way of
dealing with Wales was on the whole successful. Of
course the Welsh people were not content; but they
made only two serious risings against English rule—one
in 1295 and one under Owen Glendower in Henry IV.'s
reign. This proves how solid and thorough Edward's
workmanship was.
CHAPTER VI.
SCOTLAND.
Attempt to
conquer
Scotland,
1296-1328.
1. TWELVE years later Edward was led, partly by the
course of things, partly of his own will, to take in hand
the conquest of Scotland. This he did because
he wished to join together all the parts of
Britain into a single state. It turned out to be
a much harder task to conquer Scotland than to conquer
Wales. He worked at it earnestly for the last eleven
years of his life (1296–1307); but when he died it was
still unfinished. And chiefly because of the feebleness
of those who came after him it never was finished. In
1328 Scotland got the ruling power in England to grant
that it was entirely independent. Afterwards it was only
by the weaker nation giving the stronger a king that at
last, in 1603, the two kingdoms passed into the hands of
the same ruler.
214
1286.
Rise of the People.
Who Ed-
tish foes
were.
+
2. The race that took the chief part in fighting against
Edward were of the same origin as the English them-
selves. It was Lothian-as the country that
ward's Scot- lies between the Tweed and the Forth was
called and the lowlands of Aberdeenshire
that sent forth the most stubborn foes to Edward. This
Lothian had once been a part of England; for the name
'Scotland' up to the tenth century meant only Ireland;
as late as the Conqueror's time it meant only that part of
modern Scotland which stretches from the Forth to the
Spey. But in Edward I.'s time Scotland took in Lothian
as well. So men came to call themselves Scots who were
really as much of English blood as the men of Kent.
Their speech was English; their form of government
was like that of the English. They had even gone
through a kind of Norman Conquest; for in the
twelfth century Norman chiefs had gone to Scotland to
see what they could win for themselves. They had won
lands and titles there, and had got on so well that in a
hundred years most of the chief Scottish nobles were
Norman by birth and habits. But the common folk of the
lowlands, even of those north of the Förth, were mostly
Teutonic. These men had become proud of their inde-
pendence, and now fought for it. They now held them-
selves aloof from both the highlanders of the north and
north-west and the men of Galloway on the west-many
of whom even took the English side in the quarrel-; and
after keeping up a seemingly hopeless struggle for years,
they won in the end.
"
3. Nor were the English and Scots as yet much divided
in feeling from each other. They were far from being
such deadly foes as they afterwards became. Indeed
things had rather gone to bring them together than to
keep them asunder. Most of the rulers of Scotland för
200 years had been English barons as well as Scottish
+
1286.
215
Scotland.
kings. Many of their nobles had as great an interest in
the English as in the Scottish kingdom, since they
owned broad lands in both. The names of Bruce and
Baliol are often found in the roll of fighters on one side
or the other in the wars of the English barons with their
king. For 100 years, too, there was unbroken peace
between the kindred peoples, for it was King Alexander's
alliance with his brother barons of England that drew
upon Scotland the furious foray of 1216.
The
so-called
vassalago
Scotland.
4. Some say that a Scottish king of those days was
something more than an English baron, that he was a
vassal of the English crown for his Scottish
kingdom. We cannot clearly show that this
was so or was not so. It is true that Scottish
kings often did homage and service to the English king
before as well as after the Norman Conquest. But it is also
certain that most, if not all, of these held lands in England;
and it is therefore possible that their homage and service
were for their English lands only. Yet many cases of
this kind are found-from Malcolm, who 'bowed to'
Canute in 1031, to Alexander III., who became the liege
man of Edward I. 'against all nations.' There is, too,
much doubt about one or two of these kingly vassals
being English barons; so that it is most likely that
some loose feudal tie did bind the northern to the
southern king. In any case Edward I. certainly be-
lieved himself to have good grounds for claiming some
sort of supremacy over Scotland, when he was called
upon to judge who had the best right to its throne.
Alexander
5. Scotland was enjoying the blessings of a long peace,
and was steadily growing in wealth and prosperity, when
its king, Alexander III., the last male descen-
dant of William the Lion, fell over the cliffs
at Kinghorn, and was killed (1286). All his
children had died before him, and the next in succession
III. of Scot-
land dies,
1286.
216
1286-91.
Rise of the People.
was the only child of his daughter Margaret and her hus-
band, Eric, king of Norway. The title of this girl, who
was also called Margaret, was at once admitted by the
Scots. Steps were taken to bring her to her kingdom;
and guardians of the Scottish realm were named to rule
in the meantime.
6. This state of things lasted until 1290. King Edward
does not appear to have thought of interfering—indeed
from 1286 to 1289 he was absent from his own kingdom
on Gascon and other affairs. But in 1289 he began to
take a lively interest in a matter that touched him so
nearly. In this year Eric of Norway and the guardians
of Scotland applied to him for counsel and help; and he
managed to settle things in a way which pleased all
Treaty of
Brigham,
1290.
parties. In the summer of 1290 the estates
of Scotland met at Brigham near the Border,
and joyfully agreed to the marriage of Mar-
garet of Norway with Edward of Caernarvon, on con-
dition that Scotland should always remain a separate
kingdom, with its 'rights, laws, and liberties' unchanged.
But a few months later, the death of the child,
Margaret, at Orkney-where she had landed
while on her way to her kingdom-threw the affairs of
Scotland once more into confusion.
Margaret
dies, 1290.
The Scottish
succession,
1291-92.
7. Many claimants of the Scottish throne now came
forward; and it would seem that Edward was asked to
judge which had the best right. In 1291 he
went to Norham, met the Scottish nobles and
commonalty on the Border, and demanded,
as the first thing, that he should be recognized by all
to be the feudal lord of Scotland. After some delay the
nobles yielded to this demand; the Commonalty seem to
have made some objection, but no notice was taken of it.
At last the supremacy of the English crown over the
Scottish was placed beyond a doubt. Edward then took
1291-92.
217
Scotland
Baliol,
Bruce, and
Hastings.
in hand the great cause, and he certainly spared no pains
to make his judgment a fair and lawful one. He passed
a whole year in gathering light on the subject from every
quarter and in every way he could think of. There were
thirteen claimants in all; but of these only three had
anything like a reasonable case. These were
John Baliol, Robert Bruce, and John Hastings,
who were respectively the grandson, son, and
grandson of the first, second, and third daughters of
David, Earl of Huntingdon, younger brother of William.
the Lion, whose last descendant had just perished in the
girl, Margaret of Norway. According to later notions,
the right clearly belonged to John Baliol; but there was
still some doubt whether the rule of succession to the
Scottish throne was the same as that to feudal lands.
It was even thought possible that the kingdom of Scot-
land was a possession that ought to be shared equally
among the three claimants; and this was the case made
by Hastings. But in 1292 King Edward, after having
patiently heard and carefully weighed the arguments of
all, gave judgment in favour of John Baliol. Thereupon
Baliol did homage to his sovereign at Berwick, and then
following Edward into England, again did homage and
swore fealty to him at Newcastle.
8. But this was only the beginning of troubles. Though
¹ Table showing the chief claimants to the Scottish Crown.
David I., d. 1153.

Henry,
Henry, d. 1152.
William the Lion.
Alexander II.
David, Earl of Huntingdon.
Margaret.
Isabel.
Ada.
Alexander III.
Dervoirgal.
Robert Bruce.
Henry Hastings.
Margaret.
John Baliol,
John Hastings.
Margaret of Norway.
218
1292-96.
Rise of the People.
Edward had in the plainest words renounced all claim
to the most valuable rights of a feudal sovereign,
he was still willing to listen to appeals from
Baliol king
of Scotland, the Scottish courts of justice; and cases
1292-96.
of the kind soon came before him. For in-
stance, in 1293, one Macduff, a younger son of the Earl of
Fife, having been worsted in a suit that he made for
certain lands before the Scottish estates, carried his
case before Edward, as lord superior of Scotland
Balio was summoned to Westminster to answer a
charge of having denied justice to one of his subjects.
He disobeyed at first; but on a second summons being
sent him, he appeared before the English court, and told
it that he dared not so far humble himself as to answer
in a foreign court without taking the advice of his estates.
Judgment was then given against him, but was not put
in force for a time.
land and
France,
1295.
9. Now the Scots were a high-spirited race, and felt
keenly the way in which their king was treated. Accord
ingly, when Edward, in 1295, was forced into a war with
France to recover Guienne, which King Philip had got
from him by a trick, the Scots gladly seized the oppor-
Alliance be- tunity. A secret alliance was made between
tween Scot- Scotland and France, in which the two
powers engaged to give hearty support to
each other against England. Few alliances
in history have lasted so long as this. It was renewed
from time to time for almost three hundred years, and
was only broken up by the Reformation of the sixteenth
century. After the treaty was made, the Scots were
foolish enough to cross the border and ravage Northum-
berland. Upon this the war of Scottish Independence
began.
1296.
219
Conquests of Scotland.
CHAPTER VII.
FIRST AND SECOND CONQUESTS OF SCOTLAND.
War of
Scottish In-
dependence,
1296-1328.
I. THE War of Scottish Independence lasted for thirty-
two years—from 1296 till 1328. Early in 1296 King
Edward led a powerful force northwards, en-
tered Scotland and stormed Berwick, putting
most of the townspeople to the sword. By
nature Edward was a merciful king ; and it would not be
easy to account for his ruthless spirit on this occasion.
Halting for a time to see the effect of the blow on Baliol,
but receiving only a formal defiance, he led
or sent his men against Dunbar. Whilst be-
sieging this place the English are said to have
been attacked by a host of Scots and to have won a great
victory. Dunbar was taken.
:
Battle of
Dunbar,
296.
Edward's next stage was Edinburgh, where the castle
gave him some trouble, but yielded after a siege of a
week. Still pushing northwards, he never paused until
he reached Elgin. Every stronghold fell before him ; the
garrison even of Stirling had not the heart to defend
their charge, but ran away when Edward approached.
At Brechin or Montrose King John delivered himself up,
and was sent into England. Wherever Edward went
he made all the great landowners do him homage, and
took care to keep a formal record of each case. Before
summer was past, the conquest of Scotland
was to all outward appearance complete. Then
having made Earl Warenne guardian of Scot-
land, Cressingham treasurer, and Ormsby justiciar, and
having put the places of strength into English hands, he
went back to England.
First Con-
quest of
Scotland,
1296.
2. Yet next year Scotland was in arms. In the first
220
1297-98.
Rise of the People.
William
Wallace,
Battle of
months of 1297, William Wallace, the son of a knight
who had a small estate called Ellerslie, in Renfrew-
shire, stung into action by his own or his
country's wrongs, got together an armed band
1297-98. and began that career which has given him
an undying name in history. After one or two notable
deeds of daring, he made a dash on Scone, chased
Ormsby from the town, and seized the treasure that
lay there. He was then joined by Sir William Douglas,
an outlaw like himself; and the movement soon swelled
into a national rising. Warenne happened to be in
England at this time; but by King Edward's orders he
went at once with all the force he could muster to crush
the rebellion. He had got as far as Stirling Bridge, and
his men were slowly marching across, when Wallace, who
had posted his followers at Cambuskenneth,
Cambusken- made a rush towards the head of the bridge,
neth, 1297. seized it, and cut to pieces those who had
Cressingham was killed; and the panic-
stricken English who were still on the safe side of the
stream fled in disorder. The strongholds lost so easily
the year before were re-taken; and Wallace carried the
war into the northern counties of England. Here his
men killed, burned, and wasted without mercy. Return-
ing to Scotland he took, or was given, the title of Guardian,
and during the winter was all the king the country had.
In 1298, however, his career ended. For Edward then
came himself with a mighty host, and though baffled for
a time by his enemy, who made the country a desert
before him, and cautiously avoided a battle, he got him
within his grasp at Falkirk. The patriot
Falkirk, army fought nobly, but was almost destroyed.
Among the few who escaped from the field
was Wallace; but we hear no more of him for some
years. His work for Scotland was done.
crossed.
Battle of
1298.
¦
1298-1304.
221
Conquests of Scotland.
Scotland left
almost to
itself, 1298-
1303.
3. Falkirk was a barren victory. Famine drove Edward
back to England; and for five years no further serious
effort was made to conquer Scotland. There
was certainly some fighting in Galloway, where
Caerlaverock Castle was besieged and taken
in 1300. It would seem, too, that the English were still
masters of the country south of the Forth. But in 1303
Edward again invaded Scotland. His troops had in
February met with a slight reverse near Roslin; but he
pushed boldly on nevertheless. Marching very swiftly,
he passed through Edinburgh, crossed the Forth above
Stirling, and found no enemy until he came to Brechin,
which made a gallant defence until its commander was
killed. Stirling Castle alone held out, but was left un-
touched as yet. Next year the Scottish nobles made a
formal surrender of the country to Edward at Strathorde;
and the siege of Stirling was undertaken.
Stirling was no easy place to take; its
governor, Oliphant, and the few valiant men
who served with him, withstood the whole might of Ed-
ward for ninety days. Hunger at last forced
them to yield; they were sent to England, conquest of
and a second time Edward had Scotland
in his power.
Siege of
Stirling,
1304.
Second
Scotland,
1304.
Edward's
of Scotland.
4. He dealt very gently with it. Taking as his advisers
three Scotsmen-one of whom was Robert Bruce, Earl of
Carrick, soon to be famous-he brought to-
gether a mixed body of Scots and English, settlement
and with their help drew up a plan for ruling
his conquest that is marked by kindliness as well as
wisdom. His hope was that the two peoples would in
time become one; and his scheme of government was
designed to hasten this happy issue. But for one man
there was now no mercy, whatever there might have been
a year earlier. In 1304 Wallace had declined to place
222
1304-06.
Rise of the People.
Death of
Wallace,
1305.
himself at the king's will; and when he was taken near
Glasgow in 1305, he was sent up to London, and after a
kind of trial, was put to death at Tyburn,
with all the dreadful tortures that the law of
England now made the punishment of treason
(August 1305). But as yet Wallace was the only Scotsman
who died on the scaffold by Edward's orders. Though
many of the nobles and clergy had sworn fealty again and
again, and broken their oaths as often, not one paid the
penalty of his crime.
Robert
Bruce
strikes for
the Scottish
crown,
1306.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROBERT BRUCE.
1. AGAIN there was peace in Scotland; but it was short-
lived. In 1306 Robert Bruce, grandson of the claimant of
1291-92, slipped away from the English court,
and having slain the Red Comyn, Baliol's
sister's son, at Dumfries, got himself crowned
king of Scotland at Scone. Ambition, not
patriotism, seems to have been his ruling
motive in taking this step; but the heroism he afterwards
showed throughout his wonderful career goes far to atone
for his crime-if crime there were-at the outset. But
at first Bruce's attempt was but a bold stroke for a crown.
No general rising took place, as in 1297. For years King
Robert was a mere adventurer, with little other support
than that of his personal followers and friends. Indeed,
until 1310 his enterprise wore a very hopeless look.
2. In June, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke,
grandson of John's queen by her second hus-
band, and now governor of Scotland, suddenly
burst upon Bruce at Methven, near Perth,
routed his little band, and drove him, a homeless vagabond,
Fight of
Methven,
1306.
1306-10.
223
Robert Bruce.
to seek shelter in the West. On his way thither he was
assailed by the highlanders under John of Lorn, and
saved himself only by marvellous courage and skill.
Then disaster followed disaster; for by this time Ed-
ward had again approached the Border; and though the
hand of death was slowly closing upon him, still from his
couch at Lanercost he eagerly watched and, so far as he
could, guided the course of events in Scotland. A great
change had come over him. He now breathed nothing
but vengeance. Nearly every male prisoner of rank who
fell into his hands was sent to the scaffold. Three of
Bruce's brothers, and many other of his stoutest partisans
thus perished. The Countess of Buchan, who had placed
the crown on Bruce's head, was shut up in a cage in
Berwick Castle; but his wife and daughter were honourably
treated in England.
In May 1307,
Loudon
Hill, 1307.
3. All this time Bruce was roving about in the Western
isles, or landing on the mainland only to be beaten and
chased back into his hiding-places by an English force.
Once he was cheered by a slight success.
hẹ withstood and drove back Pembroke at
Loudon Hill, in Ayrshire. Yet in a few days
he was again a fugitive; but in the following July King
Edward died at Burgh-on-Sands, near Car-
lisle, and Bruce's enterprise became possible. dies, July
For Edward's son and successor, Edward II.,
was a man of very different mettle from his father's, and
Bruce's chances became more encouraging.
Edward I.
1307.
4. Yet for the first three years after his sleepless foe's
death he made but slow progress. Though he managed
to keep the field, he gained no stronghold. Every fortress
in Scotland was still in English hands. But in 1310
Edward II. made a grand invasion, which failed because,
owing to King Robert's resolute policy, the invaders
could neither find an enemy nor live in the country,
224
1314-27.
Rise of the People.
Bruce then took courage, attempted town after town to
such good purpose that in 1314 he was master of every
place of strength in his kingdom save Stirling and
Berwick; and in the June of this year his men were
pressing Stirling so hard that its governor engaged to
deliver it up if by the following St. John's Day (June 24)
he were not relieved.
Battle of
Bannock-
burn, 1314.
5. This roused the spiritless Edward to a great effort;
and on the eve of St. John's Day a huge host of English,
led by their king in person, came in sight of
Stirling. Hitherto King Robert had been
very careful not to fight; but he made up his
mind to risk a battle now rather than lose his chance of
getting Stirling; and the great battle of Bannockburn
was the result. Bruce chose his ground with sound
judgment. The English archers were scattered by a
charge of Scottish horse; and the mounted men-at-arms,
huddled together in a narrow space, through which alone
the Scots could be reached, were easily discomfited by
the Scottish spearmen. Edward and his men fled in
wild disorder to Berwick; and Stirling surrendered the
same evening.
Truce of
1323.
6. Scottish independence was now as good as won. At
this time the English power was greatly weakened by the
quarrels of Edward II. and his barons; and Bruce was
able in 1318 to retake Berwick, and in 1322 to lead his
victorious Scots almost to the gates of York. He more-
over forced Edward to make two truces, of
which the latter, made in 1323, was for thir-
teen years, and whilst it refused to give, allowed Robert to
take the royal title. In 1327, when the worthless
Edward was dethroned, and his young son, Edward III.,
was made king in his stead, King Robert broke the
truce, and sent an arrny into England, which defied all
the efforts of the boy king's counsellors to bring it to a

SCOTLAND
IN THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
20
Orkneys
Long Island
Sudreys or
Ima
RathlinI
10w parky
CAITHNESS
SS
MORA
R.Spey
Moray Frith
siging
BERDEEN
Buchan
ORN
ATHOL
Perth
Methyen
Brechinc
Scone
Duppbin Moor
Cambuskenneth
Stirling Kinghorn
Bannockbur
Falkirk
EDINBURGH
Tay
ith of Forth
Dumbarton
Dunbar 56
Berwick
Lothian
BTweed
Norham
Paisley Glasgow Roslin
Loudon Hill
IRELAND
Frith of
Carri
E. H.
Q
Galloway
Dumfries
Caerlayerock Castle
anercost
Carlisle
226
1328-29.
Rise of the People.
Peace of
Northamp-
ton, 1328.
battle. This inroad was the last event of the war. In
1328 a peace was made in which England gave up
to Robert the kingship and independence of
Scotland which he had been so long fighting
for. This is known as the Peace of North-
ampton, being so called from the place where the parlia-
Bruce dies,
ment met which gave it its sanction. In the
following year Robert died, leaving the crown
1329.
to his son David, a lad but five years old.
keep
CHAPTER IX.
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AND OF FRANCE.
I. FOR the greater part of the two centuries and a half
after John lost Normandy (1204-1453) the kings of Eng-
land and of France were at war with each other. This
was chiefly owing to the fact that the English king still
The kings
held a large portion of southern France. The
of England region called by English writers Guienne,
Guienne. which stretched northwards from the Pyrenees
almost to the river Charente, still remained in their
possession. Once indeed it seemed likely that they
would have to part with this country also. In 1224
Lewis VIII., the same Lewis who was driven from Eng-
land in 1217, after conquering lower Poitou, pushed his
arms into Gascony also; but it was recovered shortly
afterwards by William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury.
•
2. Henry III. made several attempts to get back the
provinces which his father had lost; and it was not until
1259 that the long quarrel was set at rest by a treaty of
peace. By this treaty, Lewis IX., of his own free will, gave
1259-1324. The Kings of England and France.227
1259.
back to Henry III. several of the conquests he had
made. Henry agreed to do homage for these Peace of
and for Gascony, and to give up all claim to
the others which his father and himself had lost. Thus
the kings of England were dukes of Guienne long after
they had ceased to be dukes of Normandy and counts
of Anjou.
3. This dignity added little to their real strength. The
French kings, whose vassals they were, regarded them
with great jealousy, and were ever on the watch for an
excuse for taking their French lands from them. In
1294 Philip IV., called the Fair, actually did get them,
but in a shamefully dishonest way. He summoned Ed-
ward I. to Paris to answer for the conduct of certain
Gascons, subjects of his, who had given help to the Eng-
lish sailors in a strange kind of war that for a time raged
between the English and the Norman seafaring folk.
Edward did not appear, but sent his brother Edmund,
Earl of Lancaster, in his place. Philip said
he was willing to push the matter no farther
if Guienne was put into his hands for forty
days, promising to restore it at the end of that time.
Edmund accepted the offer; and Philip's officers were
put in possession of the duchy. But Philip broke his
word, and when the forty days had passed, still kept
Guienne; and Edward was forced to go to war with him.
This war was uneventful, but worthy of notice as having
been the means of winning from Edward the Confirmation
of the Charters. The upshot of it was that Edward got
back Guienne in 1303.
Edward I.
tricked out
1294.
of Guienne,
4. Again, in 1324, Charles the Fair, Philip's son,
fastened a quarrel of a like nature on Edward´ II., took
Guienne into his hands, and only gave it back again when
young Edward, Earl of Chester, afterwards Edward III.,
was sent over to do homage in his father's place. Alte
Q 2
228
1324-28.
Rise of the People.
!
gether Guienne was a fruitful source of trouble to its duke
in England; but to the English it was in one way an
advantage that their kings still kept a footing on French
soil. No single cause did so much to strengthen the
hands of the newly-created Parliament. So long as he
had Guienne to defend, an English king could never be
sure of peace; and when war, or threat of war, arose, he
had to ask his Parliament for money.
5. But at no time did the Third Estate, as the Com-
mons were called, gain so much power as in the Hundred
Years' War. When that war began it was the weakest
of the three estates; when the war ended it was the
strongest. And it is very likely that the
Hundred Years' War would never have taken
place if Guienne had not belonged to the king
of England; for the way in which this war between the
kings of France and England broke out was the following.
Cause of the
Hundred
Years' War.
Edward
III. be-
comes king,
1327.
6. Early in 1327 Edward II. was deposed because he
was unfit to rule, and his elder son, Edward, then only a
lad of fourteen, became king. Until his
eighteenth year he was under the guidance of
his mother, Isabella of France, and Roger
Mortimer, who had planned and carried out the overthrow
of his father. These two had taken on themselves the
rule of the nation, paying little respect to the council of
bishops, earls, and barons chosen for the purpose. In
1328 the last of Philip the Fair's sons,¹ Charles the Fair,
¹ Table showing Edward III.'s claim to the French crown.
Philip III.

Philip IV. (the Fair)
Charles of Valois.
Philip VI.
Lewis X.
Philip V.
Charles IV.
(the Fair)
Isabella.
Edward III. of England.
Jane.
Charles of Navarre.
1328-37. The Kings of England and France. 229
died, leaving no son to succeed him; and Edward, as the
grandson of Philip through Isabella, Philip's daughter,
put in a claim for the empty throne. Of this claim no
notice seems to have been taken; and Philip of Valois,
the son of Philip the Fair's brother, was accepted as
king. Next year Edward did homage to Philip of Valois
for Guienne, thus seemingly allowing his future rival's
title.
Battle of
Halidon
Hill, 1333.
7. In 1330 young Edward shook off the control of his
mother and Mortimer-sending Mortimer to the scaffold
—and made himself king in fact, as he was already king
in name. A few years afterwards fighting began between
some of his lords in the north and the regency that held
sway in Scotland during the minority of David Bruce;
and in 1333 Edward was easily drawn into
the war.
He won the battle of Halidon Hill,
retook Berwick, overran Scotland, joined
Lothian to his own kingdom, and set up Edward Baliol,
John Baliol's son, as vassal king of Scotland north of the
Friths. The Scots fought against his designs with their
usual dogged courage; and he had himself to lead
armies more than once into their country. But in the
main his work prospered, and there is little doubt that
if he had not turned aside from his task Scotland would
have been conquered at last. But at this point Philip
of France stepped in, and, taking the part of David Bruce
so annoyed Edward that he revived his half-forgotten
claim to the French throne, and began a war that proved
one of the longest and saddest in history. Philip thought
he might make such a use of Edward's war in the north
as to win Guienne for himself. Accordingly
he sheltered Bruce, who had been driven from
Scotland, sent men and ships to aid Bruce's
Philip of
France aids
England.
the foes of
party, threatened to invade England, and sent troops
against Guienne. Edward had to make his choice-
·
230
1337.
Rise of the People.
Edward
III. claims
the French
crown.
+
either to go to war with France or to lose Guienne. He
chose to go to war; and wishing to gain support for his
cause, took the title and, a little later, the arms
of a French king. His claim, though skilfully
put, was an utterly groundless one. It had
come to be regarded as a law in France, that not only no
woman, but also no man who traced his descent from the
blood royal through a woman only, could wear the crown
of the country. This was called the Salic law; and by
it Edward, whose link of connexion with French royalty
was his mother Isabella, had plainly not a shadow of
right. But Edward took another view of the Salic law;
he said that it kept from the French throne women only,
but not their sons if these were otherwise the nearest of
blood. In this way he, as grandson of Philip IV. (the Fair)
would have had a better title than Philip VI. (of Valois), who
was only a son of Philip the Fair's younger brother. In
1337, however, there was a boy, Charles of Navarre, who,
by Edward's own way of putting the law, stood before.
him in nearness to the throne. But there is reason to
think that Edward was only half in earnest in making
and pushing on his claim. More than once during the
war his conduct would seem to show that he used the
title of king of France to enable him to drive a more
gainful bargain with the enemy when peace should be
made. It was an unlucky step, however, as it greatly
embittered the quarrel, and made a lasting peace next to
impossible.
CHAPTER X.
FIRST STAGE OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.
1. THE Hundred Years' War may be divided into three
parts. The first stretches from 1337 to the Great Peace
1337-40.
231
The Hundred Years' War.
The
Years' War,
1337-1453.
of 1360; the second from 1369, when the war broke out
again, to the Great Truce of 1396; the third
from the breaking of this truce in 1415 to the Hundred
final loss of Bordeaux by Henry VI. in 1453.
But in no one of these parts did the fighting go on con-
tinuously from year to year. In each of them truces of
greater or less length kept the foes apart now and then ;
and in one (the third) the great prize seemed to have been
really won by a treaty made at Troyes between the rival
kings, Henry V. and Charles VI., in 1420.
-
Edward
Flanders,
1339-40.
2. At first King Edward III. tried to assail Philip VI.
from Flanders. He had made allies there among the
wealthy self-governed cities, and had an es-
pecially trusty friend in James Van Artevelde III. in
-'the brewer of Ghent,' as his enemies called
him—and among the feudal princes and nobles jealous of
France. He had won to his cause even the Emperor of
the day, Lewis of Bavaria. He spent much treasure, and
plunged himself into debt, in making war on this side, but
gained nothing-only a little glory. Twice (in 1339 and
1340) he led huge armies southwards, both times met his
rival, yet failed to draw him into a battle, and had to fall
back baffled. He could not rely on his allies. His only
success was the naval victory of Sluys-won in June 1340,
over a French fleet that sought to bar his way Battle of
as he was going to Flanders to start on one of Sluys, 1340.
his marches towards France. It was a strange kind of sea-
battle. Both sides merely used their ships as platforms
to fight from. After a desperate struggle, which lasted
till nightfall, the English men-at-arms and archers over-
powered the French, who were almost all killed or
drowned. The defeat was a crushing one, and is said to
have further strengthened the lordship over the narrow
seas which England even then claimed and kept until
the present century. But when Edward came back to
232
1340-46.
Rise of the People.
·
England in November, he was sunk in debt, and as far
from his object as ever.
3. After this the war shifted to Britanny, where a dis-
pute about the succession to the duchy between John de
Montfort, the half-brother of the late duke,
War in
Britanny,
1342.
and Charles of Blois, who had married the late
duke's niece Jane, gave Edward a chance of
winning friends on French soil. Charles was the nephew
of King Philip, and his claim was therefore supported
by France; whilst de Montfort sought help from Edward,
offering to do homage to him as king of France in return.
Edward accepted the offer, and sent aid, going himself
over to Britanny in 1342 with 12,000 men.
The great
event of this stage of the war was the heroic defence of
Hennebon by Jane of Flanders, wife of de Montfort, who
had been taken prisoner. Jane kept the enemy at bay
for some months, hoping against hope, and was at last
relieved by an English force led by Sir Walter Manny, a
knight of Hainault, who became very famous during this
part of the war. The Breton quarrel was not finally
settled until the next reign. The cause of de Montfort
won in the end.
4. In 1346 was fought the great battle of Cressy-won-
derful in many ways, but especially so as showing the
height that English daring and force in war
Campaign
of Cressy, had already reached. In July King Edward
1346.
landed in Normandy with 30,000 men, and
went along the left bank of the Seine towards Paris. His
purpose is not very clear: perhaps he wished to cross the
river and join his Flemish allies. But every bridge had
been broken down, and he found no means of getting
across until he came to Poissy, not far from Paris. After
some delay he managed to reach the right bank at Poissy,
and at once headed northwards. King Philip, who had
been lying with a large army in the neighbourhood of
1
1346.
233
The Hundred Years' War.
Paris, went in pursuit ; and for a time it seemed as if his
daring foes could not escape him. At the Somme their
position was almost desperate; after much searching and
dangerous delay, Edward had found a ford at Blanche-
tache, but a full tide kept his army motionless on the
southern bank for many hours. Had Philip come up
then, as he might easily have done, it is thought that the
English would have been cut off to a man. But he
loitered at Abbeville; the tide fell; the French force that
lined the opposite bank was routed, and Edward crossed.
But on reaching Cressy (Crécy), in Ponthieu, he halted
his army, and waited for the oncoming of the French.
On Saturday, August 26, the French army, said to have
been 100,000 strong, came in sight; and late in the day
the battle began.
Battle of
Cressy,
August 26,
1346.
5. The English were drawn up in three divisions upon
the slope of a hill crowned by a windmill, near which
King Edward himself stood. His eldest son,
Edward, Prince of Wales, a youth of sixteen,
and still renowned as the Black Prince, led
the first of these divisions; the Earls of Northampton
and Arundel the second; the king himself held the third
in reserve. The onset came from the French side, and
was made first by the Genoese crossbowmen. But these
were met and speedily thrown into confusion by the
English archers, who were far superior to them in swift-
ness and in sureness of aim. The discomfiture of the
Genoese made it difficult for the French men-at-arms,
who were next in order, to come on; but at last these
swept the bewildered crossbowmen from their path, and
with the Count of Alençon, King Philip's brother, at their
head, fell upon the Prince's division. This was the most
awful shock of the fight. At one time young Edward
and his men were in great peril, and an earnest prayer
for succour was sent to the king. But Edward would
•
234
1346-57.
Rise of the People.
have his child 'win his spurs' unaided, that the honour
of the day might be his alone. In the end this onset
was beaten back also. Alençon made one more effort to
pierce to the English centre, but was killed. His men
fled; the French army scattered in all directions; and
the French king galloped off the field. When the fog
that covered the ground until late in the following day
(Sunday) cleared away, the most sickening scene of car-
nage was disclosed. On the French side alone more than
30,000 had fallen; the loss of the English is unknown.
Siege of
Calais,
1346-47.
6. But Edward, instead of leading the victors to Paris,
which it is thought he might easily have done, marched
on and laid siege to Calais. This town he
was bent on having; and after a close block-
ade, lasting for eleven months, he took it in
August 1347. He drove out all the inhabitants who
would not swear allegiance to him, planted English in
their place, gave to these valuable privileges, and girt the
city round with such strong defences as to show that he
wanted to make and keep it purely English. In time it
came to be looked on as a part of the kingdom of Eng-
land. Henry VIII. even granted it the right to send
members to parliament.
7. Seven weeks after the fight of Cressy, and while
Edward was lying before Calais, a great success fell to the
Fight of
Neville's
English on their own soil. In the autumn,
David Bruce, who had now come back to Scot-
Cross, Octo-
ber 1346.
land, fell upon the North of England with a
large force. He was working great mischief to the country,
when Henry Percy and Ralph Neville encountered him
at a place near Durham, known as Neville's Cross. The
Scots were thoroughly beaten, and King David was him-
self taken prisoner. He was a captive in England for
eleven years, but was, in 1357, ransomed upon a truce.
The mutual hatred of the nations made a lasting peace
1346-1355.
235
The Hundred Years' War.
impossible. Indeed, no treaty of peace was made be-
tween England and Scotland until Henry VII.'s reign.
8. For eight years after the taking of Calais the war
almost ceased. In. 1348-9 a more fatal scourge even than
war came upon England-the great Plague,
called the Black Death, which in one year
carried off little, if anything, less than half
the population. While it was fresh in men's minds, they
Respite
from war,
1347-55.

ENGLISH CHANNEL
Cla Hague
Britanny
Hennebon
Calais
Cressy
Amiens
Rouen
Normandy Poissy PARIS
Mame
Bretigny
Orleans
Pothers
Poitou
RAY OF
BISCAY
Saintonge
Auberoche
Bordeaux
Guienne
Gascony
Toulouse
Avignon
MEDITERRANEAN
SEA
FRANCE AFTER the TreaTY OF 1259.
(The dotted line encloses the lands held by the King of England,)
F
thought of other things than fighting with France; and
the truce already in force was renewed from time to
time. But in 1355 the work of destruction began again,
236
1356-60.
Rise of the People.
•
In 1356 another great victory-that of Poitiers was
gained by the English and Gascons. King Philip had
died in the meantime, and his son John was now king
of France. This year the Black Prince, who was then
living at Bordeaux as governor of Gascony, went north-
wards on a plundering raid. On his way back he came
upon the French king and an army of 60,000, who had
posted themselves across his path, at Maupertuis, near
Battle of
Poitiers. His force was small-barely 12,000;
Poitiers,
September
yet when he found that John would hear of
1356.
nothing but a full surrender, he drew up his
men on a rising ground girt round with vineyards, and
offered battle. A narrow lane was the only way by which
the enemy could reach them. The hedge on each side
of this he lined with archers; and when the mounted
men-at-arms of the French tried to force a passage they
fell thick and fast before the deadly hail of arrows. When
the archers had done their part, Edward issued from his
position at the head of his cavalry, and after a stiff bit of
fighting, routed and chased the enemy to the gates of
Poitiers. Several thousands were slain ; the king, his son,
and many nobles were made prisoners. Next spring the
Black Prince sailed with his royal captives to England.
Three years later peace came. The terms that John
first agreed to were rejected by the French States-general
as dishonourable; and King Edward, furious
Peace of
Bretigny, at not getting what he thought himself sure
May 1360.
of, led a new army in a destroying march
through northern France and Burgundy, even threatening
Paris. At Bretigny, however, he accepted a treaty that
left him master of Poitou, and of all the country that
spreads from Poitou to the Pyrenees, as well as of Calais
and Ponthieu, in as full sovereignty as that by which he
held England. In return he gave up his claim to the
crown of France (1360).
1367-70.
237
The Hundred Years' War.
CHAPTER XI.
SECOND STAGE OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.
Prince
1. THE peace that followed the Treaty of Bretigny lasted
for but nine years. In 1367 the Black Prince was foolish
enough to march an army across the Pyrenees, Black
to put back on the throne of Castile the king invades Cas-
who had been driven out, infamous as Pedro tile, 1367.
the Cruel. Though he added to his glories the victory of
Najera, won over Pedro's half-brother and rival, Henry of
Trastamare, he was forced by the faithlessness of his
ally to return to Bordeaux, broken in health and bur-
dened with debt. In his need he laid a hearth-tax on
the Gascons; but some of these would not pay it, and
appealed against the tax to the king of France, as if he
were still their supreme lord. By this time John was
dead, and his son, Charles V., was on the French throne.
Despite the Treaty of Bretigny, Charles
listened to the complaints of the Gascons, and
called upon Prince Edward to appear before
him at Paris. Edward sent a haughty answer; and the
war broke out again.
ever.
Peace of
Bretigny
broken by
France.
War
renewed,
1369.
2. Few events of striking interest mark this stage. The
English had not abated one jot of their skill and daring,
and in the field were as superior to the foe as
But Charles was wiser than his father
or grandfather, and, carefully avoiding battles,
left the English to waste their strength on profitless
marchings hither and thither. The Black Prince, too, was
already in the grasp of the disease which
killed him in 1376, and after wreaking a
bloody vengeance on the men of Limoges who
had gone over to the enemy soon after the renewal of the
war, withdrew to England in 1371.
Massacre
of Limoges,
1370.
3. His brother, John, Duke of Lancaster to whom
-238
1370-1415.
Rise of the People.
*
he left his post, was not a great leader in war. The
war, therefore, now went altogether in favour of the
French, who year after year attacked Guienne and
Poitou. Though the English disputed the ground inch
by inch, the French had before King Edward's death
not only won back Poitou, but also made themselves
masters of all Guienne save Bordeaux and Bayonne,
and some strong places on the river Dordogne. In
1377 Edward III. died, and the Black
Prince's son, Richard of Bordeaux, came to
the throne. Still the war went on, but on no
settled plan. There were French descents on the English
coast, English expeditions to France, fighting in Britanny,
threatened French invasions of England, and a truce now
Truce of and then. Yet in 1396, when Richard made
1396.
a truce for 28 years with Charles VI., the
English position was little changed from what it had been
in 1377,
Edward
III. dies,
1377.
CHAPTER XII.
THIRD STAGE OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.
1. WHEN the war entered upon its third stage, the crown
of England had passed to another line of kings. In
1399 the people had risen in arms against Richard H.,
had taken the crown from him, and given it to his cousin,
Henry Bolingbroke, son of John, Duke of Lancaster.
Henry IV. reigned until his death in 1413, and then his
son, Henry V., became king. Henry V. was a man of
vast ambition and great ability, and in 1415 he sailed
War again
renewed,
1415.
from Southampton to Normandy with a large
army. Charles VI. of France was subject to
fits of madness, and his kingdom was rent
asunder by the strife of contending factions. Henry
wished to take advantage of their disunion to force the
*
1415.
239
The Hundred Years' War.
French, by constant warfare, to admit his title to their
crown. Yet he had not the shadow of a claim, not even
King Edward's; for being a descendant only of Ed-
ward's fourth son, he was not Edward's heir so long as
any member of the Mortimer family, descendants of
Edward's third son, Lionel, survived.¹ Nor had he
Edward's excuse for going to war. France was too
busy tearing itself to pieces to have time to work mis-
chief to its neighbours.
He 1415.
2. Henry's first attempt, though it ended in failure, was
marked by the great victory of Agincourt. On landing
in Normandy he spent a long time in taking
Campaignof
Harfleur, and then led his force, greatly Agincourt,
thinned by disease, towards Calais.
made his way in the face of many difficulties to the
Somme, and it was only after a long and tedious march
up the left bank of this river that he was able to get
across. But on coming near Agincourt (Azincourt) he
found in front of him a huge French army, which he
must either beat, or give up all hope of ever getting to
Calais. Accordingly, on St. Crispin's day (October 25)
the battle of Agincourt was fought.
*
3. Again the odds were fearfully against the English.
They were a mere handful-but 9,000 in all--ragged,
half-starved, and wayworn; whilst the enemy are said
to have been 60,000. The fight differed, however, in one
point from the fights of Cressy and Poitiers-the English
gave the onset. But the result was the same. The first
line of the French was thrown into disorder by the shower
of arrows that the archers poured in upon them, and
was then broken in pieces by the men-at-arms;
the second was routed after a two hours' con-
Battle of
Agincourt,
Oct. 1415
test by the men-at-arms alone; and the
third, dispirited by the fate of the other two, gave way at
¹ See Table, p. 263.
240
1415--22,
Rise of the People.
Conquest of
Normandy,
1417-18.
the first shock. Three dukes, about a thousand of the
inferior nobility, and of the common folk a countless
number, were slain, and there were two dukes among
the prisoners. The English loss was small in comparison.
4. Two years afterwards (1417) Henry returned with a
force of 16,000 men-at-arms and 16,000 archers, and at
once set about conquering Normandy. Un-
like Edward III., he wrought in deadly
earnest at the task he had put his hand to.
He was fully bent on making himself king of France,
and threw his whole force into the work. Partly for this
reason, and partly because the furious strife of French
parties left him without an enemy in the field, he went
much nearer gaining his object than Edward—indeed in
a sense he did gain it. In two campaigns he mastered
Normandy, with its strongholds, cities, towns, and seaports.
It cost him an endless line of sieges, of which the siege
of Rouen in 1418 was the one that taxed his powers most.
But he took the place notwithstanding its stubborn re-
sistance.
Treaty of
Troyes,
1420.
5. Next year (1419) he took Pontoise, and threatened
Paris. And just as the two French parties seemed about
to combine against him, John, Duke of Burgundy, the
leader of one, was treacherously murdered by the friends
of the other. Upon this, Burgundy's son,
Philip, joined Henry, and the French authori-
ties had to give way. A treaty was made at
Troyes by which Henry was to give up calling himself
king of France so long as Charles VI. lived, but was to
rule the country with full royal power under the title of
Regent and Heir of France, and was to wed Charles's
daughter Catherine. Henry survived this seeming fulfil-
ment of all his hopes for only two years. He
died on the last day of August 1422. His son
Henry, a child ten months old, succeeded to his kingdom.
Henry V.
dies, 1422.
1422–30.
241
The Hundred Years' War.
John, Duke of Bedford, his elder living brother, took his
place at Paris.
6. The war did not end with the Treaty of Troyes.
Charles, the French king's son, still fought for his rights
as heir-and upon his father dying, shortly after Henry,
as king. A large part of France upheld his cause. But
Bedford was a wise ruler and skilful general; John, Duke
and the English power went on spreading of Bedford.
untii, by 1428, it had covered almost the whole of the
country north of the Loire.
7. Next year the tide turned. Whilst an English army
was besieging Orleans, a young peasant girl, born at
Domremy in Champagne, known in history
Jeanne
d'Arc,
Battle of
Patay, 1429.
as Jeanne d'Arc, or the Maid, who believed
that she had heard heavenly voices bidding 1429-31.
her go forth and deliver France, made her way with a
handful of men into the city, and in a few days forced the
English to raise the siege. She followed them, stormed
Jargeau, and took their leader, the Earl of Suffolk,
prisoner. She then pushed on along the road to Paris,
met Talbot-then thought to be the greatest
living soldier—at Patay, and beat and took
captive him also. There was a general feeling that the
Unseen Powers were fighting on the side of the Maid,
and the hearts of the English sank within them, while
the courage of the French rose. When, therefore, Jeanne
started on the second part of her divine mission, which
was to bring Charles to Rheins to be crowned, she made
her way to that place almost with ease, though the coun-
try through which she had to pass was in the hands of
the enemy. This, the purely successful part of the Maid's
career, lasted for less than three months (April 29-July:
17, 1429). She now wished to go back to her home, but
Charles would not let her. It would perhaps have been
better for all if he had. Next year (1430) she was taken
E. H.
R
242
· 1431.
Rise of the People.
:
at Compiègne, brought, after a long delay, to Rouen, was
Jeanne there charged with heresy and witchcraft before
burnt, 1431. the Court of the Bishop of Beauvais-who was,
however, pushed on to the work by Bedford-found guilty,
and burnt (1431). She was treated basely by all. Bur-

ENGLISH CHANNEL
Haffleur
Ponthieu
Calars
Agincourt
Arras
Rouen
Rheims
Normandy
PARIS
Domremy
Britammy
Mame
Troyes
Patay Orleans
Anjou Jurgeau
Poitou
BAY OF
BISCAY
Bayonne
Castillon
Bordeaux
Guienne
Toulouse
MEDITERRANEAN
SEA
FRANCE AFTER THE PEAce of BretigNY.
(The dotted lines enclose the Dominions of the King of England.)
gundy, whose troops made her prisoner, sold her to
Bedford; Bedford sent her to the stake; and Charles
did not make the slightest effort to save her.
8. The English power in France never recovered the
shock she gave it. Bedford's wisdom and Charles's
1431-53.
243
The Hundred Years' War.
Henry VI.
Paris, 1431.
sloth prevented the end coming as soon as it might have
done; but the end was sure. Even the
crowning of the lad Henry, at Paris, in crowned at
1431, failed to check the downward course
of English affairs; and when, in 1435, Burgundy and
Charles made up their quarrel at Arras, and Bedford died,
another serious blow was dealt to the English. In 1436
Paris was lost. For a time fate was kept at bay by the
valour of Richard, Duke of York, the future claimant of
the crown of England, and old John Talbot, the former
of whom succeeded Bedford as regent. Indeed, English
rule in France died hard; in spite of all the efforts of
both Charles and Burgundy, in 1444 the strangers still
held Normandy, Maine, and Guienne. But in 1448
Normandy
recovered
by France,
1449-50.
Maine was given up in accordance with a pledge that
Henry had made when married to Margaret of Anjou
three years before. In 1449 Charles led an army into
Normandy, and never rested until he had re-
conquered the whole duchy. This done, he
went straight upon Guienne; and ere the sum-
mer of 1451 was over Guienne to its last fortress was
also his. Next year (1452) old Talbot and his son landed
near Bordeaux with 4,000 men. They were asked to
come by the inhabitants of Guienne, who disliked their new
masters. They gained some successes at first; but in
1453, both father and son were killed, and Battle of
their army routed, at Castillon.
months Bordeaux yielded, and the Hundred 1453-
Years' War was over.
English.
In a few Castillon,
Calais alone remained to the
R 2
244
1295-1311.
Rise of the People.
•
Growth of
CHAPTER XIII.
PARLIAMENTARY PROGRESS.
1. THE great statesmen of the thirteenth century, Earl
Simon and Edward I., had done their work well. Par-
liament quickly struck root in the political soil, and
during the fourteenth century and greater part of the
fifteenth, Parliament grew steadily in power
Parliament. and importance. From the time when it first
came into being until the reign of Edward IV. (1295-
1461) it met with but one serious check in its progress—
the short-lived despotism of Richard II. before his fall in
1399. It would not be easy to tell with exactness what
rights and what duties it had at first. It was supposed
to have a voice in the making of laws; yet the king made
laws now and then without asking its assent. The king
would seem to have often asked its advice, yet it cannot
be proved that he was bound to do so, or to take its
advice when given. Though it was now and then called
upon to sanction the king's acts, there is little doubt that
most of his acts would have held good without its ap-
proval.
Powers of
2. But two things about Parliament stand out in a very
marked way, even in the first fifty years of its existence :
(1) When it was thought needful to do any-
Parliament. thing in a specially solemn way, it was done in
Parliament; (2) Parliament alone had the lawful power of
binding the estates of the kingdom to the payment of a tax.
Let us take some instances of the first of these
powers. Edward II. was a worthless king and wasted
his substance. His nobles thought it right to try and
put a stop to this, and in 1311 drew up a number of or-
dinances for the purpose. Now, not only were these
ordinances accepted by Edward in Parliament, but in
1322-62.
245
Parliamentary Progress.
Parliament also were they revoked, when in 1322, Edward
It may
became a free agent once more. And the treaty with
Scotland in 1328 was ratified in Parliament.
have been only a way of letting the nation know what
nearly concerned itself, or the presence of the assembled
Estates may have been thought to make things more
solemn. Again, the sole power of Parliament to decree
taxes was not quite surely fixed. For a time the king was able
to partly defeat that power in two ways. First, he claimed
the right of still drawing supplies of money now and then
-tallages they were called-from the towns in his de-
mesne. Then, too, he sometimes brought together the
wealthiest merchants and prevailed upon them to allow
him to take tolls-often very heavy ones-from wool and
other articles which they sent abroad. Both of these
were, however, got rid of in Edward III.'s reign. In
1340 the king pledged himself in the strongest words
henceforth to levy no 'charge or aid' but by the common
assent of the estates, and that in parliament;' and in
1362 he agreed to a law abolishing the other customs
also.
Reign of
Edward
III.
3. On the whole the reign of Edward III. was a very
healthy time for Parliament. Early in it the division of
that body into two houses took place. The
knights of the shire united themselves with
the citizens and burgesses to form the lower
house. The bishops and abbots joined with the lay peers
to form the upper house. In Edward III.'s reign, also,
the practice became usual of making grants of money
only in return for a promise to redress grievances; and
it was at the same time that the uncertain rights of being
alone able to grant money to the king and having a voice
in public affairs became almost real. During the war
with France, King Edward, wishing to get the Commons
to approve of what he was doing, asked their advice
246
1376.
Rise of the People.
about the war. At first they answered that they were too
simple to deal with such high matters; but they were
afterwards bold enough to give an opinion in favour of
peace. In this way they came to have a real right to
talk about all questions of state and give their views
about them. After a time, too, the Commons got an im-
portant voice in law-making; laws were now made by
the king 'by the assent,' or assent and prayer,' of the
great men and Commons of his kingdom.
6
4. One other great privilege the lower house gained
in this reign-that of impeaching-that is, of bringing to
trial before the upper house the servants of the crown who
seemed to them to have done wrong. The assembly
that first used this power is known as the
The 'good
parliament,' 'good parliament,' which sat in 1376. There
1376.
was for the last few years of Edward III.'s
life a very angry feeling throughout the country. The
king, grown old in mind before his time, had fallen into
evil hands. There were people about him who were
making themselves rich out of the national purse. The
Black Prince was dying; and his brother, John of Gaunt,
was suspected of plotting against the rights of his son,
Richard of Bordeaux. A bad woman, Alice Perrers,
ruled in the king's palace. Many men in power stopped
at no wickedness in trying to gain their evil ends. So
from all these things grave mischief was being wrought
to the nation. Under the guidance of one Peter de la
Mare—the first who held the office of Speaker, though he
was not called by that name—the Commons at once picked
out for punishment the worst of the transgressors, Lord
Latimer, the chamberlain, and a certain Richard Lyons.
These they charged with having bought up the king's
debts at a low price, and then got payment in full from
the royal revenue; with taking bribes from the king's
enemies, and with seizing for their own use sums that
1376.
247
Parliamentary Progress.
ought by right to have been paid into the king's treasury.
The rage against them was so great that their patron,
John of Gaunt, was powerless to check it. They were
thrown into prison; and when the crimes laid to their
charge had been proved, the Lords sentenced Latimer to
be imprisoned and fined as the king should think fit, and
to lose his office, and Lyons to be stripped of his wealth
and sent to the Tower. Alice Perrers, too, was to forfeit
her property and be banished. There can hardly be a doubt
that the Black Prince and William of Wykeham, Bishop
of Winchester, who had once been chancellor, heartily for-
warded these doings of the Commons. Indeed it is very
likely that they planned and set them in motion. In any
case, the Commons had clearly a very strong affection for
the Prince's family, for on his dying (Trinity
Sunday, 1376) when Parliament was still sit-
ting, they prayed that his son, Richard, should
be brought before them as heir-apparent, which prayer
the king granted. Finally, as a means of guarding the
nation from such men as Latimer and Lyons for the
future, they entreated the king to take into his council a
body of lords on whom they believed that they could rely.
This prayer also was granted; and after a session of two
months-the longest yet known-the 'good parliament'
went its ways.
Black
Prince dies,
1376.
5. After all, it had done very little good. It had hardly
gone when John of Gaunt became all-powerful in the
state once more; Alice Perrers returned to John of
Court, and Latimer was restored to favour; Gaunt.
de la Mare was sent to prison; and Wykeham, charged
with having, when chancellor, misused the moneys in his
hands, lost his income as bishop, and was forbidden to
come within twenty miles of the Court. And, worst of all,
early next year a new parliament was called which undid
all that had been done against Latimer and Lyons and
248
1376-77.
Rise of the People.
was quite as willing to serve the ends of John of Gaunt
as the 'good parliament' had been to serve the ends of
the Black Prince; for it seems to have been then
possible for men in power to get members chosen for the
lower house who would act as they wished-to pack a par-
liament, in fact. One lasting benefit, however, followed
from the work of the 'good parliament;' the right that it
was the first to use, of impeaching the king's ministers
was not forgotten in later times, and became a very ready
way of frightening men who were willing to help a tyran-
nical king.
Richard II.
ment of
Richard II.
1377.
6. A few months later King Edward died (1377); and
again all was changed. John of Gaunt lost his power.
He was shut out even from the council which
*377-99. the great men appointed to rule during the
minority of Richard, who was then but eleven years old. A
parliament that was soon afterwards called by the new
king was so far from helping Lancaster's plans that the
Commons again chose Peter de la Mare for their speaker.
First parlia- Indeed this parliament acted very boldly. The
Commons asked that eight members should be
added to the council, that the great officers of
state should be chosen by Parliament so long as the king
was under age, and that the grant of money-a very large
one-which they had made to the king should be paid
into the hands of two persons who should see that it was
rightly used. And all these demands the king agreed to.
This body, moreover, is a fair type of all the parliaments
of the first twelve years of Richard's reign. These were
generally very firm in their dealings with the king, very
stiff in upholding their own rights, and often used great
plainness of speech in their addresses and petitions.
During these twelve years the power of the Commonṣ was
ever growing.
1349.
249
Rising of the Commons.
CHAPTER XIV.
RISING OF THE COMMONS.
Temper of
the lower
classes.
1. THE latter half of the fourteenth century was a stirring
time for the English working classes. Owing to many
causes—at some of which we can only guess
-an angry and fretful spirit had got the
mastery over them. They felt themselves to
be deeply wronged by the owners of lands, who were
reaping the fruits of their industry, and yet wanted to
keep them in bondage or to bring them back to a bondage
from which they had almost escaped. A great change
which was going on added to the hardships of their lot,
and to their wrath in consequence.
2. In earlier days most of the rustic folk, of the men
who tilled the soil, belonged to the class called villeins,
who were bound to toil with their hands on the farms
of their lord, and could not leave his service as they
chose, for they were in a certain sense his property
quite as much as his horses and dogs. But a villein
had his rights; the cottage and patch of Villein
ground that his lord allowed him in payment rights.
of his labour or for his support, became in course of
time his property, which his lord could not touch so
long as the services to which the villein was bound were
duly rendered. After a time many lords agreed to take
money in place of villein services; others set their villeins
free. The spirit of the law and the influence of the
Church worked together to lessen the evils of villenage
and the number of villeins. So it came about that the
rustics throughout the country were much better off than
before. Most of them were as good as free; many of them
were altogether so.
3. This happy state of things was rudely shaken by the
250
1349-63.
Rise of the People.
The Black
Statute of
Labourers,
1350.
Great Plague of 1349. In this almost, if not quite, one-
half of the labouring population was cut off. There were
no longer labourers enough to till the soil.
Death, 1349. Wages rose suddenly to an unheard-of height;
and the great lords were at their wits' end to know how
to get their farms cultivated. In their distress
they got a law passed, called the Statute of
Labourers, by which all men trained to labour
were bound under penalties to work for the same wages
as had been customary in 1347. This law failed in its
object; it was followed by others of a similar kind, which
were alike of no effect. Many of the great landowners
then began to cut up their huge farms, which had been
hitherto managed by bailiffs, into smaller ones, and to let
these out on short leases. Indeed, this is said to be the
beginning of the practice of letting now in use. Others,
however, tried to fall back on the custom of villein ser-
vice, which had so greatly fallen out of use. Many were
claimed as villeins who had never had a doubt of their
freedom. And it is supposed that an attempt was made
at the same time by those who had taken to the custom
of letting their farms, to return to the older way of farming
by bailiffs.
Wiclifitism
among the
people.
4. About this time, also, the movement set on foot by
Wiclif began to find its way down into the mass of the
people. One of his peculiar doctrines-that
it was unlawful for the clergy to hold property
-was turned into a belief that all property
was unlawful; and many of the lower orders thought that
all men should be brought to one common level. The
spokesman of this doctrine was John Ball, who asked-
When Adam delved and Evé span,
Who was then a gentleman ?
5. Yet there might not have been any rising of the
kind but for a measure that parliament was forced to by the
1377-81.
251
Rising of the Commons.
straits they were brought into regarding the means of
raising money for the king. The last parliament of
Edward III. had voted a poll-tax of four pence a head,
which was to be paid by everyone in the
The poll-tax
of 1379.
land. Again, in 1379, a similar grant was
made, which, however, differed from that of 1377 in the
fact that each man was rated according to his rank, a
duke paying 67. 13s. 4d.; an ordinary labourer, four
pence. In 1380 Parliament enacted that for The poll-tax
every person above the age of 15 there should of 1380.
be paid to the crown a sum not less than twelve pence,
and not more than twenty shillings. It was this tax that
did the mischief; in the June of the next year the com-
mons of almost every county sprang suddenly to arms.
the com-
mons, June
6. The outbreak must have been planned beforehand,
for it took place in counties far apart from each other
almost at the same time. Many of the classes Rising of
which took part in it had little in common.
Between the men of Kent, where villenage 1381.
had never been known, and the men of Essex, who
clamoured to be freed from villenage, there could be little
sympathy. But it would seem that all who had wrongs
to complain of agreed to act together to avenge or to
redress them. The men of Kent rose under Wat Tyler,
and, moving on London, burnt the Savoy, the palace of
John of Gaunt, whom they specially disliked. At the
same time the men of Essex and the men of Hertford-
shire also made for the capital in separate bodies. In a
few days there was hardly a shire that was not in arms.
There was great destruction of legal documents, the poor
rustics hoping that thus might perish every record of their
past or present bondage. King Richard, who was then
in the Tower, rode out to Mile End, where the men of
Essex were, and heard their demands. These were that
bondage and tolls at markets should utterly cease, a fixed
252
1381.
Rise of the People.
Demands
of the
commons.
rent be paid for land in place of villein services, and a
general pardon be granted to those who had taken up
arms. All these the king promised to grant ;
and the men of Essex went home. But while
Richard was at Mile End the Kentish men
broke into the Tower; seized, dragged out, and murdered
Simon of Sudbury, primate and chancellor, and Sir
Robert Hales, the treasurer; and did many other acts of
gross outrage. Next day Richard met the whole rout in
Smithfield, and was talking with them, when Walworth,
the mayor of London, smote down Tyler, who was at
once killed. For a moment Richard and those with him
were in great danger; but the king, boy as he was, had
all the fearlessness of his race. He put himself at the
head of the rebels, led them into the open country, and
when the Londoners gathered a force and surrounded
them, would not allow them to be harmed. He even
gave them the charters of freedom they had asked for.
Then the men of Kent also went home. In many other
places throughout England deeds of outrage and blood-
shed were done; but either the doers were put down
with the strong hand, or they made haste to get home on
hearing what had happened in London. Then an awful
vengeance was taken on the hapless rustics. The law
went to work, and cut down its victims by hundreds and
thousands. Even the charters of freedom which had
been given them were taken away again. Indeed, the
king had gone beyond his powers in granting them.
Still, the lesson was not lost on the landholders. When
their fright had passed away they gave over insisting on
villein service, and let the movement towards freedom
take its coursę.
1363.
253
Wiclif.
CHAPTER XV.
WICLIF.
Decay of
Church
authority.
1. At this time the minds of many people were in a rest-
less state on religious matters also. Both the authority of
the pope and the influence of the clergy had
been for some time on the wane in England.
The pope had made himself unpopular by
the claim he made to raise whomsoever of his Italian ser-
vants he pleased to preferments in the English Church,
and many laws had been passed, called statutes of Pro-
visors or of Præmunire, to put an end to the evil. More-
over, in 1307 the seat of the papacy was shifted from
Rome to Avignon, a place on the French border.
So
for seventy years every pope was a Frenchman, and was
believed to be working in the interests of France.
During the greater part of this time France and England
were the bitterest of enemies. England was not likely
to stand in much awe of a French pope. Accordingly
in 1366 she told him that she would never again pay the
tribute of 1,000 marks that John had promised for him-
self and his heirs, which had already not been paid for
thirty-three years. And even the English clergy had
sunk in the respect of the people since Becket's time.
Such a crime, for instance, as the murder of Simon of
Sudbury, would in the twelfth century have provoked a
cry of horror from all parts; in the fourteenth century
the actual murderers were beheaded, and that was all.
For this decay of respect for them the clergy were them-
selves much to blame. The higher members
of them did not as a rule do their duties as
they ought. The great Churchmen loved to
add benefice to benefice, sought preferment in the state,
and largely forgot their spiritual in their worldly duties.
Worldliness
of the
clergy.
254
1363.
Rise of the People.
:
Many persons took orders only that they might get
what is known as the 'benefit of clergy,' and so not get
such heavy punishments for their misdoings. Even the
friars, whose appearance in England a century before
had brought about a great religious revival, had become
as selfish and as worldly as the others. One little fact
would seem to show that the laity were beginning to be
Sir Robert
Bourchier
first lay
chancellor,
1340.
as learned as the clergy.
In the reign of
Edward III. the office of chancellor was held
for the first time by a layman, one Sir Robert
Bourchier, who was raised to the post in 1340.
And we meet with many other lay chancellors after Sir
Robert.
2. A movement which had as its aim the reform of the
Church on these and other points was begun about 1363.
John
Wiclif,
1324 ?-84.
In this John Wiclif led the way. Wiclif was
a Yorkshireman who had first gained wide
fame for his learning. As a teacher at Oxford,
where he passed the most active part of his life, he had
the means of spreading his views. About 1363 he came
forward as an assailant of the wealth and worldly great-
ness of the clergy. To the begging friars he had a
special dislike. He charged them with cunning, greed,
and worldliness. After a time he became largely mixed
up with the political strife of the day, being an ally of
John of Gaunt, who had no real care for reforming the
Church, as Wiclif had, but who thought Wiclif would be
useful in helping on his own ends. As yet the Reformer
had not made known-perhaps had not formed-those
opinions on many of the doctrines of the Church for
which he was afterwards called a heretic. He was
severe upon the general conduct of the clergy, declared
that the property in their hands was held by them only in
trust for the poor; and that if they betrayed their trust,
the State might take it from them; and he wished
1363-84.
255
Wiclif.
spiritual men to keep themselves to their spiritual duties.
He also became known as an earnest foe of the power of
the pope in England, and was on that account sent in
1374 to Bruges to try and arrange some settlement of
the papal claims with the pope's envoys there.
St. Paul's,
1377.
3. The higher clergy soon came to look on Wiclif as
a dangerous man, and more than once sought to crush
him. In 1377 Courtenay, the high-born bishop of London,
summoned him before an assembly of bishops Wiclif at
at St. Paul's; but John of Gaunt and Lord
Percy went with him to his trial. High words
passed between Percy and Courtenay, and the meeting
broke up in confusion. A second attempt was made
against him next year at Lambeth; but it also failed,
because the Princess of Wales, King Richard's mother,
took Wiclif's part, and the Londoners broke into the
assembly. These things show that Wiclif had a power-
ful party at his back. But when, a few years later, he
began to utter strange words about one or two of the
cherished doctrines of the Church, John of Gaunt and his
party shook him off; and when Courtenay renewed the
attack upon him in 1382, the Reformer was advised by his
once steadfast friend to yield. He did not do so without
a struggle; indeed we cannot be quite sure that he did
so at all. Many of his opinions were condemned by
a Church synod which Courtenay, now pri- Synod at
mate, called at the Blackfriars; and a crusade Blackfriars,
was begun by the same prelate against Wiclif's 1382.
friends at Oxford. There was a stiff contest at the latter
place, where Wiclif was very powerful; but the Primate
won in the end. Wiclif explained-some say, recanted—
the utterances that had given offence, and withdrew to his
parish of Lutterworth, where no further notice was taken
of him. He died shortly afterwards (December 31, 1384).
He left behind him one great work, the whole Bible
256
1384-95
Rise of the People.
M
done into English from the Latin text called the Vulgate,
which was the only one then in use. It was done partly
by himself and partly by men of learning among his
followers.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LOLLARDS.
I. BUT Wiclif's death did not abate the activity of his
party. Under the name of Lollards, they began to make
200
ne
Lollards.
themselves very busy in the affairs both of
Church and State, doing their best to spread
among the people new notions-some of them very wild,
such as would be likely to unsettle the minds of simple
men. Their favourite belief was, that without personal grace
no man, king or priest, could have any lawful authority over
others. They also declared that such trades as minister
to pride and self-indulgence were sinful. They, more-
over, were bitter against many of the doctrines and
practices of the Church, such as transubstantiation, image-
worship, and pilgrimages. Their enemies charged them
with being sowers of sedition; and certainly they seem
to have helped to keep alive the general feeling of rest-
lessness throughout the country. One fact about the
Lollards is worthy of notice. Though they were found
chiefly among the common people, they had many friends
among the higher classes, and even at Richard's court.
Indeed, Richard's first wife, Anne of Bohemia, is said to
nave favoured them. And it is strange that those cour-
tiers whose names appear among the Lollard partisans
were the earnest upholders of royal power against those
that wanted to keep it within bounds, while the higher
clergy generally sided with those who withstood the king.
In 1398, when Richard struck a great blow for absolute
.
1390-1401.
257
The Lollards.
power, the primate Arundel was driven into exile; two
years later John Montague, earl of Salisbury, a violent
Lollard, was beheaded for having risen in arms to restore
Richard to the throne.
2. Yet, though Lollardism was stronger among King
Richard's friends and the lowest class than in the House
of Commons, the House of Commons did not forget its
quarrel with the pope, who still went on defying the
statutes of Provisors and of Præmunire, appointing his
servants to preferments in England just as he thought
fit. After making, in 1390, a useless effort to check him,
by passing again the earlier laws on the subject with
more severe penalties, in 1393 Parliament at
last enacted the famous law of Præmunire.
By this law anyone directly or indirectly con-
cerned in bringing into the kingdom decrees of the pope,
or Bulls, as they were called, or who made himself
an agent in any way of the power claimed by the pope in
England, was to be put out of the king's protection and
forfeit his lands and goods. This was the last important
measure of the kind.
Statute of
Præmunire,
1393.
Law against
heresy
3. But if Parliament could set a bound to papal
power, it could also be stern-indeed cruel-in its dealings
with the Lollards. Whether it was, as some think, that
Richard largely owed his fall, and Henry IV. his crown,
to the alarm of the clergy at the spread of Lollardism,
Henry, soon after his election to the throne,
allowed a law of frightful severity to be passed
for suppressing heresy. This law, passed in
1401, gave the bishops power to arrest and try persons
suspected of heresy; and if they found them guilty, to hand
them over to the sheriff, mayor, or bailiff, who was bound
to have them burned before the people. A heretic, how-
ever, might once save himself by recanting; but there
was no mercy for those who fell back into heresy again.
E, H.
S
1401.
258
1401-17.
Rise of the People.
The first to suffer under this law was one William Sawtree,
a priest. It was not finally done away with
until the first year of Elizabeth's reign.
William
Sawtree.
Sir John
Oldcastle,
1413.
4. Lollardism lived on for some time longer. In 1413
it boasted that it had 100,000 followers. But in this year
it made its last effort to do something great, and failed
utterly. Henry V. was hardly crowned, when
Sir John Oldcastle, the leader of the Lollards
at the time, being a man of great earnestness
and zeal in the cause, was brought before the Church
authorities on a charge of having designs against the
peace of both Church and State. He was condemned, but
managed to escape from his prison in the Tower. A
strange affair followed, the facts of which are not fully
known. The king told his Parliament afterwards that the
party had planned a general rising against society. If
this was ever thought of, Henry crushed it by suddenly
seizing the walls of London on the night fixed for the
attempt, and then appearing with an armed band in St.
Giles's fields, where the Lollard muster was to take place.
He found about a hundred gathered there, and arrested-
Executed, most of them, many of whom were after-
wards hanged. Oldcastle got off safe to
Wales, but in 1417 was retaken, hanged, and burnt.
1417.
CHAPTER XVII
THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER.
I. THE Wars of the Roses began in 1455 and ended in 1485;
but many of the causes from which they sprang belong
to a much earlier time. Side by side with the steady
1455.
259
The House of Lancaster.
the
Growth of
growth of the power of Parliament, kingship was growing
too. The simple notions about a king, which had satis-
fied Alfred and even William, gave place to
much loftier ones, which looked upon the king the notion of
no longer as merely the first man among kingship.
people, but as having something in his character that lifted
him far above other folk and gave him a sort of sacredness.
This change marked itself in several ways. Richard I.
began to use the plural 'we' in his charters; John took
the title of 'king of England,' instead of the older 'king
of the English,' as if he were owner of every acre of soil
in the country. Four days after the death of Henry III.
his son Edward was accepted as full king, though the
practice had hitherto been to date the beginning of a new
king's reign from the day of his coronation. At last there
arose the custom of allowing only a single day to divide
a new reign from the one before it. Men had come to
believe that the throne of England was the property of a
family, and that on a king's death his place Kingship
must needs pass to his lawful heir.
There was
henceforth no form of election to the crown
in ordinary cases. Some one person was supposed to have
what was called a right to the crown, and that person
was almost at once hailed as king. If, then, a time should
come when the reigning king had not the supposed right,
and was of a weaker nature than the man who had, much
quarrelling, perhaps even civil war, might be expected.
looked on
as an
inheritance.
2. Now this was exactly the state of things in 1455; but
to understand how it all came about, we must go back to
a much earlier time. From the reign of John there was a
powerful party among the barons who kept watch on the
king and would not let him have his own The.
way in all things. After the rise of Parliament Lancastrian
these barons usually made the two houses,
especially the lower, their place of action. This party is
party.
$ 2
260
1296-1361.
Rise of the People.
sometimes called the Lancastrian party, because the Lan-
castrian family now and then gave it a leader.
The House
of
Lancaster.
Thomas,
3. The half-royal, and at last altogether royal, House of
Lancaster sprang from Edmund, younger son of Henry
III., who had at the same time the earldoms
of Lancaster and Leicester. To these his son
Thomas added three more-Lincoln, Derby,
and Salisbury; and in the reign of his cousin, Edward
II., overshadowed the throne itself by the greatness of his
power and influence. He led, but with little
wisdom or public spirit, the baronial party in
their quarrels with Edward II. and his favour-
ites, Gaveston and the Despensers; but getting beaten
and taken prisoner at Boroughbridge in 1322, he was
beheaded. He left no children, but his brother Henry
afterwards received the earldom of Leicester. Roger
Mortimer then became the head of the Lancastrian party ;
and as such overthrew, in 1327, Edward II., and got
earl of Lan-
caster, died
1322.
Henry,
earl of Lan-
caster, died
1345.
Edward III. raised to the throne. The fall of
Edward II. restored Henry to three more of
his brother's earldoms, and gave him the first
place both in the council that was entrusted with the rule
of England in the minority of the new king, and among
the nobility. It was, however, in the person of his son,
also a Henry, that his house reached its greatest splen-
dour before it became royal. For this Henry
Henry,
earl and
won high renown in the French wars, gaining,
duke of
Lancaster,
as earl of Derby, the wonderful victory of
died 1361.
Auberoche, in 1345, over fearful odds. In
1351 he was made first duke of Lancaster. He had no
son; but his second daughter, Blanche, mar-
ried John of Gaunt, and brought her husband,
upon her father's and elder sister's death,
the headship, honours, and lands of the great
duchy, Duke John left-at least, for a time—the path
John of
Gaunt,
duke of
Lancaster.
1340-99.
1374-89.
261
The House of Lancaster.
in politics usually taken by his house; between 1374
and 1381 he was the champion of the evil deeds and
misrule at court which the 'good parliament' had in vain
striven to curb.
Henry Bol-
ingbroke,
1366-1413
4. His son, Henry Bolingbroke, did not follow in his
father's steps, but returned to the ways of his mother's
forefathers. He was, when still very young,
found in the front ranks of those who were
trying to make head against King Richard II.'s
wilfulness and wastefulness. In 1386, being then called
Earl of Derby, he joined with his uncle, the Duke of
Gloucester, Edward III.'s youngest son, in driving from
power and punishing Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk,
Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, and other favourites of
the king, and forcing Richard to take as advisers men
more agreeable to the Commons. De la Pole was im-
peached, found guilty of various crimes, and sentenced to
lose almost all he had, and to be imprisoned; and
Richard had to submit to a council of regency,
which ruled in his name. Next year he tried
with all his might to throw off the yoke. But
Council of
Regency,
1386-89.
Radcot
Bridge,
1387.
his plans failed. His friends were charged with treason.
An attempt made by De Vere, now duke of Ireland, to
free his master from restraint by force was
defeated at Radcot Bridge; and Gloucester,
Derby, and the rest made Richard call a par-
liament. In 1388 this parliament met, and dealt, under
Gloucester's guidance, so cruelly with the king's partisans
that it got the name of the 'merciless parliament.' Many
it put to death; others it banished; all who came within
its reach it punished in some way.
5. For a year longer Richard was king only in name ;
the reality of power was in the hands of his uncle. But
in 1389 he recovered his power by a bold stroke, and
for eight vears ruled with mildness and judgment. He
262
1389-99.
Rise of the People.
Richard II.
as a consti-
tutional
king,
1389-97.
called many parliaments, seemed eager to please them,
took no vengeance on the men who had sent his friends
to the gallows or the block and made a slave
of himself, and gave office to men trusted
by the nation. During these years the Com-
mons were as meek and ready to please the
king as they had before been stern and desirous to curb
him; and the current of affairs went smoothly on.
6. In 1397 Richard entered on a new course. The
year before he had gone to France to marry the French
Richard II. king's daughter, Isabella. It is thought that
as a despot,
1397-99.
he was so taken with the charms of absolute
power as seen at the French court that he
resolved to try and set it up in England. In any case
most of his former enemies were suddenly seized and
thrown into prison by his orders, Gloucester being sent
to Calais. Before a parliament called for the purpose
the earls of Arundel and Warwick were charged with
treason; the former was beheaded, and the latter doomed
to imprisonment for life. Gloucester died, perhaps by
violence, at Calais; and the primate Arundel, brother of
the earl, was impeached and banished. To crown all, next
year the same parliament laid the liberties of the nation
at the king's feet. It voted him a tax on wool, woolfells,
and leather for life, and handed over its powers to a body
of twelve peers and six commoners, all friends of the
king. Richard was now master of England.
of Henry
Boling-
7. Henry, earl of Derby, had taken the king's side in
this affair, and was created duke of Hereford for his ser-
Banishment vices. Soon after, having accused Mowbray,
duke of Norfolk, of speaking treasonable
broke, 1398. words against the king, he was challenged by
Mowbray to mortal combat. But just as the two were
about to close, they were called before the king, who was
present, and banished the kingdom-Mowbray for life,
Henry for ten years. This was in 1398; and in 1399
1399.
263
The House of Lancaster.
Henry
comes back,
1399.
John of Gaunt died. Richard at once took the
Lancaster estates to himself, though he had given a
solemn promise to his cousin to leave them untouched.
He then went to Ireland. During his absence Henry
Bolingbroke landed with a few followers at
Ravenspurg, and being joined by the Percies
and the Nevilles, easily overthrew the men to
whom Richard had entrusted his kingdom. The king, com-
ing back from Ireland, was made captive in North Wales,
and after being forced to issue from Chester writs for a
new parliament, was carried to London. Richard then
resigned the crown. Next day (September 30, 1399)
the parliament met, and, after listening to
thirty-three charges against Richard, declared
him deposed. Thereupon Henry of Lancaster
claimed the now vacant throne in a set speech
6 as being descended in the right line of
descent from Henry III.'-words that seemingly accepted
as true a foolish tale that Edmund of Lancaster had
really been the elder son of Henry III., but had been
set aside because he was humpbacked-a notion that his
surname, Crouchback, put into men's heads. His claim was
admitted, and he became king. But at that time what-
ever right descent could give to the vacant throne clearly
belonged to the young earl of March, great-grandson of
Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III.¹
' Table showing descendants of Edward III.
Dethrone-
ment of
Richard,
and election
of Henry,
Sept. 30,
1399.
Edward III.

Lionel, 3rd son;
Philippa.
John of Gaunt, 4th son;
Edmund, 5th son.
Henry IV.

Roger Mortimer.
Henry V
Edmund
Henry VI.
Anne Mortimer, who married Richard, earl of Cambridge.
Mortimer (earl of March).
Richard, duke of York.
264
1399--1422
Rise of the People.
Henry IV.
king,
1399-1413.
8. Henry IV. reigned for fourteen years, and had many
troubles therein. The friends of Richard rose in arms.
The Percies again and again rebelled; and
Wales, under Owen Glendower, defied Henry's
power for several years. But Richard's friends
were destroyed. Richard himself died an unknown
death in prison. Harry Hotspur, one leader of the
Percies, was beaten and killed at Shrewsbury in 1403;
Hotspur's father, the earl of Northumberland, met the
same fate at Bramham Moor in 1408; and Owen
Glendower was overcome at last by Henry's valiant son,
Henry of Monmouth.
Henry V.
king,
1413-1422.
9. In 1413 Henry of Monmouth himself became king as
Henry V. His reign is almost entirely taken up with the
events of the great French war into which he
threw himself with his whole force. Yet even he
was once called on to deal with a plot against
his crown and life. In 1415, while he was at Southampton
making ready to start for France, he learned that his
cousin Richard, earl of Cambridge, grandson of Edward
III., through that king's fifth son, Edmund, duke of York,
was conspiring with other men of rank to make the Earl
of March king. Richard and the other conspirators were
tried, found guilty, and put to death; but the affair
showed that there were still sleeping forces in England
that might some time be roused by events into fearful
activity.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HENRY VI.
I. HENRY of Windsor succeeded his father in 1422. His
reign of thirty-nine years was little more than a minority
from beginning to end; at first his youth, afterwards his
gentleness of character or weakness of intellect, made
1422-47.
265
Henry VI.
Henry VI.
king,
1422-61.
him unfit for his post. The State thus became a battle-
field for rival nobles, each of whom strove for the mastery,
merely from love of power or a desire to see
his enemies humbled. England, in fact, was
clearly on her way to some great struggle such
as the Wars of the Roses-a grand fight, not for principles
but for men, in which the whole question would be who
should rule England, not how England should be ruled.
of York.
Humphrey,
duke of
Gloucester,
died, 1447.
he gene-
2. Henry's reign was a time when great families had
inore of their way in English state affairs than they had
ever had before. The king was helpless in The great
the hands of his uncle, Humphrey, duke of families.
Gloucester, the Beauforts, the De la Poles, the Staffords,
the Nevilles, and the family of Richard, duke
Duke Humphrey was the youngest son of
Henry IV., and as the nearest of kin
in England to the young king while his
brother Bedford was absent in France, as
rally was, he thought the first place in the govern-
ment to be naturally his due. Parliament, too, had
made him 'Protector of the Realm and Church of Eng-
land '—a title which he took very unwillingly, for he longed
to be regent-and gave him a council of nineteen to con-
trol his actions. But in using even this scanty measure
of power he found himself thwarted by Henry
Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, then chan-
cellor and afterwards cardinal. Beaufort was
the ablest of John of Gaunt's three sons by Catherine
Swinford, all of whom were born before wedlock, but were
made legitimate by royal patent and an Act of Parliament
in Richard II.'s reign.¹ His eldest brother, The House
John, was created earl of Somerset, his of Beaufort.
youngest, Thomas, duke of Exeter. Henry Beaufort had
thus a powerful connexion. Gloucester and he were the
#
1
¹ See p. 297.
Cardinal
Beaufort,
died, 1447.
266
1425-45.
Rise of the People.
'Parliament
of bats,
1425.
>
bitterest foes. They fought in season and out of season,
with their tongues at the council-board and elsewhere;
while their followers attacked one another with stouter
weapons in the streets of London, on London Bridge,
and at the gates of the Tower. Bedford worked hard to
make them friends, and in 1425 brought them together
in a parliament held at Leicester, where they
went through the forms of a reconciliation.
The name by which this parliament is known
in history-'parliament of bats-is a proof of the cha-
racter of the time and of the spirit in which Gloucester
and his uncle were made to seek each other's friendship;
for the servants of Members having been forbidden to
carry arms to this meeting, brought with them clubs in-
stead. Afterwards, when clubs also were denied them,
they hid stones and bits of lead in their sleeves. After
this Beaufort left England for a short time; but on his
return the war was carried on again as bitterly as ever.
Gloucester worked hard to ruin his rival, but in spite of
great advantages failed in the end.
3. When men are in such a temper they readily find
subjects to quarrel about. Beaufort was in favour of
peace with France while England had still conquests to
keep. Gloucester wished to carry on the war until the
whole of France should be conquered. This, indeed,
became the chief point of dispute between them; and
Beaufort generally got the better of his rival in every
part of it. In 1440 he was able to carry the council with
him when he supported the prayer of the Duke of Orleans—
a prisoner in England ever since the battle of Agincourt-
that he might be allowed to ransom himself. In 1444 he
was in favour of making a truce with France, and in
1445, of King Henry's wedding Margaret of Anjou even
at the cost of giving up Anjou to her father René; and
he prevailed in all,
1447-1450.
267
Henry VI.
William de
la Pole,
duke of
Suffolk,
died, 1450.
4. Two years later (1447) both Gloucester and Beaufort
passed away within two months of each other, and left
their places to others. The nobility now split into two
factions that of Queen Margaret, of which
De la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and Edmund
Beaufort, duke of Somerset, were the leading
men, and that of Richard Plantagenet, duke
of York, whose fast friends were Richard Neville, earl of
Salisbury, and his son, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick.
These three Richards were bound together by the very
strongest family ties, for Cicely, the sister of the elder
and aunt of the younger of the Nevilles, was the wife of
Plantagenet.
Richard
Plantagenet
York, died,
1460.
duke of
5. The appearance of this prince marks the near ap-
proach of the Wars of the Roses. He was the son of
the earl of Cambridge who died by the axe
in 1415, and, more important still, of Anne
Mortimer, sister of the youth who in 1399
stood next to the throne after Richard II.
As this youth and his only brother were now dead with-
out issue, Richard of York inherited whatever right to
the crown the being first in lineal descent from Edward
III. could give; for his ancestor, Lionel, was Edward III.'s
third son, while Henry VI.'s ancestor, John of Gaunt, was
Edward III.'s fourth son. Yet if the usage of earlier
times were to settle the question, the lawful right was
clearly on Henry's side. His grandfather had been
chosen king by parliament, and more than one Act had
settled the crown in his family, which had now been the
kingly line for more than half a century. The whole
English nobility had sworn fealty to him. But in the
middle of the fifteenth century the usage of earlier times
could not settle such a question when such a king as
Henry VI. sat on the throne of Edward I.
6. At first York does not seem to have thought of claim-
268
1450,
Rise of the People..
ing the crown. He merely longed for power, looked on
York's aims. it as his due, and was in a rage at seeing it in
in the hands of Suffolk and Somerset. He and his allies,
the Nevilles, watched the course of events, eager to get a
chance of crushing the men whom they hated. Suffolk
and Somerset had become very unpopular-Suffolk be-
cause he was the envoy who made the bargain to give up
Anjou and Maine, Somerset because he was in command
when Normandy was lost. In 1450 an impeachment over-
threw Suffolk, who was then lawlessly seized and beheaded
at sea when he was on his way to exile on the
Continent. York was at this time in Ireland as
Suffolk
murdered at
sea, 1450.
Cade's ris-
ing in Kent,
1450.
Lieutenant; and there is no proof that he had
any share in bringing about Suffolk's fall and death.
7. It is a sign of the general uneasiness which prevailed,
that after this event the commons of Kent rose in arms
under one John Cade, and marched upon
London. They are said to have been
frightened at a report that the court intended
to punish severely the men of Kent because the ships
that had waylaid Suffolk had sailed from Kent, and the
unlucky nobleman's headless body had been thrown
ashore on the coast of Kent. Their rising had the usual
fate of such enterprises. After some successes, a victory
at Sevenoaks, in which Stafford, who commanded against
Cade, was killed, a short stay in Southwark, and an occa-
sional visit to London, the rebels were partly beaten,
partly persuaded to give up their enterprise. Cade tried
to escape, but was overtaken and killed, and a few
others were put to death. But there was little blood shed
after the affair was over.
8. Somerset now took Suffolk's place, and for three
years (1450-53) kept, with the queen's help, the reins of
power in his own hands. He had little peace, however,
during this time. In 1450 York came back from Ire-
1450–1453.
269
Henry VI.
Edmund
Beaufort,
duke of
Somerset,
died, 1455.
land, entered London at the head of 4,000 men, and
making his way into Henry's presence, com-
plained of many wrongs and slights done to
him. Henry answered mildly, and promised
to call a parliament. He kept his promise.
The commons ranged themselves on the side of York;
and Somerset was sent to prison. It was even moved
that York should be declared heir to the crown, as no
child had been as yet born to the king. Yet in a short
time Somerset was released, and was as high in the king's
favour as ever, whilst York withdrew to his castle of
Ludlow. In 1452 York was persuaded to visit the king,
and then was made prisoner. But Somerset was afraid to
go any farther against one so powerful, and having forced
him to make a public statement of his loyalty, allowed
him to go free.
Edward of
Lancaster
born, 1453.
9. Next year (1453) the queen gave birth to a son, and
Plantagenet's hopes of a peaceful succession Prince
to the throne came to an end; for between
1447 and 1453, Henry had been the only
living descendant of Henry IV., on whose heirs the
crown had been settled by act of parliament in 1406.
If he were to die without issue, York could not have been
kept out of the succession. It is possible that York's dis-
like of Somerset may have arisen from a suspicion that
he, as next in descent from John of Gaunt after the king,
had also an eye to the crown. But two months before
the birth of his son, the king fell ill, and lost his wits ;
and Somerset was driven from power. The council sent
him to the Tower, and empowered York to open Parlia-
ment as the king's lieutenant. Henry's intel--
lect seemed to have utterly gone; and the
Lords (as yet the Commons were not allowed
to have a voice on such a question as the Regency) made
York Protector of the realm. He did not enjoy the office
King Henry
loses his
wits, 1453-
270
1455
Rise of the People.
long. In 1455 the king's reason suddenly came back to
him. York ceased to be Protector; and Margaret and
Somerset returned to power. York lost even his govern-
ment of Calais; and his friends were driven from office.
Such treatment he felt to be unbearable; and accordingly
he marched with the earls of Salisbury and Warwick on
London, and began the Wars of the Roses.
CHAPTER XIX.
WARS OF THE ROSES AND HOUSE OF YORK.
the Wars of
the Roses.
I. THE Wars of the Roses were so called from the York-
ists having taken a white, the Lancastrians a red rose as
their badge. The first battle of the war was fought in 1455,
at St. Albans, the last in 1485, near Bosworth. Between
General these two events as many as ten other battles
character of took place. They were different in many
ways from other wars. They were wars of
noble houses. The mass of the people took no great
part in them; and thus, though more blood was shed by
them on the field and on the scaffold than at any other
time in England, the nation did not suffer very much
from them. No institutions were endangered by them.
The life of the country went on as usual. Every English-
man dwelt secure under the shelter of the laws. But
they made great destruction among the noble houses.
The ranks of these were already thinned by the troubles
of the days of Edward II. and Richard II. In the Wars
of the Roses they well-nigh perished altogether, for in
these wars little mercy was shown by either party. The
men of rank who fell into the hands of their foes after a
defeat were sent straight to the scaffold. In this respect
they are a great contrast both to the wars of the thirteenth
1455-1459.
271
Wars of the Roses.
and to those of the seventeenth century. One unhappy
result followed from them,-the king's power became al-
most the only strong thing in the state. Standing no longer
in awe of the noble class, who had often curbed his
authority, he was able for a time to work his will without
any check.
Fight of
St. Albans,
1455.
2. On reaching St. Albans, York found that the king and
Somerset were lying with a force inside the town. After
a short pause he attacked them, and by the
help of Warwick, gained a complete victory.
Somerset and three other lords were killed.
York went on to London, carrying the king with him, and
at once took the management of affairs to himself. Later
in the year the king fell ill of his former disease; and
York became again Protector. In a few months Henry
again recovered, and York again ceased to be Protector.
But he still continued to be the foremost man in the
State under the king.
The other
Fight of
Bloreheath,
3. It was a very uneasy time, however.
faction was watching eagerly for a chance against the
Yorkists. In 1458 the two parties made a great show of
being reconciled; but parted only to hate each other
more than ever. At last the storm burst. How it came
about cannot be exactly known; but in 1459 the Yorkists
and Lancastrians were again in arms against each other.
After a victory at Bloreheath, Salisbury joined
his troops to those of York and Warwick;
and the combined force awaited the approach
of the king's army at Ludford, near Ludlow.
frightened at a part of their force going over to Henry,
the leaders suddenly fled, and sought shelter
-York in Ireland, Salisbury and Warwick at
Calais, of which place the latter was governor.
A parliament, held the same year at Coventry, proclaimed
them all traitors.
1459.
But
Flight of
Yorkist
leaders,
1459.
272
1460-1461.
Rise of the People.
Fight of
Northamp-
ton, 1460.
York claims
the crown,
1460.
4. In the following summer (1460) there was another
sudden change. Warwick and Salisbury landed at Sand-
wich, and marched upon London, gathering troops as
they went. Finding the king gone, they followed on his
track, and overtook him at Northampton.
Here there was another battle; Henry was
beaten and taken prisoner, while the duke of
Buckingham, three other peers, and three hundred knights
and gentlemen fell on the Lancastrian side. A meeting of
parliament at Westminster followed, at which Richard of
York laid before the lords a formal statement
of his claim to the crown. The lords were
very unwilling to take up the question; but
on being pressed for an answer they said that York's
claim was well founded, but advised that Henry should be
allowed to keep the crown during his life. This was
agreed to: Henry was to remain king, and York was to
succeed on Henry's death. But Margaret, who had fled
to Scotland after the battle of Northampton, crossed the
border and began to make head in the north. York and
Salisbury marched to crush her, but venturing into the
Fight of
field with a very small force, were themselves
Wakefield;
crushed at Wakefield on December 30, 1460.
York slain,
1460.
York was among the slain; Salisbury was
beheaded by the victors the next day.
5. The quarrel was now taken up by York's eldest son,
Edward, earl of March, who on hearing of his father's
death, gathered round him the wild spirits of the Welsh
Marches, always loyal to his house, and moved upon
Fights of
Mortimer's
Cross and
St. Albans,
1461.
London. When on his way he had to fight
at Mortimer's Cross to free his army from the
Lancastrian force, led by Jasper Tudor, which
kept following him. He beat Tudor, and
pushed on to London. Whilst these things were going
on, Margaret and her partisans were also on their way to
1461-1463.
273
Line of York.
London, and before Edward came up had fought with
and overcome Warwick at St. Albans, and recovered the
king's person. But Edward was able to join his men
with what remained of Warwick's army; and even Mar-
garet was not daring enough to attack this new force.
She fell back northwards; Edward then entered London
in triumph, and was hailed as king (March 1461).
CHAPTER XX.
LINE OF YORK..
Edward IV.
king, 1461-
1483.
Battle of
Towton,
1461.
1. EDWARD IV. reigned for 22 years (1461-1483); for five
months of which he was, however, an exile from his
kingdom. The first event of his reign was
the bloodiest fight of the war; for the Lan-
castrian leaders still held the north; and
Edward and Warwick hastened against them with an
army of 49,000 men. On Palm Sunday the
rival forces met at Towton, in southern York-
shire. The slaughter that ensued surpassed
anything of the kind that had ever taken place in England.
Forty thousand are said to have fallen on the field. The
Yorkists won the day. Henry, Margaret, their son Ed-
ward, Somerset, and the other noble friends of the Red
Rose made for Scotland, while Edward entered York.
Again there was a meeting of parliament, in which Ed-
ward's kingship was fully recognized. The three Lan-
castrian kings were declared usurpers; and the leading
Lancastrian nobles were proclaimed traitors.
2. For more than nine years (1461-1470) Edward was
able to keep the crown he had won without meeting with
any serious reverse. He had one sleepless foe-Mar-
garet. She sought allies in Scotland and in France, and
E. H.
274
1464-1469.
Rise of the People.
twice led an armed force into northern England. She
was beaten in both attempts; and in the second-which
was made in 1464-her friends were twice over-
Margaret's
invasions of thrown by John Neville, marquis of Monta-
England. gue, a brother of Warwick's. In 1465 the
hapless Henry, who had lain in hiding for some time, was
found in Yorkshire and brought to London.
Warwick
quarrel.
3. Indeed, Edward's throne would have been quite
secure had he not driven Warwick into the ranks of his
foes. How the deadly quarrel between the king and his
too powerful subject came about cannot be certainly
known; but it was, in all likelihood, a result of
and Edward Edward's marriage with Elizabeth Woodville,
widow of Sir John Grey, whom he had met
by accident, and secretly wedded, in 1464. The lady had
many kinsfolk—children, father, brothers, sisters. These
gathered round Edward's throne, rose high in royal favour,
and seemed to have thrust aside those who had stood
by the Yorkist cause in its darkest hour, and won the
king his crown. A coldness sprang up between Edward
and Warwick. The king was jealous of a subject whose
influence was greater than his own, and who was popu
larly called 'the king-maker.' The subject was in a rage
with the king on account of real or fancied wrongs. The
cloud that had risen between the cousins grew blacker
and blacker. Moreover, Warwick had given offence to
Edward on a point on which he felt very strongly. He
had, in 1469, married Isabella, the eldest of his daughters
(he had no male children), to the king's eldest living
brother, George, duke of Clarence, who was as yet the
next male heir to the throne. The breach went on
widening, until at last we find Warwick and Clarence
exiles in France, and making an alliance with Margaret
to restore Henry to the throne.
4. Accordingly, Warwick, bringing his son-in-law with
1470-1478.
275
Line of York.
Warwick
restores
Henry VI.,
him, in the autumn of 1470, sailed from France and
landed at Dartmouth. There was a general rush of
fighting men to his standard. With these he
went northwards in search of Edward, who
had gone thither to put down a rising. 1470.
Edward finding himself almost without a follower, his
men having gone over in great numbers to Warwick, fled
to King's Lynn, and thence sailed away to Holland.
He sought a refuge with Charles the Bold, duke of
Burgundy, who was the husband of his sister Margaret.
Thus the Red Rose triumphed once more. Henry was
drawn from the Tower and set again on the throne. He
did not enjoy it long; for in a few months Edward re-
appeared, having landed at Ravenspurg (March 1471);
marching southwards, he was joined on the way by the
fickle Clarence, and soon found himself in London.
Thence issuing, he engaged Warwick at
Barnet on Easter Sunday, and overthrew him.
Warwick and his brother Montague were
killed. Another victory, won three weeks later at Tewkes-
bury over Margaret, who had landed in England the very
day of Warwick's death, left Edward apparently without
a single person to fear; for the lad Edward was slain
at Tewkesbury, Henry shortly afterwards died the
mysterious death usual with dethroned kings in England,
and Margaret was a prisoner,
Battles of
Barnet and
Tewkes-
bury, 1471.
Peace of
1475.
5. Little notice need be taken of the rest of the events
of Edward's reign. In 1475 he invaded France, but only
to make the peace of Pecquigny with Lewis
XI., in which Lewis agreed to pay him 75,000 Pecquigny,
crowns at once and 50,000 yearly. It was
then that Lewis ransomed Margaret of Anjou, for she
was his kinswoman. In 1478 George of Clarence was
tried before the Lords, found guilty of treason, and
suffered death in the Tower; and between 1480 and 1483
T 2
· 276
1483.
Rise of the People.
there was a war with Scotland in which the king's
youngest brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester, recovered
Berwick from the Scots (it had been lost in
1461) for the last time. In April 1483, King
Edward IV.
dies, 1483.
Edward died.
Richard,
duke of
Gloucester.
6. He left behind him two sons, Edward and Richard,
the one twelve, the other ten years old. Richard of
Edward V.,
Gloucester was their only surviving uncle,
1483.
and therefore their natural guardian. Richard
was an able man, but crafty and unprincipled ; and there
is little doubt that soon after his brother's
death he thought of seizing the crown for him-
self. In any case the history of the so-called
reign of Edward V.—which lasted for only two months
and a half-is a mere record of the bold strokes Richard
made to clear his path to the throne and his stealthy
approaches along it. When Edward IV. died, Gloucester
was in the north, and young Edward at Ludlow, in the
keeping of Earl Rivers, his mother's brother, and Sir
Richard Grey, her son. On hearing of the king's death,
both Richard and Edward set out, each with his friends,
for London. They met on the way; and Richard had
Rivers and Grey arrested and sent northwards. On
reaching London he placed the lad in the Tower, to be
kept there until the day fixed for his coronation, and was
himself named Protector of the kingdom. The queen's
kinsmen had been greatly disliked by the old nobility,
who looked on them as upstarts; and
and though
Richard's doings with regard to them had
law or justice, no one spoke against them. Next, Lord
Hastings, a man not likely to be shaken in his loyalty to
the children of his late master, King Edward,
tings mur- was one day beheaded within the Tower
grounds on Richard's mere order. At the
same time Morton, bishop of Elv, and Lord Stanley were
Lord Has-
dered.
no colour of
Line of York.
277

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278
1483.
Rise of the People.
/
laid hold of and kept in prison. The queen dowager,
who had fled for refuge to a holy place, was persuaded
to give up her son, York; and he was at once sent to
join his brother in the Tower. Rivers, Grey, and their
friends were put to death in the north; and armed men
from Yorkshire began to muster in London. Then one
Dr. Shaw was put up at St. Paul's Cross to tell the people
that King Edward had never been really married to Dame
Elizabeth Grey, as he had before been contracted to a
Lady Eleanor Butler; and that his children were there-
fore not his lawful heirs. At last the duke of Bucking-
ham, himself a descendant of Edward III. through that
duke of Gloucester who died at Calais in 1397, went to
the Guildhall and made before the mayor and citizens
there assembled a full statement of Richard's title. It
met with some show of approval; and next day Richard
was asked to take the crown by a body of men acting
on behalf of what they called 'the three Estates of
the Realm of England;' and after a little display of
coyness, he accepted. A parliament had been called
for that day; and it is likely that many of those who
offered the crown were members of the Lords or Com-
mons. The petition stated that King Edward's children
were 'bastards,' Clarence's attainted, and that Richard
was therefore the undoubted heir of Richard, duke of
York.
Richard
1485.
7. Richard III. reigned for little more than two years.
One of his first acts was to have his nephews murdered.
The truth of the story, that they were smothered
III., 1483- in the Tower by Miles Forest and John
Dighton, leaves little to be explained in the
history of the day; its falsehood would leave a good deal.
He was next called on to deal with a plot and rising in
which his former friend, Buckingham, took an active
part. The rising failed; and Buckingham was taken and
1483-1485.
279
Line of York.
י
Tudor.
beheaded. But the plan that Buckingham had tried to
carry out lived on, and led before long to Richard's de-
struction. There was then living in exile in Britanny one
Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, who, owing to the
havoc that war and murder had made of the Lancastrian
family, had become its foremost member of English birth.
He was the son of Margaret Beaufort and Henry
Edmund Tudor, and inherited, through his
mother, the headship of the House of Beaufort, sprung
from John of Gaunt and Catherine Swinford.¹ Richard's
crimes had lost him the love of many of the old friends
of his house; and an alliance was now made between
these and the remaining friends of the Lancastrian cause.
It was agreed between them that their long feud should
be healed by the marriage of Henry Tudor with Elizabeth
of York, the daughter of Edward IV.; and that at the
same time Richard should be assailed by an invasion from
abroad and a rising in England. The first
attempt came to nothing; but the second
succeeded. In the summer of 1485, Henry
landed at Milford Haven in South Wales, and after a
somewhat roundabout march, engaged Richard at Bos-
worth on August 22. Richard fell on the field, and with
him the Plantagenet line of kings ended.
¹ Table showing the royal descent of the Tudors.
Battle of
Bosworth,
August
1485.
John of Gaunt (by Catherine Swinford).
Henry Beaufort Thomas, d. of Exeter.
(cardinal).
Edmund, duke of Somerset
(killed | 1455).
John Beaufort, earl of Somerset.
John, duke of Somerset.
Margaret, m. Edmund Tudor.
Henry
(beheaded 1464).
Edmund
(beheaded 1471).
Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond.
280
Rise of the People.
8. We have now got to the end of a very stirring time.
Many things were done in it which we must disapprove
of; but one good thing was gained by the English people
during it. This was the winning of the liberties
Summary. which we now enjoy. It is true that the king
was quite as strong at the end of this time as he had been
at the beginning. So many noble families were swept
away in the Wars of the Roses that the king was no longer
afraid of the nobility and was able to do almost anything
he liked. But the work done by Simon de Montfort and
Edward I., like all true work, did not die. Parliament
still lived; and though for a long time it was well content
to let the king have his way in most things, yet it still
kept all its powers. Without its consent no money could
be lawfully taken from the people and no laws could be
made.
The wars with France and Scotland had a good deal
to do with making Parliament so strong. In themselves
these wars were barren of everything but evil; but indi-
rectly they did much good. For from Parliament only
could the king get the means of carrying them on. Par-
liament had therefore to be called very often; and thus
the power of the Commons became great. So it came
about that the one abiding result of these two hundred
and seventy years was that the people had found out the
way of governing themselves.
281
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF England.
HENRY II.
(Sprung both from William the Conqueror and from Edmund Ironside.)

Richard I. (1189-1199) John (1199–1216)
Henry III. (1216-1272)
Henry
Edward I. (1272-1307)
Edward II. (1307-1327)
Edward III. (1327–1377)
Eleanor, m. K. of Castile.
Blanche, m. Lewis of France
Richard, king of Germany.
Edmund,
Edmund, E. of Lancaster.
Henry, E. of Lancaster.
Henry, D. of Lancaster.

+
Edward (Black Prince
1376.
Lionel, D. of Clarence. John of Gaunt, who m. Blanche.
Henry IV. (1399-1413).
Henry V. 1413-1422).
Richard II. (1377-139
Philippa.
Roger Mortimer.
Anne Mortimer.
Richard, D. of York.
Edward IV. (1461~1483).
Edward V. (1483).
Henry VI. (1422-1461).
Edward (killed at
Tewkesbury).

Richard III. (1483-1485).
Elizabeth of York, who married
Henry Tudor.
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58
BOOK IV.
THE TUDORS.
INTRODUCTION.
IN the time which we have now reached many great
changes came over England, and it began to make for
itself the national character which it still has.
We have seen that in the last half of the
Changes in
England
under the
Tudors.
fifteenth century, (1) England had lost its
possessions in France; (2) the English barons had been
almost destroyed in the Wars of the Roses. Two things
followed from these: (1) England tried to be peaceable,
and wished to settle her own affairs at home, instead of
meddling in the affairs of other nations. (2) The power
which the barons had had now went to the king, who
became very strong.
But there were other things also which did much to
change England.
(1) The writings of the old Greeks and Romans
began to be read much more widely, and made men
284
The Tudors.
think more, and think differently from what they had
done before. Printing also was found out, and made
books plentiful and cheap: before this time they had
all been written, or printed from wooden blocks, and so
were few and dear. Thus knowledge was spread among
the people more than it had ever been before.
(2) This new learning made people wish to think
more for themselves, and they were not so willing to obey
the Pope in matters of religion. They came to see, too,
that many of the things which he told them to believe
were not found in the Bible, which book they had now
begun to read for themselves. So some countries,
amongst which England was one, left off obeying the
Pope in religion.
(3) Columbus discovered the New World, and men
began to take more to the sea. The English especially
did so, and found out new lands in North America, and
tried to make settlements on them. Ever since this time
the English have been great seamen, and have made
many settlements (or colonies) in far-off lands.
All these great changes came about in England under
the sovereigns of the house of Tudor, as they were
called, because Henry VII.'s father came of a Welsh
family-the Tudors. We have to see how England
passed through all these great changes; and how she
grew stronger and greater by doing so.
1
}
CHAPTER I.
HENRY VII.-1485-1509.
Henry VII.
crowned,
October
1485.
1. THE people of England were very weary c the long
fighting of the Wars of the Roses. They were glad
when Henry of Richmond promised to marry
Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV.,
and so join together the two houses of York
and Lancaster, and bring the sad civil wars to an end.
From the first Henry showed that he meant to be king
by his own right. He had himself crowned, October
1485, and then called Parliament together. He told
them that he 'had come to the throne by the just title of
inheritance and by the judgment of God who had given
him victory.' He did not marry Elizabeth till he saw
that all men took him for their king. He would not owe
any of his right to his wife, nor would he look upon her
as having a title equal to his own.
2. But the Wars of the Roses had gone on too long to
be quieted all at once. The Yorkists were angry that
the king did not give his wife more power.
Rising of
In 1486, as Henry was making a progress Lord Lovel
through the Northern shires, there was a feeble rising
of the Yorkists under Lord Lovel. The king's troops
came together so soon that the rebels had to flee. But
Henry's reign was never free from plots against him, and
many of these plots were made with great care and
cunning. There was still living, as a prisoner in the
Tower, the Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke Lambert
of Clarence, Edward IV.'s brother. The Simnel.
Yorkists set up a boy, called Lambert Simnel, the son of
286
1487,
The Tudors.
a joiner in Oxford, who pretended that he was the real
Earl of Warwick. Many people believed that he was,
and he was crowned at Dublin as King Edward VI. The
chief family in Ireland, that of the Geraldines, who were
Earls of Kildare, had been on the side of the Yorkists.
They now welcomed this pretender, who invaded Eng-
land, but was beaten in battle at Stoke, near Newark
(June 1487). Many of the chief nobles who were with
him were killed in the battle. He himself was taken
prisoner, but was pardoned by the king, who made him
a scullion in his kitchen.
Power of
the nobles.
3. The king learnt from this that he must be more
careful what he did, and must not make the Yorkists
angry. He had his queen, Elizabeth, crowned
(November 1487), and from this time showed
her greater honour. He saw also that he could keep
his kingdom quiet only by making the power of his
nobles less, and by making good laws to keep them in
order. There were not many great nobles left in the
land, for many had been killed in the bloody battles of
the Wars of the Roses. Not more than thirty of the old
nobles had been left alive. Henry VII. saw that if he
wished to keep his kingdom in peace he must prevent
these nobles from making any disturbance.
Retainers.
4. The nobles in former times had kept in their ser-
vice a great number of armed men, who were bound to
obey them, and were ready to fight for them
whenever they wished. When the nobles
went about they had around them these 'retainers,' as
they were called, who wore their lord's livery, and were
disorderly and breakers of the peace. Out of these
retainers the nobles could raise an army to fight against
the king whenever they pleased. The nobles also had a
custom of binding men to them by what was called
1487.
287
Court of the Star Chamber.
maintenance, that is, a promise to maintain or support
their quarrels or their causes in the law-courts.
Court of
the Star
5. Now that the nobles were few in number and could
not do much against the king, he determined to put
down these evil customs. Laws had been passed against
them in former reigns, but had never been carried out.
Henry VII. made a special court to try and punish all
nobles who broke the laws against 'mainte-
nances' and the 'giving of liveries.' This new
court was, like the other law courts, a sort of
Committee of the King's Privy Council. Its judges were
the chief ministers of the king, who would be likely to
carry out the laws and not be afraid of the nobles. It
was called the Court of the Star Chamber, because it sat
in a room of which the ceiling was ornamented with
stars.
Chamber.
This Star Chamber Court was at first useful in making
the great nobles obey the laws; but later on it tried all
kinds of cases which it was not meant to try, and
punished men who by word or by writing offended the
king or his ministers. In this way it grew very hateful
to the people; for men brought to trial before it were
judged guilty not by a jury, but by the judges, who wished
only to please the king.
6. Henry VII. wished to keep down rebellions, to give
his land peace, to make all men keep the laws, and to
rule as a strong king. He used to say that a
Henry VII.'s
king who wished to be strong must always taxation.
have money, and he took care to get together as much
money as he could. But some of the people were not
willing to pay taxes. Twice there were rebellions when
the king tried to gather subsidies, which were sums of
money granted by Parliament and levied on all men's
property.
288
1492-
The Tudors.
Benevo-
lences.
7. So Henry VII. tried to get money in other ways
than through Parliament. (1) He would make his minis-
ters send for rich men and ask them to give him
money, and when they promised, because they
did not like to say 'No' to the king, he would send and
take it. Thus Archbishop Morton used to send for mer-
chants whom he thought to be rich and ask them for
money. If they lived handsomely he told them that it
was plain they were rich enough to afford to help the
king. If they lived poorly he said they must be saving
money very fast, and so could easily spare some. This
way of catching men, whatever they did, was known as
'Morton's fork.' A law was passed that what had once
been promised as a gift to the king should be gathered as
if it were a tax. These gifts were called benevolences,
and were hated by the rich. (2) Some of the judges
sought out many old laws which had been forgotten during
the wild times of the civil wars, and had men fined for
having broken them. Henry VII. also sought out all the
old rights of the crown, and made men pay him for every
little privilege he granted them.
8. His strictness in carrying out the law helped him
to get money. A story is told that one day the king
visited the Earl of Oxford, who gathered all his retainers
to do him honour. Then the king asked if all these
were his household servants. When the earl answered
that they were his retainers who had come to see the
king, Henry said: 'My lord, I thank you for my good
cheer, but I may not endure to have my laws broken
in my sight; my attorney must speak with you.' It
is said that the earl had to pay more than 10,000l. for
this offence.
9. In this way the king became rich and powerful, but
he did not win his people's love. He made his nobles
1497.
289
Perkin Warbeck.
He tried
Heary VII.
and Parlia-
ment.
obey him and he made all men keep the laws.
to keep peace abroad; and though he threat-
ened war with France he did so only as a
means to get money from his people, and also
from the French king. As he got money in other ways he
found that he could do without often calling his Parliament
together, and during the last thirteen years of his reign
(1496–1509) only one Parliament met. He knew that he
had many enemies both at home and abroad, and was
careful and cautious in all that he did. He watched
all the men who he thought were likely to rise against
him, and when he got them into his power he punished
them.
Though
Perkin War-
beck, 1492-
1499.
10. Still with all his care and wisdom Henry VII. was
never free from plots and risings against him.
Lambert Simnel had failed, another impostor
soon rose up. A young man, whose real
name was Peter Osbeck, though in England
he was known as Perkin Warbeck, the son of a citizen
of Tournay, in Flanders, landed in Ireland in 1492. He
gave out that he was Richard, second son of Edward IV.,
who was believed to have been murdered in the Tower
in 1483. As just at this time Henry VII. was threaten-
ing to make war on France, the French king was glad
to have some one who could be set up against him.
Many men in England as well as in Ireland believed in
Warbeck, who was helped by the king's enemies abroad.
The Scottish king also, James IV., received him at his
court, and even gave him in marriage a lady who was
nearly related to himself. Plots were made in Warbeck's
favour in England. Even Sir William Stanley, who had
won for Henry the battle of Bosworth, was put to death
on the charge of plotting to help Warbeck.
11. For five years (1492-97) England was kept un-
E. H.
290
1497-
The Tudors.
quiet. Henry made peace with all his enemies abroad,
and put down the risings that were made against him at
home. The Scottish king twice led an army into England,
but was driven back. At last in 1497 he too made a truce
with Henry VII., and a few years later a peace also.
Warbeck was driven to make his last attempt. Gather-
ing troops in Ireland, he landed in Cornwall and laid
siege to Exeter; but his troops fell off, and he fled away
when the royal army drew near (1497). He was taken
prisoner, and, after confessing before the people who he
really was, was confined in the Tower. There he made
another plot among the prisoners: it was found out, and
he was put to death in 1499.
There were other plots against Henry VII. which we
need not speak of; but each plot which the king put
down made him stronger to meet the next that came.
Some of the nobles took part in these risings, and were
put to death. Their money was taken by the king, and
the power of the nobles as a class grew less and less.
For the last ten years of his reign Henry VII. lived in
peace.
Henry VII.'s
foreign
policy.
12. But besides keeping peace at home Henry VII.
also wished to keep peace abroad. In 1492 he made a
treaty with France, and the French king
agreed to pay him money. In 1499 he made
a treaty with Scotland, and in 1502 gave his
daughter Margaret in marriage to King James IV. This
was a great matter; for the Scots had been friends to the
French and foes to the English since the time of Edward
I., and this marriage of Margaret with James IV. again
brought the English and Scots together, so that by means
of it, a hundred years afterwards, the Scottish king, James
VI., became king of England as well.
13. Henry VII. made a treaty also with Ferdinand,
king of Spain, for he wished to be at peace on every side.
1502.
291
Character of Henry VII.
His eldest son, Prince Arthur, was married (Nov. 1501),
to Katharine, daughter of Ferdinand; but in April
1502 Prince Arthur died, at the age of
Henry VII.
16. Henry VII., however, wished to be and Spain.
friends with Spain, and in those days it was thought that
marriages between their families was the best way of
keeping kings friends. So it was agreed that Katharine
should stay in England, and should be married to Prince
Henry, who was afterwards King Henry VIII. The
Pope gave leave that Prince Henry should marry his
brother's widow, and when he became king he did so.
We shall see how great a matter this marriage afterwards
became.
14. Moreover, Henry VII. tried to bring Ireland into
greater obedience to England. He sent there as his deputy
Sir Edward Poynings, who made a law, in Henry VII.
1495, which is called after his name 'Poynings' and Ireland.
law.' By this the laws which had been lately passed in
England were made to hold in Ireland also; and from
that time no Parliament was to sit in Ireland except by
the king's permission, nor was it to make laws unless
the king and his English council had approved of them.
In this way Ireland was brought under the king's power
more than it had been before.
15. The people of England had a great respect for
Henry VII. as a wise king, but they did not love him, for
he was cold and distant. Yet they trusted him Character of
because he gave them peace and rest after Henry VII.
the civil wars, and made men obey the laws as in former
times. This was what all men wanted, for they were
weary of disorder. Moreover, men knew that Henry VII.
was wise, and was always busy with plans for the good
of the land. He gathered round him all the wisest men
to give him counsel. He spent no money foolishly and
cared not for grandeur, but he saved all the money he
U 2
292
1509
The Tudors.
could, and when he died it is said that he left behind
him 1,800,000l.
English
trade.
16. In the greater quiet of his reign trade began to
flourish again in England, and the king did what he could
to help it. In 1497 a great deed was done.
John Cabot, a Venetian, who dwelt at Bristol,
got leave from the king to go and seek for new lands in
the Western Sea. He and his son Sebastian are said to
have made more than one voyage. They are said to have
found out Labrador and sailed along the coast of North
America to Maryland. Through them it came about
that Englishmen learned to know North America, and
sent out ships thither, and made settlements in later
times.
As Henry VII. grew older he seems to have grown
more greedy for money; so that the people murmured
greatly against his two judges, Empson and Dudley,
who did all that they could to raise money for their
master. When Henry VII. died in 1509 few men were
sorry, for though his caution and care had given them
peace he made them pay dearly for it.
Henry VIII.
CHAPTER II.
HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY.
1. WHEN Henry VIII. came to the throne all men were
glad. The young king was just eighteen years old, tall,
Character of handsome, of a fair, ruddy complexion, skilful
in all games and feats of strength, fond of
learning, and kindly and affable to all.
Men were
pleased that the hard rule of Henry VII. was at an end,
and hoped for more peaceful and more joyous days under
1512.
293
Henry VIII's Wars.
his son. Henry VIII. was at once popular; and though,
especially in his later days, he did many evil deeds, his
people never quite ceased to love him, and he never lost
those gifts which drew men to him and made them
willing to serve him. No king was served more faithfully
by his ministers, and yet no king was more willing to set
his ministers aside or put them to death when they
ceased to please him. He was fond of popularity, as all
the Tudors were, and when his ministers became un-
popular through doing his will he gave them up to the
hatred which they had drawn upon themselves. One
of the first things he did was to order the wicked men
who had helped his father to wring money from the
people, Empson and Dudley, to be arrested. They were
hated by the people for the way in which they had
raised money to please the greedy Henry VII. Henry
VIII. gained popularity by having them put to death on
the charge of having plotted to seize his person and keep
him in their power.
Henry
VIII.'s
marriage.
He wished
2. The young king was eager at once to do something
to win a great name in Europe. He lost no time in
making sure of the alliance with Spain which
his father had made before. So he married
Katharine, the daughter of the Spanish king,
though she was his brother Arthur's widow.
to be friendly with Spain, for under King Lewis XI.
France had become one nation and was very powerful in
Europe. Spain was a very great nation too, and only by
joining with Spain could England hope to do anything
against France.
3. Henry VIII. wished to show himself a great soldier,
and to join in the wars which were then going on in Italy.
There France, Spain, the Emperor, the Pope, Henry
and the Italian cities were all fighting to win VIII.'s wars.
some part of Italy for themselves. Henry VIII, entered
294
1513-
The Tudors.
1
into these wars as though they were an amusement.
He wished to show off his riches and his skill, and en-
gaged in war as if it were a game. So in 1513 he made
an invasion of France through Flanders, and took the city
of Tournay. But Henry had no real plan of carrying on
a war, and the French raised up the Scots against him.
War with
Scotland.
Battle of
Flodden,
September,
1513.
4. The alliance which Henry VII. had made with Scot-
land was broken by the Scots when Henry VIII. went to
war with France. In spite of the marriage
of James IV. of Scotland to Henry VIII.'s
sister the old feelings towards France were stronger than
the new friendship with England. In August 1513, while
Henry was abroad, a Scottish army, led by the king,
crossed the Borders. The Earl of Surrey
went to meet it, and found it encamped on
the hill of Flodden, by the little river Till,
which runs into the Tweed. Surrey crossed the Till
north of the Scottish army and joined battle. The
English archers drove away the Highlanders who were
set against them and fell on the rear of the Scottish army,
which was successful against Surrey. The Scots were
now attacked both in front and in the rear, and so were
defeated with great slaughter. King James IV. was
among the slain.
Soon after this Henry VIII. made peace with France,
and in Scotland his sister Margaret was left regent for
her young son, James V. She was naturally in favour of
England, but soon displeased the Scottish nobles by
marrying the Earl of Angus. So for many years Scotland
was unquiet, and did not trouble England.
5. There had been with Henry, in his campaign in
France, a man who soon became more powerful in
England. This was Thomas Wolsey, a
clergyman, son of a citizen of Norwich. He
had been a chaplain of Henry VII., and Henry VIII.
Rise of
Wolsey.
1515.
295
Thomas Wolsey.
now took him as his friend. Wolsey had shown such
wisdom in finding food for the troops that Henry learned
to trust him more and more, till Wolsey became his only
minister. In 1514 he was made Archbishop of York, and
soon afterwards Chancellor. In 1515 the Pope made him
a Cardinal, and next year made him Papal Legate in
England, that is, gave him the power of overlooking the
English Church as if he stood in the Pope's place in
England. Wolsey was then more powerful than any
subject had been in England before. As Chancellor he
was the chief officer of the State; as Legate he had the
fullest power over the Church. The king trusted him in
all that he did, and so all that was done in the land was
done by him.
Character
of Wolsey.
6. Wolsey was a very wise man, more wise than good,
and he was a learned man as well. He had very great
riches; for he drew the money of many
bishoprics, and received also presents from
the kings of France and Spain, who wished him to help
them with his master. He spent his money with great
pomp and grandeur. Two of the houses which he built
were afterwards made royal palaces-these were,
Hampton Court and York House, which was afterwards
called Whitehall. He was fond of learned men and
liked to gather them round him. He wished to make
more learned in England; for in those days
Englishmen were not so learned as were the men of
Italy, Germany, Spain, or France. To do this Wolsey
founded a school at Ipswich. He also began to build a
great college at Oxford, which is now called Christ
Church, and is the largest and richest of all the colleges.
men
7. But it was in his dealings with foreign nations that
Wolsey showed his wisdom most.
He so Wolsey as a
treated them that he made them anxious to politician.
have England as their friend, and they were willing to
296
1516
The Tudors.
Power of
do many things to win her friendship. In 1516 a young
king, Francis I., came to the throne of France. He
wished to make conquests in Italy, but could not do so
unless Henry left France in peace. Charles,
France and the young king of Spain, wished to prevent
Spain.
Francis from making his conquests, and tried
to get Henry on his side. In 1519 the Emperor Maximilian
died, and the princes of Germany had to elect another
emperor. Both Francis and Charles tried to get them-
selves elected, and spent much money in bribing the
electors; but at last Charles won them over, and is
known after this as the Emperor Charles V. At one
time Henry VIII. thought that he might be chosen
Emperor, but really he had no chance.
After this there was constant fighting between the
emperor and the king of France. We have seen how
strong a power the king of France had become. But
Charles V. seemed likely to become even stronger.
He had inherited Spain from his mother, and the rich
country of the Netherlands from his father; last of all,
he had been chosen emperor, and so was ruler of Ger-
many. He claimed also lands in France and Italy
which Francis I. held, and so there was war between
them.
Wolsey knew how to use this time of war very
cleverly, so as to win all that he could for his master.
Charles V. and Francis I. both wanted the help of
England, and promised great things to get it. Wolsey
managed to play them off one against the other, and
made them both show great respect to England, so that
England at this time was thought more of in Europe
than she had been since the days of Henry V. English-
men learned to think more of themselves, to look beyond
England itself, and to see that they might do great things
in the world.
1525.
297
Henry VIII. and France.
Field of the
Cloth of
Gold.
8. Henry VIII. spent a great deal of money, for he
was fond of doing things in a grand way. The place where
he met Francis, in 1520, near Guisnes, was
called the 'Field of the Cloth of Gold,' for
everything was done with great splendour.
The two kings lived in palaces built of wood and covered
with silk hangings, and the days were spent in feastings
and in mimic battles, which were called tournaments,
between knights on horseback.
9. To get money for the king the people were taxed
heavily, and Wolsey used every means to get them to pay.
In 1523 he went to the Parliament and asked
Wolsey's
them to grant a tax of four shillings in the taxation.
pound on all lands and goods. He hoped that by being
there himself they would not dare to refuse. But the House
would not answer till they had taken counsel by them-
selves. Wolsey was obliged to go away, and the House
voted less than half what Wolsey had asked. At other
times Wolsey raised money by benevolences and by forced
loans. He also asked for money, without getting any grant
from Parliament, and sent round commissioners to gather
it. Men used to pay because they were afraid to refuse.
But in 1525 there was almost a rebellion in Suffolk, and
the king had to withdraw his demands.
Henry VIII.
and France,
1525.
10. Henry VIII. wanted money in that year for an
attack on France: for a plot was made against Francis I.
in his own land, and Henry VIII. hoped to win
back some of the English provinces in France
during the confusion. Francis I. was de-
feated and taken prisoner at Pavia, in Italy (February
1525), by the emperor's generals, and Henry VIII.
wished the emperor to set up another king in France who
should be Henry's vassal. But Charles V. did not want to
make the king of England too powerful; he kept Francis
I. in prison and tried to get him to give up parts of
298
1526-
The Tudors.
France to himself, and would do nothing for Henry. So
Henry and Wolsey began to be friends with Francis I.,
and no longer trusted in Charles V.
Henry
VIII's dis-
content with
his queen.
II. Now, Queen Katharine was the aunt of Charles V.,
and Henry VIII. had married her to make sure of the
friendship of Spain. But things had
changed, and he no longer wished to be
friendly to Spain; so that his wife was no
longer useful to him in that way. Moreover, though
they had been married for eighteen years, they had no
son alive, but only a daughter, Mary, who afterwards
became queen. This made men doubtful who would be
Doubts
about the
succession.
king after Henry; and when they remem-
bered the wars that had been waged before
to settle who should be king they were
afraid what might happen. Henry was very jealous of
anyone who might claim the crown after him. Already,
in 1521, one of the chief lords in England, the Duke of
Buckingham, had been put to death as a traitor. He
was descended from Edward III., and was charged with
saying that when Henry died he would seize the crown.
He was found guilty by his peers. Indeed, everyone
who was charged with treason against Henry VIII.
throughout his reign was found guilty and condemned.
Partly men loved the king, partly they were afraid of
him; but chiefly they saw that if he died there would be
disquiet, and that no man must be allowed to make plans
to get the crown after his death.
12. So Henry VIII. was more powerful than any king
had ever been in England before him, and thought that
Henry VIII. he might do what he pleased. He wished
tries to put to put away his wife, Katharine, for she
was older than himself, and he had fallen
very much in love with a young lady of the court, Anne
Boleyn. Moreover, Katharine had brought him no son
away his
wife.
1527.
299
Henry VIII. and the Pope.
that lived more than a few weeks, and he no longer
wanted to keep up his friendship with her nephew,
Charles V. Wolsey, whose only wish was to do his
master's bidding, undertook to get his marriage with
Katharine set aside in such a way as not to break the
laws of the Church, which in those days dealt with all
questions about marriage.
Henry VIII.
and the
Pope.
13. For Henry's marriage with Katharine, who was
the widow of his brother Arthur, the Pope's leave, or dis-
pensation, as it was called, had been needed.
The laws of the Church forbid a man to
marry his brother's widow; but the Pope, if
he thought good enough reasons were given, might dis-
pense with these laws in some cases. Wolsey now
wanted the Pope to say that the dispensation which a
previous Pope had given was not lawful. He thought
that the Pope owed so much to Henry that he would
give way in this matter. Already the Pope's authority
had been attacked by Luther in Germany, and Henry
VIII. had written a book against Luther, in return for
which the Pope gave him the title of 'Defender of the
Faith,' which the English kings have kept up to this day.
Wolsey thought that the Pope would be willing to do
what Henry wished, and so the marriage with Katharine
might be set aside without giving offence to anyone, or
making it needful to change the laws of the Church.
The Pope
will not help
Henry VIII.
14. But things fell out badly for Henry VIII. Charles
V.'s army in Italy took the city of Rome in 1527, and
kept the Pope prisoner for some time. When
he got free Pope Clement VII. was very
much afraid of the emperor. Henry VIII.
was far off, but the emperor's army was in Italy. Parts
of Germany were throwing off the Pope's headship, and
the emperor was ruler of Germany, and alone could bring
these parts back to obey the Pope. Clement VII. dared
300
1529.
The Tudors.
not offend Charles V. by setting aside his aunt's marriage.
Yet he tried to please Henry VIII. by sending over a
legate, Cardinal Campeggio, who, together with Wolsey,
was to look into the matter. Campeggio tried to get
Katharine to withdraw of her own accord and go into a
nunnery. The king and Wolsey tried in many base
ways to deceive and frighten her. But she stood firm
and asked to have the question tried by the Pope himself.
The Pope could not with justice refuse this, and Cam-
peggio went back to Rome. The English people were
not pleased at seeing their king brought before the court
of the Legate, still less would they have wished to see
their king's cause tried at Rome. Henry was very angry
at Wolsey for having advised him to do as he had done.
Wolsey's office of Chancellor was taken from him (1529).
The king turned against his favourite the moment his
plans failed, and Wolsey's enemies were bent on ruining
him.
15. He was prosecuted under the Statute of Præmunire
on the charge of having acted as Pope's legate in England,
Fall of Wol- which that statute forbade any Englishman
sey, 1529. to do.
He threw himself on the king's
mercy, gave up all his riches to the king, and withdrew
to his see of York. But his enemies did not let him rest
there. Charges of treason were raised against him, and
he was arrested, to be taken to the Tower. Grief brought
on illness, and he died at Leicester, on his way to
London (November 29, 1530). His last words were:
'If I had served God as diligently as I have served the
king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.
Howbeit this is the just reward that I must receive for
my worldly diligence and pains that I have had to do him
service.' Yet he loved the king to the last, and said of
him: 'He is a prince of royal spirit and hath a princely
heart; and rather than he will miss or want part of his
.
1530.
301
Meaning of the Reformation.
•
appetite he will hazard the loss of half of his kingdom.
I assure you I have often kneeled before him in his privy
chamber, the space of an hour or two, to persuade him
from his will and appetite, but I could never dissuade
him.'
Wolsey's words came true. Henry VIII. was ready
to make any change in the kingdom which would help
him to do what he wanted-to get rid of his wife and
marry Anne Boleyn.
CHAPTER III.
SEPARATION FROM THE POPE.
1. KING HENRY VIII.'s wish to put away his wife led
him to quarrel with the Pope, and so helped to bring
about some changes in the English Church,
which are generally called the Reformation.
What the
Reformation
was.
Now, different things went to bring about
the Reformation, and we must try and keep them sepa-
rate.
(1) All men wished to reform the clergy, especially
the monks, who had grown rich and lazy, and were dis-
orderly in many ways.
(2) Many men in England disliked the Pope's inter-
ference in the land, and were willing to lessen the Pope's
power in England.
(3) A few men wished to see the beliefs of the Church
made simpler, and more like what they thought the
Apostles had taught.
The Reformation came about in England as the men
who wanted each of these things got their own way. At
first the king and the greater part of the people wanted
only the first two of these three things, but at last the
third was brought about as well.
:
•
302
The Tudors.
1476-
2. A reform of the clergy was very much needed, and
men had long tried for it; but in earlier reigns the king
Reform of
had joined with the clergy, and nothing had
the clergy. been done. In Henry VIII.'s reign the king
was strong enough to do as he liked, and did not need
the help of the clergy. Moreover, the Wars of the Roses
had killed off most of the old families; and so new
families, sprung from the middle classes, were rising up.
These men were more willing for change than the old
nobles had been. They had no kinsfolk among the
clergy, as the nobles had, and so did not care so much for
the Church. Besides, greater knowledge was coming to
all the people, and they were beginning to think more.
In 1476 Caxton had set up the first printing press in
England. Each copy of a book had before been written
out by hand; now many copies could be printed in a few
hours.?
Growth of
learning.
3. The 'new learning' made men laugh at the follies
of the monks and priests, and many books were written
about them; the cleverest by Erasmus, a
learned man from Holland, who lived inuch
in England, where he became a great friend of Sir
Thomas More. Some Englishmen also began to study
Greek, and to read the New Testament in the language
in which it was written. Chief amongst these was John
Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who founded St. Paul's School
(1519), over the door of which he put an image of the
Child Jesus, and beneath was written, 'Hear ye Him.'
He wrote a Latin grammar for the use of his school,
and at the beginning he bids his scholars learn it well,
that they may come to be good clerks.
And lift up
your little white hands for me, which prayeth for you to
God.'
4. Men like these wanted to make the monks and
clergy better, and wanted also to see the riches of the
1529.
?
Dislike to the Pope.
303
Reforms of
Cardinal
Wolsey.
Church spent in furthering learning. Cardinal Wolsey
made some reforms. As Papal Legate he put an end to
many small monasteries, which were not well conducted or
were not in useful places. He took their
lands and money to found his college at
Oxford and his school at Ipswich. When
Wolsey fell his work in this way did not stop with him.
In 1529, when Parliament was called together again, a
bill was passed to make the clergy live in their parishes,
and not hold more than one living at once, unless the
living they held was very poor, and do other things
which were right. It was clear that the bad customs of
the clergy were going to be done away with.
Dislike to
the Pope in
England.
5. Besides the wish to reform the clergy, many men
wished that the Church in England should be free from
the power of the Pope. Ever since the reign
of John the Popes had been disliked in
England, and laws had been often passed to
prevent them from interfering in English affairs. The
Popes became Heads of the Church in Europe in old
times, because they were wise and good men, and
helped the clergy and people against the king in times
when he wished to oppress them. But the Popes had
fallen from their old greatness. In the fourteenth
century the Popes had been under the power of the
French king, and so the people of England distrusted
them. When they escaped from the French king's
power there was a dispute about who should be Pope,
and for a time there were two or three Popes at once,
quarrelling with each other. This confusion was stopped
by a council of bishops from all Europe held at Constance,
in 1417, when a new Pope was chosen. Since that
time the Popes had lived like Italian princes, carrying
on wars in Italy, or favouring art or learning, as Italian
princes did in those days. Some of them had been
304
1531-
The Tudors.
wicked men, and none of them had done such things as
the head of the Church ought to do. So men did not
look up to them as they had done of old. They no
longer protected the clergy and the people from the
king, but they taxed the clergy themselves, and made
the people pay them money in many ways. So men in
England often spoke against the Popes, and many
thought that the English Church would get on better
without the Pope's help.
Henry VIII.
and Pope
Clement VII.
6. When King Henry VIII. found that Pope Clement
VII. would not help him to get rid of his wife he thought
he would get what he wanted at home from
his own people-most of them would be
willing enough to see their Church national
and not under the Pope. Henry did not at first want to
break with the Pope; for he thought, as was true, that
the king's power and the Pope's power helped one
another. First he tried to get the Pope to do what he
wanted by gathering the opinions of learned men all over
Europe, especially at the Universities, about the law-
fulness of his marriage with his brother's widow. Though
he spent much money in bribing men to say what he
wanted, he could not get more than half of the Uni-
versities in his favour. The Pope was still under the
power of the emperor, and could not give way to Henry's
wish.
the clergy.
7. So Henry laid a plan to frighten the Pope. Car-
dinal Wolsey had been accused of breaking the Statute
The king and of Præmunire because he became Pope's
legate in England. In 1531 all the clergy in
England were accused of having shared in Wolsey's
crime, because they had dealt with him as Pope's
legate. To avoid the loss of all their wealth they met
and offered to pay the king, 18,000l., which in those days
was equal to ten times as much as now.
The king
:
1533.
305
A National Church in England.
refused to take it unless they called him, in the bill
which granted him the money, by the name of 'supreme
head of the Church.' The clergy rather unwillingly
agreed.
8. Next year, 1532, Parliament passed more laws to
reform the clergy. They set bounds to what was called
the 'benefit of clergy,' by which many men Parliament
who were not clergymen were tried for their of 1532.
wrong doings in the church courts, and not in the
king's courts. They stopped the monasteries from
having any more money left to them. The clergy als,
took courage and asked to be freed from paying a tax
to the Pope which was called Annates, or first fruits, and
was the first year's income of every ecclesiastical office.
Parliament forbade the payment of this for the future.
The clergy also gave up the right, which they had had
before, of making laws for themselves, in their own
assembly of Convocation. Henceforth the resolutions of
Convocation must have the consent of the king. Henry
hoped that after showing his power in this way the Pope
would give way to him. But matters had now gone too
far. The Pope could not give way without giving up his
claim to any real power. He forbade Henry's divorce
from Katharine, but Henry married Anne Boleyn secretly
in January 1533.
English
Church made
national.
9. An Act of Parliament was passed stating that the
English Church could settle its own matters, and for-
bidding any appeal from the court of the
archbishop to the Pope. The king had just
chosen a new Archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Cranmer, who had written in favour of his
divorce, and had been useful to him in getting the
opinions of the Universities. Cranmer, as archbishop,
called Queen Katharine before his court; and when she
would not come he decided in favour of her divorce.
E. H.
X
306
1534.
The Tudors.
Katharine was set aside, and Anne Boleyn was recog-
nised as queen.
The king had now entirely quarrelled with the Pope.
In 1534 Parliament did still more to separate the English
Church from the Pope and make it a national Church.
The Pope was to have nothing to say to any appoint.
ments in the English Church, and no more payments
were to be made to him. The Pope's power in England
was quite at an end.
Thomas
Cromwell.
CHAPTER IV.
HENRY VIII. AND CROMWELL.
I. THE king's chief adviser after the fall of Wolsey was
Thomas Cromwell. He had been engaged in business,
in which he had made money, and entered
Parliament. Wolsey saw his talents, and took
him into his service. When Wolsey fell, Cromwell was re-
commended by him to the king, and directed all the king's
measures in separating from the Pope. Those measures
were successful, and Cromwell became as powerful in
England as Wolsey had been before. He was a man
with a hard head and a hard heart, who set himself to
serve the king, and did all he could to make the king
all-powerful in the land. He saw that to get rid of the
Pope and put the Church under the king would do away
with the only thing left in England that could hold out
against the king.
2. Not all men in England wished the Church to be
separated from the Pope, and there was some
discontent at what had been done. But Crom-
The Nun
of Kent.
well had spies all over the land, who told him of those
1534.
307
Henry VIII. and Cromwell.
who murmured. They were at once brought to trial,
that other men might fear. A poor girl in Kent, called
the 'Nun of Kent,' was thought to have the gift of
prophecy. She foretold the king's death and the triumph
of the Pope, and many men believed in her. She was
put to death (1534), and many great men were accused
of having taken part in her plot to stir up men against
the king. Amongst others Bishop Fisher of Rochester
was accused of having helped her.
Act of Suc-
3. As there was so much discontent in the land, Henry
felt that he must fix who should rule after his death.
The new queen had borne a daughter, who
afterwards reigned as Queen Elizabeth. An cession, 1534
Act of Parliament was passed making the children of
Anne Boleyn the lawful heirs of the king, and saying
that his marriage with Katharine was unlawful from the
beginning. When this Act had been passed men were
*called upon to swear to obey it, so that there need be no
fear of disturbance if Henry VIII. died. All men wished
to be sure of peace, and to be free from fear of war after
the king's death; so they were willing that the king
should do many cruel and harsh acts to those who
seemed likely to break the peace. Sir Thomas More,
who had been made Chancellor after Wolsey fell, and
was a great scholar known through all Europe for his
learning, would not take the oath, and was sent to prison.
He did not object to the change in the succession to the
throne, but he could not do anything which set aside the
Pope's authority.
4. Henry and Cromwell were determined to carry out
the changes which they had begun. Parliament was
greatly made up of men who were friends or
servants of the king, and did what he wanted.
The king had no pity, but did all he could to
force men to obey him. If England did not hold to-
Henry
VIII.'s
harshness.
X 2
308
1534-
The Tudors.
gether, and if Englishmen were not willing to go all on
the same way, there was danger of foreign invasion as
well as of civil war at home. Henry VIII. was cruel,
and sometimes acted like a tyrant, but he had a clear
aim in what he did. England must be kept united, in
spite of the changes. Men must be made to think the
same thing; for if they did not, it would be dangerous to
the peace of the land. Henry did not shrink from going
on as boldly as he had begun. It was no small thing to
separate from the Pope; but all men in the land must
be made to do it.
5. So in 1534 an Act was passed declaring it to be high
treason to question the king's supremacy over the Church.
Royal
supremacy.
Any man could be called upon at any time
to take an oath that he agreed to it. The
monks of the Charterhouse first suffered for their refusal;
the prior and six of his monks were executed, their
monastery was broken up, and most of the others died in
prison. Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More were both
beheaded. It was clear that none who refused to obey
were to be spared.
Dissolution
monasteries.
6. It was natural that the monks should not agree with
the changes that had been made in the Church. As they
lived together in their monasteries they were
of the smaller not likely to alter their old opinions quickly.
They were also powerful among the people,
and were less in the king's power than the ordinary
clergy. Cromwell was made the king's minister in
Church matters, with the name of Vicar-General. He
lost no time in sending men to enquire into the state of
the monasteries. These men brought back many stories
of the disorder and evil lives of the monks, which were
laid before Parliament. In 1536 an Act was passed
putting an end to all the smaller monasteries which had
less than 200%. a year. All their property went to the
1536.
309
Discontent and Distress.
king, and the monks were taken to the larger monas-
teries, or allowed to dwell where they pleased.
7. Thus the Church in England was being reformed,
and its wealth and power were going to the king, so that the
king had become more powerful in the land Power of
than he had ever been before. Everything Henry VIII.
that had been done was to the profit of the king's power,
and there was nothing to check him. In 1536 Anne
Boleyn was accused of having been faithless to the king.
She was found guilty and condemned to death. The
day after her execution the king married another wife,
Jane Seymour. Again the succession to the crown was
altered by Act of Parliament. The king was allowed to
name his successor in his will. It would seem that there
was nothing which Parliament would not allow him
to do.
Discontent
8. But many men were greatly discontented at these
changes, especially in the North, where the people held
most firmly by the old Church, and were not
so much under the king's influence. The and distress.
party of the Yorkists had hoped to seize the crown after
the king's death, and felt that their hopes were gone after
the last Act of Parliament, which gave him the power to
name his own successor. Many of the old nobles were
angry at the power of Cromwell, who was not a man of noble
birth. The people in many places grieved at the fall of
the monasteries, from which they got many acts of kind-
ness. There was also great distress among the people.
Since the fall of the old nobility in the Wars of the Roses
land had been changing hands. Men of the middle
classes, who had made money in trade, bought land, and
wished to make money out of it. They were harder
landlords than the old nobles or the monks had been.
Much land that had been used for growing corn was
now used for feeding sheep, and fewer labourers were
1
310
1536-
The Tudors.
wanted to take care of sheep than had been wanted for
tilling the land. This threw many out of work and made
wages lower; and as less corn was grown, bread became
dearer. Though the king was not to blame for this, yet
the people threw all the blame on his government.
'Pilgrimage
of Grace,'
1536.
9. So in 1536 there were risings against the king-first
in Lincolnshire, under the Abbot of Barlings. At the
sight of the king's troops, under the Duke of
Norfolk, the rebel army broke up, and its
ringleaders were punished. Soon after there
was a great rising of the people and nobles in Yorkshire,
led by a young lawyer, Robert Aske. The rebels, who
had for their banner a painting of Christ crucified, took
York, Hull, and Pontefract, and marched southwards to
the Don. Their rising was called the 'Pilgrimage of
Grace,' and they wished to get the king to put away
Cromwell and bring back the old religion. The Duke of
Norfolk, the chief of the old nobles, went against them
and promised them pardon and a parliament to be held
at York to consider their grievances. But when the
rebel army had broken up nothing was done by the
king; and next year their leaders were seized and put to
death for high treason. One more source of danger only
remained. There was fear of a rising in the West, where
the Yorkist party was strong under the leadership of the
Marquis of Exeter, a grandson of Edward IV. The
birth of a son to King Henry, in October 1537, seemed
to shut out the Yorkists from all hopes of the succession.
The Marquis of Exeter and his friends were arrested,
and on the evidence of having spoken treasonable words
were condemned to death.
10. Thus the king had triumphed over all his foes.
Cromwell's spies were spread over the land, and men
were afraid even to speak against him. He felt strong
enough to go on with his work and to put down all
1539.
311
Reform of Doctrine.
Many of them
At last, in
Dissolution
of the greater
monasteries.
the monasteries that were still in the land.
were forced to give up their lands to the king.
1539, an Act of Parliament put an end to
them all. Their property went to the king,
who founded a few new bishoprics out of
them, but most of their money was spent on his own
pleasures. Their lands were given away or sold for
small sums to the new nobles. Much of the lands of the
Church now passed into the hands of laymen, so that
many more families began to rise in wealth and impor-
tance. Moreover, when the monasteries had been put
down a great change came over Parliament. The greater
abbots, as the heads of the monasteries were called, had
seats in the House of Lords. Now that they were gone
the House of Lords became much smaller, and the power
of the Church in Parliament, and so in making laws,
was much less than it had been before.
CHAPTER V.
REFORM OF DOCTRINE.
1. WE have seen so far the steps which had been taken
in England (1) to reform the clergy, (2) to make the
English Church a national Church. We have next to
see what steps were taken (3) to reform the doctrines or
beliefs of the old Church.
Desire for
Many men had taught that the beliefs of the Church
in their day had grown different from the beliefs which
the Apostles had taught. The chief man
who had set this opinion forward in England reform of
was John Wiclif, in the reign of Edward III.
In the history of those times may be found the causes
•
doctrine.
312
1536-
The Tudors.
why men were afraid to listen to him. He left followers
after him, who were called Lollards, and were per-
secuted by the kings who came after Edward III.,
because they thought that their opinions were wrong.
Still something of their feeling remained in England,
and when once changes in Church matters began to be
made there were men to speak out more boldly their
opinion that the doctrines of the Church ought to be
changed as well.
Protestant-
ism in Ger-
many.
2. Moreover, in Germany Martin Luther had taught
that many of the doctrines of the Roman Church were
wrong, and many men had believed his
teaching. His followers were called Protest-
ants, because they had protested against the
decree of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, commanding the
mass to be said in all churches. Henry VIII. had
written a book against Luther, and did not agree with
him, nor did he wish to change the beliefs of the English
Church. But in fighting against the authority of the
Pope he was obliged to set up the authority of the Bible,
as the Protestants had done in Germany. So Protestant
opinions began to be openly held in England, and Pro-
testant books were spread in the land.
3. In 1536 ten Articles of Religion were passed by the
Convocation of the Clergy, which were in some way like
what the German Protestants believed. The
The Bible
in English. Bible, which had been done into English by
William Tyndale, afterwards corrected by Miles Cover-
dale, was put into every church. Some of the old feasts
of the Church were done away with, as being needless.
Images were taken down, so that they might not be
worshipped by the ignorant. The shrines of saints were
stripped; even the great shrine of St. Thomas of Canter-
bury was pulled down, and the saint's bones were taken
away,
1539.
313
Persecution of the Protestants.
Doings of
the Pro-
testants.
have the
4. Henry wished to see all superstitious beliefs done
away with, but he still believed the doctrines of the old
Church and did not agree with the German
Protestants. Most men in England wished
the same; but there was a small body of
English Protestants who greatly wished to
doctrines of the Church entirely reformed. They had
grown bold as they saw the changes which the king was
making. They said and did many things which angered
those who did not think as they did. Many things which
most people thought to be holy, and so to be reverenced,
the Protestants thought to be superstitious and to be
laughed at. So men grew to dislike the Protestants, who
said and did many foolish things. The king became
angry with them, for he thought they were disorderly
in wishing to go farther than he would allow. In 1539
Parliament passed the Bill of Six Articles, which was
so called because it went against the Protestants in six
points of their teaching. Priests were not allowed to
marry, and men were ordered to confess their sins to a
priest.
of the Pro-
testants,
1539.
5. Some who would not obey the Six Articles were put
to death. Henry was afraid of the disorders which had
taken place in Germany after Luther's teach- Persecutions
ing had been spread among the people.
There the poor people had risen against the
ich. Men had set themselves above the law, for they
said the law was only made for the wicked, but they
were holy. Men were carried away by their new religious
liefs, and thought that nothing else was wanted except
ese religious beliefs. They forgot that what men do
pends a great deal on what they see other men doing
ound them, and that laws are therefore needful in a state
to make men hold together and do the same things for
one another's good. So it came about that Henry per-

314
1540
The Tudors.
secuted those who would not obey the laws about matters
of religious belief.
Parties in
England.
6. There were then two parties in the land-one that
wished to keep as closely as might be to the old Church, the
other wanting to make such changes in the
doctrines of the Church as Luther had made
in some parts of Germany. At the head of the first of
these parties stood the Duke of Norfolk, at the head of
the other were Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer.
Cromwell
and the
German
Protestants.
7. Cromwell still had great plans before him of carry-
ing out the work which he had begun. He wanted to make
England strong in Europe, as the head of
all the nations which had separated from the
Pope. He tried to gather them all together
against the Emperor Charles V., who was the head of
all the peoples that still held to the Pope. Cromwell
wished to bind Henry VIII. to the Protestant princes of
Germany. Though the emperor ruled over all Germany
yet every prince ruled his own state under the emperor.
Now the emperor threatened to make war against those
who followed Luther and were called Protestants. Crom-
well hoped to get the king of France, who had been so
long at war with the emperor, to join with Henry and the
German Protestants: then they would together be strong
enough to beat the emperor.
well, 1540.
8. So in 1540 Cromwell brought about a marriage be-
tween Henry and Anne of Cleves, who was a kinswoman
Fall of Crom- of the Elector of Saxony, then the chief of
the German Protestant princes. But his
great plans failed. The king of France made peace with
the emperor instead of joining with Henry. The German
princes were afraid of the emperor, and he won them
over to make peace with him. Moreover, Henry dis-
liked his wife so much that he would not live with her.
She was soon put away, and was content with the money
1540.
315
Fall of Cromwell.
which was paid her. Cromwell had told him she was
beautiful, and Henry was disappointed in her. He was
angry with Cromwell, who had many enemies eager to
speak against him. He was accused of having deceived‹
the king and done things in his name without his know-
ledge. He was not even allowed to plead his cause; for
he was not brought to trial, but was condemned to death
by Parliament by a Bill of Attainder, that is, an Act of
Parliament declaring a man guilty of treason and con-
demning him to death.
Cromwell's
work in
England.
9. Cromwell had few friends. He had entirely given
himself up to work for the king, and had made enemies
of the nobles, the people, and those who held
to the old Church. Yet the king gave him
over to his foes the moment his plans failed.
No length of service could make a man sure of the king's
favour. Cromwell was put to death in 1540, and men
were glad when he fell, for he had ruled harshly, and men
had feared him greatly; yet he had carried out two great
works for England-he had reformed the English Church
and had done away with the power of the Pope in Eng-
land; moreover, he had put into the hands of the king
all the power which had been taken away from the Pope
and the clergy. These great changes had been brought
about without any war at home or abroad.
10. Still there was the question how far the changes in
the beliefs of the old Church should be allowed to go in
England. This was the question that filled
Struggles
up the rest of the reign of Henry VIII. The of religious
two parties, those who wished for changes parties.
in belief and those who did not, were struggling against
one another. The king seemed to lean first to one
side and then to the other. After Cromwell's fall his
chief minister was the Duke of Norfolk, the head of the
old nobles, who was in favour of the old Church. The
316
1540-
The Tudors.
king married his niece, Katharine Howard, in 1540; but
she was found to have been a bad woman before her
marriage, and was condemned to death for treason in
1541. In 1543 the king married Katharine Parr, who
was in favour of the Protestants. They slowly gained
power. The Litany and a few prayers were put into
English to be used in churches instead of the old services.
The Protestants were still persecuted at times, but they
gradually grew stronger.
Rise of the
Protestants
to power,
1543-1547.
II. The head of the reforming party was the Earl of
Hertford, brother of Queen Jane Seymour, and therefore
uncle of Prince Edward, the king's only son
and heir to the throne. Hertford became
more powerful with the king as he found
that his life was drawing to an end. His wish then was
that his son should peaceably succeed him, and that the
kingdom should be ruled for him until he grew old enough
to rule it for himself. He naturally thought that the
prince's uncle was most likely to be faithful to him. The
Duke of Norfolk was suspected of wishing to seize the
regency while the young prince was still under age. He
and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were thrown into prison,
and Surrey was executed. Norfolk was still in prison
when the king died, January 28, 1547: In
Henry VIII. his will he named a council of sixteen mem-
bers who were to rule the kingdom till his son came of
age. This council was chosen from men of both parties;
but the Earl of Hertford was put at its head.
Death of
12. The country was so much accustomed to be ruled
by one man that Hertford found it easy to get himself
made head of the Government, with the title of
'Protector of the Realm.' He was also made
Duke of Somerset, as was said, by the king's will.
Protector
Somerset.
13. The Protector Somerset was in favour of Protes-
tantism, and he and Archbishop Cranmer lost no time in
1547.
317
Protector Somerset.
Progress of
the Refor-
mation.
making the changes they wanted. The English Church
had been separated from the rule of the Pope: it was
now to be cleansed from all the errors which
the Protestants thought there were in its
beliefs. Changes were quickly made which
could not fail to shock those who had been brought up
to the services of the old Church. Images were every-
where pulled down. The pictures which were painted
on church walls were covered with whitewash. The old
services were laughed at, and sermons were preached
against them. Old customs were broken all at once.
Archbishop Cranmer set an example of eating meat in
Lent. The Prayer Book, which had been made before,
was now added to and made such as we now use it in
the English Church. Commissions were sent all over
the country to see that all images and paintings were
taken away from the churches, and to make the clergy
use the new Prayer Book.
These changes could not be made without grieving
many people in England. By far the greater number of
Englishmen did not wish for them. They Somerset's
were made, however, all at once; and they dangers.
could only be made sure if the men who had made them
behaved very wisely in all else that they did. The
Reformation was not a question which had to do with
the people of England alone. It had become the chief
question among all the nations of Europe, and the Catho-
lic and Protestant peoples were likely to go to war with
one another about it. It needed a wise man to settle
this question in England. But Somerset and the chiefs of
the Protestants were not wise, and we have to see how
they made confusion.
318
1530-
The Tudors.
Political
difficulties
mation.
CHAPTER VI.
PROTESTANT MISRULE.
1. WE have seen how the religious changes in England
were begun by men like Wolsey, who had been taught
by the 'new learning,' and wished to improve
the lax discipline of the Church and the
of the Refor- ignorance of the clergy; they wished to
make the Church and its management fit in
with the greater knowledge which men had gained. The
changes which they began as a means of improving the
old Church the Protestants carried farther and set to
work to make changes in matters of belief. In the parts
of Germany where the Protestants had their own way, it
was seen that their opinions went farther than matters of
religious belief and affected the whole political system of
Germany. The old Church had been so much bound up
with the State that a change in one seemed likely to lead
to changes in the other. The Protestant states and the
Catholic states of Germany no longer held together as
they had done before. They no longer had the same
interests, and seemed likely to separate from one another
in government as well as in religion. The emperor, who
was the ruler of Germany, was waiting till he was strong
enough to use force to make the Protestant states come
back to the old system.
Henry VIII. had not let the Protestants have their
own way, as he did not want to have England divided
and his own power lessened. Many men were frightened
at what they saw taking place in Germany. The Pope
and the chief bishops in Europe set themselves against
all change, for they were afraid that it might go too far.
The men of learning, who did not wish to go as far as the
Protestants, grew afraid also: as men grew more angry
1546.
319
Henry VIII. and Scotland.
they did not listen to them. So the moderate men, who
had begun these changes, ceased to have any power. Ali
through Europe were the two parties of the Catholics
and the Protestants, who seemed likely soon to go to war
against one another.
of Somerset.
2. In this state of things England would be very weak
if it were divided. Henry VIII. had tried to keep the
country united, but Somerset's violent Difficulties
changes made many people dissatisfied.
Besides, they made England an entirely Protestant
country, and so more likely to be attacked by Catholic
states. Yet the bulk of the people did not care about
Protestantism, and would not be ready to fight for it with
goodwill. If Somerset were to succeed he must act
very wisely in making England strong in other ways.
Henry VIII.
and Scot-
land, 1530-46.
3. Now, one way in which Henry VIII. had tried to
make England strong was by being at peace with Scot-
land, and by trying to win over the Scots to
like England and join with it in what it did.
He tried to get King James V. to reform the
Scottish Church in the same way as the English Church
had been reformed. But James V. was afraid to do so.
The nobles in Scotland were very powerful, and the
bishops were the men who helped the king most. James
V. did not dare to quarrel with his bishops, so he would
not do as Henry counselled. On the contrary, he mar-
ried a wife from France, and made an alliance with
the French king. In November 1542 he sent an army
of 10,000 men against England; but it entirely failed,
because the nobles were angry at an upstart being made
commander, and his troops fell into disorder. They
took to flight before a few Englishmen, and losing them-
selves in the marsh-land beside the Solway Firth, were
killed or made prisoners. Hence the battle was called
the Battle of Solway Moss. The king died of grief at
320
1546-
The Tudors.
his defeat, and Henry VIII. tried to get his son, Prince
Edward, married to Mary, the daughter of the Scottish
king, and heiress to the throne. He got on his side a
party among the Scots, who were in favour of the Refor-
mation. Some of them entered the castle of St. Andrews
and put to death Cardinal Beaton, the leader of the
Catholic party, who was then at the head of the Scottish
Government (May 1546). They were stirred to do this
because Cardinal Beaton had ordered one of the Protes-
tant preachers to be burned. After killing the Cardinal
they shut themselves up in the castle, which was very
strong, and sent for help to the King of England.
4. Henry VIII. hoped that he might use these troubles
in Scotland as a way of getting the Scots to do what he
wished. But after his death Somerset did
foolishly. He made a treaty with the Pro-
Somerset
and Scot-
land, 1547-8.
testants, but he sent no soldiers to help them.
Meanwhile the French sent soldiers, by whose help the
castle of St. Andrews was taken, and the Protestants
were beaten for a time. Then Somerset gathered
together an army to try and force the Scots to give their
young queen in marriage to the young King of England,
Edward VI. He beat the Scots in a battle fought at
Pinkie-cleugh, near Edinburgh (September 1547). Many
of the Scots were slain, and their land was laid waste.
Somerset did not stay in Scotland after the battle, as he
was afraid to be away from England. He had used
enough force to make the Scots hate the English, and
not enough to make them do as he wished. Next year
the young Queen Mary was sent to France, where she
was betrothed to the heir to the French throne. Somer-
set had made the Scots become again the close friends
of France and the enemies of the English, which was just
what Henry VII. and Henry VIII. had been trying tọ
prevent.
1549.
321
Rising of the Commons.
Discontent
in England.
5. Soon there were troubles at home. We have seen
that much of the land in England had changed hands in
late years, and that many men could find no
work under the new landlords. Thus there
had grown up a large class of vagrants, who begged or
stole. Laws were passed against them; but it was of no
use to make laws that men should work, and to punish
them for not working, when there was no work for them
to do. A hard law was passed in 1547 against these
vagrants, which made many men discontented. Many
men were ill-pleased at the changes made in their
churches, which they did not understand. But the chief
thing the poor complained of was the enclosure of com-
mons by the new landlords. These pieces of common land
the people had used before; but now the landlords set
hedges round them, and added them to their own fields.
So many poor people lost their means of livelihood in this
way.
6. Thus there was great discontent in the land, and
Somerset tried to set it at rest by sending round commis-
sioners to enquire about the commons.
The Rising in
people thought he was on their side, and at 1549.
last took up arms in Cornwall and Devonshire, and in
Norfolk (1549). In Devonshire the rebels besieged
Exeter, and were on the point of taking it, when Lord
Grey brought soldiers to its relief and defeated the rebels
on Clifton Down, and afterwards at Bridgewater. In
Norfolk they were very strong under a leader called
Robert Ket, a tanner, but were at last put down by the
Earl of Warwick. The nobles blamed Somerset for
having caused this rising, because he led the people to
hope that he would be on their side. The rebels had
been beaten, not by Somerset, but by Warwick, who wis
now stronger in the council than was Somerset.
7. Besides this, Somerset was unpopular for other
E. H.
Y
322
[549-
The Tudors.
reasons. His brother, Lord Seymour, had plotted to get
the government into his own hands. His plots were
discovered, and he was put to death by
Somerset's
unpopu-
larity.
Parliament.
Still the people looked with
some anger on Somerset, who could in this
way bring his brother to the block. Somerset also gave
offence by his grandeur. He built a palace in London
in the place which still goes by the name of Somerset
House. To build it he pulled down churches, so that
men murmured at his want of reverence.
8. For all these reasons men had ceased to care for
Somerset. The man who was most powerful in the
council after him was John Dudley, Earl of
Warwick. He was the son of that Dudley
Fall of
Somerset.
who had been put to death when Henry VIII. came to
the throne, for the way in which he had robbed the
people to please Henry VII. Yet though Henry VIII. had
put the father to death he had raised the son, and had left
him one of the executors of his will. Warwick had gra-
dually become strong in the council, and when Somerset
was no longer trusted Warwick led most of the other mem-
bers of the council to attack him. Somerset strove to keep
his power; but men fell away from him. He was obliged
to give way and to resign his office (December 1549).
he
9. At first men hoped that the council would now
change what Somerset had done. But Warwick does
Character of not seem to have felt himself strong enough
Warwick. to do so. He was a man who cared little
about religion, and had little love for his country
sought only his own interests, and tried to do what was
best for himself. In this he was unlike Somerset, who
was in earnest in all he did, and wished to set up Protes-
tantism in England because he believed in it. Still So-
merset and Warwick both governed England badly; for
Somerset was as unwise as Warwick was selfish.
1552.
323
Death of Somerset.
10. Warwick did much the same things as Somerset
had done. In 1548 France had gone to war with
England. But Warwick now made peace
Reformation
Warwick.
with France, and gave up to it Boulogne, under
which Henry VIII. had taken in 1544, and
kept at the end of the war. He favoured the Protestants
in religious matters, and they had things more and more
their own way. Many men came over from Germany
and taught the new doctrines. The bishops who held
more of the old beliefs, such as Gardiner, Bishop of Win-
chester, and Bonner, Bishop of London, were thrown
into prison, and then bishops were put in their place.
Cranmer made 'Articles of Religion,' which all the clergy
had to sign. All images and paintings were destroyed in
churches, and no services might be used except those
which had been set forth in the Prayer Book.
-
Faults of the
Reformers.
II. Now, many of these changes might be good in
themselves, but they were not made in a good way. The
nobles only wanted to get more of the Church
lands for themselves. The Protestants did
not deal kindly with those of the old way of thinking,
and did not show them much of the spirit of Christian
love. They behaved like a party which had won the day,
and did not try to spread their opinions by kindness and
gentleness, but rather by force. Many men, also, who
led wicked lives pretended to be anxious to spread Pro-
testant opinions, and brought disgrace on them by their
evil deeds.
12. Warwick, who had now taken the title of Duke of
Northumberland, was soon disliked by the people more
than Somerset had been, and Somerset again Death of
began to gather his friends round him, and Somerset.
hoped to get back his power. He was taken prisoner
and brought to trial. Being convicted of felony he was
condemned to death, and was beheaded in January 1552.
Y 2
324
1552-
The Tudors.
J
In those days a great minister of state who had lost his
office could scarcely hope to live in safety. He must
keep in power, or must expect death.
Northum-
berland's
plot.
13. After this Northumberland had no one whom he
need fear; but the young king's failing health gave him
cause for alarm. Edward VI. had always
been a weakly boy. He had tried to take part
in the business of the state, and this had made
his health grow weaker. It was clear that he could not
live much longer. By the Act of Succession, passed in
1544, the next to succeed to the throne, if Edward died
without children, was the Princess Mary, daughter of
Henry VIII. by Queen Katharine, his first wife. Mary was
not likely to be in favour of Protestantism. The quarrel
with the Pope had come about because he had refused his
consent to her mother's divorce. Mary still held to the old
religious services, though the council had tried to force her
to give up using the mass service. She turned for help to
her powerful kinsman, the Emperor Charles V., who
threatened England with war. Mary was left alone, and
was known to be devoted to the Pope and to the Em-
peror.
14. Northumberland saw that if Mary came to the
throne he would be ruined, and all his plans would be
Question of
the succes-
sion.
undone. He determined to try and prevent
this. Edward VI., though only sixteen years
old, had his own opinions and liked to have his
own way. He was very much in favour of Protestantism,
and so did not wish that his sister Mary should come after
him and undo all that had been done. Northumberland
persuaded him that he had power to settle by will who
should succeed him, as his father had done. Henry VIII.,
however, had had that power given by an Act of Parlia-
ment, which Edward VI. was going to set aside.
15. Edward VI. made his judges draw up a paper in
1553.
325
Lady Jane Grey.
which his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, were passed
over and the throne was left to his cousin, Lady Jane
Grey. This paper was signed by all the great men
round the king. The next heir by Henry VIII.'s will
was Lady Jane's mother, the Duchess of Suffolk; but
she was willing to give way to her daughter. Henry
VIII. had left the throne, if all his children should die
without issue, to the descendants of his younger sister,
Mary, passing over altogether his elder sister, Margaret.¹
Edward VI. now gave the throne, after his own death, to
Lady Jane Grey, the eldest granddaughter of Mary.
Northumberland had, a few weeks before, married Lady
Jane to his son, Lord Guildford Dudley; and hoped in
this way to keep the power in his own hands after
Edward's death. Most men did not like this arrange-
ment, and many of the chief men who signed it did so
very unwillingly.
16. When Edward VI. died (July 1553) Queen Jane
was proclaimed. But men did not like to see the old
customs set aside in this way, and would Lady Jane
have none but their lawful queen to reign Grey.
over them. Mary managed to make her escape when
Northumberland sent to have her brought to London.
Men gathered round her, and Northumberland was `dis-
liked by almost all. When he marched against Mary his
soldiers fell away from him. The chief nobles gathered
¹ Genealogical table of descendants of Henry VII.
of Scotland.
Henry VII. Elizabeth of York.
James IV.-Margaret.
James V.
=
1
Henry VIII. Mary Charles Brandon

Henry Grey
Duke of Suffolk.
Duke of Suffolk.
Frances
| Du
Mary
Queen of Scots.
son of Duke of Northumberland.
of Scotland. Edward VI. Mary. Elizabeth.
Lord Guildford Dudley Lady Jane Grey.
326
1553.
The Tudors.
round Mary, and Northumberland found it hopeless to
hold out any longer. At Cambridge, whither he had
gone to seize Mary, he himself proclaimed Mary queen,
and soon after was taken prisoner.
Death of
Northum-
berland.
17. He and some of his friends were brought to trial
and condemned for high treason. His selfishness showed
itself greatly in his last hours. In hopes of
escaping death he put away Protestantism,
and even on the scaffold he said to the
people that he had always been in his heart a Catholic.
We cannot wonder that the changes in religion which
had been made by such men as this were not believed in
very much by the people. The changes which had been
made since the death of Henry VIII. had pleased very
few. The men who had made them were neither wise
nor good. The people were glad to think that under
Queen Mary they would go back to the old religion,
which most of them liked better than the changes which
had been lately made.
Mary brings
back the old
services.
CHAPTER VII.
CATHOLICISM BROUGHT BACK.
·
1. MARY, from the beginning of her reign, was anxious to
bring back into England the old religion. She trusted
to her cousin, the Emperor Charles V., to
help her by his advice. She began by
bringing back the old services for her own
use, and many of the clergy followed the example she set
and brought them back into their churches. The bishops
made in the last reign were turned out of their sees and
the old bishops were brought back. Archbishop Cran-
mer wrote against the mass service which was again used
in Canterbury Cathedral. He was sent to the Tower,

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The shaded portion of the map shows the extent of the Austro-Spanish
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Germany.
35
328
1553.
The Tudors.
•
and other of the Protestant bishops with him. Gardiner,
Bishop of Winchester, was taken from the Tower and
made Lord Chancellor. Cranmer, Lady Jane, and her
husband were tried for high treason and were found
guilty, but were not put to death just yet.
When Parliament met it did away with all the re-
ligious changes which had been made during the last
reign, and things were brought back to the state in which
they were at the death of Henry VIII.
Mary's
choice of a
husband.
2. So far the people were glad at what Mary had
done; but it would not be such an easy matter to bring back
the English Church to obey the Pope, and
so set up the old state of things. Yet Mary
wanted to do this, and to join herself entirely
with Spain. There was a general feeling that Mary
should marry an Englishman, and Gardiner would have
liked her to take Courtenay, Earl of Devon; but Mary
would have no other husband but Philip, the son and
heir of Charles V.
They
3. Men in England did not like this marriage.
had no wish to have a king from abroad, and Philip
would soon be King of Spain, and so the most powerful
king in Europe. Spain was entirely on the side of the
Pope, and Philip would be likely to do his best for
Catholicism. It is true that Philip was to have nothing
more than the title of King in England; he was to have
no power whatever over the government.
Still men
were afraid of the marriage, and there was much dis-
content. A plan was formed by those who were in favour
of Protestantism and those who disliked a marriage with
Spain to set up Elizabeth as queen and marry her to
the Earl of Devon, who was son of the Marquis of
Exeter beheaded by Henry VIII., and thus a descendant
of Edward IV. In Devonshire and Cornwall the rising
was unsuccessful, but in Kent Sir Thomas Wyatt
1554.
329
Persecution of the Protestants.
gathered a large force and marched against London.
Mary threw herself upon the goodwill of the citizens,
who rose to defend her. Wyatt hoped that Wyatt's re-
they would rise in his favour. He marched bellion.
into London, but his troops fell away, and he was taken
prisoner (February 1554).
After this Mary felt that her throne was safe. Lady
Jane Grey and her husband were put to death. Elizabeth
was threatened and sent to the Tower; but it was not
thought wise to proceed against her. In July Philip
landed in England and was married to Mary.
Headship of
the Pope
again set up.
4. It was now easy to set up again the headship of the
Pope over the English Church, as the Pope was willing
that the lands belonging to the monasteries
should not be taken from their new owners
and given back to the Church. Cardinal
Pole, grandson of the Duke of Clarence, who had refused
to agree to Henry VIII.'s divorce and had fled to Rome,
was now sent to England as Papal legate. Men received
him with respect, and Parliament agreed to unite the
English Church with the Church of Rome.
Pole so-
lemnly absolved the land from its sin of schism. Philip
and Mary, together with all the members of Parliament,
knelt before him as he did so. The headship of the
Pope over the English Church was again allowed, and
all Acts of Parliament against it were done away.
Persecution
testants.
5. The restored clergy were resolved to use their vic-
tory. The old laws against the Lollards which had been
made in Henry IV.'s reign, but had been done
away with in Edward VI.'s time, were again of the Pro-
put in force. Men were to be driven back
to the old religion. Persecution was at once begun, and
the leading Protestants were marked out for death. They
were brought to trial before the bishops, and if they would
not change their opinions were condemned to be burned.
330
1555-
The Tudors.
The chief Protestant teachers were put to death in the
places where they had taught, so that all men might be
afraid. During the years from 1555 to 1558 these per-
secutions always went on, sometimes more fiercely than
at others.
Death of
Latimer.
6. The most famous of those who were put to death for
their opinions were the Bishops Ridley and Latimer and
Archbishop Cranmer, who were all burned
Ridley and at Oxford. Ridley and Latimer suffered to-
gether, in October 1555. 'Play the man,
Master Ridley,' said Latimer, as the fire was being
lighted; 'we shall this day light such a candle in England
as by the grace of God shall never be put out.' Cranmer
was kept longer in prison, and was led to hope that his
life would be spared if he laid aside his opinions. He
wrote through fear and unsaid what he had said in his
teaching; but he was condemned to death
Cranmer. all the same. He saw his cowardice and
tried to do away with its ill results at the last. He de-
clared to the people his firm belief in Protestantism, and
when at the stake held his right hand to be burned first
in the fire, saying that his hand had offended in writing
what his heart had not believed.
Death of
7. Yet these persecutions did not have the effect which
Mary and the bishops hoped for. Men were not so much
frightened by them as roused to anger. Those who
suffered death won the sympathy of the crowd by their
quiet courage. Most Englishmen did not agree with the
Protestants, but still did not think it right that they
should be burned for their opinions. The persecution,
instead of putting down Protestantism, rather made men
think more of it.
8. It was Mary herself who urged on this persecution.
She cared above all other things for her mother's religion
and for her mother's country. She thought more of
1558.
331
Mary and the Church.
Mary and
the perse-
cutions.
Spain than of England, and never knew the thoughts
and feelings of the English people. She believed it to
be her highest duty to bring back the old
religion into England, and she thought it
right to use all her power to do so. When
the bishops wished to cease from persecuting she bade
them go on.
The more she saw her attempts fail the more
she believed it to be her duty to show greater zeal. She be-
lieved that it was a holy cause for which she was striving,
and she thought that the great reason which kept it back
was because people were not enough in earnest. So it
was that the queen herself was the chief in carrying on
persecution. Though she was good and kind in other
things she still got from those who came after the name
of 'Bloody Mary,' and by her persecution she deserved it.
Mary and
the Church
lands.
9. In this way the people came to hate Mary's govern-
ment. Her ill-health made men look for a change. Her
chief adviser on religious things was Cardinal
Pole, who after Cranmer's death was made
Archbishop of Canterbury, and who was of
the same mind as the Queen about bringing back the old
religion. The queen went still farther in her wish to
please the Pope. She wished to give back to the Church
much of its property which had passed into the hands of
the crown. Parliament was with great difficulty got to
consent to this. Mary also set up the monks and friars
in some of the places from which they had been driven,
and gave them back lands. Men were afraid that the
Church lands would soon have to be given back; and
as these had already been divided amongst 40,000
owners, to give them back would make a great disturb
ance. So the queen and her wishes to bring back the
old state of things grew more and more disliked, and
plots were made against her. They were, however, made
without much care, and were easily put down.
332
1556-
The Tudors.
4
War with
France.
10. Soon, however, troubles arose abroad which made
the people of England still more discontented with Mary's
government. Charles V. gave up his king-
doms to his son Philip in 1556 and went to
end his life in quiet in a monastery in Spain. Philip II.
made war against France, and England was persuaded
to help him. In 1557 he gained a great victory over the
French at St. Quentin. The French wished to do some-
thing in return. They saw that the town of Calais, which
was the last English possession in France, was not pro-
perly guarded. The Government of Mary was so busy
with religious matters that it paid little heed to the
army or to the navy. So when the French attacked
Calais in the first week of 1558 it fell almost at once into
their hands, and the last of all the English possessions
in France was lost.
Men looked on this as a great disgrace, and England
roused itself to make war; but little was done.
The Pope
opposed to
Mary.
11. Moreover, in this war between France and Spain
the Pope had taken the side of France, and so was against
England. Mary found herself after all op-
posed to the Pope, though she had been
trying to do everything she could in England
in his behalf. The Pope quarrelled with the archbishop,
Pole, and took from him his office of Papal Legate, on
which much of his power depended. Mary was obliged
to do as her father had done and prevent the Pope's
letters from being brought into England. At the same
time she went on still more zealously with the persecu-
tions as she found difficulties growing around her.
12. Thus her reign closed in disappointment to herself
and disgrace to her people. England had
lost Calais, was plunged in debt, and had no
soldiers or ships in proper order. The queen,
after bringing on herself the people's hatred by what she
Gloom of
Mary's last
days.
1558.
333
Accession of Elizabeth.
had done to bring back the power of the Pope, found
herself and her chief ministers distrusted and disliked by
the Pope. The persecutions had driven many away from
England. Some of those who fled after the failure of
Wyatt's rising sailed in the Channel as pirates, and did
harm to the trade of Spain. Mary had no child, and was
left alone by her husband, whom she loved very fondly,
but who cared little for her. Her health was failing, and
after Gardiner's death, in 1555, she had no friend whom
she could trust except Pole. She could look forward to
nothing except the overthrow of all her plans when
Elizabeth came to the throne. Her people disliked her,
and were waiting eagerly for her death. She died in
November 1558, worn out by sorrow. Pole, who was
also ill at the same time, died on the next day.
Elizabeth
comes to
November
1558.
the throne,
13. No one made any opposition to the coming to
the throne of the Princess Elizabeth. As she was the
daughter of Anne Boleyn it was likely that
she would wish to do quite different things
from the daughter of Katharine of Arragon.
She had been carefully watched during
Mary's reign, and after Wyatt's rebellion her life had
been for a time in danger, but Wyatt would not bear
witness against her. She had learned from this how to
behave with caution. Men were glad when she came to
the throne, for they hoped that she would put an end to
the troubles of the last two reigns, and would again bring
quiet into the land.
CHAPTER VIII.
RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH.
I. THE people of England had not liked the way in
which the old religion had been brought back; for it had
334
1559.
The Tudors.
!
seemed to then to put their country under the power of
other countries, and no longer to leave it as free to act for
Dislike of
itself as it had been before. The Pope and
Catholicism.
the King of Spain had meddled with affairs
in England, and the country had suffered nothing but loss
in consequence. So men were ready to see the authority
of the Pope again overthrown, for they thought that so
they might have greater freedom.
Difficulties
in bringing
back Pro-
testantism.
2. But it was not an easy matter to bring back Pro-
testantism peaceably. Philip II. was determined to put ·
down Protestantism everywhere, and so would
not be friendly with a Protestant country.
England was still at war with France, and
the heir to the French crown was married to Mary Queen
of Scots. Some men in England, who belonged to the
strongly Catholic party, would willingly have seen Mary
of Scotland made Queen of England instead of Elizabeth.
Mary¹ was the granddaughter of Henry VIII.'s sister
Margaret; and though she had been passed over in Henry
VIII.'s will, many men in England thought that she was
their rightful queen, for they believed that Elizabeth was
not born of a lawful marriage.
If Elizabeth brought back Protestantism she could
not help quarrelling with France and Spain. Her only
hope was that, as France and Spain were enemies to one
another, she might manage to keep Spain on her side
at first. Though Philip II. wanted England to remain
Catholic he did not want to see Mary on the throne of
England, for she would bring England to the side of
France, so that it would be against him. At first he
offered to marry Elizabeth, but she refused to follow her
sister's example, as she had seen the evils it had caused.
She tried, however, to keep Philip on friendly terms, and
made peace with France, giving up Calais to it (1559).
1 See genealogical table, p. 325.
-
1559.
335
Religious Changes.
Elizabeth's
views.
3. Thus it was that Elizabeth wished to behave cau-
tiously about religion. She herself did not agree with all
that the Protestants had done in Edward VI.'s
reign. She did not want to do away with religious.
the old Church, as they had done; but she
wanted to make such changes in it as would satisfy
moderate men, and she wanted to set up a form of re-
ligion which everybody could take part in. She saw how
needful it was that the country should remain one, and
should not be split up into religious parties.
At first Elizabeth went to the old service of the mass,
but she ordered the bishop not to lift the cup over his
head for the people to worship, as the old custom was:
when he did so she left the church. Next she allowed
the Lessons, the Litany, and the Creed to be read in
churches in the English tongue. Meanwhile a commit-
tee was appointed to look over the Prayer Book and
make changes in it.
Religious
changes,
1559.
4. When Parliament met in January 1559 religious
questions were at once taken up. The revenues which
Mary had given back to the Church were now
again given to the crown. The title of 'Su-
preme Head of the Church' was again given
to the queen, but she refused it, and would only agree to a
law which made the crown 'in all causes, ecclesiastical
as well as civil, supreme.' In this way she hoped not to
offend the Catholics, while at the same time she got rid
of the power of the Pope. To carry out the power of
the crown in Church matters a body of commissioners
were appointed, who were afterwards called the 'High
Commission Court,' and who helped the Stuart kings
to do harsh and illegal acts in later times. All the clergy
and all who held office under the queen were to take an
oath to accept the royal supremacy.
5. Next, the Prayer Book in which the commissioners
336
1559.
The Tudors.
had made some changes was laid before Parliament, and
was ordered to be used in all churches. An Act called
Final separa-
tion from the
Papacy.
the Act of Uniformity was also passed order-
ing that no other services should be used than
those laid down in the Prayer Book. Thus
the old services were again got rid of, and the Church
of England was again separated from the Roman Church,
which was never again set up in England.
6. The clergy did not at once agree to these changes.
It happened, however, that many of the old bishops had
Bishops and
died just before Elizabeth came to the throne.
clergy.
New ones were put in their places who liked
the changes. Those of the old bishops who would not
accept them were turned out of their sees.
The new
Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, was of the
same mind as the queen in religious matters, and wished
with her to carry out the changes peaceably. Only two
of the old bishops remained, but most of the lower
clergy submitted to the change-only eighty gave up
their livings. Still most of them were really in favour of
the old religion, and Elizabeth had to trust to her bishops
to keep them in order.
Many changes were made in small matters which it
was hard to carry out as quietly as Elizabeth wished.
One of these was the marriage of the clergy, which the
old religion had not allowed. Now, when the clergy
began to marry they did not always marry fitting wives,
and so gave great offence. Elizabeth, to prevent this,
would only allow them to marry after getting permission,
and the marriage of the clergy was not made lawful till
the next reign.
7. In this way Elizabeth hoped that she had set up a
form of religion which would satisfy most of her subjects.
She had made a Church of England separate from the
Church of Rome. No Pope nor foreign king could
1559.
337
The Church of England.
The Church
of England
as set up by
Elizabeth.
interfere in religious matters in the land. The old reli-
gion had been freed from superstitions, but had not been
done away with. Those who believed in the
old religion were bidden to be thankful that
so much of it was left. Those who believed in
the new were bidden to be thankful that they had got so
much of what they wanted. The chief minister of Eliza-
beth who advised her in all those matters, and by his
caution carried them into effect, was William Cecil, after-
wards Lord Burleigh. He had helped Elizabeth before
she came to the throne among the many dangers which
lay around her. Up to his death in 1598 he was always
the queen's chief adviser, and must share with her the
praise for wisdom and prudence in all that she did.
dangers.
8. The dangers which threatened the land made men
rest content for a while with what Elizabeth had done.
They saw that it was the best way of keeping England's
the country quiet and safe. There were so
many dangers to be faced that it was foolish to quarrel.
Mary, who became in July 1559 Queen of France, had
begun to call herself Queen of England also. It seemed
likely that France would make war upon England in
Mary's name. If France conquered, Catholicism would
be brought back, and England would be ruled as if it
were a part of France. This thought made men of
different opinions willing to stand by Elizabeth and rest
content with the form of religion which she had set up
in England. It was better than Catholicism and the
rule of the French or the Spaniards.
E. H.
N
338
1547-
The Tudors.
Danger from
France and
Scotland.
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND,
1. ELIZABETH when she came to the throne found
England at war with France, and she found also France
in close alliance with Scotland, owing to the
marriage of Mary Queen of Scots with the
heir of the French throne. This alliance of
France and Scotland was very dangerous to Elizabeth,
as the French could land troops in Scotland--indeed,
had troops there already-and so might invade England,
which was in a very defenceless state. It had neither
troops nor generals, and the last two reigns had done
nothing to keep up the fortresses. To keep off this
danger Elizabeth determined to give help to the party
among the Scots which was opposed to their queen and
to the French influence. This party was strongly Pro-
testant; and Elizabeth's chief minister, Sir William
Cecil, who was afterwards made Lord Burleigh, did all
he could to set England at the head of all the Protestants
in Europe.
Reformation
in Scotland.
2. The desire for a reformation of the Church in Scot-
land had come from the corrupt state of the Church itself.
The Scottish kings had never been able to
bring the nobles into obedience to the law,
as had been done in England. The only power to which
the kings could look for help against the nobles was the
Church, so they had tried to get it entirely on their side.
So the chief offices in the Church were given to younger
sons of the nobles, to attach them to the king. Many of
them were very unfit for their offices and led unholy lives,
so that people did not look on them with respect, but
wished to have the Church set right.
3. The reforming party grew in Scotland, following
the example set them in England; but we have seen how
1559.
339
Reformation in Scotland.
and France.
the battle of Pinkie had set the Scots against England,
and had made them more ready to ally with France.
The Scottish bishops when they thought Scotland
that they were protected by France were more
bold to persecute the Protestant teachers, and so grew
more disliked. The Scots also soon became more afraid
of France than of England. They wanted to govern
themselves, as they had always done, so they did not
like the notion of being ruled by France, which they
thought very likely to come to pass.
4. Chief among the Protestant teachers in Scotland
was John Knox. He was one of those who in 1547 held
the castle of St. Andrews against the French after the
murder of Cardinal Beaton. When the castle was taken
he was sent as a prisoner to the French galleys. On his
release he came to England and took part with the
English reformers under Edward VI. In 1559 he came
back to Scotland from Geneva and taught. His influence
grew greater and many gathered around him. In Decem-
ber 1557 some of the Scottish lords had met
together and entered into a bond or covenant
to uphold God's word and defend His congregation to
the death. Next year, when a Protestant preacher was
burned for his opinions, these 'Lords of the Congregation,
as they were called, threatened to take up arms.
First Cove-
nant.
5. Scotland was governed at this time by the queen-
mother, Mary of Guise, a French woman, who bore the
title of Regent. She was opposed to the Disturbances
Reformation, and tried to put down Protest in Scotland.
ant preaching. A sermon of Knox's at Perth led to a
riot, in which images were destroyed in the churches,
and many monasteries were attacked and set on fire.
The Regent could not make up her mind what to do.
She promised to pardon the people of Perth, but after-
wards sent French troops into the town. The Lords of
Z 2
340
1559-
The Tudors.
the Congregation took up arms, and in June 1559 took
possession of Edinburgh. Scotland was divided into
two parties. On the one side was the crown and the
clergy, who were helped by France. On the other side
were the nobles and the Protestants. If they were to
hold their own they must get help against the power of
the French.
Elizabeth
heips the
Scottish
lords.
6. So it was that the Scottish lords came to ask help
from Elizabeth. She did not wish to set an example of
helping rebels who were fighting against the
crown; but it was most needful for England
not to let Scotland be joined to France, and
this was the only way to hinder it. In 1560 a treaty was
made at Berwick between Elizabeth and the Scottish
lords. They bound themselves to unite to drive the
French out of Scotland. The French held out in the
castle of Leith, which was besieged by the troops of the
English and the Scots. But in July 1560, after the death
Treaty of
of the Regent, peace was made by the Treaty
Edinburgh. of Edinburgh, by which it was settled that the
French troops should be withdrawn from Scotland, and
that the King and Queen of France should no longer make
any claim to the crown of England. The government of
Scotland during the queen's absence was to be in the
hands of a council.
Scotland be-
7. In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament met, and
settled religious matters entirely as the Protestants
wished. The mass service was forbidden, the
authority of the Pope was set aside, and the
teaching of a great French religious teacher
at Geneva, John Calvin, was taken as the rule of faith
and conduct of the Scottish Church.
comes Pro-
testant.
Thus England had escaped from its first danger—
that France and Scotland would be joined together, and
that the French would attack England from the side of
1561.
34I
Mary, Queen of Scots.
Scotland. Instead of this Scotland, by the help of Eng-
land, had become a Protestant nation, and so had been
made a defence to England rather than a danger.
France.
8. Still the treaty of Edinburgh had not made Eliza-
beth safe from France. King Francis II. and his wife
refused to agree to it.
War was again likely Troubles in
to break out in Scotland; but in December
1560 Francis II. died, and Mary was left a widow at the age
of eighteen. Moreover, there were now religious troubles
in France also. The Huguenots, as the French Protest-
ants were called, became very bold in their demands,
and for some time France was busied with its own affairs.
Elizabeth gave help to the Huguenots from time to time
to enable them to go on with the struggle, though she
did not openly take their side.
Mary goes
to Scotland.
9. There was still danger from Mary of Scotland.
Elizabeth would have liked to be on friendly terms with
her. But Mary would not accept the treaty
of Edinburgh, and Elizabeth would not allow
her to return home through England. Mary sailed to
Scotland in August 1561, and though she remained a
Catholic still managed to keep at first on good terms
with her Protestant subjects and did nothing against
them. She did as she was advised by her half-brother,
James Stuart, whom she made Earl of Murray.
10. Mary had many firm friends in Scotland. Some
men in England also thought that she was the rightful
queen of the land, and the Catholics looked to
Mary and
her to bring back the old religion. Many Elizabeth.
wished to get Elizabeth to say that she was the next heir
to the throne. Elizabeth was not willing to do so till
Mary had laid aside all claims to it during her own life-
time. This Mary would not do, as she hoped that some
foreign power or a Catholic rising in England might help
to set her on the English throne. In this way the two
342
1565.
The Tudors.
queens became bitter enemies, though they kept on good
terms outwardly.
11. Much depended on Mary's marriage, and at one
time there was talk of her marrying Don Carlos, son of
Philip II. of Spain. This would have made
Mary mar-
ries Darnley, Spain eager to set her on the English throne,
1565.
and would have been very dangerous to Eliza-
beth. It was broken off because Don Carlos was too young.
Elizabeth tried to get Mary to marry a Protestant, but at
last, in 1565, Mary settled the matter by marrying her
cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. She gained by
this marriage no new power, but she strengthened her
claim on England, as Darnley was the grandson of
Henry VIII.'s sister Margaret.
Mary's plans
against
England.
12. Darnley became a Catholic after his marriage,
and many Scottish nobles followed his example. Mary
looked for help to the Pope and the King of
Spain, by which she would be strong enough
to set up the power of the crown in Scotland,
make war against England, and put down Protestantism.
Many of the Scottish lords, even her half-brother, the
Earl of Murray, were alarmed at the look of affairs, and
took up arms, hoping for help from England. They got
'Genealogical table showing Mary's claim to the English throne,
Henry VII.

James IV. of Scot-Margaret=Archibald
land
Earl of Angus
Mary of Guise=James V.
Margaret Matthew Stuart,
| Earl of Lennox
of France
Francis 11.-Mary, Queen of Scots = Henry
Catharine of Henry VIII.=Anne Boleyn Jane
Lord Darnley
Arragon
Mary
Elizabeth
Seymour
Edward VI.
1566.
343
Mary and Darnley.
none, and were forced to flee across the Border, as Mary's
friends gathered round her.
13. But Mary's plans were suddenly upset by her
husband, who was a weak and foolish man, and wished
for more power than he had. Moreover Murder of
he became jealous of a secretary of the Rizzio, 1566.
queen, David Rizzio, an Italian, who helped the queen in
writing letters to her friends abroad. At last Darnley
made a plot to get rid of Rizzio. Some of the nobles who
were his friends helped him, and in March 1566 Rizzio
was murdered at the palace of Holyrood as he was
being dragged away from the queen's presence. Darnley
hoped to get the queen in his power; but she won him
over and escaped to Dunbar. There her friends gathered
round her, and those who had taken part in the urder
had to flee. Murray and the banished lords came back,
and Mary took them again into favour. Soon there was
quiet in Scotland again; but the queen thought it wiser
to act cautiously and to put off for a time her plan of
bringing back Catholicism.
Murder of
Darnley.
14. In June 1566 a son was born to Mary, who after-
wards became King of England as well as Scotland. Mary
had a stronger claim on England, now that she
had a son who could reign after her, while
Elizabeth was still unmarried. But she soon fell into
new troubles. She had never liked her husband, and the
murder of Rizzio was a thing she could never forgive.
One of the Scottish nobles, the earl of Bothwell, was a
great favourite with her, and hoped to marry her if
Darnley were only out of the way. In February 1567
the house in which Darnley was lying ill was blown up
by gunpowder and Darnley was killed.
There was little doubt that Bothwell had
done this; but he was too powerful to be
Mary mar-
ries Both.
well, 1567.
punished. Soon he contrived to get the queen into his
344
1567.
The Tudors.
power, and she agreed to marry him. Bothwell already
had a wife, but she was set aside; and in May 1567
Mary was married to him.
Mary forced
to lay aside
the crown.
15. This angered the Scottish nobles, who were afraid
that Bothwell would try to set up the power of the crown
against them. Through fear of this they had
already murdered Rizzio, and agreed to the
murder of Darnley. Now they rose against
Bothwell, and the people were entirely on their side.
They looked with horror on Bothwell and Mary for the
wicked deeds they believed them to have done to bring
about their marriage. So Bothwell found that the troops
he had raised would not fight for him, and he had to flee
away out of the land. Mary fell into the hands of her
nobles, who made her a prisoner. She was put in a strong
castle in the middle of Loch Leven, and was forced to
lay aside the crown. Her young son was made king as
James VI., and the Earl of Murray was made Regent.
Mary flies to
England,
1568.
16. Mary, however, soon managed to make her escape
from her prison, and many who did not like the rule of
Murray gathered round her. Her forces
were defeated in battle at Langside, near
Glasgow, in May 1568, and Mary had to
choose between falling into the hands of her nobles or
fleeing to England. She chose to trust to Elizabeth, and
fled across Solway Frith to Workington, whence she went
to Carlisle.
Thus Mary's plans had entirely failed, chiefly through
her own faults. Elizabeth saw the enemy who had
threatened her throne driven to flee to her for refuge.
Again had Protestantism won the upper hand in Scot-
land, and Elizabeth was free from danger on that side,
345
CHAPTER X.
TROUBLES IN ENGLAND.
Elizabeth
keeps Mary
1. THE presence of Mary in England was very trouble-
some to Elizabeth. She did not wish to help to put her
back in Scotland, nor did she wish to let her go
to France. At first she talked about making
Mary and her nobles friends again. But this prisoner.
she could not do. The Scottish lords brought forward
letters which they said had been written by Mary to
Bothwell, and which, if Mary really did write them,
proved her to have plotted her husband's murder. These
letters were most likely not really written by Mary, but
they made men believe that Mary was guilty. Elizabeth
would not see her, nor would she let her go. Mary had
come into England of her own accord to ask for help.
Elizabeth gave her no help, but kept her as a prisoner.
She thought that by waiting she would see what was
wisest to do.
It does not seem to have been wise in the end for
Elizabeth to keep Mary in England, and it was not right
of her to do so. But Elizabeth seldom acted straight-
forwardly. She always wished to do as little as possible,
and wait to see what would happen next. She would
neither help Mary nor the Scottish lords, but wanted to
keep them both under her power as much as she could.
Mary dan-
gerous in
England.
2. But Mary was quite as dangerous to Elizabeth when
she, was a prisoner in England as she had been before.
Some Englishmen looked on her as the right-
ful queen-nearly all thought that she was
the rightful successor to Elizabeth. So plots
were made from time to time in her favour, by those,
in England or abroad, who wished to see Catholicism
brought back. First there was a plan for marrying Mary
!
346
1569-
The Tudors.
to the Duke of Norfolk, the chief amongst the English
nobles. This plan was found out before it was ready, and
the Northern nobles, who were in arms to free Mary,
failed in their attempt. In November 1569 the Earls of
Northumberland and Westmoreland gathered their forces
and set up the mass service in the places which they
entered. The Earl of Warwick went against them, and
the rebels fled. The rising in Mary's favour entirely
failed, and the rebels were severely punished.
Elizabeth ex-
communi-
cated.
3. The Pope looked on Elizabeth as the great enemy to
the Catholic religion, and did all he could to stir up the
Catholics in England to rise up against her.
In February 1570 he excommunicated Eliza-
beth, that is, he put her outside of the Church.
He declared her to be no longer Queen of England, and
ordered her subjects not to obey her. No one paid much
heed to this; but it set the English people still more
against the Pope than they had been before. In 1571
Parliament made laws against the Catholics.
It was
made high treason to call the queen a heretic or to bring
into England any papers from the Pope; and the clergy
were made to keep the Church laws more strictly than
they had done. England wished to draw all its people
more closely together. The more it was threatened by
Catholics abroad the more it must strengthen its own
Church and make all men obey it.
4. But it was found to be hard to do this. It is true
that a great part of the people had agreed to the form of
Religious
Church teaching and Church services which
difficulties.
had been set up at the beginning of the reign.
Many men agreed to it for a time because they hoped to
change it in the way in which they wanted. The Catho-
lics hoped that it might be brought gradually nearer to
their opinions. The Protestants also who had fled
abroad in Mary's reign were not content, when they
1571.
347
Ridolfi's Plot.
came back, to find so much of the old services and the
old beliefs still kept up. They hoped to get rid of them
in time. But both the Catholics and the Puritans, as
these extreme Protestants were called, found that their
hopes were disappointed. England went farther away
from Catholicism, and after Elizabeth's excommunication
by the Pope was entirely opposed to it. Similarly the
Puritans found that they could not make the changes
which they wished. Elizabeth did not want to cut off
herself and England from the old Church altogether. The
Puritans also were ordered to obey the Act of Uniformity
and conduct the services as they were laid down in the
Prayer Book. Many of the clergy would not wear the
surplice, and gave up their livings rather than do so. In
this way Protestant dissenters began to grow up in
England.
5. These troubles in England, and the fierce way in
which the Kings of Spain and France were trying to put
down the Protestants in their kingdoms, Ridolfi's
encouraged the English Catholics to plot plot.
against the queen. In 1571 the plan was again set on
foot that the Duke of Norfolk should marry Mary Stuart.
An Italian banker in England, by name Ridolfi, carried
on the plot. He wished to get help from the Pope and
the King of Spain, who gave him money and promised
to send soldiers, if only Elizabeth were captured by the
friends of Norfolk.
Revolt of
the Nether
The plot, however, was found out by Cecil, and the chief
people concerned in it were made prisoners. Norfolk was
brought to trial for high treason, and was con-
demned to death. The Spanish Ambassador
was ordered to leave England, and war with
Spain seemed likely. But Spain was soon
kept busy with other matters. The people of the Nether-'
lands had long been governed harshly by Spain, and the
lands
against
Spain.
348
1572-
The Tudors.
Protestants amongst them had suffered grievous perse-
cution. In 1572 a rebellion against Spain began there,
which led in the end to the separation of part of the
Netherlands from the power of Spain. They formed
themselves into the Dutch Republic.
English help
to the Ne-
therlands.
6. Just as Elizabeth had managed to get the better of
France by giving help to the Scottish lords who rose in
arms against their queen, so now she gave
help to the rebels in the Netherlands, and thus
gave the King of Spain enough to do in his
own dominions. In this way England kept clear of the
war with Spain for some years to come. Meanwhile the
English seamen did much harm to Spain. Men had
begun to take more to the sea, and ships put out from
Portsmouth which seized the Spanish vessels on their road
home from the West Indies. Chief amongst these rob-
bers of the sea was Sir John Hawkins, to whom the queen
sometimes lent money and whose profits she shared.
this way a race of English seamen was being trained up
who were full of courage and ready for any adventure.
Their bravery filled the Spaniards with alarm, and made
them rather afraid of England.
Prosperity
of England.
In
7. During all these troubles England had at all events
been at peace, while all over Europe men were at war.
English trade had got much good by this.
Many workmen had fled from the Low Coun-
tries to England, and the English learned from them
how to make cloth and silk better than they had done
before. They learned also how to dye their cloth at
home; for before they had sent much of it to be dyed in
Flanders. So there was more work for men to do in
England, and there was not so much distress amongst
the poor as there had been in the reigns of Edward VI.
and Mary. The labourers settled down quietly to the
new ways of farming. The poor were taken care of
1577.
349
Troubles in Ireland.
by collections made in the churches. This was a great
improvement, as they had been left almost uncared for
since the monasteries were pulled down; for in old times
the poor used to be fed by the monks. The collection
in churches grew in time to be a regular payment or rate,
and so the 'Poor Law' grew up, which provided that
everyone should pay to support the poor in the district
where he lived. Then, as the poor were taken care of,
the robbers and thieves who robbed travellers on the
roads were gradually put down by the law. In all these
ways the English people began to be better off, and so
took more interest in the things that were going on.
They saw that the Catholic States of Europe wanted to
bring England under their power. So men grew to fear
and to dislike the Papists in England, and this is what is
meant when we say that England became a Protestant
country.
Catholic
plans.
8. The Catholic plots in England still went on, In
1577 Philip II.'s half-brother, Don John of Austria, was
Governor of the Netherlands, and made a
plan to invade England, marry Mary Stuart,
and rule the land as the King of Spain wished. He could
not, however, gather together an army large enough, as
his brother did not entirely trust him, and would not
help him enough.
9. Then the enemies of England tried to attack her
through Ireland, where the English power had always
been weakest. The conquest of Ireland in Ireland.
Henry II.'s reign had not been fully carried
out, so as to bring law and order into the land. Only in
the English Pale, as the counties round Dublin were
called, was there anything like order. Outside that the
Irish and the English settlers were perpetually at war.
The English settlers fell into the ways of the Irish and
were as lawless as they. So Ireland was always a trouble
:
!
350
1565-
The Tudors.
to the English kings. Sometimes they sent forces there
and acted vigorously for a while; but they never did so
for a long enough time to do any good. The Irish looked
on the English as tyrants, and were always ready to rise
against them.
Risings in
Ireland,
1565-1569.
10. The Reformation in England had increased the
enmity between the Irish and the English. The Irish
did not agree with changes in religion which
were brought in suddenly from outside. The
religious changes in England were taken to
Ireland and were carried out by force. But this force
was not used very strongly. Elizabeth did not wish to
spend much money in Ireland, and so her deputies could
do little. The people grew more discontented, and
gathered round the chieftains who were most opposed to
England. In 1565 there was a rebellion in Ulster under
Shan O'Neil, who claimed the Earldom of Tyrone. This
rising was put down by Sir Henry Sidney, who wished
to have more English sent over to colonise the province
of Munster and bring it under English rule. Some
English went there, and the Irish rose against them in
1569. There was much fighting before peace was re-
stored, and the Irish began to look to the King of Spain
to help them against the English and secure for them the
old religion.
1579.
11. At last, in 1579, some Irish exiles got troops from
the Pope and from Spain and landed in Ireland, where a
Rising in rising again took place under their powerful
Earl of Desmond. It was nearly put down,
when the arrival of 800 Spanish and Italian troops again
gave it life. They built a fort at Smerwick, in Kerry,
where they were attacked by the Deputy, Lord Grey de
Wilton. They were taken prisoners and all were put to
death in 1580. The English had begun to hate the
Spaniards, and showed them no mercy. After this no
>
1582.
351
Troubles in Scotland.
more troops were sent, and the rebellion was gradually
put down.
Power of
Philip II.
12. But meanwhile Philip II. had become more power-
ful, so that he was still more feared in Europe. He
claimed in 1580 the kingdom of Portugal, and
when he had taken possession of it seemed
likely to have more money and troops to carry out his
plans. Elizabeth was so much afraid of this that she
planned to ally herself with France against Spain. She
talked of marrying the younger brother of the King of
France, the Duke of Anjou, though he was twenty years
younger than herself. But the English people liked
France as little as they liked Spain, and the marriage
was laid aside.
Scotland,
1578-1582.
13. Soon there was danger to. England from the side
of Scotland once more. A young man, Esme Stuart, who
was heir to the earldom of Lennox, and had
been brought up in France among the leaders
of the Catholic party, was sent by them to Scotland in
1578. He soon won the confidence of the young king,
and did all he could to stir up the old party which had
been in favour of France. The Regent, Morton, was
brought to trial for having had a share in Darnley's
murder, and was put to death in 1581. The French
party had got the power into their hands, and were ready,
if they could get help from Spain, to invade England.
But again the Protestant nobles of Scotland rose to put
down the plans laid against them. Headed by the Earl
of Gowrie they seized the young king, who had been
invited to a hunting-party at the castle of Ruthven.
James VI. was in the hands of his nobles, and Lennox
was ordered to leave Scotland. The Catholic plan to
attack England again came to nothing.
14. But in England itself, though there was no open
war, a secret war was at this time going on to bring back
352
1579-
The Tudors.
the people to the old faith. Men's passions had grown
fiercer about religious matters during the long struggle
Jesuit
of the last years. Many young men had left
colleges.
England to be educated abroad. A college
was built specially for the English Catholics at Douay,
which was afterwards removed to Rheims; and in 1579
another college was founded by the Pope in Rome. These
young Englishmen were taught by the Jesuits, who were
men belonging to a new religious order which had been
founded in 1541, to work for the Pope. The Jesuits did
everything they could to strengthen the power of the
Pope in Europe: they got a great hold over men's minds
by their teaching; and as they trained young men to
uphold the old beliefs, they were the bitterest enemies
Protestantism had yet had to meet.
15. The college at Rome soon sent to England those
whom it had trained. In 1580 a company of thirteen
priests came to England that they might do
The Jesuits
in England. what they could to win back men to the old
faith. Their leader was Edward Campion, an English-
man. Up to this time the Catholics in England had not
refused to go to the new services: they had contented
themselves with keeping to the old beliefs in their hearts,
while outwardly they obeyed the law. Now these Jesuit
priests came to give them back the old services. They
travelled through the country in disguise and had secret
meetings of the Catholics for worship. The Catholics,
being so encouraged, began to refuse to attend the ser-
vices in the churches. Printing-presses were also secretly
set up, and little books were printed in great numbers in
defence of the old religion and against the queen and
her government. There was set up in England an open
opposition to the queen in behalf of the Pope.
16. This led to greater strictness in carrying out the
laws which called upon everyone to go to the services laid
1583.
353
Throgmorton's Plot.
the Catho-
Laws against
lics.
down in the Prayer Book. The priests were taken
prisoners, and Campion and some others were put
to death for treason. It was made high
treason for anyone to receive these priests
into his house, or to go to their secret services.
The Catholics were now quite separated from the Pro-
testants, and were opposed to them. It was hard to see
how a Catholic could be looked upon as a loyal subject
of the queen when he thought it his duty to obey the
Pope, who had declared that Elizabeth was no longer
queen. The priests were always looking for help from
Spain, and plotted the murder of the queen with the
Ambassador of Spain, who was in London. There were
the discontented Catholics at home, the friends of Mary
Stuart, and the Catholic party throughout Europe gene-
rally, who were all joined together to do all they could
against Elizabeth.
ton's plot.
17. Thus men had now come to hate one another
bitterly for their religious differences. They did not shrink
from the thought of treacherously killing one Throgmor-
another, and the idea of getting a statesman
or a sovereign out of the way by murder became quite
common. In 1583 a plot was discovered for murdering
Elizabeth and setting Mary Stuart on the throne in her
place. A Catholic, Francis Throgmorton, was at the
bottom of it. He was seized, and afterwards was put to
death. Amongst his papers was found a list of those
who had taken part in the plot against the queen, and
many things which showed that the Spanish Ambassador
had known of it.
18. Elizabeth learned from this how many and great
were the dangers which surrounded her and England.
The greatest of her enemies was the King of Spain, who
had lately been growing more powerful. It was clear to
Elizabeth that she could not hope to win over Spain to
E. H.
A A
354
1584-
The Tudors.
her side. Her chief ministers had long been urging her
to open war with Spain, and it clearly could not be put
off much longer. In 1584 the Spanish Ambassador was
sent out of England because he had taken part in the
plots against Elizabeth, and this was a sign to Spain that
England meant to resist further attempts.
Association
to protect
Elizabeth.
Moreover, the chief men of England drew closer
round the queen. In 1584 an association was formed
for the protection of Elizabeth's life. Those
who joined it declared that they would pursue
to the death all who should try to hurt the
queen, and also anyone in whose behalf they did so. In
this way the plotters were told that if they succeeded in
killing Elizabeth, Mary Stuart would at once be put to
death as well.
Help sent to
the Nether-
lands.
CHAPTER XI.
ENGLAND AND SPAIN.
1. AFTER seventeen years of peace Elizabeth was at length
driven to prepare for war with Spain, before Spain had
grown so powerful as to crush her altogether.
She determined at last to give open help
to the Netherlands, who had revolted from
Philip II., and who were now hard pressed by him. At
the end of 1585 the Earl of Leicester was sent with a
body of English troops to the Netherlands. Elizabeth
never hoped that the Netherlanders would hold their
own against Philip's soldiers, and would have been willing
to give up their cause if she could have made peace for
herself. The English troops did little in the Netherlands,
as Elizabeth did not send them proper pay, nor allow
their general to have much power. She still wished to
put off war if possible.
The English in the Netherlands tried to take the city
1586.
355
Babington's Plot.
of Zutphen, and in the siege Sir Philip Sidney was
wounded, and soon after died. He was much mourned
for all over Europe, as he was a great scholar as well as
a brave soldier and a courteous gentleman. Às he lay
wounded on the field some water was brought to him,
but seeing a dying soldier near him he gave it to him,
saying, 'Your need is the greater.'
Drake in
2. The Spaniards were made very angry just at this
time by an expedition undertaken by Sir Francis Drake to
the West Indies. He took three of their finest cities and
coasted along their shores, plundering and
laying waste all that he could. Already Drake the Spanish
had sailed round the world (1577-1581) and Main, 1585.
had done much harm to Spain. He came back to Eng-
land with his spoils, and the Queen visited him in his ship
and knighted him. The Spaniards felt that their trade
was not safe and demanded of the king that the seas
should be secure for their ships. Philip II. felt that to
protect the trade of Spain he must put down the power
of the English at sea.
3. Though war was being prepared against England,
still that did not put an end to the plots which were made
there. The priests at Rheims persuaded Babington's
some young Englishmen to think that the best plot, 1586.
thing they could do for their religion was to put Elizabeth
to death. Another plan was made of killing the queen,
freeing Mary from prison, and setting her on the throne
by Spanish help. A young man, Anthony Babington,
was at the head of this plot, and Mary was told that it
was being carried on. She consented to it, and letters
passed between her and those engaged in the plan.
But the plot had been found out, and was used by
the Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsing-
ham, as a means of bringing Mary to her
He contrived by his spies to get hold
ruin.
Mary takes
part in it.
of Mary's
A A 2
356
1586.
The Tudors.
letters and make copies both of the letters she got and of
the answers she sent. When proof enough had been got
against Mary all her papers were seized and she was
made a strict prisoner in Fotheringay Castle. The con-
spirators were caught, tried, and executed, and some of
them confessed before being put to death.
trial.
4. The proof against Mary was laid before the Privy
Council, and it was settled that she should be brought to
trial. A commission of peers and lawyers
Mary
brought to was appointed to try her, according to the
provisions of the Act passed in 1585, for
having plotted against the queen's life. This commission
decided that she came under the power of the Act of
Parliament, inasmuch as she was guilty of aiming at the
queen's death. Finally, Parliament met and gave its ap-
proval to the decision of the commission (November 1586).
5. Still Elizabeth was unwilling to consent to Mary's
death. Mary was a queen who had sought her pro-
tection, and Elizabeth feared the effect which
her death might produce in Europe. Her
ministers and the people were very anxious to get Mary
out of the way. As long as she lived there would be no
end to the plots against the queen. Elizabeth wanted to
get rid of Mary without doing so openly. She signed the
warrant for Mary's death, and Mary was at once executed
at Fotheringay, in February 1587. Elizabeth afterwards
declared she never meant the warrant to be used, and
tried to throw the blame of her execution on her secretary.
Death of
Mary.
6. Men were glad when Mary was put to death. So
long as she lived plots were always being made in her
behalf, and the Catholics were always looking
forward to her succession. Now that she
Results of
her death.
was dead men hoped there would be greater quiet in the
land. If war was to come it would be against a foreign
king who was trying to conquer England for himself,
1587.
357
The Spanish Armada.
and would no longer be carried on in Mary's name.
Philip II. was more eager now to invade England, for he
could now claim it for himself, and need not fight for
Mary. But the other powers of Europe thought that
Spain was already too strong, and had no wish to see
her made any stronger. Moreover, James VI. of Scot-
land was set against an attempt which would do away
with his chance of succeeding to the English crown.
So
it was that when the great attack of the Spaniards came,
England was freer than she had been for many years
from foes within and on her borders.
7. Philip II. set himself to work to raise a fleet for the
invasion of England. It was long before it was ready.
In April 1587 Drake sailed into the harbour The Armada
of Cadiz, destroyed forty of the Spanish sets sail.
ships, and burned a large store of provisions which the
Spaniards had got ready for their fleet. It was not till
May 1588 that the 'invincible Armada,' as the Spaniards
called their fleet of 132 ships, was ready to put to sea.
Philip's plan was that his fleet should sail to Dunkirk
and there be joined by a force of soldiers from the
Netherlands. In this way an army of 50,000 men would
be prepared to ravage England.
8. The long delay of the Spaniards was useful to
England, where many preparations had to be made.
Neither ships nor soldiers were plentiful. Preparations
The royal navy had only thirty-four ships in in England.
readiness, and they were much smaller than the Spanish
ships. But the seaport towns got ready their merchant-
men, and private gentlemen manned such ships as they
could to help their country in her need. On shore also
the musters of the counties were called out and drilled.
Everyone was anxious to do what he could to drive back
Philip. The chief among the Catholics came to serve
their country with zeal; for though they wished the old
358
1588
The Tudors.
religion back again they were too true Englishmen to
wish to see their country conquered by Philip.
The Armada
in the
Channel.
9. On Sunday, July 21, the Armada came in sight of
the English coast off Plymouth. The English Admiral,
Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, did not
dare to attack the huge Spanish fleet. He
followed them up the Channel, hanging on
their rear and doing them such damage as he could.
He knew the Channel better than the Spaniards, and in
his small and handy vessels could fall upon them and
sail away again at his pleasure. For a week the Armada
sailed slowly up the Channel, and on Saturday, July 27,
anchored off Calais; there the Spanish Admiral awaited
the coming of the troops from the Netherlands under
their great general, Alexander of Parma.
10. But the troops from the Netherlands did not come,
as they were prevented from sailing by a fleet of Dutch
The Armada and English vessels which cruised off the
dispersed. coast. On the evening of Sunday, July 28,
the English Admiral resolved to drive the Spanish ships
into the open sea, where he could better fight with them.
Six of the oldest ships were filled with things that burned
easily, and were sent flaming against the Spanish fleet.
The wind carried them on, and the Spaniards, alarmed
as they saw them coming, cut their cables and fell into
confusion. Thus they were driven out of their harbour
and had to sail northwards along the Flemish coast.
The English followed and did much damage by the
straightness and swiftness with which they fired their
guns, while the Spaniards shot over the English vessels.
A gale sprung up and the Spanish fleet sailed helplessly
northwards, losing ship after ship from the English guns.
The English followed them as long as they had any shot
left. The gale increased in violence, and the Spaniards
fled round the north of Scotland, to return home again.
Many of their ships were wrecked off the Hebrides and
1588.
359
Naval War with Spain.
the Irish coast. Out of the hundred and thirty-two ships
which sailed from Spain only fifty-three returned.
+
England
freed from
fear of Spain.
II. Thus the attack of Spain on England, which had
been so long feared, entirely failed. It was a greater failure
than anyone knew at the time. Philip II.
hoped to make another attempt in time; but
he never found another chance. The war of
religion passed from England to France, and for the rest
of his reign Philip II. was busy in helping the Catholic
party in France, who were trying to keep Henry IV.
from being made king, as he was then a Protestant,
though he afterwards became a Catholic.
12. Besides this the failure of the Armada made Eng-
land know how strong she was. The great danger which
all had gone through drew all Englishmen Results on
together. A national hatred of Spain filled England.
their minds. They were ready to do everything they
could against Spain. Hatred of Spain and Catholicism
made England more decidedly Protestant than it had
been before. The Catholic party no longer plotted
against Elizabeth. Many of them joined the national
Church, with which Englishmen in general grew more
content when they saw how it could keep them united.
Naval war
with Spain.
13. Englishmen were no longer afraid of being
attacked by Spain, but rather were determined to attack it
in turn. Year by year expeditions were made
against the power of Spain in some quarter or
another. Hatred of Spain went on growing among the
English people, and English ships lost no chance of
doing all the harm they could to the power of Spain. A
constant war went on at sea, in which the English were
almost always successful, and brought booty home to
England. In this wild way English seamanship was
growing up, and England was making good her claim to
be the mistress of the sea.
It was not the actual loss to Spain in the defeat of
360
1588.
The Tudors.
.
•
the Armada which made that defeat important. But
after that time the English felt themselves a match for
the Spaniards; thenceforth they made it their settled
purpose to beat down what had hitherto been the chief
power in Europe. The attempt to force Catholicism on
England from without had failed, and the English people
felt more than before that Protestantism was necessary
for their national independence.
CHAPTER XII.
ENGLAND AFTER THE ARMADA.
1. AFTER the defeat of the Armada England was free
from the load of troubles which had seemed to weigh her
Spain grows
down for the last thirty years. She was again
weaker. united, and the dread of dangers at home and
abroad had passed away. In the hour of peril England
found out how united her people really had become, how
their differences really disappeared before a threat to
their national liberty. At the same time the power of
Spain was seen to be overrated, and all those who were
resisting Spain plucked up their courage. The war
against the power of Spain went on in the Netherlands
and in France. The Protestant Netherlands slowly made
good their revolt against Philip II.; the moderate party
in France slowly got the better of the extreme Catholics
who were helped by Philip II. Every year after 1588
made England's position stronger and showed that the
influence of Spain was growing weaker.
2. So it was that the energies of Englishmen began to
show themselves more strongly. They became more
and more fond of the sea, because they wanted to
1588.
361
English Settlements in the West.
England
grows
find out new lands in the far-off West, about which so
many stories had been told. The fact that
the Pope had given to the Spaniards and Por-
tuguese all the lands which might be found stronger.
out in the New World made expeditions thither seem like

140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
80
80
60
MAP OF
ENGLISH DISCOVERIES
IN THE WESTÁ I
in the Sixteenth Century
:
Greenland
Davi
Strait 1587
1576
Frabisher
NORTH
Virginia
40
AMERICA 584
20
1575
Iceland
Newfoundland
England
14071
*
140
120
100
80
60
10
20
AF
40
80
crusades to the Protestant English of Elizabeth's time.
This desire to do harm to Spain began to grow into a
wish to found colonies in the New World. Sir Walter
Raleigh first made a settlement in 1584, to which the
name of Virginia' was given, in honour of the Virgin
Queen. This settlement was not at first successful,
though it afterwards flourished. English discoverers
362
BK. V.
The Tudors.
sailed on every side. Much of North America was found
out by the English, who were trying to discover a north-
west passage to India. In this way English trade and
enterprise began to increase very quickly.
3. Besides this the country had grown much richer,
and men began to wish for more comfortable homes. The
land had been long free from civil war, so
Growth of
comfort.
men were not afraid of having their houses
pulled down, and began to build better houses than they
had had before. Instead of the castles of the feudal barons,
which were built to fight out of, there sprang up the
country house of the rich gentleman. Many of the finest
houses in England were built in Elizabeth's time, and so
are said to be built in the Elizabethan style of architec-
ture. Not only were the rich more comfortable but the
poor also. Every class of trader and farmer began to
grow richer, and so to live better. The very poor were
provided for by law: in 1601 the Poor Law was settled as
it remained till 1832. Workhouses were to be built in
every county, and a rate was to be collected by overseers
of the poor from all the people, to give the means of
living to the poor in their district.
Elizabeth's
court.
4. But the growth of the people showed itself in other
ways besides wealth. At no time in English history were
there more great men in England than in
Elizabeth's reign. Amongst her ministers
were many whose names are still remembered for their
wisdom, especially William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. His
prudence and caution did much for England, and Eliza-
beth always trusted him above all others so long as he
lived. To Elizabeth's court came all the young men who
wished to gain honour. Elizabeth was truly the centre
of English society, and her court was always splendid.
5. But above all the reign of Elizabeth is famous in our
history as being the time when the greatest of English
Religious Discord.
363
writers flourished. Men's minds had been stirred by
the great events that had been going on, and
English
they had much to think about, and also writers.
a quiet time to think in. So we cannot wonder that men
wrote and read more than they had been used to do.
Among the writers of Elizabeth's time the greatest was
William Shakespeare, whose plays show us how much
men thought and knew in those days. Theatres had now
begun to be set up in England, and there were many
writers of plays, though none so great as Shakespeare.
Another great poet, too, was Edmund Spenser, whose
'Faerie Queen' puts before us the moral virtues in the
forms of knights going out to fight against wrong. It
would take too long to tell even the names of the other
great writers in England at this time; but in almost
every kind of writing and every branch of learning there
were some men who wrote what will always be read.
CHAPTER XIII.
TROUBLES OF ELIZABETH'S LAST YEARS.
1. THOUGH England was at last freed from the fear of
Spain, which had so long weighed her down, she had
still a good deal to disquiet her. There were still diffi-
culties to be settled at home.
The defeat of the Armada had lessened the power of
the Catholics in England; but the way in which Eliza-
beth behaved in Church matters increased the number
of the Puritans. She was more than ever Religious
resolved to have a Church in England which discord.
should be neither Popish nor Puritan. The Court of
High Commission, which had entire power in church
matters, tried and punished those who would not carry
out the worship of God as it was set down in the Prayer
364
The Tudors.
1596-
Book. Elizabeth chose bishops who were opposed to the
Puritans, and an attempt was made to put them down
by force.
It was not, however, successful, and was a
source of discord in England, which grew more and
more, as there were many on the side of the Puritans.
Political
parties.
2. More than this, there were two parties among Eliza-
beth's ministers and friends. Many of her old ministers
died soon after the defear of the Armada,
and younger men became powerful with the
queen. Burleigh and the older men who had seen all
the growth of the struggle with Spain wished to bring
that struggle to an end and to make peace with Spain.
On the other hand, the younger men wished to carry on
the war against Spain, as they wanted to have chances of
doing great things and winning great names for them-
selves. Chief amongst these was Robert Devereux, Earl
of Essex, of whom the queen was very fond. These two
parties were always struggling to get the upper hand in
the Queen's Council.
War with
Spain.
3. In 1596 Essex had his own way and sailed against
Cadiz, which was sacked, and the ships in its harbour
were all destroyed. Next year (1597) Essex
went to cut off the Spanish fleet which was
bringing back treasure from the Indies. He did not, how-
ever, succeed, and this was the last great expedition made
against Spain; for in 1598 Philip II. died, and was suc-
ceeded by his son, Philip IV., who was not fitted to do
much for himself, and was in the hands of a peaceful
minister. In the same year also Lord Burleigh died, and
Essex, who had hoped that he would be the queen's ad-
viser, found that she listened more willingly to the counsels
of Burleigh's son, Robert Cecil, who gave her the same
sort of advice as his father had given. The quarrels in
the Queen's Council became more bitter than they had
been before.
1599.
365
Disgrace of Essex.
4. There was also a serious rising of the nation in Ire-
tand, where men hoped to get help from Spain and from
the Pope. Hugh O'Neil, who had been faithful Troubles in
to England in the last revolt and had been Ireland.
made Earl of Tyrone as a reward, was at the bead of this
new rising. At first he was successful, and in April
1598 defeated the English on the river Blackwater, not
far from Armagh. It was felt in England that no time
must be lost in putting down the rebels. Troops were
sent over, in 1599, under Essex, as Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland. The enemies of Essex were glad to have him
out of England, and as he had wished that war should be
carried on against Spain, he could not refuse to take the
command when it was offered to him.
5. But Essex, when he reached Ireland, did not march
against Tyrone at once. Instead of going to Ulster,
which was Tyrone's stronghold, he wasted his strength in
small expeditions in Munster and Leinster. When he
did march north his troops were worn out and refused
to fight. Instead of fighting with Tyrone he made peace
with him, granting him very favourable terms.
Then he left Ireland and crossed over to
England, that he might persuade Elizabeth to agree to
what he had done. He hoped that the queen's fondness
for him was strong enough to lead her to agree to any-
thing that he might propose.
Essex in
Ireland.
6. So in September 1599 Essex hastily came back to
England and went at once to the queen. At first she
received him with kindness; but when she thought of
what he had done she became very angry with him.
He was kept in custody, and his doings were
examined by the Queen's Council. He had
all his offices taken away from him, and was
keep himself a prisoner in his own house. He was sus-
pected of wishing to get the government into his own
Disgrace
of Essex.
bidden to
366
1601-
The Tudors.
hands and to raise up a party in Ireland in his own
favour.
7. For a time Essex lived quietly; but at last he resolved
to try and get his power back again. He was so popular
Rising of
that he thought men would do anything he
Essex.
wished. In February 1601 he assembled
at his house some of his friends in arms. Some of
the queen's ministers who went to ask the reason were
made prisoners. Essex marched with his followers
through the City, hoping that the people would take up
arms in his behalf. In this he was entirely mistaken: no
one moved to support him. He had to flee to his own
house before the royal troops, and was made prisoner.
He was brought to trial, and was found guilty of high
treason.
J
+
8. Essex wished to frighten the queen by showing her
how strong he was. He had many of the Puritans and
the soldier class on his side. He thought that they
would rise, and by their rising force the queen to take
him back into her favour and afterwards do what he
wished. But the English people held by
Death of
Essex.
the laws, and those who were on the side of
Essex still would not help him to break the laws. Now
that he was condemned to death the queen could not
save him. Though she was fond of him still he had
been guilty in the same way as had Mary Stuart; and
if one had not been spared, neither could the other be.
Essex was executed in February 1601.
9. Meanwhile Lord Mountjoy succeeded Essex in Ire-
land, and made Tyrone submit, though troops were sent
from Spain to help him. Tyrone laid down his arms on
condition that his lands should be left him, and there
was peace again in Ireland just after the queen's death.
10. The last years of Elizabeth were saddened by the
death of Essex, which grieved her very much.
The
་
1603.
367
Parliament under the Tudors.
•
Elizabeth
people had loved him and were sorry for his death. The
queen was now old, and saw around her a younger
generation, which had grown up in the peace
which Elizabeth had won for them, and did not
now agree with her and her ways of looking
at things. She saw herself growing less popular, and
Parliament was growing bolder in its dealings with her.
unpopular
at last.
Parliament
Tudors.
II. Little has been said about Parliament under the
Tudor kings, because Parliament was not so important
as the Crown and its ministers.
The royal
power had grown greater under the Tudors, under the
and the great things that were happening in
England made it needful that there should be one head.
Henry VII. had been busy in bringing back peace after
the Wars of the Roses and putting down the power of
the nobles. Henry VIII. separated England from the
Papacy. Under Edward VI. the Reformation of the
Church was vigorously carried on. Mary found the
people disgusted with this, and tried to bring back the old
faith. Elizabeth had worked hard to bring back religious
peace, and had strengthened the nation to stand out
against the power of Spain. Each of these rulers had a
very hard task to do: each of them had the greater part
of their people on their side in doing it. So it was that
they were trusted by their people and by their Parlia-
ments. Their Parliaments were almost always ready to
help them to do what they and the people wanted to have
done.
So, though Parliament seemed to obey the sovereign,
we must remember that one great reason of this was,
that Parliament trusted him. Moreover, the breaking
away from the Church of Rome and the setting up of
new things in the English Church made the Parliament
really stronger. In all this the crown had to fall back
upon the Parliament and do all that it wanted to do by.
368
1601-
The Tudors.
means of Acts of Parliament; for no king would have
dared to set aside the Pope simply by his own will.
Really during all this Tudor period we may say that
Parliament mostly did what the crown wished, but that
the crown recognised more fully than had been done
before the authority of Parliament.
Character
of the
Tudors.
12. It is worth noticing that all these Tudor sovereigns
lost the love of the people at the end of their reigns, and
that Parliament seemed to be on the point of
quarrelling with them when they died. Henry
VII. was so disliked for his heavy taxation
that Henry VIII. found it wise to put his ministers to
death. Henry VIII. had grown so oppressive that many
men looked eagerly for his death. The doings of the
Reformers under Edward VI. were so unpopular that
Mary's changes were received with joy. Mary in time.
grew to be so hated for her persecutions that a rebellion
was near when she died. Now too Elizabeth, when she
had done the great work which lay before her at the
beginning of her reign, was no longer as much loved by
her people as before, and Parliament began to interfere
with her doings.
Parliament
and mono-
polies.
13. The expenses of the Irish war gave Parliament in
1601 a chance of objecting to one of the queen's ways
of raising money. She used to reward her
courtiers and favourites by giving them mono-
polies of certain articles—that is, letting them
alone have the right to sell some one article, so that they
could ask for it any price they chose. An Act was
brought before Parliament to do away with these. But
Elizabeth knew how to give way. She sent a message
saying that all grants which were against the law should
at once be done away with. The Commons sent to thank
her, and she answered that she had no thought in her
heart except for the good of her people. It was a boast
1603.
369
Summary.
in which there was much truth. Elizabeth was always
most careful of her country's good, and the welfare of
England was closely bound up with her own.
14. There is nothing else to tell in Elizabeth's reign.
The queen grew gloomy and sad as she grew older. She
seems to have felt herself friendless in her Death of
old age and knew that everyone was think- Elizabeth.
ing about her successor. She died in March 1603,
in the seventieth year of her age and the forty-sixth
of her reign.
Summary.
The years that we have gone through were most im-
portant for England; in them she first of all took up
the position which she still holds amongst
the other nations of Europe. Henry VII.
gave peace and order at home and set England in a
strong and independent position as regarded foreign states.
Henry VIII. set the land free from the power of the
Pope and made the Church in England English only.
Elizabeth made sure for her country what her father and
grandfather had begun. She beat back Rome and Spain
alike and set the power and freedom of England on a firm
and safe foundation. Meanwhile, the English people
rose with their higher position. Everything that we are
most proud of as a nation sprung up more strongly in
Elizabeth's reign. English courage, bravery, and adven-
ture were known all over Europe. English seamanship
became famous. Colonies were sent out to far-off lands.
Trade flourished, and riches and comfort increased.
Above all, high and noble thoughts filled men's hearts,
and led them to write lovely and noble works in verse
and prose.
An eager desire for knowledge filled all
men's minds. England had grown fit to do greater
things than she had ever done before.
E. H.
B B
་
་
!
THE TUDORS AND STUARTS,
Henry VII., 1485-1509.
Henry VIII., 1509-1547.
Margaret James IV., King of Scots.
Edward VI.,
1547-1553.
Mary,
1553-1559.
Elizabeth,
1559-1603.
Janes V., King of Scots.
Mary, Queen of Scots=
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
JAMES I., of England, 1603-1625-Anne of Denmark.
(VI., of Scotland).
CHARLES I., 1625-1649-Henrietta Maria
Elizabeth Frederick V., Elector
of France.
Palatine.
CHARLES II., 1660-1685=
Catherine of Braganza.
Mary=William,
Prince of Orange.
Anne Hyde-JAMES II. Mary of
1685-1688. Modena,
Rupert
Sophia Ernest,
Elector of
Hanover
William III. = Mary
1689-1702.
Anne,
1702-1714.
George I.,
1714-1727.


BOOK V.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.
INTRODUCTION.
A GREAT question was fought out in England while the
Stuarts reigned. It was this: was the chief power in the
country to be the power of the king or the power of the
Parliament; in other words, were the English to be a self-
governed people or were they to be governed according to
the will of one man?
The Tudors had ruled during a century of change and
danger, when it was needful that the king should have
much power in his hand, so that order might prevail at
home and foreign princes be kept from meddling in Eng-
lish affairs. But when the fear of foreign foes was past, and
the king did things which the people did not want to see
done, they were not willing to let him have so much power
as the Tudor kings had had. The points which we shall
have especially to notice in reading this book are—
(1) How the Stuarts made use of the powers which
BB 2
372 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1603.
the Tudors had left them to act against the wishes of the
people.
(2) How the Parliament tried to force the Stuarts to
carry out the wishes of the people.
(3) How the Stuarts tried to free themselves from the
control of Parliament,
(4) How the struggle between king and Parliament
was at last brought to an end by the gift of the crown to
a prince who was willing to do the things which the Par-
liament wished to be done.
CHAPTER I.
PURITANS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS.
1. GREAT changes have come over England since 1603,
when James I. became king. Ideas which are now nearly
Men not free as common as the air we breathe were then
to worship
as they
please.
new and rare, or even unknown. Thus people
now think that each man must be left to wor-
ship God after his own fashion. Then people thought
that all men, who obeyed the same king, must worship God
after the same fashion. The Act of Uniformity, passed
by Parliament in 1559, had ordered that the services laid
down in the Prayer Book should be held in every church
in England. No other services might be held even in a
room with closed doors.
The
Puritans.
2. Though all Protestants had separated from the old
Church, they had not all taken up the same religious beliefs.
In England there were men called Puritans,who
wished to make the service of the Church of
England more unlike the service of the Church of Rome
than the reformers of the reign of Edward VI. had left it.
They complained that forms and ceremonies were still in
1603.
373
Fames and the Puritans.
use which were not according to the Bible. Thus there
were many clergymen who did not like to make the sign of
the cross when they baptized a child, or to wear a surplice
during the church services.
Queen Elizabeth did not wish for any more changes,
and so chose archbishops and bishops to govern the
Church of England who were no friends to the Puritans.
They thought that the Church services needed no change
and that the Puritans were making an outcry about trifles.
They therefore turned out of their livings ministers who
did not use the ceremonies laid down in the Prayer Book.
The people, as a body, liked the services of their
Church. Still they wished that something should be done
to content the Puritans. It was not easy to find enough
good and able men to be parish ministers, and as the
ministers who held with the Puritans were usually very
able and zealous, it seemed a great pity that they should
lose their livings because they did not like to wear a
surplice. When James came to the throne men hoped
that he would let laws be made by Parliament ordering
(1) that ministers should not be turned out of their livings
for not using all the ceremonies laid down in the Prayer
Book, and (2) that every parish should have a good and
able man as minister.
James I.
3. James was already king of Scotland when he came
to the English throne. He was son of Mary Stuart, Queen
of Scots, whom Elizabeth beheaded, and great-
grandson of Margaret, sister of Henry VIII.
Scotland and England were thus brought together under
the rule of one king, but each country still had its own
Parliament, its own Church, and its own laws.
4. James was thirty-six years old. He had read a good
deal, could talk well, and often said witty James and
things much to the point. But he had two the Puritans
great faults which prevented his being a wise king. He
374 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1603-
was cowardly and he was selfish. He always thought,
not of what was best for his people, but of what was best
for himself, and so he often made great mistakes and did
a great deal of harm. This was the case in his dealings
with the Puritan clergy, of whom, as it happened, he was
afraid. The reformers in Scotland had done away with
those ceremonies with which the English Puritans found
fault. They had done more. They had also done away
with bishops, and set up a Church which was governed
by assemblies of ministers and elders. These elders were
sometimes called presbyters, from a Greek word meaning
elder, and hence the Church they helped to govern was
called the Presbyterian Church. Now the archbishops
and bishops, who governed the English Church, were
appointed by the king, and so were men whom the king
could trust to carry out his wishes. But the elders and
ministers, who governed the Church of Scotland, had their
power from the people, and had often gone against the
king's wishes. James, therefore, now fancied that the
Puritan ministers in England were wishing to do away
with bishops and to get power into their own hands. So
although he let the questions in dispute between the
bishops and the Puritans be talked over in his presence
at Hampton Court, at the end he made no such changes
as would satisfy the Puritans, and even told the bishops
to be stricter with them than before. Nor when Parlia-
ment met, in 1604, would he let the members meddle in
any way in Church matters. But Parliament was not
content with what the king had done, and this question of
the treatment of Puritans became one of the questions
about which the king and his Parliaments could not agree.
5. Though the Parliament wished to do something for
the Puritans, it had no mercy on men who still clung to
the old Church. Not only was the Catholic faith held to
be harmful to the minds of men, but Catholics themselves
•
1605.
375
Gunpowder Plot.
Catholics.
were looked upon as bad subjects. Some had plotted
against Elizabeth's life and government; others had joined
the new Catholic order of Jesuits and gone Laws
about the country in disguise, stirring up against
Catholics to keep firm to their faith. These
Jesuits were much feared, for they were thought to be the
friends of the Pope and of the Catholic king of Spain.
Thus it had come about that, while Elizabeth reigned,
one law after another had been made against Catholics.
Catholics who stayed away from church were heavily
fined; those who hid priests in their houses were cast into
prison. Many Jesuits and priests were put to death as
traitors because they would not deny that the Pope had a
right to meddle in England in matters which concerned
religion.
6. Whether these laws were always fully carried out
depended much on the will of the king. The Parliament
and the king together made laws, but it was
Gunpowder
the king and his officers who put them in Plot.
force. When James became king he did not wish to deal
harshly with Catholics. He knew that though some had
plotted against Elizabeth, yet that the greater number had
been true to her, and he thought that, if he showed
them mercy, Catholics would be obedient subjects to him-
self. But he had not reigned long when a plot was dis-
covered which made the Parliament wish more than before
to see the king always put the laws in force. A band of
desperate men formed a plan of blowing up Parliament
House on November 5, 1605, when Parliament was to be
opened in state by the king. With this purpose they
hired a cellar under the Houses of Parliament, which they
filled with barrels of gunpowder hidden under bundles
of faggots. James' ministers found out something about
the plot, and on the evening of November 4, Guido, or
Guy, Fawkes was taken with a lantern in his hand,.
376 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1614-
keeping watch and ward amongst the faggots. Though
there were only some fifteen conspirators, yet all English
Catholics suffered because of their crime. For harsher
laws were passed against Catholics, and James for some
years to come put the laws in force.
The Span-
CHAPTER II..
THE SPANISH MARRIAGE TREATY.
I. JAMES was not always a wise king, but in one thing he
was wiser than his neighbours. He was not fond of wai,
and wished that Catholic and Protestant States could
learn to live in peace. England and Spain were at war
when he came to the throne, but he very soon made
peace between them. Afterwards, in the year 1614, he
wanted to marry the Prince of Wales to the Infanta
Maria, a daughter of Philip III., the king of
ish Match. Spain. He thought that England and Spain,
if they acted together as friends, would be able to prevent
wars from breaking out on the Continent between Catho-
lics and Protestants. This scheme seemed to James very
clever, but it was really a great mistake. For Philip III.,
king of Spain, was the head of the Catholic princes, and
he only cared to let the marriage be talked about in the
hope of getting James to agree not to put the laws in
force against English Catholics. Still, as time went on,
James did not find this out, but only set his heart more
and more on bringing this match about.
2. Rather than run the chance of quarrelling with the
king of Spain, James did an act which brought on him
Sir Walter the scorn of his subjects. While Elizabeth
Raleigh. reigned Sir Walter Raleigh had won himself
a great name as courtier, traveller, coloniser, and historian.
But shortly after her death, he was mixed up in some
1617.
377
Sir Walter Raleigh.
plot against James, and though there was little to show
that he had done anything wrong, he was sentenced to die
as a traitor (1603). James, however, did not cause Ra-
leigh to be put to death, but kept him a prisoner in the
Tower.
to Guiana,
3. After thirteen years had gone by Raleigh, who was
weary of his long imprisonment, let it come to the king's
ear that near the river Orinoco in Guiana Raleigh's
there was a mine which, if worked, might expedition
yield rich store of gold. James was poor 1617.
and much in debt, and the thought of being the owner
of a gold-mine was very pleasant to him. So he let
Raleigh sail in command of a fleet of thirteen vessels to
seek the mine, but told him that he was on no account to
fight the Spaniards. But it was not easy to avoid fighting
the Spaniards, for they claimed the West India Islands
and all the continent of South America as their own,
and whenever the vessels of other nations came to make
discoveries or trade with the Indians, they attacked them
and murdered their crews. Raleigh knew this, but he knew
James too, and he thought that if only he brought back
gold he should be forgiven, even though he had fought the
Spaniards. When his fleet reached the Orinoco, Raleigh
sent a party of explorers up the country to seek for the
mine. He could not go himself, for he had fallen very ill,
but, along with others, he placed in command his son
Walter, and Keymis, a trusted friend, and he bade them
not to fight the Spaniards unless in self-defence. Now
the Spaniards had built a village, called St. Thomas,
on the Orinoco, made of stakes covered with leaves of
trees. They knew the English were coming, so they laid
an ambush and fell upon their camp by night. The
English fought bravely, and drove the Spaniards back,
and took possession of their village. But young Walter
Raleigh was killed in the fight. Then Keymis led a
378 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1618.
·
•
party yet farther up the Orinoco in search for the mine.
But the Spaniards and Indians waylaid them and killed
many. So Keymis' heart failed him, and he went back
to St. Thomas, and all the English returned to their
commander and their fleet. But first they set fire to the
village, for they wished to be revenged on the Spaniards.
When this tale was told to Raleigh, he reproached
Keymis with bitter words, because he had not found out
the mine and brought back gold to show the king. Then
Keymis, in despair, for he saw that ruin had befallen
both himself and his master, went into his cabin and
stabbed himself to the heart. But Raleigh came back to
England, and the sentence of death which had been
passed against him fifteen years ago was carried out and
he was beheaded on the scaffold. And this James did to
please the king of Spain. (1618).
Thirty
Years' War.
4. Soon a war broke out between the Catholics and
Protestants on the Continent, and the worth of this
alliance with Spain, for which the king had
just given Raleigh's head, was put to the test.
The war was called the Thirty Years' War from the length
of time which it lasted (1618-1648). James's daughter,
Elizabeth, had married, in 1613, Frederic, the Prince of
the Palatinate, one of the states of the Empire, lying
along the Upper Rhine. This prince was the Protestant
leader who was most concerned in the war. For the
people of Bohemia, wishing a Protestant to reign over
them, had chosen him for their king instead of their
former king, Ferdinand, who was a Catholic. But Fer-
dinand, who was also Archduke of Austria and Emperor,
raised large armies and drove Frederic first out of
Bohemia and afterwards out of the Palatinate also.
Philip of Spain was related to Ferdinand. James, there-
fore, wished Philip to get Ferdinand to make peace
with the Protestants and give the Palatinate back to
1618. The King and the Parliament.
379
Frederic. Philip made fair promises, but all the time
his own armies were fighting on the side of the
Catholics. Meanwhile men in England complained
bitterly of their king's fondness for Spain. They would
have liked James to fight Spain and marry the Prince
to a Protestant lady, for they thought that a marriage
with a Catholic and a Spaniard would bring their country
into many dangers. The Parliament, therefore, through
dislike of the match, became very eager that James should
put the laws in force against Catholics, whilst James, lest
he should make Philip angry, would not do so.
CHAPTER III.
THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT.
I. We have found the king and the Parliament holding
different opinions on three important questions: (1) the
treatment of Puritans, (2) the treatment of Powers of
Catholics, (3) the Spanish Marriage Treaty. the king.
When the king and the Parliament disagreed one or the
other must give way. It was a question which would be
stronger. Let us see what powers each held.
The power of the king was then much greater than it is
now. Queen Victoria only chooses as her ministers men
whom the Parliament is willing to support. The minis-
ters, thus chosen, carry on the government as the House
of Commons wishes, though in the name of the queen.
Parliament meets every year, and every year the minis-
ters have to obtain the support of the representatives of
the people to their acts.
James I. chose his ministers solely to please himself.
He expected them to carry out his wishes without heed-
ing the wishes of the Parliament. He never thought of
380 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1603-
explaining his acts to his Parliament, nor did he call
together a Parliament every year, but only when it
seemed good to himself.
2. But though James had a great deal of power, the
nation had rights and liberties to set against the powers
Rights of of the crown. (1) The king could make no
the people.
laws without consent of Parliament. (2) He
could take no taxes without consent of Parliament. (3)
He was bound to act according to the law; for instance,
he could not put a subject into prison except according
to due course of law. From this right of the people not
to be taxed without their own consent it followed that
the House of Commons was able to control the king's
actions. The king had not money enough of his own to
pay for the expenses of his court and government; so
when he wanted more money, as was often the case, he
had to call a Parliament and ask for a grant. Then the
Parliament, before giving him money, could ask him to do
something which they wanted to have done.
Position of
the king and
the Com-
mons.
3. In the times of the Plantagenets the House of Lords
had far more power than the House of Commons. But
it was the House of Commons which now took
the first place. For the members, who were
generally merchants and country gentlemen,
now more than equalled the nobles in wealth, know-
ledge and influence. It was quite natural, therefore, that
the gentlemen who sat in the House of Commons should
form opinions of their own on affairs of state, and liketo tell
the king if they thought he was going wrong. But it was also
natural that the king should think himself wiser than the
Commons, and dislike to have his actions talked about.
If the king and the Commons, therefore, were to work
together, it was needful that they should trust one another,
and have the same ideas of what were the right things to
do in dealing with the great questions of their day.
1623.
381
James' Favourites.
6
We have seen that James did not act according to the
wishes of the Commons. He thus began a struggle which
was to last for more than eighty years. The Stuart kings,
one after another, all tried to free themselves from the
control of Parliament. Parliament, acting on its side with
the support of the nation, strove to maintain its position,
and force the king to submit his wishes to its wishes. It
is the course of this struggle between king and Parliament
which we shall have to follow.
James and
ments.
4. The Commons used to beg James to set right what
they thought amiss in his government, and when they did
not get an answer they liked, gave him no
money. James thought them very rude for his Parlia
meddling. He wished to have as few meet-
ings of Parliament as possible; so he began in one way
and another to take his subjects' money without first
asking their consent. Though in defence of his conduct
he could say that Elizabeth had sometimes done the same
thing, yet the people were not willing that he should do
as she had done. For they had trusted Elizabeth, and
knew that she spent their money well. They did not,
however, trust James, and each time Parliament met, it
became more than ever discontented with him.
5. Sir Francis Bacon, who was a very learned man,
was one of James' ministers. He often gave the king good
advice. But James did not follow good advice; James'
he believed in his own wisdom and went his favourites.
own way, or else chose unworthy men to help him by
their counsel. The one of these favourites who got most
power was George Villiers, a young man whose handsome
face and pleasant manner first caught the king's fancy
(1615). Very soon James could refuse him nothing. Many
offices and honours were given him, as well as the title of
Duke of Buckingham.
6. Under the rule of these favourites, drunkenness,
bribery, and vice of all kinds was common at James'
382 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1621-
court.
Impeach-
ment of
Bacon.
Bacon himself, in spite of his learning, gave way
to the same ill deeds as those around him. He was Lord
Chancellor, and sat as judge in the Court of
Chancery. In 1621 the House of Commons
impeached him, that is, accused him before
the House of Lords for having taken gifts from persons
over whose cases he had to sit as judge. The House of
Lords found him guilty of bribery and corruption, and
sentenced him to pay a large fine and never to hold office
again. Very likely Bacon did not look on these presents
as bribes, and did not give sentences in favour of those
who made him gifts. But it was a wrong thing for a
Judge to take gifts at all. Bacon's own remark was: 'I
was the justest judge that was in England these fifty
years, but it was the justest sentence in Parliament that
was these two hundred years.'
In the trial of Bacon the House of Commons acted the
part of accuser, the House of Lords the part of judge.
Two hundred years ago there had been like cases of im-
peachment. It was a great thing that this old practice
was again brought into use, for it opened a way by
which the Commons were able to force the king's minis-
ters to answer to Parliament for what they did.
CHAPTER IV.
BUCKINGHAM'S WAR POLICY.
1. BUCKINGHAM lived with the king, and with Charles,
the Prince of Wales, as with familiar friends. They
called one another by nicknames, Buckingham being
1623.
383
Plans of Buckingham.
Spanish
match
broken off.
'Steenie,' the Prince of Wales 'Baby Charles,' the king
himself their 'dear Dad and Gossip.' In 1623,
when the terms of the Spanish marriage treaty
were nearly agreed on, 'Steenie' and 'Baby
Charles' got James' leave and went to Spain in disguise,
meaning to bring back with them the bride about whom
there had been so much talk for the past eight years.
Philip IV., at that time king of Spain, received them
very graciously; but the wooing did not turn out well in
the end. The Infanta did not like Charles because he
was a Protestant. Once when he jumped over a wall
into a garden where she was walking, the young lady
screamed and ran away. Moreover the Spanish minis-
ters did not care to bring the match about, unless
England was to be made a Catholic country. They
now angered Charles by saying that the Infanta must
stay in Spain a year after the marriage, as a pledge
that James would get rid of the laws against English
Catholics. At the same time they would not do what
Charles wanted of them, and fight the Emperor in order
to win back the Palatinate for Frederic, James' Pro-
testant son-in-law. So Charles and Buckingham came
back to England in an angry temper, forced James, to
his sorrow, to break off the treaty, and threatened Spain
with war.
Plans of
Bucking-
ham.
2. Buckingham was bold, ambitious, and very sure
that he could do all he wished to do; but he was ignorant,
headstrong, and not very clever. He was
now really the ruler of England. Charles was
ready to follow him wherever he led the way,
and if James went against his wishes he scolded until the
old man yielded. So Buckingham thought he could do
what he chose, and he made many great plans. He
wanted to form alliances with France, Denmark, and
384 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1624-
Holland, punish Spain, send armies into Germany, and
get back the Palatinate for James' son-in-law.
3. Parliament met in February 1624. The Commons
wished the king to make war on Spain by sea; so they
Last Parlia- gave him a grant of money. It was however
understood that the money was not to be used
ment of
James I.
for sending armies into Germany, but for fitting
out a fleet. They also got a solemn promise from James
and Charles that if the Prince should marry a Catholic,
nothing should be said in the marriage treaty about the
English Catholics. These promises were not kept. An
army was raised and sent across the Channel to march
through Holland into Germany. About the same time
James and Charles agreed that the laws against the Eng-
lish Catholics should not be put into force, and on these
terms Charles in 1625 married Henrietta Maria, sister of
Lewis XIII., king of France.
4. In March 1625 James I. died, and Charles I. came
to the throne. Charles very speedily dissolved his two first
First parlia-
Parliaments, for he found that the Commons
ments of
would not give him money. The Commons
Charles I.
refused because they had no trust in Buck-
ingham. Not only had he led the king to break his
word, but all his undertakings turned out ill. The
soldiers sent to Holland died of cold and hunger. A
fleet sent against Spain sailed into the harbour of Cadiz,
but afterwards came back without having fought an
enemy; on the voyage home the soldiers and sailors died
by hundreds through the bad food which had been given
them (1625).
5. In spite of this ill success, Buckingham was very sure
that he should win in the end, and Charles gave way to
him, so neither of them thought of making
peace because the Parliament would not give
money. They had not broken their word to the Com-
War with
France.
1626.
385
The Writ of Habeas Corpus.
mons without a reason. When they promised Lewis XIII.
not to put the laws in force against Catholics, they had
thought that he would aid them in the war in Germany;
but now, as Lewis had not given them the aid they hoped
for, they were bold enough to find causes of quarrel with
him and to go to war with France (1626).
CHAPTER V.
THE PETITION OF RIGHT.
of Habeas
Corpus.
I. THAT he might be able to carry on this new war,
Charles tried to raise large sums of money without con-
sent of Parliament. He did so under pretence The writ
of a loan, though there was no chance that
the lenders would ever get their money back
again. The tax was called a forced loan, for men
who refused to lend the king money were thrown into
prison. Now as there were Acts of Parliament forbidding
the king to take his subjects' money at his pleasure, so
there were Acts of Parliament forbidding him to shut
his subjects up in prison at his pleasure. The Great
Charter, granted by King John, had said that no free-
man should be sent to prison save by the law of
the land. When, therefore, any person was sent to
prison, a warrant stating his offence was given to his
gaoler. The prisoner or his friends could then ask the
judges of the Court of King's Bench for a writ of Habeas
Corpus. These words, meaning 'produce the body,'
were the first words of the writ, which was simply an
order to the gaoler bidding him bring his prisoner and
the warrant before the Court. Then the judges, after they
had seen what offence was named in the warrant, would
either send the prisoner back to prison, there to await the
E. H.
CC
I
་
386 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1627-
time of his trial, or set him at liberty, if he gave surety to
come and answer to his charge at the time of trial. If
the prisoner was sent back to prison, he could ask the
judges to name a day for his trial, so that he could not
be kept shut up for a very long time.
Imprison-
ment with-
out cause
given.
2. Five gentlemen whom Charles sent to prison for re-
fusing to pay the loan money got a writ of Habeas Corpus,
and so came before the Court of King's Bench.
The judges looked at the warrant brought by
the gaoler, and found that they were sent to
prison by the king's order, but that no cause was given.
What then were the judges to do? As no reason was set
down on the warrant, they could not tell whether they
ought to set the prisoners at liberty or send them back
to prison. What was even worse, the prisoners could
not get any day named for their trial.
The lawyers who pleaded for the prisoners said that,
since no cause of imprisonment was given, they ought to
be set at liberty; otherwise the king might keep them
shut up in prison till the day of their death. This, they
said, was contrary to the Great Charter, and did away
with the liberties of Englishmen. The court was crowded
with listeners, who clapped their hands and shouted ap-
plause when they heard the lawyers say things like this.
But the lawyers who pleaded on Charles' side said
that kings of England had often sent men to prison with-
out giving any reason, and that what former kings had
done, Charles might also do. It was true that former
kings had done so, and in times of danger when there
were fears of plots, as at the time of the Gunpowder Plot,
it might be needful to imprison men without giving a
reason. But this now seemed an unlawful thing for
Charles to do, because it was not men who were plotting
against him whom he shut up, but good subjects who
refused to give him money to which he had no right.
1628.
387
The Petition of Right.
The Judges, however, did not set the five gentlemen
at liberty, but sent them back to prison; for they were
afraid of angering the King.
3. Buckingham sailed with a large fleet in 1627 to the
west coast of France, and landed on the island of Rhé;
but after staying a few months on the island
he had to sail home again, because he was
short of supplies, and had lost many of his
men.
Expedition
to the Isle
of Rhê.
Charles'
third Par-
liament,
1628.
4. Buckingham had persuaded the Protestant town of
La Rochelle, lying on the mainland opposite the Island
of Rhe, to take part with the English. Charles
felt in honour bound to help this town, which
was now being closely besieged by Lewis. So,
in hope of getting a grant of money, he first let out of
prison the refusers of the loan money, and afterwards
called his third Parliament (1628). The Commons had
many things to complain of, but these three things above
all others :—the forced loan; the imprisonments without
cause given; the refusal of the judges to set the prisoners
at liberty. One of the chief men in the house was Sir
John Eliot, and he spoke out like a man for the liberties
of Englishmen. 'Upon this dispute,' he said, 'not alone
our lands and goods are engaged, but all that we call
ours. These rights, these privileges, which made our
fathers freemen, are in question. If they be not the more
carefully preserved, they will, I fear, render us less free,
less worthy than our fathers.' Sir Thomas Wentworth
was also a chief man in the house, and a good speaker.
He wanted, however, to get a great name and power for
himself, and he cared less about the liberties of England
than Eliot. As he did not like the wars with France and
Spain, he now spoke against the unlawful means by
which Charles had got together money to carry them on.
'What is it,' he said, 'that we have to make sure? New
CC 2
388 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1628.
things? No; our ancient, sober, and vital liberties, by
strengthening the laws of our ancestors, by setting such
a stamp upon them that no lawless spirit shall dare
hereafter to invade them.'
5. The Commons after listening to words like these
drew up a new law. It was called a Petition of Right,
The Petition and was meant not to get them new liberties,
but to be a guard round the old.
This peti-
of Right.
tion asked the king to say :--
(1.) That no freeman should have to pay any loan, tax,
or such-like charge without common consent by Act of
Parliament.
(2.) That no freeman should be sent to prison without
a cause being shown.
The House of Lords agreed to the petition, and
Charles gave it the royal assent. In return the Parlia-
ment gave him a grant of money, and the Session was
afterwards brought to an end.
6. In August, 1628, Buckingham was about to sail
with a fleet to Rochelle, when a man named Felton
stabbed him to the heart. For this murder
Bucking- Felton was tried and hanged; but the people
rejoiced at the duke's death, and looked on
Murder of
ham.
Felton as a martyr.
The fleet sailed, but could not make its way into the
harbour of Rochelle; so, after thousands had died of
hunger, the city surrendered to Lewis. Besides the
Rochellese, others also who had looked to Charles and
Buckingham for help found that they could do nothing.
The King of Denmark had been promised a large sum of
money to help him in making war against the Catholics
in Germany; but no money was sent, and he was beaten
in war.
After Buckingham's death Charles made peace, first
with France in 1629, and then with Spain in 1630.
1629. Dissolution of Parliament in 1629. 389
CHAPTER VI.
DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT IN 1629.
I. THOUGH the Petition of Right had been passed, and
though Buckingham was dead, yet the king and the
Commons could not agree better than they Customs
had done before. They began to dispute Duties.
about the meaning of the Petition of Right. Charles did
not intend to give up the exercise of any power to which
he could get his lawyers and the judges to say that he
had a right. The Commons intended to make use of the
power to give or withhold money in order to force Charles
to pay heed to their wishes. Thus when Charles required
the Commons to give him a grant for life of the customs
duties, or taxes laid on goods sent out or brought into
the country, the Commons refused because they wished
him to govern the Church in the way that they approved.
Then Charles, who wished to govern the Church in his
own way, maintained that, as customs duties had not
been mentioned by name in the petition, he still had a
right to take these duties without consent of Parliament.
Churchmen
and Calvin-
ists.
2. There was a second question about which the king
and the Commons could not agree. It was a very important
one. We saw that when James came to the High
throne he persecuted Puritans, and would not
let the Parliament make laws to set right what
they thought amiss in the Church. Since that time new
differences had arisen between the bishops and the Com-
mons. At first they had only disagreed about the treat-
ment of Puritans. Afterwards they began to disagree
about matters of religious belief. The English prayer-
book had much in it which was the same as the service
book of the old Church; it had also many things which
·
390 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1629.
were put in it at the time of the Reformation. During
the last thirty years new teachers had arisen in England,
who seemed to wish to look only at those things in the
prayer-book which were like the old service book, and so
were like the beliefs held by the Church of Rome. They
seemed to wish to pass over all the changes that had
been made and hold them to be but small. Most Eng-
lishmen thought that the changes made at the Reforma-
tion were great and important changes, and they did not
like these new teachers. But the king listened to them
gladly, and made some of them bishops, so that they had
great power over the Church. These new teachers we
should now call High-churchmen. Those who were
against them were then called Calvinists, because they
held the beliefs of the reformer Calvin, who in the last
century had set up a Protestant Church at Geneva.
It was thought to be part of the duty of the Govern-
ment to put down all false doctrine. No books might
be published except such as got the leave of the king's
ministers. The High-churchmen, therefore, wished that
the king should forbid the Calvinists to teach and preach,
while the Calvinists wished that the king should forbid
the High-churchmen to teach and preach.
Charles would have done well if he had not taken the
side of either of these two parties; but he was drawn to
the side of the High-churchmen. In all the disputes
which had arisen between himself and the Commons they
had taken his part, trying to set up the royal power, and
pull down the power of Parliaments. Kings, they said,
were given their power by God; subjects, therefore,
ought to obey their prince's commands, even though they
were contrary to Acts of Parliament. It was partly be-
cause the High-churchmen said things like this in books
and sermons that the Commons wished so much to put
them to silence, for they believed that those men were
1629.
391
The King's Declaration.
most true to their king who obeyed the laws and would
not pay unlawful taxes.
3. Shortly before Parliament met again in 1629, Charles
published a declaration which still stands in the Prayer-
book, in front of the Articles. In this he The King's
said that henceforth no man, whether High- declaration.
churchman or Calvinist, was to preach or write on doc-
trines about which men did not agree. Perhaps Charles
thought this was fair to both parties, but it was not really
The men who would judge what was right to preach
and what was not were the bishops. These were High-
churchmen who would be on the side of those who
preached what they themselves believed.
so.
Dissolution
of Parlia-
ment.
4. So, when Parliament met again, the discord was
greater than ever. The Commons called on the king to
forbid the High-churchmen to preach and
write, and leave their own friends, the Calvin-
ists, at liberty to preach and write what they
pleased. They also said that the Petition of Right had
been broken because the customs-duties were taken with-
out consent of Parliament. One day the Speaker, who
was the king's friend, wanted to leave the house rather than
let the members pass a vote against the taking of customs-
duties not granted by Parliament. Two members held
him down by force in his chair, while a third called out,
'that they were traitors who should bring in changes in
religion, or who should take or pay customs-duties not
granted by Parliament.' 'Aye, aye,' members shouted
on all sides, and then left the House amidst noise and
confusion. After this Charles dissolved the Parliament,
and made up his mind not to call another for a long time
to come.
392 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1629-
CHAPTER VII.
LAUD AND THE PURITANS.
I. CHARLES I. was a loving husband and father, and lived
very happily with his wife and children. He was fond of
collecting pictures, statues, and other works of art. Of
Character
of Charles I.
books he knew quite as much as most gentle-
men of his time. He was very attentive to
business. But though Charles was neither ignorant, nor
lazy, nor stupid, he would never make a good king. He
kept too much to his own opinions, and would not
listen to others nor trust them. He did not care about.
being liked by his subjects. His chief care was to make
himself obeyed. He knew that Elizabeth had ruled very
much as she liked and he meant to do the same. He
quite forgot that Elizabeth had sought the good-will of
her subjects, who obeyed her because she did what they
wanted to be done.
The views
of Laud.
2. The minister whom Charles trusted to govern the
Church was Laud, Bishop of London, who, in 1633, was
made Archbishop of Canterbury. Laud was
the leader of the High-church party, whom the
Commons had wished to put to silence. He was a little
man, very active, and very earnest, but without pity for
those who did not think as he did or do as he told them.
He had a good deal of learning, and was willing to let
learned men hold opinions of their own; but he despised
the people too much to think that they could judge for
themselves what was true or false in religion. Laud
also was in favour of forms and ceremonies. He did
not like that each man should do what was right in his
own eyes. All must do alike. Each minister must bow his
head when he read the name of Jesus. None must take
the sacrament sitting, as many men then did, but each
1640.
393
Laud and the Puritans.
man on his knees. Ministers and congregations must be
encouraged to adorn their churches with painted windows,
images, and crosses, to set up altars and perform cere-
monies for long unknown in Protestant England.
3. The Calvinists thought very differently from Laud.
They thought that even unlearned people were capable of
distinguishing true from false doctrine, and
The views
of the
Calvinists.
that it was for the welfare of their souls to
understand and hold the doctrine which Cal-
vin taught. They disliked ceremonies, and would as soon
have worshipped in a barn as in a cathedral. God, they
said, did not live in temples made with hands. His temple
was the heart of the worshipper. They did not care about
order, nor could the service be too simple to please them.
tans.
4. It became common to call all persons Puritans who
did not like the changes which Laud and his friends were
bringing in. Many more people, therefore, Calvinists
were now called Puritans than in the time of called Puri-
James I. They were of all classes—gentlemen,
farmers, and artisans. They were remarkable for living
a serious and quiet life, setting their faces against the
fashionable vices of their dayinking, swearing, and
gambling. Amongst the Puritans were found men who
held very strict notions of the kind of life they ought to
lead. They saw sin and vice mixed up with the amuse-
ments and pleasures of the world, so they called all
pleasures and amusements sinful. They dressed in plain
black clothes, and cut their hair short, to mark them-
selves distinct from the men of the world, who dressed
gaily in velvets, and lace, and satin. They went too far
in what they thought they ought to do, and judged other
men too hardly; but they were quite honest, and ready to
suffer much rather than do anything which they thought
wrong.
We have seen what different opinions Laud and the

394 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1629-
Puritans held. The Puritans looked on Laud as little
else than a Papist in disguise. Laud looked on the Puri-
tans as men who disturbed the peace of the Church.
After he became Archbishop his power over the Church
was very great, and he set to work to model churches,
services, ministers and worshippers all after his own plan.
5. Laud had means by which he was able to force the
Puritans to do as he wished. The Act of Supremacy,
Courts of
High Com-
mission
and Star
Chamber.
passed in 1558, made Queen Elizabeth chief
ruler of the Church of England in place of the
Pope. It also gave her power to set up com-
missioners for the punishment of those who
separated from the Church. These commissioners formed
what was called the Court of High Commission. They
now turned out of his living the minister who preached
on forbidden doctrines or refused to bow when he read
the name of Jesus. The layman who kept his hat on in
church, or would not take the sacrament on his knees,
they fined or perhaps put in prison. Another court
punished more severely than the High Commission. It
was called the Star Chamber, because the walls of the
room at Westminster in which it sat were painted with
stars. This court had been set up in the reign of Henry
VII. to try men who were too powerful to be brought to
trial in the other courts. Its powers were now turned
against the Puritans or any others who, by anything they
said, did, or wrote, displeased the king and his ministers.
The judges were the king's ministers, Laud himself being
one of them. Men were fined by the Star Chamber, or
put in prison, or whipped through the streets, or branded
with hot irons, or their ears were cut off. When these
sentences were carried out, the people, who thought the
sufferers were in the right, and felt great pity for them,
would stain handkerchiefs in their blood as in the blood
of martyr's.
.
1640.
395
Sir Thomas Wentworth.
Puritans in
New Eng-
land,
6. When the Puritans saw what strange ceremonies
were brought into the services of the English Church,
and how the king no longer called Parliaments
together, they thought that the Catholic faith
would be set up in England, and that the old
liberties of Englishmen would be taken away by the
king. Thousands sailed across the Atlantic to the coast
of North America. There they settled in a land which
they called 'New England,' where they governed them-
selves and worshipped God in their own way.
CHAPTER VIII.
SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH.
1. BESIDES Laud, Charles had another councillor whom
he trusted. This was Sir Thomas Wentworth, whom
Charles in 1628 created Lord Wentworth, and Sir Thomas
Wentworth.
sɔme years later Earl of Strafford. Went-
worth was a tall, dark man, with a commanding voice
and manner. He had joined with Eliot in getting the
king to give his consent to the Petition of Right, because
he thought Buckingham ruled very badly. But since
Buckingham's death he had himself become a minister
of the king, and now his chief desire was to make Charles
powerful in all things, and free him from his subjects'
control. Wentworth had a great belief in himself and in
his own wisdom, and looked down upon the members of
the House of Commons, thinking that if the king always
had to follow their wishes, the country would never be
well or wisely ruled. As to Parliaments, Wentworth did
not wish to do away with them; they might in a humble
manner lay their wishes before the king, but they were
not to make their grants of money depend on getting
396 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1633.
what they wanted. Until the gentlemen of England
should have learned to obey, Wentworth did not counsel
Charles to call a Parliament together.
2. Now Wentworth was proud and would have his own
way; and he did many harsh and unjust acts in carrying
Wentworth out his ends. So he was soon much hated by
in Ireland. the people. Neither was he liked by his fellow
ministers or by the courtiers. For he set his face against
those who wasted the king's money and left the king poor
while they themselves grew rich. Wentworth, however,
did not stay long in England. In 1633 he went to Ireland
to rule that country as Lord Deputy. There it was more
easy for him to get men to yield to him than in England;
for the native population of Irish Catholics and the Pro-
testants, who had settled in Ireland, hated one another,
and did not wish for the same things, so that they could
not act together as Englishmen did. Moreover in Ireland
Wentworth acted as king in place of Charles, and thus
had more power in his hands than in England. He did
not let his officers take the king's money. He kept strict
order throughout the country, and did not let the rich.
man wrong the poor man. He even called a Parliament
and got a grant of money. But the people, though
they could not resist the deputy, yet hated him. For he
broke his faith with the Parliament, ill-treated those who
offended him, and cared not how unjustly or harshly he
acted, so long as he made all men obey his will.
Eliot in
the Tower.
3. While Wentworth was trying to make the power of
the king greater than it had ever been before, Eliot was
standing up for the cause of the Parliament.
Eliot and some of his friends were accused by
Charles of having caused a riot in the House of Commons
on the day when the Speaker was held down in his chair.
The judges said that they must pay fines and stay in prison
so long as it should please the king. One by one, as they
1634. Ship Money-Trial of Hampden.
397
owned their fault and prayed for pardon, Charles let them
be set at liberty. But Eliot would not give way. A future
Parliament alone, he said, could judge whether anything
he had said or done had been to blame. The judges had
no right to meddle in the matter; for if members could
be brought to punishment by the king for what they said
or did within Parliament House they would be afraid to
say what they really thought. Then Parliaments would
soon cease to be free, and would be no longer able to
oppose the king, if he ruled contrary to the laws and
liberties of the country.
After Eliot had been a prisoner in the Tower about
three years (1629-1632) he fell very ill, and sent to the
king asking to be set at liberty until he got back his health.
But Charles chose that the man who would not give way
should die, and not long afterwards Eliot died in the
Tower (1632).
CHAPTER IX.
SHIP MONEY AND THE TRIAL OF HAMPDEN.
1. AS CHARLES had no money with which to build ships to
protect the coasts, French and Flemish pirates did much
harm to trade, while those from Algiers, in Africa, used
yearly to carry off hundreds of fishermen as slaves.
Charles wished to put an end to this state of things. He
was also thinking of joining Spain in making war on France.
His difficulty was to get money for raising a
navy, without calling a parliament. In times
of danger, as for instance when the Armada sailed against
England, the sovereign had called on the port towns to
send vessels for defence of the kingdom. Charles thought
he could not do better than follow this example (1634).
Ship money.
398 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1635–
Afterwards he went farther and did what former kings
had not done. Every year he made every county of
England and Wales give him money, called ship-money,
for raising a navy, for guard of the seas.
2. Men paid the new tax very unwillingly, because
there was no real or sudden danger which made it needful
for the king to take money without first asking leave of
Parliament. One of those who would not pay was John
Hampden, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire. The case
Trial of
Hampden.
between him and the king was tried before the
twelve judges at Westminster. Two of them
said boldly that many Acts of Parliament, and, above all,
the Petition of Right, had taken away from the king the
power of raising taxes without consent of Parliament.
But others said that Acts of Parliament could not bind
the king, and that, therefore, when he thought it needful,
he might take taxes at his pleasure. As seven judges
were for the king and only five for Hampden, ship money
was thus declared to be a lawful tax (1638).
The prero-
gative set
above the
law.
3. The king had always had rights and powers of his
own, which lawyers called his royal prerogative. But
until now the right to set aside Acts of Par-
liament, whenever he thought it needful to
do so, had not been counted one of them,
No one would have said so in the days of Elizabeth.
The notion had grown up by degrees, under the rule
of James and Charles. The High-churchmen said that
kings had their power from God, and that their power
was above Acts of Parliament, just as divine things are
above human things. Lawyers, who looked to the king
to give them places, said the same kind of things in
courts of law, and thus at last the judges laid it down as
part of the law that no Acts of Parliament could bind the
king. Henceforth, therefore, Charles could set aside the
laws if he thought it needful.
.
1640.
A
Rebellion in Scotland.
399
The people saw clearly that this view of the judges
put an end to their liberties, and would not pay it any
respect. The judges, they said, had explained the law
wrongly, and given false judgment to please the king.
There was much reason in what the people said. Charles
had the power of placing judges in office and turning them
out of office at his pleasure. He had set up as judges
men who held his own views, and the people did not
trust them.
4. We have seen that England was discontented; we
have seen also that Ireland was discontented. We must
now look at Scotland and see what was passing there.
Laud tried to change the Church of Scotland and make
it like the Church of England. This aroused much dis-
content amongst the Scots, who disapproved Rebellion in
of Church government by bishops, and looked Scotland.
on many of the ceremonies in use in the English Church
as superstitious. On the day when a prayer-book, like the
English prayer book, was ordered to be read in all churches
in Scotland, a riot broke out in Edinburgh (1637). Soon
the whole country rose against the changes, and the people
began to arm to force the king to give way to their wishes.
If Charles had had plenty of money, and even a small
standing army, he might have put down the Scots. But he
had no money, while his soldiers were only peasants and
artisans who were pressed into his service. These
looked on the Scots as friends, for, like them, they hated
Laud. They killed their officers if they thought them to
be Catholics, and ran away by hundreds. In the spring
of 1640, Charles called a Parliament, and dissolved it sho
in three weeks, because it would not give him money at
once. The same year the Scots crossed the border and
marched into Yorkshire. Charles was there with an
army; but it was an army of unwilling soldiers who did
not care to fight The Scots and the English knew that
400 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1640.
!
their cause was one, so they both began to call on the
king to summon a Parliament in England. Charles had
to give way, and in November, 1640, the Long Parlia-
ment met.
The Long
Parliament.
CHAPTER X.
THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD.
1. THE Long Parliament is one of the most celebrated
of all Parliaments which have ever met in England. It
was the turning point of Charles' reign. Up
to this time he had been growing stronger;
but this Parliament broke the king's power, so that it
was never again what it had been before, and from this
time forward no king could set aside the laws as Charles
had done.
2. After the rebellion broke out in Scotland, Went-
worth came back to England, and Charles made him
Impeach-
ment of
Strafford.
Earl of Strafford. Strafford knew that his
friends were few and his foes many, so he
thought that it would be better if he stayed
away from London at the opening of Parliament. But
Charles did not like to be without his minister's help. He
therefore bade Strafford come, saying that ' as he was king
of England, the Parliament should not touch a hair of his
head.' So Strafford came to stand by his master and help
him to keep the members of the Parliament in due awe.
But the members very well knew that they had no enemy
so able and so dangerous as Strafford. On the day after he
1641.
401
The Trial of Strafford.
came to London the House of Commons went in a body to
the House of Lords, and there impeached him of high
treason. His trial in Westminster Hall lasted many
days. The members of the House of Lords were there as
judges, and the members of the Commons as accusers.
The king and queen sat apart in a little gallery with a
curtain in front of it, but the king with his own hand tore
down the curtain, that he might the better hear and see
what passed beneath.
Strafford was accused of having tried to destroy the
laws and liberties of his country, and of having been an
enemy to Parliaments, and having done many things con-
trary to the law both in Ireland and in England, and for
these offences he was charged with high treason. Straf-
ford defended himself very ably, but it was not possible
that he should defend himself so as to satisfy his accusers.
They had no pity for him. For he had been Charles'
chief adviser while Charles ruled without Parliaments,
and while many cruel and unjust acts were done in
Charles' name. For this the Commons wished to put
him to death, that others might learn not to do like him.
3. It was a difficult thing to prove that the offences of
which Strafford was accused were high treason according
to the law of the land. To ensure his death Bill of
the Commons passed a bill through their Attainder.
House which condemned him to die as a traitor. They
thought that the Lords would be more ready thus to
cause Strafford to die as an enemy to his country than
to declare in their capacity of judges that his offences
were high treason. Such bills, condemning men to die,
were called Bills of Attainder, because every traitor or
felon, against whom sentence of death was pronounced,
was said to be attainted, or stained. The Lords, after
hearing all that could be said in Strafford's defence, passed
E. H.
DD
402 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1641.
the Bill of Attainder against him. The king's consent
was still needful to make the bill law. Charles felt that
he would be doing an evil deed if he took part in
Strafford's death, for he believed that in all things Straf-
ford had served him well and faithfully. But he was in
great fear and misery, and knew not what to do. An
angry crowd gathered round the palace at Whitehall,
shouting for justice on traitors. His wife, frightened at
the noise, pressed him to pass the bill. His councillors
told him it was his duty to please his Parliament. There
came a letter to him from Strafford himself, bidding him
no longer delay to make his peace with his people.
'Sire,' it said, 'my consent shall more acquit you herein
to God than all the world can do beside. To a willing
man there is no injury done.' So Charles gave his con-
sent to the bill; but when this was told to Strafford he
exclaimed, 'Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons
of men, for in them there is no salvation.' He was be-
headed the next day (1641).
New law.
4. The Parliament wished to take from Charles the
means of ever ruling again as he had ruled
while Strafford was his minister. They there-
fore got him to consent to many new laws, of which these
were the chief :-
(1). The Triennial Act, requiring that a new Parlia-
ment should meet at least once every three years, and
that if the king did not call a Parliament together, still
the members should be elected, and the Parliament
meet all the same.
(2). An act forbidding the king to take customs duties
without consent of Parliament.
(3). An act saying that the raising of ship money was
contrary to the laws and liberties of the kingdom and the
Petition of Right, and that the judgment given in Hamp-
den's case was against the law.
(4). An act doing away with the Court of Star Chamber.
1641.
403
The Plans of Charles.
(5). An act doing away with the Court of High Com-
mission.
5. Laud, like Strafford, was impeached of high treason,
and, though not brought to trial, was kept a prisoner
in the Tower. His work was undone, as far as Puritans in
might be. Forms and ceremonies in public power.
worship were again neglected; crucifixes, images, and
other ornaments were torn down from churches and
often broken to pieces. Nor did the desire of change stop
merely at undoing what Laud had done. The bishops
had made such a harsh use of their power, that many
Puritans now wished to do away with bishops altogether,
and to set up in their stead assemblies of ministers and
elders to rule the Church. These Presbyterians were very
numerous in London and other towns, and many mem-
bers of Parliament were on their side. Still it was very
doubtful whether they would be able to get what they
wanted, for there were many who thought that enough had
been done, and did not wish for further change.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE, AND IMPEACHMENT OF
THE FIVE MEMBERS.
The plans of
Charles.
1. IF Charles kept the new laws faithfully, he could never
rule again as he had ruled before. He would have to
meet Parliament regularly. He would have to
get money only with the consent of the House
of Commons. There would be no High Commission and
no Star Chamber to put down men who found fault with
what he did. In short Charles would have to rule as the
House of Commons wished.
Charles, though he had passed the new laws, did not
DD 2
404 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1641.
mean to follow the wishes of the House of Commons. He
might perhaps keep the laws until they stood in his way;
then he would find some means of setting them aside,
just as he had set aside the Petition of Right. His wish in
the first place was to get rid of the present Parliament.
He could not dissolve it at his own will. At the time of
Strafford's trial he had agreed to a plan to bring up
armed men to London, who would set Strafford free and
keep the Parliament in order. This plan had become
known to the Parliament, which got Charles to consent to
a law, saying that this Parliament should not be dissolved
without its own consent. Charles was now at a loss how
to get the Parliament to dissolve itself. Sometimes he
thought of making the leaders of the Commons his minis-
ters, in the hope that they would help him to bring about
a dissolution; but when he found that, even if he made
them his ministers, they yet would never obey his will, he
made up his mind to accuse them of treason. For when
its leaders were in prison, or dead, he hoped to be able
easily to rid himself of the Parliament, and get again all
the power which he had lost.
2. John Pym was looked up to as the chief leader of
the House of Commons. He had sat in many Parlia-
ments, and was now more than fifty years old.
John Pym.
He had a strong head and a strong body, and
could work, if needful, all the day and half the night as
well. He spoke well, so that men listened eagerly to his
words and believed in them. In time of danger he was
never frightened, but always saw the best course to take
and how best to calm the fears of others.
Pym knew well that dangers were soon to come, for,
though he could not tell exactly what the king's plans
were, he felt sure that by force or fraud Charles would
undo all that Parliament had done, unless some way were
found to prevent him. So Pym wished that councillors
1641.
405
The Grand Remonstrance.
judges, and all officers of state should be set up by the
Parliament and not by the king. Then these would be
men whom the Parliament could trust, and though they
would still rule in the name of the king they would follow
the wishes of the House of Commons.
3. A party friendly to the king was forming both in the
Parliament and amongst the people. Some men thought
that Charles would keep faithfully the laws A Royalist
which he had passed, whilst others were
against the changes which the Presbyterians wanted to
make in the Church. All these stood together in opposing
Pym.
party.
Rebellion
4. In the summer of 1641 Charles went to Scotland
and gave the Scots all they asked for, thinking that when
Scotland was quiet and content he should
better be able to carry out his plans in Eng- in Ireland.
land. While he was still away, terrible tidings came from
Ireland. The Irish Catholics had risen in arms and killed
the Protestant settlers-men, women, and children. Many
men in England thought that Charles had been seeking
friends in Ireland amongst the Catholics, and had had
a hand in this rising, so now they were more fearful of
trusting him than before.
The Grand
strance.
5. Pym sought a way of telling the nation that no faith
could be placed in Charles. A long remonstrance, called
the Grand Remonstrance, was brought into the
House of Commons. This drew a black picture Remon-
of Charles' government since he first came to
the throne. Then it told of the good laws which the
Parliament had made, and said that henceforth the king's
ministers must be men in whom the Parliament could
trust. There was much talk in the House of Commons
between the friends of Charles and the followers of Pym
about the passing of this remonstrance. Parliament used
then to sit only in the day-time; but they talked about
!
406 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1641.
the remonstrance till past midnight. When at last the
remonstrance was passed, a member asked that it should
be printed, and thus put into the hands of the people.
The king's friends answered him angrily, words ran very
high, and sword hilts were handled. Hampden spoke a
few words which calmed the tumult, and the House broke
up for that time (November, 1641); but afterwards the
remonstrance was printed, and the people were thus told
that the Commons had no trust in the king.
Impeach-
ment of the
five mem-
bers.
6. Charles came back to London in November. One
of his first acts was to take away a guard of London
citizens, which during his absence the Com-
mons had stationed round the doors of the
Houses of Parlament. There afterwards
gathered round him at Whitehall some five hundred
gentlemen as a guard to his person. The Commons,
fearing that some violence was intended against them-
selves, asked the king to let them have their guard
back again. Charles refused, but told them that
their safety was as much his care as the safety of his
children. The same day the king's law officer, the
Attorney-General, came into the House of Lords, and im-
peached of high treason one member of the Lords and
five members of the Commons, including Pym and
Hampden. Lords and Commons alike refused to give
up the accused members. The next morning there was
a stir and bustle at Whitehall, where the king's guard
were arming and collecting together, for the king was
about to march to the House of Commons and take the
five members out by force. The queen urged him on.
'Go, coward,' said she, 'pull those rogues out by the
ears!' A friend brought the tidings in haste to the Com-
mons, and the five members left their seats and fled to
the city of London, just a few minutes before Charles
came. Charles left his guard at the door, walked up
the House, and asked Lenthall, the Speaker of the House,
•
1042.
407
The Civil War.
where the accused members were. Lenthall fell on his
knees, and said, 'May it please your Majesty, I have
neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but
as the House is pleased to command me.' The king first
looked round the House, and then said, 'Well, since I see
all the birds are flown, I expect from you that you shall
send them unto me as soon as they return hither, other-
wise I must take my own course to find them.' He
then left the House, and went back to Whitehall with his
guard (January, 1642).
CHAPTER XII.
THE CIVIL WAR. (1642-1646.)
Royalists
and Parlia-
mentarians.
I. AFTER the failure of his attempt to seize the five mem-
bers Charles left London, meaning to get rid of the Parlia-
ment by force of arms. Though there was no
standing army in England, every county had
its militia, which could be called out in times
of danger. The officers of this force were set up by the
king. Pym and his friends had no longer any faith what-
ever in Charles, so, to take from him the means of doing
harm, they asked that Parliament should henceforth set
up the officers of the militia and all ministers of state.
Charles refused, and war began, between the king and
the Parliament in the summer of 1642. Those joined
the king who thought that the Parliament was unfairly
trying to get power into its hands. Those joined the Par-
liament who would no longer trust Charles. Friends of
the bishops were on the king's side; Presbyterians on the
side of the Parliament. The citizens of London were
Presbyterians, and firm friends to the Parliament. This
was very important, because London was by far the
largest and wealthiest city in England, and was able to
408 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1642.
find plenty of money with which to pay the Parliament's
armies. Noblemen generally fought for the king, farmers
and artisans for the Parliament. The king made Oxford

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13
CHANNEL
1
151
360)
FRANCE
1
his head-quarters. In the west of England men were
mostly on the king's side; in the east, they were mostly
on the side of the Parliament.
The line across the map divides the country which
1643.
409
Solemn League and Covenant.
was for the king from the country which was for the Par-
liament. In those counties through which the line runs
there was a great deal of fighting, as well as in Devon,
Somerset, and Wiltshire, where the Parliament had garri-
sons in many towns. The first pitched battle was fought
at Edgehill, in Warwickshire (October, 1642). Both sides
claimed a victory. In 1643 the Royalists gained many
successes. This was in great part owing to the dash and
daring of their horsemen. These were country gentlemen
and their sons, who took a pride in their horses, their arms,
and the cause for which they fought. The people called
them 'Cavaliers.' Their leader was Prince Rupert, Charles'
nephew, the son of that Prince Frederic of the Palatinate,
who had taken the crown of Bohemia and been beaten
in war by the emperor. The Parliament's horse-soldiers
were not so good, for they were mostly shopkeepers who
were not used to riding, or farmers mounted on horses
fresh from the plough, which took fright at the sound of a
pistol shot. The Parliament's troops were nicknamed
'Roundheads,' perhaps because they wore their hair
short, while the Cavaliers wore theirs long.
Solemn
League and
Covenant.
2. In the spring of 1643 the Parliament held all the
towns in the west of England which have a line under
them in the map. But during the summer and
autumn Charles took most of these, besides
Newark and other places on the Parliament's
side of the line, so that men thought that he would be able
to march on London. Gloucester, however, still held out
bravely, and while Charles was besieging it, the Parliament
got an army together and sent it into the west under the Earl
of Essex. Essex raised the siege of Gloucester, and after-
wards met and fought Charles at Newbury, in Berkshire,
and so stopped his way to London. Meanwhile Pym was
persuading the Scots to join the side of the Parliament.
410 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1643-
The Scots wished to see a Presbyterian Church like their
own set up in England. They therefore agreed to send
an army to fight against the king, on condition that the
three Churches in England, Ireland, and Scotland, should
have the same prayer-book, and be governed in the
same way. This treaty was called the Solemn League
and Covenant.
3. Pym died in December, 1643, a little before the
Scottish army came into England.
came into England. Hampden, who was a
colonel in the Parliamentary army, had died
a few months earlier of a wound received in
a skirmish fought at Chalgrove, not far from
his own home at the village of Hampden, in Buckingham-
shire.
Death of
Pym and
Hampden.
Aims of
terians.
4. When the war first broke out those members of
Parliament who did not wish to do away with bishops
took the king's side and left London. After
the Presby- they were gone the Presbyterians had much
more power in Parliament than before. They
wanted to set up assemblies of ministers and elders in
place of bishops. They wanted further to force everyone
to think as they did about religion, to worship as they did,
and to obey their Church Assemblies. If they could have
had their own way, they would have shown themselves
quite as much bent on making others do as they did as
Laud had been, and perhaps as cruel. The old arch-
bishop got no mercy from them. After being kept a pri-
soner for four years he was put to death as a traitor.
5. As it happened, however, it was not easy for the
Presbyterians to have everything their own way. For
Aims of the there was a party amongst their own friends
Sectarians. who did not care about setting up a Presby-
terian Church in England, and the longer the war lasted
the stronger this party grew. They were called Inde-
pendents. They said that each separate congregation
1644.
411
Aims of the Sectarians.
ought to be left to worship as it pleased, and to settle its
own affairs by itself, without being meddled with either
by bishops, or assemblies of elders, or any other power
whatever. The Independents were often called Sectarians
because they were divided into sects, each sect holding
some special doctrine of its own. Thus there were the
Anabaptists who did not baptize infants, and the Quakers
who thought it wrong to take oaths. Now, what we have
to notice more especially about these Independents and
Sectarians is that they had got a real idea of toleration,
that is, of letting other men hold their own opinions
instead of trying to force everyone else to think and do
as they thought and did themselves. Thus they said to
the Presbyterians: have your Presbyterian Church if you
will, only keep it to yourselves, and leave us free to wor-
ship as we will and teach our own doctrines.
As far back as the time of Elizabeth Sectarians had
been heard of. But then they had been few in number,
poor, and looked down upon. Now, in these times of war
and change, many men became Sectarians. Artisans in
those towns where wool-then the chief article of manu-
facture in England-was woven into cloth were Sectarians.
So, too, were small farmers, who owned land of their
own, of whom there were then many in England. These
Sectarians were not like other folk; they were more
earnest men, and lived even more serious lives than did
the Puritans, whom we have spoken about before. They
knew their Bibles almost by heart, and often preached
themselves, for they made no difference between ministers
and laymen.
6. The leader of the Independents in the House of
Commons was Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman of Cam-
bridgeshire. Cromwell always had his heart set on what
he was about, and wished to do his work as well as possi-
ble. Pym's plan of bringing the war to an end was to call
412 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1644.
in the Scots; but Cromwell had another plan of his own.
Your troops,' he said one day to his cousin, John Hamp-
Cromwell
and the
Ironsides.
den, 'are most of them old, decayed serving-
men, and tapsters, and such kind of fellows;
do you think that the spirits of such base and
mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen
that have honour and courage in them? You must get
men of a spirit, and take it not ill what I say I know
you will not-of a spirit that is likely to go as far as gen-
tlemen will go, or else you will be beaten still.' Crom-
well's home was in the eastern counties, where there were
many manufacturing towns, and where small farmers
were more in number than in other parts of England.
So he set about to find the men he wanted amongst Sec-
tarians, and his horse-soldiers were soon known as the
best troops in the army. They were called the Ironsides.
At first Cromwell was only a captain; but in 1644 he was
made lieutenant-general of a new army, which he had
mainly raised himself in the eastern counties. We have
next to see what this army did.
7. There was a great battle fought late one July evening,
in the year 1644, on Marston Moor, a few miles west of
York. The Scottish army was there, and
Cromwell's army, besides other forces of the
Battle of
Marston
Moor.
Parliament. The Royalist right wing was led
by Prince Rupert. On every battle-field up to this time
his Cavaliers had scattered the Parliament's horse before
them. Opposite to Rupert was set the army from the
eastern counties and a body of Scottish horse. It was
seven o'clock before the armies joined battle. Rupert at
the head of a body of Cavaliers charged Cromwell's own
troop of three hundred horse. A shot grazed Cromwell's
neck. A miss is as good as a mile,' he cried, and press-
ing on broke through the ranks of the enemy. Soon
Rupert's whole wing, horse and foot, was in full flight,
1645.
413
The Battle of Naseby.
and the Ironsides hard in chase of the Cavaliers.
After
a space Cromwell called his men together, turned back,
and fell on the Royalist centre and left wing in the rear.
These had been beating back the centre and right wing
of the Parliament's army, but now, with foes in front
and behind, they were broken, routed, and cut down
in their flight all the way to York. This was a great
victory, for it destroyed a large army of the king's, and
brought all the north country under the power of the
Parliament.
Model
army.
8. A few months after this battle was fought a great
thing was done at London. Parliament now thought it
good that the Earl of Essex and other Presby- The New
terian generals should make way for more able
and active men. Henceforth there was to be
but one army. Sir Thomas Fairfax, a friend of Crom-
well, was made by Parliament commander-in-chief. He
was a spirited and honourable gentleman, loved by his
soldiers. Cromwell himself was lieutenant-general. From
this time the army became the army of the Independents.
All drunken, lazy, plundering soldiers were turned away,
and the ranks were filled with Sectarians, who fought
to win for themselves the right to worship in their own
way.
Battle of
9. In June, 1645, this New Model army, as it was
called, met the Royalists, led by Charles, near Naseby, a
village in Northamptonshire. In both armies
the horse were on the wings and the foot Naseby.
soldiers drawn up in the centre. Prince Rupert and the
Cavaliers, who were on the right of Charles' army, beat
back the enemy's horse that was set against them, and
then, as was their wont, rode off the field, chasing the fugi-
tives or looking after plunder. Meanwhile, on the other
side of the battle-field, Cromwell and the Ironsides, having
first routed Charles' left wing of horse, turned and fell upon
་
414 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1646-
the flank of his centre. Up to this time the foot soldiers
on neither side had given way. But now the king's men,
charged by the enemy in front and flank, were at last
broken and turned to flight. Rupert came back only to see
his friends beaten. 'Face about once,' Charles cried;
give one charge more and recover the day;' but he could
no longer get his men to rally, and so had to join the flight.
After this battle the war was soon brought to an end, for
many Royalists were killed and many taken prisoners,
and Charles could never again get a large army together.
Fairfax led his troops into the west, and forced one
Royalist garrison to surrender after another. Charles,
rather than give himself up to the Parliament, sought a
refuge with the Scottish army (April, 1646).
Charles.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ARMY AND THE PARLIAMENT.
I. CHARLES had been fairly beaten, still he had no
thought of giving way and consenting to rule on his
The aims of enemies' terms. He would not agree to let
the Parliament set up officers of the militia
and ministers of state. He would not promise the Pres-
byterians to set up a Presbyterian Church in England;
he would not promise the soldiers to let Sectarians have
freedom to worship in their own way. His plan was to
spend time talking over terms; meanwhile to stir up
the dislike which the Presbyterians felt to the Indepen-
dents, to get them to fight one another, and while
they fought he hoped that he should get back all he had
lost.
2. When the Scots found that Charles would not agree
to set up a Presbyterian Church in England, they gave him
1649.
415
The Second Civil War.
Possibly, if
up to the English Parliament, and went back to their
own country (January, 1647). Many months went by,
while the Parliament and the army officers Second civil
and the king talked over terms.
Charles had been honest, some agreement might have
been come to. But all the time he was really wishing to
get the two parties to fight one another. More than once
the citizens of London and the soldiers nearly came to
blows. At last Charles managed to call in the Scots.
The Scots were angry because the Independents had got
so much power in England. They therefore agreed to
bring an army into England to fight for Charles, and
Charles in return promised them that he would set up a
Presbyterian Church in England for three years, and
would not let Sectarians worship in their own way.
The Scots marched into England in the spring of
1648, and the English Royalists rose at the same time.
But this new war did not last many months. Cromwell
gave the Scots two great defeats at Preston and Warring-
ton in Lancashire (August, 1648). Fairfax put down the
Royalists.
The soldiers came back to London bent on putting
Charles to death, for they thought that he was a bad,
deceitful man, and that so long as he lived he would be
always plotting to get back his lost power and stirring up
new wars. Kings, they said, had their power from the
people; if they used it ill the people could take it away
from them, and punish them for their evil deeds.
3. In the Parliament the Presbyterians were more in
number than the Independents and other friends of the
army. They still looked on Charles as their Pride's
lawful king, whose throne and life were sacred, purge.
and were horrified at the thought of putting him to
death. The soldiers, however, meant to put out of the
House of Commons those who would not do as they
416 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1649-
wanted, for they desired to act not in their own name,
but in the name of the Parliament. An officer, Colonel
Pride, set soldiers at the door of the Commons House,
and roughly turned away about a hundred Presbyterians.
These days were henceforth known as the days of Pride's
purge. Some fifty-three members only were left, who
named 135 persons to form a high court of justice, and
try the king as guilty of treason.
The king's
trial and
death.
4. The trial from first to last had only a form of justice,
by which the soldiers hid from themselves the violence
of what they were doing. They might just as
well have shot Charles without giving him
any trial, as have turned a hundred members
out of the House of Commons. When Charles came
before the court, Westminster Hall was thronged with
peeple weeping and praying for him. He would not
speak a word in his own defence, saying truly enough
that the court had no right to try him in the name of the
people of England, because the people of England had
not set it up. Some of the friends of the army would
sooner have seen Charles put away from being king,
than put to death. Of the 135 members of the court,
only sixty-three were there. Cromwell was one of them,
but Fairfax stayed away. When his name was called,
a woman's voice-it was his wife's-called out, 'He is
not here and never will be; you do wrong to name him.'
Charles was beheaded on a scaffold built in the open
street, outside the palace of Whitehall (Jan. 1649.) He
met his death very calmly and quietly, for he believed
that he died in a good cause, and that he had been right
even in practising deceit to get back his crown.
It was
just that practice of deceit, however, which made the
soldiers put him to death. The people pitied the fate of
their king, and from the moment of his death forgave the
things that he had done which once had angered them.
1650.
417
The Commonwealth.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE COMMONWEALTH.
Conquest of
Ireland and
Scotland,
I. THE House of Lords had refused to take any part in
the proceedings that led to the trial of the king. The
Commons, therefore, had declared that their
House had the power of making laws by
itself and afterwards set up the High Court of
Justice in its own name alone. The fifty or sixty mem-
bers who after Pride's Purge were all who still sat in the
House of Commons, had thus in fact made themselves
sole rulers of the country. Shortly after the king's death
they did away in form with monarchy and also with the
House of Lords, and called the government a Common-
wealth. They had many enemies. In England, as well
as in Ireland and Scotland, men grieved that the king
had been put to death, and would now have liked to
place on the throne his eldest son, a second Charles,
who had fled to the Continent for safety. He could
not be set up in England as king, for the army would
have no king. But in Ireland Protestants and Catholics
joined together in sending for Prince Charles to come
amongst them. While he was still on his way, Cromwell
went to Ireland with an army. He took by storm
the two towns of Drogheda and Wexford, and slew all
the fighting men who were in them. After this he got
the greater part of Ireland under his power and then came
back to England (May, 1650). Charles had changed his
mind when he heard what was being done in Ireland,
and had gone instead to Scotland, where the Scots took
him to be their king. Fairfax did not care to fight
the Scots, so Cromwell was made general in his place.
He marched into Scotland, and in the autumn gained
a great victory near Dunbar (September, 1650). The
next year Charles marched into England, leaving Crom-
E. H.
E E
418 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1649-
well behind him in Scotland. He hoped that the people
would rise in arms to fight for him. But they did not
do so because they were weary of civil war, and did not
believe that he would be able to beat Cromwell. Mean-
while Cromwell followed him close, and surrounded him
in Worcester by double his numbers. The battle raged
on two sides of the town at once. The Scots fought
bravely, but in the end the English forced their way into
the streets, cut down the Scots by hundreds, and utterly
defeated them (September, 1651). Charles had to ride
hard for his life. He reached the house of a Catholic
gentleman, cut off his long hair, put on peasant's clothes,
and hid himself for a whole day amid the branches of a
large oak, whence he saw the soldiers pass by who were
searching about for himself. After running many risks he
reached the coast of Sussex, and found a vessel which
bore him in safety to France.
Standing armies were now kept up both in Ireland
and Scotland, so that these two countries had to submit
in all things to the will of their conquerors.
and the
Commons
disagree.
2. The officers of the army and the members of the
Commons both wished to set up a just and good govern-
The officers ment, in which the people should share by elect-
ing members of Parliament at stated times.
But they could not agree what was the right
thing to be done. The Commons said that they must go
on ruling until the people had got to be wiser than to wish
for a Stuart king. Cromwell and his fellow-officers said
that this House ought to dissolve itself, and make way for
an entirely new assembly. They thought that it had sat
too long already, and had too much power in its hands.
The members ruled free of all control, for there was none
who had a right to call them to answer for what they did;
and though many of them acted honourably and justly,
yet the House as a body did not use its powers well.
1653.
419
Barebone's Parliament.
Heavy taxes were raised and the money was wasted, and
many harsh and unjust acts were done.
At first he
The Long
Parliament
turned out.
3. As the Commons would not dissolve themselves,
Cromwell took a guard of soldiers and went to Parlia-
ment House one day in April, 1653. He left the soldiers
outside, but came himself into the House.
praised the members, but as he spoke he got
angry and excited, and soon began charging
them with injustice, self-seeking, and other
faults. The members angrily interrupted him. 'The
Lord hath done with you,' he cried; 'I tell you, you are
no Parliament, you must give place to better men.' Then
he called in the soldiers to turn the members out by force,
if they would not go of themselves. 'What shall we do
with this bauble?' he said, taking up the mace which lay
on the table of the House of Commons; and then handing
it to a soldier said, 'Take it away.' After this the mem-
bers left the House, reproaching Cromwell as they went.
Barebone's
Parliament.
4. The same year Cromwell and the officers called to-
gether an assembly of 165 persons, which was nicknamed
Barebone's Parliament, from the name of one
of the members, Praise God Barebone, a
leather-seller in Fleet Street. Most of the members were
Sectarians. They wanted, as did many of the soldiers,
to make changes in the laws and customs of the country.
Their fault was that they tried to do more than then
could be done, and to destroy rather than to mend.
Some of the members themselves were against the
changes which their companions were making, and after
a short time the House gave back its powers into the
hands of Cromwell (December, 1653).
EE 2
420 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1653-
CHAPTER XV.
THE PROTECTORATE.
I. INDEPENDENTS, officers, and other late friends of the
Commonwealth, now agreed in thinking that the only
way to set up a good and settled government
Cromwell
Protector.
was to make Cromwell ruler. So, in December,
1653, Cromwell, already general of the army, became
head of the State also, with the title of Protector. He
agreed to keep the laws and to call Parliaments regularly.
Cromwell's
character
and aims.
2. Cromwell was of middle height, his features were
rough, and his skin tanned brown by wind and weather.
He was a man of strong feelings and of strong
beliefs; very loving to his wife and children;
easily made angry at the sight of wrong or
injustice. He seemed by nature born to rule. He knew
how to make himself obeyed and feared; he knew also how
to win men's trust and love. He was not easily deceived,
for he quickly read the minds of others. Though eager
to set right what he thought to be amiss, he was never
carried away by his zeal, for he saw that changes could
not last unless the people themselves wished for them.
As a ruler, Cromwell set before him two chief aims; the
one was to guard for Sectarians the right to worship in
their own way and teach their own beliefs; the other was
to set up a good and free government which should win
the good-will of all men, even if possible of Royalists.
The Protector had not many friends. Not only were
the old Royalists, and the new Royalists, the Presby-
terians, against him, but he found enemies amongst
men who were on the same side as himself. Thus there
were members of the Long Parliament who could not
forgive him for having turned them out, but looked on
him as a bad man who sought power for himself.
3. When Cromwell met his first Parliament, there was
T
1658.
421
The Protectorate.
Cromwell's
only one House, a House of Commons. He and it could
not agree together, and he dissolved it with-
out its making a single law or giving him any first Parlia
money (January, 1655).
ment.
Cromwell
rules with-
4. After this Cromwell paid no heed to the laws, but
took taxes of his own will, and set officers of the army to
keep order in place of the ordinary magis-
trates. And, as there were many plots and
conspiracies against both his life and govern-
ment, he often put persons in prison without giving any
reason. Indeed the Petition of Right was broken every day.
out heed to
law.
Cromwell's
5. But this was not the way in which Cromwell wished
to rule. The desire of his heart was to set up a free govern-
ment, in which the people should take part.
He failed, because the people did not care for second Par-
him or his aims. They were weary of the rule liament.
of Puritans, and wanted back their old Church and
government. Cromwell called a second Parliament in
December, 1656. It did not, however, really represent
the nation. Men who had fought against the Long Par-
liament were not let sit in any of Cromwell's Parliaments;
and to make sure that this assembly should agree with him,
Cromwell turned out of the House a hundred members, who
were his enemies. Then the Parliament voted taxes and
made laws. It even wished to give the Protector the title
of king. Left to himself Cromwell might have taken it,
for he thought the people would sooner have a king, as in
old times, than a protector to reign over them. But the
officers and soldiers would not hear of his doing so. They
had they said fought against one king, and they would
not have another. Cromwell told them that the title was
a mere feather in a man's hat, and that there was no
good reason for their objections; but he had to refuse
the title of King, for he dared not anger his soldiers.
At the next meeting of this Parliament, in 1658,
Cromwell let the hundred members who were before
I
422 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1653-
shut out take their seats. Then he and the Parliament
disagreed, and he dissolved it before it had sat three
weeks.
Success of
Cromwell's
govern-
ment.
6. Cromwell could not get the nation to support him
in his place. Still as a ruler he was very successful. His
hand and eye were everywhere. He crushed
plots, and kept good order throughout the
land. He picked out able men for his com-
manders, judges, and other officers. He planned wise
measures for putting right what was wrong in the law
and in the Church, also for setting forward education,
and increasing trade. Amongst other things, he called
to sit in each of his Parliaments members from Ireland
and Scotland, so that England, Scotland, and Ireland
were all brought together under one rule as they are to-
day. The Protector's rule besides being wise was also
just, and in the main merciful; for, though his temper
was hasty, Cromwell was also generous and forgiving.
His wish always was to win his enemies over to his
side.
7. The Puritans, who had now been ruling in England
for some twelve years, had made use of power to try and
force other people to live the same serious,
Changes
made by the quiet life they liked to live themselves. The
Puritans. Long Parliament had shut up the theatres,
and ordered actors to be whipped. Laws had been made
punishing the country folk who held wrestling matches
on their village green, or raised May-poles and danced
round them, as had been the fashion of their fathers for
centuries. No kind of game might be played on Sunday.
Even Christmas-day was changed from a feast into a
solemn fast. Gamblers, swearers, and drunkards were
fined heavily.
The Puritans had made great changes, too, in the go-
vernment and services of the Church. The office of bishop
1658.
423
Rule of the Puritans.
had been done away with. The use of the common
prayer-book had been made a crime. Ministers who were
against these changes had been forced to leave their
livings. Their places had been taken by Presbyterians
and Independents, who carried on the services in a plain
and simple manner. Though a true idea of letting others
think and act for themselves had sprung up amongst
Puritans, it was only partly carried out. Quakers and
other Sectarians might set up meeting-houses of their
own, but neither Episcopalians nor Catholics were free
to worship as they pleased. Cromwell, while he was
protector, let Episcopalians and Catholics hold services
of their own in private, but few of his party were willing
to do so.
8. Thus we see that the Puritans, like Laud, could
not leave others to do what they thought best for them-
selves. Hence they too were now much dis- The Puri-
liked by the people. Hundreds, who had tans disliked
disliked the changes made by Laud, disliked quite as
much the changes made by them. Young folks, who had
grown up since the war began, did not see why they
should not choose their own kind of life. The people
generally were wishing for the old form of Church service
back again.
John Milton
9. Still, whatever were the faults of the Puritans, they
had done really good work. They had hated vice, and
called on all men to do their duty, and had
striven to act rightly in the every-day affairs
of life. And if we would think of a Puritan such as he
was at his best, we may think of John Milton. Milton
was the poet of the Puritans. He was born in 1608, just
eight years before Shakespeare died. From his earliest
childhood he was a lover of learning, and he was a lover
also of all that was beautiful in nature and in art, but
most of all he loved truth and purity. He thought that
424 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1649–
the most beautiful thing there was was a human soul kept
free from sin, and that the greatest victory a man could
gain was a victory over his own evil desires. When the
civil war broke out Milton took part with the Long Par-
liament against the king. Then instead of poetry he
wrote books in prose, in which he treated of the govern-
ment of the Church, and other questions of that time.
He found great fault with the bishops and with the Pres-
byterians because they would have men do as they did,
and think as they thought. He also called on the Parlia-
ment to let men write and publish what they pleased.
The Parliament, he said, ought not to fear because men
thought new thoughts and held new beliefs, for this did
but show that England, 'like a strong man after sleep,'
was rousing herself to do great deeds. After Cromwell's
death, when a Stuart was on the throne, Milton could no
more write on questions which had to do with the govern-
ment of Church or State. Then he again wrote poems.
But his later poems are graver in spirit than his earlier
ones, for the times he had lived through had made him a
graver man, and he wrote while his friends were dying
on the scaffold, and the work which they had done was
being undone.
North
American
Colonies.
CHAPTER XVI.
WAR AND COMMERCE.
i. DURING the first ten years of the reign of James I.,
English merchants made use of the new route by the
Cape of Good Hope to trade with India and
the East India islands. It was also during
the reign of James I. that colonies were first
planted on the coast of North America.
land States were colonised by Puritans.
The New Eng-
The first comers
1660.
425
War and Commerce.
were a little band of persecuted Sectarians, who sailed in
the 'May Flower' to the coast of what is now Massa-
chusetts. They there founded a town which they
called Plymouth, after the name of the last English port
at which they touched (1620). After these 'Pilgrim
Fathers' had cleared the way, there soon came to New
England a stream of Puritan emigrants. Between the
years 1629 and 1640, while Charles was ruling without
Parliaments, 20,000 Englishmen sought new homes in
the West.

74
73
72
71
TO
Hudson, R.
Housatonic R
Providence
16360
ONNECTICUT
1635
Newhaven.
91638
DE
Boston
1630
PURITAN
SETTIEMENTS
IN
NEW ENGLAND
Massachusetts Bay
C.Coa
S
Plymouth
1629
Montauk P
1
41
73
72
71
70
2. The Dutch, who were a nation of seamen and
traders, grew jealous at the spread of English commerce,
which took place after the founding of these War with
colonies and the opening of the trade with Holland.
India. Soon after the king's death a war broke out
between England and Holland, which lasted two years
(1652-1653). In the end the Dutch were beaten. Crom-
well, as soon as he became protector, made peace with
them.
426 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1651–
Cromwell
and foreign
princes.
3. Foreign princes would not at first look on the men
who put their king to death as lawful rulers. But after the
Dutch were beaten, they began to dread the
power of the English navy, and eagerly sought
the friendship of England. When Cromwell
was protector, he was much feared, for he had a large
fleet, and a standing army, and had given proof of his
wisdom and valour. In all his dealings with foreign
princes Cromwell set before him the aim of doing all he
could for the good of Protestants, and sometimes he was
able to do a great deal. The Duke of Savoy tried by
means of a cruel persecution to force the Vaudois, his
Protestant subjects living in the Alpine valleys, to become
Catholics. Lewis XIV., the king of France, wanted to
make an alliance with England, but Cromwell would sign
no treaty unless Lewis first got the duke to stop the
persecution. So the duke had to give way and let his
subjects worship God as they chose (1655).
4. France and Spain were rival powers and often at
war with one another. Cromwell took the side of France
War with
against Spain. For when he wanted the king
Spain.
of Spain to give Englishmen leave to trade to
the West Indies and use their Bibles in his dominions,
the Spanish ambassador said, that to ask these things
( was to ask his master's two eyes.' In the war which
followed, the island of Jamaica was taken from Spain
and turned into an English colony (1655).
In 1657
Cromwell sent 6,000 troops to help Lewis XIV. in making
war in the Netherlands against the king of Spain. In
return Lewis besieged Dunkirk, which was held by a
Spanish garrison, and when the town surrendered made
it over to England (1658).
5. Though men would still have liked to set Prince
Charles on the throne, yet they were content to submit
to the Protector, because they found that he ruled
1660.
427
Charles called to England.
well at home, and got for their country a great name
abroad. But it was now that Cromwell's rule was brought
to an end by death. Soon after Dunkirk was
Death of
made over by Lewis, Cromwell's health broke Oliver.
down. On his death-bed his thoughts ran on what would
be the future of England after he was gone. 'I would
be willing,' he said, 'to live to be further serviceable to
God and His people, but my work is done. But God
will be with His people.' He died in September, 1658,
at the age of 59.
6. Richard Cromwell, Oliver's eldest son, became pro-
tector on his father's death.
He was a good-natured
young man, who meant well, but did not know
Richard
Cromwell
Protector.
how to make himself obeyed. The officers
The officers
did not care for him because he was no soldier,
After a few months they took power into their own hands,
and called together those members of the Long Parlia-
ment who had put the king to death, and whom Oliver
had turned out in 1653. The people in scorn nicknamed
them the Rump. The members of the Rump soon quar-
relled with the officers, and for a time the country seemed
to be without any proper government at all.
Charles
called to
England.
7. When the people saw all these changes taking
place, and the soldiers doing as they would, pulling down
one government and setting up another, they
became more eager than before to have
Charles Stuart to reign over them. And, as
it happened, General Monk, who commanded the army
in Scotland, was willing to carry out their wishes, for he
saw that there was no one who could rule as Oliver had
ruled, and that it was not well for the soldiers to be
masters in England. Monk marched from Scotland
at the head of such troops as he thought he could trust.
When he got to London he sent unto the House of
Commons, to take their seats by the side of the members
•
428 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1660-
of the Rump, those Presbyterians whom Colonel Pride
had turned out in December 1648. These dissolved the
Parliament, thus at last bringing it to an end by its own
act (March, 1660). A new Parliament met, which asked
Charles Stuart to come to England. The soldiers had
no leader in whom they could trust, so they submitted
sullenly to see Charles brought back. It is my own
fault,' said the new king, 'that I have not come back
sooner, for I find nobody who does not tell me he has
always wished for my return' (May, 1660).
The soldiers
sent to their
homes.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE RESTORATION.
I. OLD Royalists, Presbyterians, as well as many of
Oliver's supporters, had all joined together in making
Charles II. king. Only the soldiers, the
members of the Rump, and a few other men
had stood aloof. These were not very many
in number. The soldiers, however, were dangerous be-
cause they had arms in their hands and knew how
to fight. So the Parliament voted a grant of money,
and the whole army, excepting three regiments, was
at once paid off and the soldiers were sent to their
homes. Men who had taken any part in the trial and
execution of Charles I. were imprisoned for life or put to
death.
2. While the Puritans ruled, a sober and quiet man-
ner of life had been the fashion. When Charles came
back a gay and careless life came into fashion. This
1667.
429
The Cavalier Parliament.
was especially the case in London. The
who was fond of pleasure, led openly a bad
life, and his ministers and courtiers followed
his example.
new king,
Change in
manners.
Laws
Puritans.
3. Other changes, too, took place after the return of
Charles. Only those laws to which Charles I. had given
his consent were any longer held to be bind-
ing. All the laws made by the Long Parlia- against
ment by itself, or by Cromwell and his Parlia-
ments, came to an end. England, Scotland, and Ireland
again had their separate Parliaments; the bishops were
again the governors of the Church, and it was again a
crime to be present at any service where the common
prayer-book was not used. In the Parliament which
called Charles to England many Presbyterians had
seats. Charles soon dissolved this Parliament and called
a second. It met in 1661, and, as we shall see, was not
dissolved for many years. It is called the Cavalier Parlia-
ment, because nearly all the members belonged to families
who had from the first breaking out of the civil war taken
the side of the king. All Puritans were hateful to them
as the destroyers of their Church. They now passed
harsh laws to keep down the Puritans, and prevent them
from ever again getting power into their hands. They
shut Puritans out from holding offices in towns; they
fined, put in prison, and even transported those who met
to worship together in their own way. Ministers who
would not give 'their assent and consent' to everything
that was in the prayer-book, lost their livings, nor might
they keep schools, or live in towns sending members
to Parliament, unless they would say it was unlawful to
act like the Long Parliament and take up arms against
a king.
Though a dark day had come for the Puritans, their
430 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1660-
enemies could not undo all that they had done. Their
teaching, their ideas of right and wrong, were still
cherished even by many who were content with the ser-
vices of the established Church. Of all the writers of
the Restoration, two Puritans have had the largest num-
ber of readers. It was during these years of persecution
that John Bunyan, a Sectarian in prison in Bedford Gaol,
wrote the 'Pilgrim's Progress'; and that Milton, now blind
and old, wrote his great poems of Paradise Lost' and
'Paradise Regained.'
Puritans
called Dis-
4. From this time Puritans had to give up all hope of
making the Church of England their Church, as they
had done under the Long Parliament and
Oliver. So now Presbyterians as well as Sec-
senters. tarians asked for liberty to go their own way,
and leave the established Church alone. Henceforth,
therefore, they were no longer called Puritans but Dis-
senters, because they wished to dissent from the worship
of the established Church, and have chapels of their
own. Though the Dissenters now were persecuted, we
shall see in the end how they got what they asked for.
the Parlia-
ment.
5. Government by a king and Parliament seemed to
the members of the Cavalier Parliament the best form of
Views of
government possible. All the changes and
sufferings which the country had gone through
since 1641 they laid to the score of the Long
Parliament, which had taken up arms against Charles I.
But though the members were very fond of their king,
they thought a great deal of themselves besides, and -
meant that Parliaments should have just as much power
as they ever had before. So they were not willing to let
Charles have a large standing army like Oliver, nor did
they give him money enough of his own to set him free
from the need of asking Parliament for more.
6. We must see what Charles was like, and what were
1667.
431
Charles II.
He
Character
Charles II.
the aims which he set before him. Charles was thirty
years old when he came to the throne.
liked to take life easily, and to enjoy himself. and aims of
He was a clever and witty talker; his man-
ners were pleasant, and he was always liked by the
people in London, who were glad to see him sauntering in
St. James' Park, feeding the ducks and playing with his
spaniels. Charles was, however, a thoroughly selfish man.
He did not care what means he took to gain his ends.
He often deceived his ministers as to what he really
meant to do, for he was a clever deceiver. He thought
that everyone was either a dupe or a hypocrite.
Charles could not hope to rule without Parliaments.
Still he wished to be free of the control of Parliament
and to be able to spend money, and have his own way,
without being called to answer for what he did by the
Commons. He wished also to have a standing army
like his cousin, Lewis XIV., the king of France.
About religion Charles cared little, but, in his heart,
he seems to have thought that the Roman Catholic
form of religion was the best. If he could get tolera-
tion for Catholics by giving toleration to Dissenters also
he was willing to do so. Still Charles II. was not a man
who runs into danger. Plenty of money, toleration for
Catholics, a standing army-these were the three things
which he thought most worth getting, but he would not
risk his crown for them or for anything else. As he was
once heard to say, he did not mean to go on his travels
again. It was always well to give way and wait until the
right time came.
7. In the course of a very few years the Parliament
began to go against the king.
In 1664 War with
Charles went to war with the Dutch. At first the Dutch,
1664-1667.
the English gained the advantage, but after-
wards they were less successful. This displeased the
432 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1660--
Commons, who had voted large sums for carrying on the
war. They thought, and thought truly, that the king spent
the money on his own amusements at Whitehall, instead
of fitting out ships and paying his soldiers and sailors;
so they made Charles let them look through his account
books to see how the money which they gave him was
spent. In 1667, while Charles' fleet was laid up for want
of repairs, the Dutch sailed up the Medway as far as
Chatham and burned three English men-of-war. After
this, peace had to be made with the Dutch upon their
own terms.
The Plague
and the
Fire.
8. While the Dutch war lasted, two great calamities
befell London. Owing to the neglected state of the streets,
and the dirty habits of the people, towns and
villages were often visited with plagues. None,
however, within man's memory was so fatal
to life as the Great Plague of 1665. It was reckoned that
one out of every ten of the inhabitants of London died.
The Great Plague was followed by a great fire. For three
days and three nights the flames burned on without
stopping, and at the end of that time two-thirds of London
was in ashes. The old houses had been of timber; the
new houses were built of brick. The present domed
cathedral of St. Paul was built on the site of the old one,
which stood in the middle of the part where the fire raged
(1666).
Fall of
Clarendon.
•
9. Heavy taxes, the Dutch war, the plague and the
fire all came together, bringing much distress after them.
The king's chief minister had to answer. This
was the Lord Chancellor, Edward Hyde, Earl
of Clarendon. In his youth Hyde had sat in the Long
Parliament, and had taken part in the impeachment of
Strafford. He had afterwards become a Royalist, and was
with Charles II. in his exile. He was now much disliked,
both because he had got Charles to sell Dunkirk to Lewis
1667.
433
The Treaty of Dover.
XIV., and because he had gone against the enquiry made
by the Commons into the king's accounts. Charles him-
self was tired of his minister; for though Clarendon did
not wish that the king should have to give way to the
wishes of the Commons, his notions were too old-fashioned
to let him like the thought of keeping up a standing army,
or of letting Catholics or Dissenters worship as they
chose. Being impeached by the Commons of high treason
(1667), he fled to France, where he soon afterwards died.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OPPOSITION BETWEEN KING AND PARLIAMENT.
The Triple
Alliance and
Treaty of
Dover.
1. To understand what took place in England, we must
see what was passing on the other side of the Channel.
A hundred years ago Spain had been the
most powerful country on the Continent. But
since that time France had risen to hold the
place once held by Spain. Lewis XIV. was very power-
ful and very ambitious. He wanted to conquer the
Netherlands, which belonged to Spain, as well as other
territories bordering France on the east and north-east,
and thus to make his kingdom reach to the banks of the
Rhine. Men in England greatly feared the power of
Lewis. They were therefore glad when in 1668 Charles
made an alliance, called the Triple Alliance, between
England, Holland, and Sweden, to force Lewis to make
peace with Spain. Charles, however, did not really care
about standing against Lewis nearly so much as about
having plenty of money, and being free of the control of
Parliament. Lewis soon found this out, and he and
Charles made an agreement together. Lewis agreed to
E. H.
F F
434 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1668-
give Charles money, and Charles agreed to join Lewis in
making war on Holland by land and sea, and to declare
himself a Catholic. This treaty, which was made at
Dover, was of course kept secret; only two of the king's
ministers, who themselves were Catholics, knew of it
(1670).
of Indul-
gence.
2. Charles never dared call himself a Catholic. Still
he thought he might do something for Catholics, and
published what was called a Declaration of
Declaration
Indulgence, permitting Catholics to worship
in private, and Dissenters both in public and
private, in their own way. People at once asked what
right the king had to set aside or suspend all the Acts of
Parliament which forbade Dissenters and Catholics to
worship in their own way. The next time Parliament met,
the Commons called the Declaration unlawful, and would
not give Charles any money until he withdrew it (1673).
The Test
Act.
3. At the same time that Charles published the Decla-
ration of Indulgence he went to war with Holland (1672).
Though the secret treaty was not known of,
everybody thought that some league had been
made between Charles, Lewis, and the Catholics to let -
Charles rule by means of a standing army, and over-
throw the Protestant religion. Charles was getting
together an army to invade Holland. It was said that
the officers were all Catholics. The Commons, wish-
ing to drive them out of office, got Charles to give
his consent to a law, which said that all persons hold-
ing office in the state were to take the sacrament-
according to the rites of the Church of England, and
swear that they did not believe the Romish doctrine of
the change in substance of the bread and wine into
our Lord's body and blood (1673). This new law
went by the name of the Test Act, for it tested who
were Catholics. James, the Duke of York, the king's
brother, was a Catholic. So he had to give up his post of
1674.
435
Opposition in Parliament.
Lord Admiral. Many other officers had to give up their
posts. When it was seen how many Catholics had been
in office Protestants became more frightened than before.
The Commons would no longer give money for making
war on the Dutch, a Protestant people, manfully fighting
Lewis in spite of great odds. To content them Charles
had to make peace with Holland, and turn two of his
ministers out of office (1674).
Opposition
in Parlia
ment.
4. The king's attempt to give Catholics liberty of
worship had failed, and had only made Protestants dislike
and fear them more than before. For men
thought that Charles was a Catholic, and that
his aim was to govern by the aid of Catholics
without heeding the wishes of Parliament. The more
eager, therefore, he showed himself to do something for
Catholics, the more eager the Parliament became to keep
the laws in force. On the other hand, Dissenters were
not feared so much as they had been fourteen years ago.
It was seen that Charles was trying to get their aid against
the Parliament by setting aside the laws against them.
Many Churchmen, therefore, had come round to think
that it would be well for Protestants to overlook differ-
ences between themselves and stand together as friends,
for the sake of the Protestant faith and the power of
Parliament. Even in the Cavalier Parliament the Dis-
senters found friends, willing to pass an Act of Parlia-
ment in their favour. There were also other signs of
change. People were so afraid of what Charles might
do, that they again began to say that it was lawful to take
up arms in defence of the Protestant religion, of laws
and liberties. So the Cavalier Parliament split into two
parties. The larger party still held that it was unlawful
to take up arms against a king; but the smaller party,
which was also friendly to the Dissenters, held that it
was lawful to go against a king, if he used his power ill.
FF 2
436 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1675-
The leader of this smaller party was Antony Ashley
Cooper. He was a little man, of a restless spirit, very
clever, very ambitious, and, like other statesmen of his
time, very heedless what he did to gain his ends. Once
he had served Cromwell, but after the Restoration he had
become Charles' minister, and had been made Earl of
Shaftesbury. Charles kept secret from him that he had
promised Lewis to declare himself a Catholic, for he
knew that, although Shaftesbury wanted to do something
for Dissenters, he did not like Catholics. Perhaps
Shaftesbury found out what the king had done, but at
any rate he suddenly took part against him, speaking in
Parliament against the Declaration of Indulgence and
the war with Holland. Charles turned him out of office,
and then he became the leader of Charles' opponents in
Parliament.
5. There was now a great aim, which Shaftesbury
set before him. Charles had no children by his wife
The aims of Catherine of Braganza, a princess of Portugal.
The heir to the throne was the king's brother,
Shaftes-
bury.
James, the Duke of York, who had declared
himself a Catholic. Shaftesbury made up his mind that,
if he could help it, no Catholic should sit on the English
throne. But it was hard to shut James out. The mem-
bers of the Commons were, it was true, in a very ill-
temper with Charles, because they thought him a bad
Protestant. Still, most of them believed that kings had
their power from God, and that it was wrong to take it
away from them. However much afraid of Catholics,
therefore, they would never pass an Act of Parliament
to shut James, the next heir, out from the throne. So
Shaftesbury set to work to force Charles to dissolve this
Parliament and call a new one, for he thought that, when
new elections were held, the electors would choose mem-
bers who would do the things which he wished done.
6. We must see what Charles and Lewis were about.
1678.
437
Charles and Lewis.
Charles
with Lewis
Charles had money given him by Lewis every year, on
condition that he did not go to war with
France. After a time, however, he began to quarrels
draw further away from Lewis and nearer to
his own Parliament. His brother James had married
Anne Hyde, the daughter of that Earl of Clarendon who
was impeached in 1667. Their children, Mary and Anne,
had been brought up Protestants. Charles now agreed
to a marriage between Mary and William, the Prince of
Orange, his nephew (1677), who had lately become Stadt-
holder, or President of the Dutch Republic, and who was
Lewis' ablest and most bitter enemy. Charles after-
wards told the Commons that he was ready to go to war
with Lewis, if needful, to force him to make peace with
Spain. The Commons were glad at the thought of a war
with France, and voted the king a large sum of money.
It is hard to say whether Charles really meant to go to
war with France. But he got a grant of money, and an
excuse for raising an army to use against the Parliament,
if need were.
Lewis and
tion.
7. When Lewis saw Charles making up to the Parlia-
ment, and talking of war with France, he became angry
and alarmed. The Earl of Danby, at this
time Charles' chief minister, often bribed the Opposi-
members of Parliament not to act against the
king's wishes. To ward off danger, Lewis did the same
thing, giving money to the followers of Shaftesbury, and
promising to try and get Charles to dissolve the Parlia-
ment, if they would stop his going to war with France.
8. As soon as Charles had got together an army, men
were frightened lest he should use it against the Parlia-
ment, and would gladly have seen the soldiers The Popish
sent home again. But when the Commons plot.
wanted Charles to do this he refused, saying he needed
the army to keep the country in a state of defence. While
people were in this uneasy and suspicious state of mind,
438 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1678-
a man, named Titus Oates, came forward with a long
story about a Popish plot (1678). The king, he said, was
going to be murdered and the Catholics to make them-
selves rulers. Now this story was most likely untrue from
beginning to end. But it was believed, because it fell in
with what everybody was thinking at the time, that there
was some plot against the Parliament and the Protestant
faith. Oates had only to say here is the plot, and all were
ready to join in the cry.
Catholics
shut out of
the House
of Lords.
9. When Parliament met again, Shaftesbury made use
of the terror the members were in to get a new Test Act
passed, which would shut Catholics out of the
House of Lords. While Elizabeth was queen,
an Act of Parliament had been made ordering
members of the House of Commons to take the oath of
Supremacy, which said that the queen was supreme
governor of the realm, and that the pope had no power
in it. But members of the House of Lords had not had
to take this oath. By the new Act, all members of
Parliament had to take the oath, and to say besides that
the worship of saints was idolatrous, and that they did not
believe the doctrine of the change of the bread and wine
into Christ's body and blood. The Lords, while the bill
was passing through their House, put in some words to
say that the Duke of York need not say this, but other
Catholic Peers had henceforth to deny their religion or
stay away from Parliament.
10. Lewis now took his
threatening France with war.
Dissolution
ment.
revenge on Charles for
The Earl of Danby had
written very unwillingly, by Charles' command,
of Parlia- a letter asking Lewis to give Charles money.
Lewis had this letter laid before the Com-
mons, who at once impeached Danby. Charles, to
save his minister, did the thing which Shaftesbury wished
him to do, and dissolved the Parliament (December,
1678).
1679.
439
Exclusion Bills.
Tories.
II. About this time two words came into use, which
long lasted as the names of two parties in England. Those
who said that James, though a Catholic, ought Whigs and
to reign were nicknamed Tories, after some
bands of wild Irish Catholics, called Tories. Those who
wished to shut James out from the throne, because he
was not a Protestant, were nicknamed Whigs, after some
bands of Presbyterians called Whiggamores, who were in
arms in Scotland. The Tories, or people who wished
James to reign, were the clergy of the established Church,
and all others who said that kings had their power
from God, and might not be withstood by force of arms.
The Whigs, or people who wished James not to reign, were
the Dissenters, and all others who held that kings might
be withstood by force of arms, if laws and liberties were
in danger.
CHAPTER XIX.
EXCLUSION BILLS AND THE POPISH PLOT.
Exclusion
Bills.
I. CHARLES called another Parliament in 1679. The peo-
ple were so afraid of Catholics that every-
where the electors chose Whigs to sit in the
House of Commons. Charles tried to gain the good-will
of the Parliament by turning Danby out of office, and
sending his soldiers home again. But nothing would
satisfy the Commons but the passing of an Act of Parlia-
ment to shut James out from the throne. Charles dissolved
the Parliament and called a second, which proved of just
the same temper as the first. He dissolved the second
and called a third. It was to meet at Oxford instead of
London, where the Whig party was very strong. When
it was opened, bands of London citizens came up to
Oxford wearing ribands, on which were the words 'No
Popery, no Slavery!' The great Whig lords brought up
440 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1679–
their tenants in arms. The king on his side came at-
tended by his guards. It seemed as if a civil war was
on the point of breaking out, and Charles dissolved the
Parliament before it had sat three weeks (1681).
Shaftesbury
and Mon-
mouth.
2. No exclusion bill had passed the House of Lords
in any of these three Parliaments, and already the
Whigs had not so many friends as before.
Besides the shutting out of James, men had
to think of whom they were to make king in
James' stead. Shaftesbury put forward as future king
the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth was Charles' son,
but his mother had never been married to Charles, so
that he had no claim to the throne. The country people
were, it was true, fond of him, and when he travelled would
gather in crowds to welcome him. But Shaftesbury was
not wise in wishing to make Monmouth king. Mary, the
wife of the Prince of Orange, was the heir next after her
father James. She was a Protestant, and many of the
Whigs were unwilling to pass her by. Then, again, there
were many people who when they were very much afraid
of Catholics took the part of the Whigs, but when they
were very much afraid of Dissenters took the part of
the Tories. These now went over to the Tories, for they
feared lest the Dissenters should get too much power, and
thought that of the two they would sooner have James
than Monmouth to reign over them.
3. When it was found that Oates was honoured and
rewarded for having found out a dangerous plot, more
The Popish
men came forward with stories against the
plot.
Catholics. All the time that the Exclusion
Bills were being fought over, numbers of Catholics were
being tried and put to death for treason. It did not
matter how unlikely the stories brought against them
were, for the jurymen believed them guilty before they
were tried, and the judges took the part of their accusers.
Shaftesbury, though he knew that Oates was a liar, did
1681.
44I
The Popish Plot.
all he could to keep alive the fear of the people. Charles,
like Shaftesbury, did not believe in Oates' stories. But he
did not try to save the Catholics. For he thought the
more innocent blood the Whigs shed, the more surely
would people come round in time to take his side. He
judged quite rightly. The cruelty and violence with
which Shaftesbury acted in the end told against him.
Men were getting ashamed of ever having trusted in the
word of Oates and his fellows. Juries began to say that
the prisoners were innocent, and the crowd, which used to
shout with joy when a Catholic was sent to the scaffold,
now shouted with joy when one was set at liberty. When
Lord Stafford, an old man of upwards of seventy, told
the people from the scaffold that he was innocent, they
answered him with shouts of 'God bless you, my lord!'
'We believe you, my lord !'
The Habeas
Corpus Act.
order that
4. Though the Whigs did not get James shut out from
reigning, they got Charles' consent to one very important
law, called the Habeas Corpus Act. The Peti-
tion of Right had said that no man was to be
put in prison without a cause being given, in
he might not be kept in prison and never brought to trial.
But the king's ministers had still found ways of doing this.
So the Habeas Corpus Act now said that the judges were
to give writs of Habeas Corpus to prisoners who asked for
them, and to set them at liberty if they could be trusted
to come at the proper time and answer to the crimes laid
to their charge. Gaolers were always, on receiving writs
of Habeas Corpus, to bring their prisoners before the
judges, except those accused of treason, murder, and
other crimes called felonies. But in order that such might
not be kept in prison for long, their trial was to take place
within a certain time or else they too were to be set at
liberty. The Habeas Corpus Act did not lay down anything
new, for it was an old right of Englishmen not to be kept
in prison at the pleasure of the king. But it laid down the
442 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1681-
law in such clear and plain words that henceforth the
king and his ministers could not claim the right to set it
aside in any case (1679).
war.
CHAPTER XX.
REACTION AGAINST THE WHIGS.
I. THE remembrance of the time when Puritans had
ruled in England, and the country had been under the
power of a standing army, was so bitter to most men that
there was nothing they more feared than another civil
Hence although Charles often gave great offence
to his subjects, yet they were always fond of him, and
rather than see his throne or his life in danger were
willing to let him act in many things against their wishes.
Men now went against the Whigs, who seemed to wish
to take up arms because Charles would not consent to
shut his brother out from reigning. After the dissolution
of the Oxford Parliament, Charles made use of the feeling
in his favour to increase his own power and to put down
the Whigs. He again had money every year
from Lewis on condition that he did not go to
war with France, and thus was able to rule
for four years without calling a Parliament together.
Charles
rules with-
out Parlia-
ments.
2. Many towns had got charters from former kings
giving them privileges, such as the right of setting up
Charters their own mayors and magistrates. The
taken away. Whigs had much power in these places. So
now London and other towns were accused of having
made a wrong use of their privileges, and their charters
were taken away from them. Charles indeed gave them
back new charters, but he took care that the mayors,
aldermen, and other officers should all be Tories. He also
took care that only the chief people, whom he could
easily influence, should be let vote at the election of
members of Parliament. After making these changes he
1685.
443
Reaction against the Whigs.
might hope at a future day to meet a House of Commons
from which the Whig party should be almost quite shut out.
Meanwhile, Whigs were brought to trial on various charges.
Many were fined, imprisoned, and put to death. Shaftes-
bury fled to Holland, where he died soon afterwards.
3. The Whigs grieved over the failure of their plans.
James was not shut out from reigning. The king, though
not doing anything that was exactly unlawful
Whig con-
for it was the judges who said he had a right spiracies.
to take away the charters-was yet robbing the towns of
any real liberty either in the choice of their own officers,
or of members of Parliament. Lord William Russell was
one of the chief leaders of the Whig party. He used to
meet with some of his friends and talk over plans of
rising in arms. Shaftesbury had amongst his followers
old soldiers of Cromwell's army. These knew of the
meetings of the Whig leaders, and thought that they would
help on their plans by making a plot of their own, to
waylay Charles and his brother, perhaps to shoot them, as
they passed from Newmarket to London by a lonely
farm-house, called the Rye House in Hertfordshire. The
plans of these conspirators, as well as the meetings of
the Whig leaders, were betrayed to the king's ministers.
Russell was tried for treason. Though he had known
nothing of the Rye House Plot, and though the fact that
he had ever thought of rebellion was not clearly proved
against him, the jury still found him guilty. Russell
would not own that he had done anything wrong. The
people, he thought, had a right to stand up for their
religion and liberties when these were taken from them
on any pretence. Charles held that the man who thought
thus was too dangerous to let live. If I do not take his
life,' he said, 'he will soon take mine.' So Russell was
put to death in 1683.
Charles died in February, 1685, and was succeeded
by his brother James.
444 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1685-
Monmouth.
CHAPTER XXI.
CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS.
1. JAMES II. had barely reigned four months when a re-
bellion broke out in the west. Many Whigs had fled to
Invasion of Holland, after the dissolution of the short
Parliament at Oxford in 1681. These now
set sail with Monmouth at their head, and landed at
Lyme-Regis, in Dorsetshire. Peasants, small farmers, and
shopkeepers gathered together to fight for Monmouth;
but as no Whig noblemen or gentlemen took part with
him, he had no chance of winning. His brave little army
of peasants was routed by the royal troops on Sedgemoor,
in Somersetshire. He himself was taken prisoner, hiding
in a ditch in peasant's clothes. He was brought to Lon-
don and there beheaded. A brutal judge, called Jeffreys,
who was sent by James into the west to try the rebels,
acted with so much harshness and cruelty, that his name
was hated by all men. The country was covered with
gibbets. Even girls at school, who had given Monmouth
banners, were cast into prison. A suppliant came to
Whitehall to beg mercy for her brother. 'Do not flatter
yourself with hopes,' said one of the officers of James'
army, John Churchill, afterwards the Duke of Marl-
borough; 'this marble,' and he laid his hand on the
chimney-piece, 'is not harder than the king.'
He
2. James was neither a good nor a clever man.
had a hard, cruel nature. He also set his mind on making
everyone think like himself. He called a Parliament
soon after he came to the throne. He hoped that it
would grant him plenty of money to keep up a large stand-
1687.
445
The Dispensing Power.
The aims of
ing army, and also do away with the laws against Catho-
lics. The House of Commons was filled with
Tories. They were willing to do a great deal James.
for James, but not the two things which he wanted them
to do. They dreaded a standing army as much as the
Whigs. They were quite as unwilling to do away with
the laws against Catholics as the Whigs. James, find-
ing that the Parliament would not help him to carry out
his wishes, brought the session to an end, and never
called the members together again (1685).
The Dis-
Power.
3. James next set to work to carry out his plans by
means of his royal power. The king claimed in certain
cases to set aside, or dispense with, a law in
favour of an individual. For instance, he pensing
could grant a pardon to a murderer. James,
therefore, first set four men to be judges who would ex-
plain the law as he wished it to be explained, and then
caused a servant to accuse a Catholic gentleman, who was
in command of a regiment, of not having taken the sacra-
ment as the Test Act required. A trial was held, and the
judges said that James had the right to set aside the
Test Act in favour of an individual. Now, of course, what
the judges said that it was lawful for James to do in the
case of one man, it was also lawful for him to do in the
case of other men. So, after this trial, James paid no heed
whatever to the laws, but put very many Catholics in
office, and even made them members of the universities
and members of his council (1686).
Declaration
of Indul-
gence.
4. James knew that all Churchmen were very angry
with him for thus putting Catholics on an equal
footing with members of the Church of Eng-
land. He therefore thought it wise to try and
make the Dissenters his friends. With this end he
published a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending the
laws against Catholics and Dissenters, and giving leave
to both to worship in public and private according to
446 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1687.
Dissenters
go aganst
James.
their own forms (1687). Men at once asked whether it
was lawful for the king to set aside in this general way a
large number of laws. James could say that former kings
had sometimes suspended laws, and that his rights were
the same as theirs. If, however, their right to suspend
laws had not been called in question, this was because
they used their power in cases in which the people also
thought that it was good that the laws should be set aside.
James used his in order to rule in a manner directly contrary
to the wishes of the nation. Men held that in England the
king could not rule according to his own will, and denied
the lawfulness of a power that left him at liberty to do so.
5. James still wanted to get the laws done away with
by an Act of Parliament. He was now an old´man, and
he could not hide from himself that, as soon
as he was dead, the laws would be put in force
again. In hopes of presently meeting a Par-
liament that should carry out his wishes, he undid his
brother's work, turning out of office Tory magistrates both
in town and country, and setting in their places Catholics
and Dissenters. This was a very bold step for James to
take. He made bitter enemies of the Tories, who hitherto
had said that the king's commands must always be
obeyed, and who had placed him on the throne. Nor
could he after all win the Dissenters to promise to stand
by him. Though they were given freedom to worship in
their own way, they could not bring themselves to act
with Catholics, or uphold the Declaration of Indulgence,
which they looked on as unlawful. Besides more tempt-
ing offers were being made them by others. The clergy
of the Church of England and other Tories were now in
such great fear of Catholics, that they began to feel, like
those Churchmen who were Whigs, that after all the
Dissenters were Protestants, and, as such, friends. Tories
and Whigs therefore agreed in telling the Dissenters, that
if instead of taking part with the king and the Catholics,
1688.
447
The Revolution.
they would stand fast to the cause of the laws and the
Church of England, they should presently have an Act of
Parliament giving them leave to worship in their own
way.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE REVOLUTION. (1688.)
The
Petition.
1. JAMES would not give way in spite of all warnings. He
published a second Declaration of Indulgence, and or-
dered it to be read by all ministers on two fol-
lowing Sundays at the time of service. Epis- Bishops'
copalians and Dissenters agreed to disobey
this command. Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and six bishops drew up a petition, in which they told the
king that they could not with a safe conscience read his
Declaration, because it was unlawful. Tories, like Whigs,
had come to think that they were most loyal to their
king when they obeyed the laws.
2. On the appointed day the Declaration was read in
only four London churches. In the country the clergy
were equally disobedient. James wished to The trial of
punish the bishops for having set the example the Bishops.
of resistance. Their petition had been printed and sold
by thousands of copies. So he brought them before the
Court of King's Bench on the charge of having published
a false, seditious, and malicious libel. The court was so
full that there was hardly standing room. Thirty-five peers
were seen in the crowd. It was proved that the bishops
were the authors of the petition; the next question was,
whether it was a libel? That was a point which the
lawyers and judges had to explain to the jury. The
judges knew that James would be angry with them if they
did not say the petition was a libel. But on that day
they were very careful of their words. They felt that
448 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1688.
James would soon have done all he could, and they
feared the anger of a future Parliament more than the
loss of office. The Chief Justice, one who was there
said, looked as if all the peers present had halters in
their pockets. There were four judges in the court.
Only two said that the petition was a libel. Not one
said that the Declaration of Indulgence was lawful.
When the jury gave a verdict of 'Not Guilty,' such a
shout was raised by the crowd within the court and the
crowd standing outside, that it was heard for a mile off.
Never had the bishops been so dear to the people. Every
Protestant, were he Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Sec-
tarian, was on their side. As they left the court men
dropped on their knees, begging a blessing of them.
Bonfires were lighted in the streets, and the church bells
set ringing as at times of great rejoicing (June, 1688).
Men were now tired of James' rule, and looked for
some other to set in his place as king.
3. William of Orange was the son of Mary, a daughter
of Charles I. He was, therefore, both nephew and son-
in-law of James. On the same day on which
William of
Orange
called in.
6
the bishops were found not guilty,' a letter
was sent to William, asking him to come to
England at the head of an army. It was signed by seven
leaders of the Whig and Tory parties. Men who had
once stood against one another had joined together against
James II., who had made enemies of his friends.
James wished to be independent of Parliament. So,
although he was a proud man and felt ashamed of the act,
like Charles before him he took money of Lewis, know-
ing that in return he must do as Lewis told him in foreign
affairs. Foreign princes, therefore, who were Lewis'
enemies, and hoped to get England to join an alliance
against him, wished success to William's expedition.
William landed at Torbay in November, 1688, with a
small army of Dutch and English troops. Both Whig and
...
1689.
449
Declaration of Rights.
The De-
claration of
Rights.
Tory noblemen and gentlemen soon came in numbers to
welcome him. James, finding the very officers of his army
desert him, after a little hesitation fled to France. He
hoped by the aid of Lewis to be set again on his throne.
4. The Tories did not wish to put James off the throne,
but to call him back and let him rule if he agreed to rule
in the manner they wished. But they could
not have their way, because they no longer
had the favour of the people. A Parliament
met, in which the Whigs were the stronger party. The
throne was declared vacant, and the crown was given to
William and Mary as joint rulers. Parliament at the same
time drew up a Declaration of Rights. This laid down the
terms on which the Lords and Commons gave the crown
away. Those means by which the Stuarts had tried to rule
without asking the advice of Parliament were declared
unlawful. Parliaments, the Declaration of Rights said,
ought to be often held; the king might not raise taxes or
keep a standing army without consent of Parliament; he
might not set aside laws or fail to put laws in force with-
out consent of Parliament (February, 1689). This De-
claration afterwards received the royal consent in the
form of a law which was called the Bill of Rights.
Summary.
5. The revolution which set William and Mary on the
throne brought to an end the long struggle between the
king and the Parliament. William took the
crown knowing that he must give way to the
wishes of the House of Commons. He could not claim
any right to the throne, save the right given him by Act
of Parliament. The king who claimed powers from God
that were above the laws was his rival James. If William
had made like claims he must have lost his throne at
once.
The closer union between king and Parliament that
followed the Revolution brought about, amongst other
things, that England was able to take a more active and
E. H.
GG
450 Struggle against Absolute Monarchy. 1688.
successful part in foreign affairs. The Stuarts could not
carry on wars successfully because they would not give
way to the wishes of Parliament, and could not tax their
subjects without consent of Parliament. The secret
of Cromwell's strength lay in the fact that he had a
standing army, and so could take taxes of his own will if
Parliament refused to grant them. Had the Stuarts been
able, like him, to force men to obey them by means of a
standing army, Parliaments must have ceased to have any
real power, and the king would have been able to rule ac-
cording to his own will, in whatever way he thought best.
After the Revolution monarchy above the law was no
longer possible in England. This victory had not been
gained without a heavy price. There had been many
years of revolution, and many acts of violence had been
done. In the midst of change and danger men had grown
up false and self-seeking. The leaders of the Parliaments
which stood against James I. and Charles I. thought a great
deal of their country, little of themselves and their own for-
tunes. The statesmen of the time of Charles II. and
James II. were greedy after power and riches, and thought
little of the rights of the people.
We have travelled a long way since 1603. Then it
would have been held folly, if not treason, to say that
Parliament was to be first, the king second; or to say
that Protestants, who did not think as their neighbours
thought, were to be free to worship in their own way, and
to teach their own beliefs.
THE HOUSES OF STUART AND HANOVER.
JAMES I., 1603-1625.
(Great-great-grandson of Henry VII.)
CHARLES L., 1625-1649.
CHARLES II.,
Mary=William of JAMES II., 1685-1688.
Henry, Duke
Henrietta Duke of
=
1660-1685.
Orange.
of Gloucester. (Died 1670.) | Orleans.
(Died childless.)
(Died childless, 1660.
Elizabeth The Palsgrave
Frederick.
=
Sophia Elector of
Hanover.
WILLIAM III.= MARY II., ANNE, 1702- James Francis Edward.
Anne Mary Victor
Amadeus of Savoy.
GEORGE I., 1714-
1689-1702. 1689-1694.
(Both died childless.)
(Died 1765.)
(Died childless.)
1727.
GEORGE II., 1727-
1760.
Charles Edward.
(Died childless, 1788.)
Henry Benedict.
(Died childless, 1807.)
GG 2
GEORGE IV., 1820-1830.
(Died childless.)
Frederick, Prince of Wales. William, Duke of Cumberland.
(Died 1751.)
GEORGE III., 1760-1820.
WILLIAM IV., 1830-1837.
(Died childless.)
(Died childless, 1765.)
Edward, Duke of Kent.

VICTORIA.

Frederick, Duke of York.
(Died childless, 1827.)
BOOK VI.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
CONSTITUTION.
INTRODUCTION.
THE chief things to be noticed in this period of our his-
tory are the following
1. How the Revolution of 1688 made the House of
Commons the strongest thing in the State.
2. How England engaged in a long and costly war
with France, the greatest nation in Europe at that time,
because the French king thought fit to meddle in her
affairs, and how she won much fame and new lands
thereby.
3. How a new line of kings was set on the throne;
and how, during the reigns of the first two of these
kings, the great families among the English, nobility.
took to themselves the foremost place in ruling the
country.
4. How the rule of the great families broke down at a
time when England was called upon to put forth all
her strength; and how the task of guiding the country

Dor M
454
1689.
Settlement of the Constitution.
through its troubles was given to a man of surpassing
genius, who raised it to a height of greatness such as it
had never before reached.
5. How a king came to the throne, who strove with all
his might to beat down the strength of the great families,
and win for himself some of the power which his fore-
fathers had held; and how, after a hard fight, he gained
his object.
CHAPTER I.
ENGLAND AND THE REVOLUTION.
I. IN February 1689 the Lords and Commons asked
William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, to
William III. become
become King and Queen of England.
King,
William and Mary agreed to do so; and at
1689-1702.
once the new order of things which is called
Queen, 1689- the 'Revolution settlement,' began.
Mary II.
'Revolu-
tion' not a
good name
for the
change of
1688-9.
1694.
2. Though a good many changes in our
rulers and ways of ruling have been brought about by
force, the change made at this time is the only one
to which the name 'Revolution' has been
given. Yet it is not a good name. For the
change, though it led to great things in later
times, was not itself a great one. The laws
which were in force under William and Mary
were not very different from those which ought to have
been in force under James II. The rights of the people
were much the same. The Declaration of Rights made
nothing law that had not been law before. It only
stated clearly, so that henceforth there could be no mis-
take about them, what the rights of the people were.
1689.
455
England and the Revolution.
what the
Revolution
did for
England.
3. Yet the nation gained a good deal by the Revolu
tion. (1) There was no longer as much quarrelling be-
tween the king and the Parliament as there
had been. Parliament now got the mastery
in the State; from this time it grew ever
stronger, and the king ever weaker, until the king could do
nothing which the Parliament disliked, and the Parliament
could force the king to do anything it pleased. (2) The
House of Commons became much more powerful than
the House of Lords. All the money that was wanted for
keeping up an army and a navy, or for any other public
purpose, had first to be voted by the Commons. Thus
the Commons were able henceforth to get anything they
greatly wished to have; for, if the king or the Lords
were unwilling to assent to what they asked, they had
only to refuse to vote the taxes, and the king and the
Lords had to assent. It is true that the king might still
choose his ministers; but, if most of the Commons did
not like a minister, they could make the king send
him away. Hence the king had to put into offices of
State such men as the Commons wished to see there.
(3) Though the laws were much the same, the way in
which they were put in force was different. Parliament
made a law that the judges should stay in their offices so
long as they gave just judgement. Before this the king
could make and unmake judges as he pleased, and so
they had been too careful to do his will.
The Con-
4. The parliament which gave the throne to William
and Mary had not been called by a king, and was there-
fore supposed not to be a true parliament,
able to pass laws binding on the people. It vention
was only named a convention. But it was
thought dangerous to have a new parliament
chosen while men's minds were unsettled; and
accordingly it changed itself from a convention to a parlia
made a
Parliament,
February,
1689.
UorM
456
1689
Settlement of the Constitution.
ment. It lasted a year longer, and did many things of
great importance.
William's
first
ministers.
5. The men who had been most helpful in bringing
about the late changes did not all belong to one party;
some were Whigs, some were Tories. William
therefore wished to show no liking for Whigs
more than for Tories, and took as his ministers
men of all parties. Chief among these were the Earls of
Danby, Nottingham, and Shrewsbury. This plan, how-
ever, did not work well; and afterwards William had to
choose his ministers almost all from the same party; the
Commons would not let him do anything else.
Moreover the men who had been most helpful in bring-
ing about the late changes were not all of the same way of
thinking in religion; many of them belonged to the
Church of England; many were Dissenters. It seemed,
therefore, a fitting time to grant the Dissenters some
relief from the harsh laws passed against them in Charles
II.'s reign. Protestant Dissenters, save those who denied
the Trinity, were no longer forbidden to have
The Tolera-
tion Act,
places of worship and services of their own,
April, 1689.
if they would only swear that they abhorred
from their hearts the doctrine of the Pope's deposing
power and denied that any foreign prince or person
had authority in England. The law that gave them
this is called the Toleration Act. Men's notions were
still, however, very narrow; care was taken that the
Roman Catholics should get no benefit from this law.
Even a Protestant Dissenter might not yet take a
post in the king's service; for the Test Acts were left
untouched.
6. King William, who was a Presbyterian in his own
land, wanted very much to see the Dissenters
won back to the Church of England. To
bring this about, he wished the Church to
The Com-
prehension
Scheme,
1689.
alter those things in the Prayer Book which kept Dis-
Maou
1689.
457
England and the Revolution.
senters from joining with her. But most of the clergy
would not have any change; and because these were
the stronger party in Convocation-as the Parliament of
the Church is called-William could get nothing done.
At the same time a rent, which at first seemed likely
to be serious, was made in the Church itself. There was
a strong feeling among the clergy in favour of The Non-
the banished king. So a law was made by jurors, 1689.
which every man who held any preferment in the Church,
or either of the Universities, had to swear to be true to
King William and Queen Mary, or had to give up his
preferment. Most of the clergy were very unwilling to
obey this law; but only 400 were found stout-hearted
enough to give up their livings rather than do what they
thought to be a wicked thing. These were called non-
jurors, or men who would not swear. Among them were
five out of the seven Bishops who had withstood James II.
only a year before. The sect of non-jurors, who looked
upon themselves as the only true Churchmen, did not
spread. But it did not die out altogether until seventy
years ago.
7. It was at this time that the names High-Church
and Low-Church first came into use. The parties so
called were of much the same way of thinking as High-
Churchmen and Low-Churchmen are now. Another new
name, which we shall meet very often, is also
The Jacob-
now first found in our history. Those who ites, 1689-
wished to bring back James II. were known 1760.
as Jacobites (from Jacobus, the Latin word for James)
just as those who held to William were known as Wil-
liamites. The Jacobite party were never strong enough
to rise in arms during this reign; but it was very rest-
less, made many plots, and gave a good deal of trouble
to the Government. Its great longing was to overthrow
William by getting Lewis of France to send an army to
Uor M
458
Settlement of the Constitution. 1689-90.
England. The English never cared much for William.
He was a stranger; his temper was gloomy; he was
cold and distant with all save his old and
tried friends; and he took no pains to win the
love of those who came near him.
Characters
of William
and Mary.
Mary's
character was different; she was frank, cheerful, and
gay; and her sweetness of temper and grace of manner
did more at first to strengthen the new order of things
than all her husband's wisdom and valour. But there
was a good deal of mismanagement and wicked dealing
among William's ministers at this time; some men in
office thought the new king and queen would soon be
Unpopu-
larity of
William's
rule at first.
driven out of the kingdom, and eagerly filled
their pockets out of the king's treasury
whilst they had the chance. In this way the
Government fell into disfavour with the people; the
Jacobites became every day stronger; and before a year
was over it seemed as if the Revolution Settlement would
soon be all unsettled again by a second restoration of the
Stuarts.
William's
dissatisfac-
tion.
8. Moreover, William was himself ill at ease in
England. His Whig ministers quarrelled with his Tory
ministers; Parliament would not give him the
revenue which had been given to James II.;
it would not settle the Crown, as William
wished, on the Electress Sophia of Hanover in case he
and Mary died childless. Nor would it agree to an Act
for granting a full pardon to the agents of tyranny in
the late reigns unless a great many men were shut out
from its benefits. Early in 1690 the king is said to
Revolution have thought of going back to Holland, so
Parliament
little did he like the way the English were
dissolved,
1690.
treating him. However this may be, he
deemed it impossible for him to get on with the Parlia-
ment that then was; therefore he put an end to it, and
1689-90.
459
England and the Revolution.
called a new one, which he hoped would be easier to
deal with.
9. But before this, two laws of great importance had
been passed-the Mutiny Bill and the Bill of Rights.
The Mutiny Bill gave the king power to put The Mutiny
to death any soldier who deserted his Bill, 1689.
colours or mutinied against his officers. At first it was
very short, and was to have force for six months only;
but it has since grown into a kind of military code, and is
passed from year to year. It has thus become a means of
forcing the king to bring together Parliament every year.
The Bill of Rights is little more than the The Bill of
Declaration of Rights turned into a regular Rights, 1689.
law. There are two things, however, in it which are
not in the Declaration : (1) it makes it impossible for
any King or Queen of England to be a Roman Catholic ;
and (2) it settles that the Crown has no power of setting
aside a law in any case whatever. The Declaration had
only said that the way in which James had used such a
power was unlawful.
But bitter foes rose up against the new settlement in
Scotland, Ireland, and France.
CHAPTER II.
SCOTLAND AND THE REVOLUTION.
I. IN 1688-9 Scotland and England were still separate
kingdoms. The only bond of union between them was
that the king of one country was also king of
the other. It was not therefore a matter of
course that when James II. ceased to be
King of England, and William and Mary were given his
place in England, he should cease to be King of Scot-
England
and Scotland
in 1689.
460
1689.
Settlement of the Constitution.
land also, and William and Mary be given his place
in Scotland. It was for the Scottish people to decide
whether they would follow the lead of England. But
the bulk of the Scottish people were only too glad to get
rid of the Stuarts. The Stuarts had tried to root out
the Presbyterian religion, and had set up among them
a Church which most Scotsmen disliked and many
hated. In other ways, too, the later Stuart kings had
The Scots
rise against
James II.,
1688.
deeply wronged the worthiest of their Scot-
tish subjects; they had caused oppressive
laws to be made, and had dealt harshly with
those whom they disliked or feared. As soon, therefore,
as the Scots heard of the overthrow of James II.'s rule
in England, they took up arms and frightened the Scot-
tish Council into changing sides. Then many Scottish
noblemen and gentlemen, who chanced to be in London,
met together and asked William to assemble
Convention a Convention of the Scottish Estates, and
take upon himself the rule of the country in
the meantime. William did both the things
they asked; and in March 1689 the Scottish Convention
came together in Edinburgh.
Scottish
meets,
March,
1689.
Graham of
Claver-
house.
2. James had still some friends left him in Scotland.
Chief among these was John Graham of Claverhouse,
now Viscount Dundee, who worked hard to
make a party in the Convention in favour of
his old master. When he failed he rode away
with fifty horsemen to his castle in Angus. The Estates
at once went swiftly to work. They voted that James, by
his acts of injustice and tyranny, had fore-
faulted (forfeited) the throne, and was no
longer king, and agreed to ask William and
Mary to become King and Queen of Scot-
land. They also drew up a statement of the
people's rights, which they called the Claim of Right, and
William and
Mary
chosen
King and
Queen of
Scotland,
1689.
1689.
461
Scotland and the Revolution.
·
told the men whom they sent to offer the crown to William
and Mary to take care that the new king and queen
should promise to abide by this claim as long as they
reigned. This paper said that prelacy, or the rule of the
Church by bishops, was unbearable, and ought to be
done away with. In May the Scottish crown was offered
to William and Mary on these terms. They agreed to
them, and took the oath in the form which the Estates
had approved of. Thus a king and a queen who had no
other title to rule save what Parliament could give them
were set up in Scotland as well as in England.
The High-
landers,
3. There were still Scotsmen who thought that the
Estates had been over-hasty in what they had done; and
there were others who felt that James was still
their lawful king, and that they were bound to
fight for him at all risks. Most of the chieftains of the
Highland clans were of this way of thinking; and these
men were able to do much mischief, for their clans-
men were sure to follow them in any cause with dog-like
fidelity. The Highlanders were a daring race, fond of
fighting, often at war among themselves, and had usages
and laws of their own.
Many Highland chieftains now saw reason to take up
arms for James; and a war broke out which lasted for
almost a year. It is true that the largest clan,
the Campbells, whose chief was the Earl of
Argyle, was loyal to William; but most of
War breaks
out in Scot-
land, 1689.
the other clans hated Argyle and looked upon his friends
as their foes. As soon, then, as Dundee came into their
country they at once gathered round him. He was just
the man to lead them, being fearless and skilful, fiery in
onset and wary; and he was willing to let them deal
with their foes their own way. In May 1689 some thou-
sands of armed Highlanders came together in Lochaber ;
Dundee put himself at their head, and civil war began.
462
Settlement of the Constitution. 1689-90.
Battle of
4. To make head against this danger General Hugh
Mackay was sent from Edinburgh with a few thousand
soldiers. For a time nothing was done; but
Killie-
late in July Mackay led his army through the
crankie,
July, 1689. wild pass of Killiecrankie. He was making
for the Castle of Blair in Athol, which had fallen into
Dundee's hands. But Dundee was too quick for him;
Mackay's men had just reached the head of the pass,
when, in the dusk of the evening, the Highland army
came down upon them. There were only 2,000 High-
landers against 4,000 trained soldiers; yet so mighty was
their rush that in a few minutes Mackay's army was
broken in pieces. But a chance bullet smote down
Dundee, and the cause of James gained nothing by the
victory.
Defence of
Dunkeld,
August,
1689.
Less than a month later the shame of Killiecrankie
was wiped away by the heroic defence of Dunkeld. A
short time before, the Government had raised
a regiment from the wild western Whigs,'
who were such fierce Covenanters that many
of them thought it sinful to fight for William, for
in England William still upheld the bishops. This
regiment was called 'Cameronian,' from Richard
Cameron, a preacher who had been killed in the evil
days. Sent as a garrison to Dunkeld, they held the cathe-
dral of that place for four hours of the night against 5,000
Highlanders, whom they beat off at last. But their com-
mander, William Cleland, a very brave man, was killed.
Next year the last remnant of the Highland army waś
caught sleeping, as it lay in Cromdale on the Spey, by a
force sent from Inverness, and was easily
routed. This affair may be said to have ended
the war in the Highlands. Forts were built
to keep the clans in awe. Of these the strongest was
Fort William in the west, named after the king.
Highland
war ends,
1690.
1690-92.
463
Scotland and the Revolution.
5. Yet the clans which had taken part in the war
still held aloof from the new Government; and William
found that other means than war was needed to bring
them to put themselves under his rule. He sent money
to be divided among their chiefs, and let it be made
known, at the same time, that he was ready to forgive all
who would swear, before January 1, 1692, to be loyal to
him for the future. When that day came, it turned out
that all had sworn but the Macdonalds of Glencoe.
Their chief, Maclan, had put off taking the Massacre of
oath until the latest day, and then, finding
Glencoe,
February,
no one at Fort William who could lawfully 1692.
give it to him, had to travel to Inverary in search of
some one who could. Thus it happened that Maclan
was not sworn until six days after the time fixed. Sir
John Dalrymple, William's chief man in Scotland, wish-
ing to strike a great fear into the Highlanders, whose
lawless habits he hated, did not tell the king that Mac-
Ian had come in at last, and got William to sign a warrant
giving his Scottish ministers power to root out 'that sect
(set) of thieves,' the men of Glencoe. Accordingly, in
February 1692, a band of soldiers, led by Captain Camp-
bell of Glenlyon, marched to Glencoe, and after having
lived as guests among the Macdonalds for twelve days,
fell upon their hosts before dawn one morning and
shot down thirty of them. The rest of the tribe, hearing
the peals of musketry, rushed out of their homes into
the surrounding mountains, then deep with snow. It
is thought that thirty more afterwards died of cold and
hunger. It was a frightful deed, and William has been
greatly blamed for it; but it is hard to think that he
looked forward to such a thing being done when he put
his name to the warrant. Still when, some years later,
the Scottish Parliament dragged the horrible thing to
light, William did not punish as they deserved the men
464
1688-9.
Settlement of the Constitution.
who were chiefly guilty; the worst of them, Dalrymple,
he only sent away from his service.
6. In the meantime the Presbyterian form of Church
government had been set up again in Scotland, and
henceforth there was less religious strife than before.
The zealous Whigs of the west were indeed angry because
the Covenant was not also set up again, but the bulk of
the people were satisfied.
CHAPTER III.
OLUTIO
IRELAND AND THE REVOLUTION.
turn in Ireland from
In that country the
I. THINGS took a very different
what they had taken in Scotland.
Revolution led to a long and deadly war, in which nearly
the whole land had to be conquered over again by the
English.
Ireland, like Scotland, was in 1688 a separate king-
dom, with a Parliament of its own. But, unlike Scotland,
it was not free to act for itself; its Parliament could not
do what it pleased, as the Scottish Parliament could; it
was generally believed in England that Ireland was
The native
Irish side
nothing but an English colony, and that
with James,
William and Mary became its king and
1688-91. queen when they were chosen to the English
throne. Indeed they at once called themseives so.
Most of the Irish people, however, wanted to keep
James II. as their king, because he had the same faith
as themselves. But the English settlers, who were
Protestants, were afraid of being massacred, or at least
of losing their lands and power in the country, if the
native Irish got the upper hand. Most of these, there-
fore, would have no king but William, and taking up
1689.
465
Ireland and the Revolution.
arms, tried to hold out against Tyrconnel, Jarnes's deputy,
until help should come to them from England. They
were not very successful at first, and in the
beginning of 1689 had only two strong places
in their hands-Londonderry and Enniskillen.
The English
settlers side
with
William.
James comes
to Ireland,
1689.
2. In March 1689 James came to Ireland from
France, and set about bringing the whole land under his
rule. He called a parliament to meet him at
Dublin, and then went north to join his army
which was marching to besiege Londonderry.
In this city were gathered many thousands of the
English settlers who had fled from their homes through
fear of the Irish. They were bent on resisting to the
last, and would not listen to James, who offered to for-
give them if they would yield at once. Thereupon
James went back to Dublin; and the siege of London-
derry began.
Siege of
London-
derry, 1689.
This siege lasted for more than three months. Some
people look upon it as the greatest siege in British
history. At first the Irish sought to batter
down the town with cannon; but the men
inside had made up their minds to bear any-
thing rather than give way. Then Richard Hamilton,
the Irish general, tried to take the place by storm; but
the men of Derry fought well, and Hamilton had to call
back his soldiers. The Irish then waited quietly until
want of food should force the townsmen to give in. At
length, when all seemed over, three ships, sent from
England, made their way up the river Foyle, on which
the town is built, in spite of the Irish, and brought food
to the starving people. Then the besiegers
lost heart and marched away. About the
same time not only was Enniskillen relieved,
but its defenders attacked a large body of Irish horse
near Newtonbutler, and put them to flight.
E. H.
H H
Siege raised,
August,
1689.
466
Settlement of the Constitution. 1689-90,
3. The war had now become one of races and reli-
gions. Nearly all the Protestants distrusted James, and
held to William; and the Irish longed only to drive the
English from the land, and get it to themselves. They
did not care for James because he was their rightful king,
Doings of
the Irish
Parliament,
1689.
but they fought for him because he was a
Roman Catholic, and because they hoped he
would give them the mastery of the country.
It was patriotism, not loyalty, which made them join
Janies. When Parliament met, it passed a bill for doing
away with an Act of Settlement made in 1663, that is,
for taking away from most of the English settlers the
lands which that Act had secured to them. A cruel Bill
of Attainder was also carried, by which 2,500 persons,
whose names were given, were ordered to deliver them-
selves up before a certain day, on pain of losing their
lands and being put to death without trial. James did
not like either of these bills; but through fear of dis-
pleasing the Irish he agreed to them both. This did
him much harm in England.
4. Next year, 1690, William himself came to Ireland.
Landing at Carrickfergus, he at once pushed towards
William
lands in
Ireland,
June, 1690.
Dublin with 30,000 troops, many of whom were
French Protestants, Germans, and Danes.
During the winter King Lewis XIV. of France
had sent 7,000 French soldiers to aid James; yet James
did not feel himself strong enough to meet his son-in-law
in the open field. He therefore posted his army, in
number about 30,000, on the right bank of the Boyne,
near Drogheda, and there awaited William's coming.
But William, on reaching the place, sent a force to cross
the river six miles higher up. When James,
fearing that his retreat to Dublin might be
cut off, hurried with his French soldiers to
meet this force, William led his main body across the
Battle of the
Boyne,
July, 1690.
1690-91.
467
Ireland and the Revolution.
river in front. The Irish horse fought well, the Irish
foot badly, and William won the day. James filed back
to France; and William soon entered Dublin, and put
the power there into the hands of the Protestants. Then,
after taking several other strong places, he led his men
to Limerick, which he thought he could take very easily,
and so end the war. But there was a valiant Irish
general inside the city, Patrick Sarsfield, who saved
it for a time. Then William went back to England
(September 1690).
Battle of
Aughrim,
July, 1691.
5. In June 1691 William's general, Ginkell, a Dutch-
man, renewed the war by taking Athlone before the eyes
of the enemy. Then following the retreating
Irish he came up with them at Aughrim.
Here took place the last pitched battle of this
war. The Irish were strongly posted; and for a time it
seemed as if they were going to win. But their general,
St. Ruth, got killed by a cannon-ball; one last fierce
onset was made by Ginkell's men; and the disheartened
Irish broke and fled. In another month Ginkell was
before Limerick, the last refuge of the native race.
There was little hope of their being able to beat back
their foes this time. A treaty was made in
which the victors pledged themselves to let
the Irish worship God in their own way as
freely as they had done in Charles II.'s time, and to allow
those soldiers of King James who had come from certain
counties to keep the lands they had in the same king's
reign. Many thousands of the Irish sailed away to
France, where they entered the army of King Lewis.
Ireland once more lay at the feet of the English.
•
Treaty of
Limerick,
1691.
6. The treaty of Limerick was not kept, though
William was eager that it should be. The Irish Parlia-
ment would not be bound by it, and made law after law
to take away utterly from the natives everything they
}
HH 2
468
1689.
Settlement of the Constitution.
་
most valued. To Protestants only was given any power
in the State; and even those Protestants who dissented
from the Church could not sit in Parliament or hold
any place under the Crown. The law forbade Roman
Catholics to send their children to schools of their own
The Irish
either at home or abroad, to buy lands, to vote
penal laws. for members of Parliament, to keep arms, to
gain lands by marrying Protestant heiresses, or to inherit
lands from Protestants. Roman Catholic bishops were
to be banished from the country; the priests then in
Ireland were allowed to stay on giving in their names to
the Government; but care was to be taken that no others
should come to the country. Every Roman Catholic
was believed to be a rebel; and Parliament wanted to
make the whole Irish people Protestant. Thus the
Revolution was far from being a blessing to the greater
part of the Irish nation.
War with
France,
1689-97.
CHAPTER IV.
THE WILLIAMITE WAR WITH FRANCE.
I, FROM the summer of 1689 to the summer of 1697,
England was waging a fierce and costly war with Lewis
XIV. of France. In this war the English
spent more money and made greater efforts
than in any previous one; but they could not
help engaging in it. It was part of the price they had
to pay for getting rid of the Stuarts and making their
freedom safe. In 1689 they had to choose between a
war with France or taking back James as their king.
From his youth up William had been the steady foe
of the French king. Lewis XIV. was a very unpleasant
neighbour; he had a large and well-trained army, and
1689.
469
The Williamite War with France.
William
Lewis XIV.
skilful generals, and often used his strength to seize
lands and towns which belonged to Germany or Spain.
Once indeed (1672) he had sent an army into
Holland; and ever after William thought of III. and
nothing so much as how to take away Lewis's
strength from him. It was this deep feeling of dislike of
Lewis, and dread that his power would do lasting harm
to the other States of Europe, that made William wish to
overthrow James II.'s rule in England. He knew that
so long as James was king, England would not only take
no part against Lewis, but might even help Lewis against
William and his friends. He also knew that there was
little chance of beating France in war if England stood
apart. William was of course glad to be able to save
English Protestantism and freedom; but he wanted above
all things to draw England into the Grand Alliance which
Spain, Germany, and Holland had then formed against
Lewis XIV. Lewis was well aware that this
was William's aim; he was afraid that, if
England were added to the number of his
enemies, he might lose his lordly place in Europe. There-
fore he determined to try and set James again on the
English throne. Thus war with France came soon after
the Revolution.
War with
France
begins,
May, 1689.
The Grand
2. In this struggle England had many allies-the
Empire, Spain, Brandenburg (the Prussia of our own
times), and even Savoy. This array of States
against France was called the Grand Alliance. Alliance.
But France was then so mighty a power; King Lewis
had so many and such good soldiers, and such wise
ministers and able generals, that William with all his
allies was not able to do him nearly so much harm in
this war as he had hoped. Indeed, most of the battles
in it were won by the French. One thing very much
strengthened Lewis against William-every army that
470
Settlement of the Constitution. · 1689-92
fought for him did what it was bid and at the time it
was bid, whereas William could not always get the
Spaniards or Germans to come to him just when he
needed them. In this way Lewis was able to take for-
tresses from William before the smaller armies that
made up William's big army could be brought together.
3. For the first two years William was so busy in
England and Ireland that he had to leave the fighting
on the Continent to others. At first things went ill with
the English. Men in office and men in command were
sometimes careless, and did not do their duty. Even at
sea the English were beaten. The day before
the battle of the Boyne the English and Dutch
fleets under the Earl of Torrington were
attacked by the French admiral, Tourville, off Beachy
Head, and were forced to flee.
Battle of
Beachy
Head,
June, 1690.
invasion of
England,
1692.
4. Two years later Lewis and James made a plan for
landing an army in England, and beating down William
Threatened in that way. They hoped that James's English
friends would rise and join them, and that
even the English fleet would not fight against
them. They had indeed good cause to hope that this
would be so, for some of William's own servants had
written to James promising to help him. One of these
was the chief admiral of the English fleet, Edward
Russell, who had first asked William to come to England.
We may be surprised to learn this, but great men in
England were then very base. They thought only of
themselves, and were ready to join one king or the other
according as each seemed likely to prevail.
In May 1692 all was ready; 30,000 fighting men,
mostly Irish, were encamped near La Hogue
in Normandy, waiting to be carried over to
England. Tourville then sailed out with his
fleet to meet Russell. The English and Dutch at once
Battle of
La Hogue,
May, 1692,
1692--97.
The Williamite War with France. 471
closed with him; they had more ships than the French,
who got beaten and made for the land. Next day the
victors gave chase, and falling on the French ships burnt
or sank sixteen of the biggest of them. For a time
there was no more talk of invading England.
Battle of
5. By land William was less prosperous. The year
before he had lost Mons; this year he lost Namur, and
was defeated by the French general, Luxem-
burg, in the hard-fought battle of Steinkirk. Steinkirk,
But William was very skilful in contriving July, 1692.
that the loss of a battle should do the least possible harm
to his army; a few days after Steinkirk he had as strong
a body of troops as before, and Luxemburg dared not
try to follow up his victory.
Battle of
Landen,
Next year William was again beaten. Luxemburg,
with 80,000 men, caught him with only 50,000 near the
little stream of Landen, and forced him to
give battle. He stubbornly withstood the
onsets of the French for a long time, but
had to yield ground at last. Again William soon filled
up the gaps in his army, and the French gained little by
their victory.
July, 1693.
retakes
Namur,
6. In 1695 the fortune of war changed. Both parties
had been much weakened by the struggle, but England
less than France. Death, too, had carried William
off Lewis's great general, Luxemburg. Ac-
cordingly when William laid siege to Namur 1695.
the French were unable to drive him off, and William
took the place. This retaking of Namur was the finest
thing William ever did in war. It was also the last thing
he did. For, though the war lingered a while longer,
nothing worthy of mention was afterwards done in it. In
September 1697 peace was made at Ryswick.
By the treaty then made Lewis promised to give up
helping James II. to get back to the English throne,
472
1689.
Settlement of the Constitution.
and also agreed to look upon William as the lawful King of
England. It was not a peace for Englishmen to
be proud of; but at least it stopped a foreign
king from trying to thrust back upon them a
Peace of
Ryswick,
1697.
ruler whom most of them did not want.
CHAPTER V.
WILLIAM III. AND HIS PARLIAMENTS.
1. AT no time did Parliament gain so much that it
was able to keep lastingly, as in William III.'s reign.
One little fact is enough to show what a firm hold
upon power Parliament got by the Revolution. During
the seven years that went before the meeting of the Con-
vention only one Parliament was called, and that one
was not allowed to sit for quite two months; whilst
Why Par- during the thirteen years that followed six
liament
Parliaments were chosen, and not a single
became
stronger. year passed without the Houses being brought
together, sometimes twice. Many causes worked to-
gether to make this change. (1) The Commons took care
not to grant so much money to the king personally as
had been granted to King James, and to make their
grants for a short time only, not for the king's life, as
formerly. (2) The king's wars were very costly, and he
had to ask at least once a year for a great deal more
money to keep up his army and navy. (3) Instead of
giving these moneys in a lump, Parliament appropriated
the supplies—that is, settled the way in which they were
to be spent, setting apart so much for one thing, and
so much for another. (4) The Mutiny Bill, without
which the soldiers and sailors could not be made to obey
their commanders, was passed for a short time only, and
1689-90. William III. and his Parliaments. 473
Parliament had to be called together to renew it. (5)
William had no right to be king save the right which
Parliament had given him, and therefore could not
afford to quarrel with it as the kings before him had
done.
2. Things did not go on very smoothly between
William and his parliaments. Now and then a bad
feeling sprang up between them, and led more than once
to a serious misunderstanding. Throughout his reign the
Commons were bent on making their power felt by the
king and his ministers. They looked into all the busi-
ness of the State, forced the king to do many things
which he disliked, made him alter things which he had
already done, and weakened his power in many ways.
William
tries to
keep his
power.
William did not yield to the Commons without
making a stiff fight. It seemed to him, hard that he, who
had done so much for the people's rights, should have so
many of his own rights taken from him. He would not
consent to some of the bills which Parliament passed
to lessen his authority. Thus he would not
consent to a law for making the judges inde-
pendent of him; or to a law for keeping place-
men (men who held places under the Crown) out of the
House of Commons; or to a law for putting an end to
every Parliament three years after it had been first called
-the Triennial Bill, as its name was. Yet he was made
to give way on each of these at some time or other, for
there was a line which William dared not pass. He
never fully understood the temper of the English, and did
not always act wisely. He was never altogether liked by
any class of his subjects.
3. His second Parliament did not cross him so much
as his first had done. It gave him a fixed income of about
1,100,000%. a year, part of it for life, part for four years.
It was also generous in voting taxes to enable him to
:
474
1690-94.
Settlement of the Constitution.
William's
second par-
liament,
1690-95.
The origin
of the
National
put large armies in the field; but in doing so was careful
to see that the money raised was spent as it wished.
Two of the plans it was persuaded to agree to
are noteworthy. The Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer of that time, Charles Montague, who
became in later days Earl of Halifax, finding
the debts of the State growing bigger and
Debt, 1693. bigger from year to year, thought of having a
standing debt, and laid the plan before the Commons.
They agreed to it; and in this way the National Debt
began. This is unlike other debts in that its interest
only need be paid. When William died the National
Debt had grown to 16,000,000l. The other plan was that
a Bank should be founded, which was to have certain
powers of dealing in money on condition of lending the
Government 1,200,000l. This was the beginning of the
Bank of England (1694).
Triennial
4. William did not give his consent to all the laws
that this Parliament passed. In 1693, 'The Bill for the
frequent calling and meeting of Parliaments,' known as
the Triennial Bill, fell through in this way;
Bill passed, but in 1694 it was again passed and laid
before the king. This time he agreed to it;
and henceforth until the reign of George I. no king could
keep a Parliament longer than three years, no matter how
well pleased he was with it.
1694.
Queen
Mary dies,
December,
1694.
A few days after this Bill became law, Mary the
queen died of small-pox. She was a wise and
amiable woman, much loved by her husband,
who was deeply grieved at her death. In-
deed she was a great loss to him, for the English people
had always a kindlier feeling for her than ever they
had for her husband, and their love for her strengthened
William's throne.
5. It is to this Parliament also that the English owe
1694-96.
William III. and his Parliaments. 475
The Press
the freedom of their Press. In 1694, the law which had
hitherto made it unlawful for writings to be printed un-
less they had been read and approved of by the king's
licenser came to an end. In 1695 the Commons would
not let this law be renewed. After this time
any Englishman might print or get printed
anything he pleased. But the Courts might
still punish a man very severely if he printed anything
which the judges thought to be a slander upon the Go-
vernment, for, until 1792, the law of libel was very harsh.
becomes
free, 1694.
6. With most of the four Parliaments that came after
this one, William had a great deal of trouble. His
ministers were not the same as at the beginning of
his reign. Nottingham, and Danby were now gone,
and their places had been given to Whigs. The wor-
thiest of the Whigs was John Somers, Lord Keeper, who
was the best lawyer then in England. But William had
to change his ministers very often. The Commons would
take a dislike to the highest among them, and would give
the king no peace until he sent them away. The truth is
that government by party was then just beginning. If
most of the Commons were Whigs, they made Beginning
the king choose his ministers from among
the Whigs; if most were Tories, from
among the Tories. For the ministers could not get on,
unless most of the Commons were ready to vote for what
they wanted.
of party-
govern-
ment.
7. In 1696 the law 'for regulating trials in cases of
treason' was passed. Men charged with treason had
hitherto little chance of being found not guilty, so much
against them were the rules that the Courts of Law fol-
lowed in trying them. They could not have skilled law-
yers to defend them; those who bore witness in their
favour could not strengthen their witness with an oath.
The Act of 1696 did away with these unfair rules.
476
1696-99.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Henceforth men put on their trial for treason might
have counsel to plead their cause, and were to have lists
of the jurors and of the witnesses against
them given to them some days before the day
named for their trial. Moreover, two wit-
nesses were henceforth needed to justify a jury in finding
the accused guilty.
Treason
Law of
1696.
Assassina-
tion Plot
and
8. The same year an association was made to pro-
tect the life of King William, like the one that was made
Some wicked
in 1584 to protect Elizabeth.
men had bound themselves together to
Association, murder the king near Turnham Green as he
1696.
was riding home from hunting. This plot
was found out, and the chief men engaged in it were
tried and put to death. Then the Lords and Commons,
all but a very few, of their own free will signed a bond
in which they pledged themselves to stand by William
against James and James's friends, and if harm befell
William, to take signal vengeance on his murderers.
Their example was followed by the country at large, and
hundreds of thousands put their names to the associa-
tion. It was a grand outburst of loyalty, and made it
clear that the vast bulk of the people were not Jacobites.
9. Yet for the rest of his life William had an uneasy
time in England. The Commons would have their own
way in all things, caring little how much pain their doings
gave to the king. (1) William knew that war with France
must soon break out again, and wished a good part of
the army to be kept up. But the Commons, especially
the Tories, had a horror of standing armies, and voted
that all the troops but 7,000 should be
disbanded. They went further, and said that
the king must send back to Holland his Dutch
guards, who came with him to England and for whom
The Dutch
guards sent
away, 1699.
1699-1701. William III and his Parliaments. 477
he had a strong liking. William's feelings were deeply
hurt, and he made up his mind to leave the kingdom
for ever; but from this purpose he was turned aside by
the wise words and firm conduct of Lord Somers, who
was then Chancellor, and would not put the Great Seal to
the paper in which William gave up the Crown. (2) In
the same way William was forced by Parliament to take
back the lands in Ireland which he had granted to some
of his friends. These lands had belonged to Irishmen
who had fought against the English and so had lost them
at the end of the Irish war. From the first, Parliament
thought that these lands should be sold to help to pay
the costs of the war; and William had once promised not
to do anything with them without first telling Parliament.
Yet he afterwards gave them to his generals and ministers.
The man who got the largest share was a Dutch-
man, Bentinck, Earl of Portland, William's
closest friend for many years. The Commons
were very angry, and in 1700 passed a bill for
taking back these lands; and to make sure that the
Lords and the king would not refuse the bill, they
'tacked' it to a bill granting the king money, so as to
make one law of the two things. The will of the Com-
mons prevailed, such strength did the power of the
purse' give them.
William is
forced to
revoke
his grants
of lands.
10. William and Mary had no children; and in 1700
the young Duke of Gloucester, the only child of Anne
that lived beyond infancy, died. There was now no
hope of there being anyone to inherit the crown by the
Bill of Rights after the death of William and of Anne.
In 1701, therefore, Parliament settled the
crown on the Electress Sophia of Hanover, Settlement,
and her heirs. Sophia was one of the children
of that Elizabeth, daughter of James I., who in 1613 had
The Act of
1701.
478
1701.
Settlement of the Constitution.
married the Palsgrave Frederick. She was chosen to
come after William and Anne because she was the
nearest to the Stuart line who was a Protestant. The
law that did this is called the Act of Settlement; it gives
Queen Victoria her title to the throne. Parliament in
passing it tried to make the nation's liberties still safer.
It was now made impossible (1) for any foreigner to sit in
Parliament or to hold an office under the Crown; (2) for
the king to go to war in defence of countries that did not
belong to England, unless Parliament gave him leave; or
(3) to pardon anyone so that the Commons might not be
able to impeach him.
II. One clause of this law brings before our minds a
great change that had then taken place in the way of
ruling the kingdom. By ancient usage the Privy
Council was the body from which the king was bound
to seek advice in matters of State; but of later years
the king had fallen into the habit of letting his leading
ministers only into his secrets, and a body
much smaller
smaller than the Privy Council,
The
Cabinet
formed.
called the Cabal or Cabinet, was gradually
formed. But the Commons got uneasy about this new
body; it kept its doings carefully hid from every-
one, and there was no means of finding out which
of its members advised the king to any course which the
Commons might think harmful to the country; for the
king's ministers had now come to be answerable to Par-
liament for everything the king did. An attempt was
made in this new bill to give back to the Privy Council
all its old strength, and so check the growth of the
Cabinet. But nothing came of it; this part of the Act of
Settlement was done away with in the next reign.
12. The Commons were growing more and more
unruly, when suddenly a foolish step taken by King
Lewis delivered William from them. In September 1701
1701-2, William III. and his Parliaments. 479
James II.
dies, Sept.
1701.
James II. died at St. Germains; and Lewis took it upon
him to publicly hail James's son, James Edward, as King
of England. This uncalled-for meddling in
their affairs greatly enraged the English; and
William seized the chance of getting rid of his
troublesome Parliament. He dissolved it, and called an-
other. Most of the members chosen to this one were
well-disposed to him, and wished to work heartily with him.
There was now a general eagerness for war with France;
and William set briskly about getting the nation ready.
To tell the story of this great war, one of the greatest in
our history, will be the chief task of the next book.
31
CHAPTER VI.
THE CAUSES OF THE WAR OF THE SPANISH
SUCCESSION.
War of the
Spanish
Succession,
1702-13.
I. THE War of the Spanish Succession is so called
because it was fought to decide who should succeed
Charles II. on the throne of Spain. We might
think it mattered little to Englishmen whether
the king of Spain was an Austrian or a French-
man. But the chief desire of William's heart was to see
England throwing all her strength into the struggle
against the French king's greed. To gratify this desire
he bore patiently with the unruly temper and thirst for
power of many of his Parliaments, and allowed much of
the royal authority to slip away from him. In the main
he was successful; owing to his efforts England won a
place in the front rank of European Powers which she
has never since lost. William made England feel that
480
1698.
Settlement of the Constitution.
she was concerned in everything which concerned the
cause of liberty in Europe.
2. Moreover, England's right of settling her own affairs
without foreign meddling was at stake. Lewis XIV., as
being an absolute prince and a Roman Catholic, had a
natural feeling of enmity towards a free and Protestant
State, such as England became after 1688. He hated the
Revolution and longed to put it down. If he had been
victorious in this war, doubtless the Stuart line would
have been restored to the English throne. It must be
borne in mind that after the passing of the Act of Settle-
ment it became a necessary part of the new order of
things, that the House of Hanover should succeed Anne
in the kingship. The friends of the Revolution felt that
all would be lost if this arrangement were not carried out;
therefore they pushed forward the war with France with
the utmost earnestness. So that in fighting to place an
Austrian prince on the Spanish throne the English were
in reality fighting for what they most cherished-national
freedom.
The
3. The war came about in this way. Towards the
end of the seventeenth century, Charles II. of Spain
was clearly drawing near his end. He had no
claimants of children; and his nearest of kin was the
the Spanish
Dauphin of France. Next in order of kinship
came Joseph, eldest son of the Elector of Bavaria; and
after him the Emperor Leopold.' But the dauphin's
• Table showing the Spanish descent of the above-named persons :-
PHILIP III.
crown.
Philip IV.
Mary Anne.
Charles II. Maria Theresa Lewis XIV. Margaret Leopold, the Emperor,
The Dauphin.
Philip, Duke of Anjou.
Mary Antoinette=Elector of Bavaria,
Joseph, the Electoral Prince.
1689-1700. War of the Spanish Succession.
481
mother and Joseph's grandmother had, when leaving
Spain, solemnly laid aside, for themselves and those who
might spring from them, all claim to the Spanish crown.
Nothing of the kind stood in the way of Leopold. It was
the belief of some, however, that no one has power, by
any words or acts, to bar his or her descendants from
anything to which they may come to have a right; and
that, therefore, the dauphin's claim to succeed King
Charles was still a good one. Yet it was certain that,
however good his claim might be, the other European
States would not stand still and see the almost boundless
Spanish Empire-Spain, Naples, Sicily, Milan, the
Spanish Netherlands, and the Indies-go to swell the
dominions of the mightiest prince of Europe; for the
dauphin or his heir must sooner or later become king
of France. On the other hand Lewis would be sure to
oppose with all his power the union of the Spanish and
Austrian dominions. William and Lewis at The First
first thought it possible to settle the question
by a friendly arrangement. In 1698 they
made a treaty-the First Partition Treaty, as it is
called-with each other. By this Joseph was to get the
kingdom of Spain, the Indies, and the Spanish Nether-
lands; while some regions near the Pyrenees, Naples,
and Sicily, were to go to the dauphin, and Milan to the
Archduke Charles, second son of the emperor. This
treaty might have saved Europe from war; but a few
months after it was made Joseph suddenly died, and his
death spoiled the plan.
Partition
Treaty,
1698.
The Second
4. The two kings then tried to hit upon a new plan.
Early in 1700 the Second Partition Treaty was signed.
By this the Archduke Charles was to have
Spain, the Netherlands, and the Indies;
Milan-with power to exchange it for Lor-
raine—was added to the dauphin's share. But this
E. H.
I I
Partition
Treaty,
1700.
482
1700-1.
Settlement of the Constitution.
making of treaties all turned out wasted labour. Before
the year was over Charles II. died, leaving by will Spain
and all the countries belonging to Spain to
The Duke
of Anjou
King of
+
the Duke of Anjou, second son of the
Spain, 1700. dauphin; and Lewis, in utter disregard of the
treaty he had signed, accepted the bequest for his grand-
son. Anjou at once became King of Spain as Philip V.
Shortly afterwards war broke out between Lewis XIV.
and the Emperor (1701).
The Com-
mons get
angry about
the trea-
ties, 1701.
5. At first it seemed as if the King of England would
have to look on and see the great game played out with-
out him. Parliament had grown angry about
the Partition Treaties; and William dared not
even speak of war to it. Most of the Com-
mons thought that, in making those treaties,
the King had shown small regard for English interests ;
and, moreover, it was soon found out that they had been
made in a way by which the rules of the Constitution had
been broken. Throughout his reign William was his
own minister of foreign affairs, and in arranging the
terms of the first treaty had told no one of his English
ministers anything about them. Somers, the Chancellor,
had even put the Great Seal to a paper in which blanks
were left for the names of the men who should sign for
England. These and other´ awkward things came out;
and the Commons straightway impeached
Somers and three other lords. The king was
so disheartened by the turn things had taken
that he recognised Philip as King of Spain. He was
afraid the Commons would make him do this some time
or other. The Lords, however, were not of the same
mind as the Commons, and cunningly contrived that the
impeachment of Somers and his friends should come
to nothing. The feeling of Englishmen generally was
rather in favour of the course which William desired to
Impeach-
inent of the
Whig
Lords, 1701.
1701-1. War of the Spanish Succession.
483
take, and soon the Commons themselves came to see
that England must shortly join in the war. Then King
James died; and Lewis took the fatal step of putting
forward James's son as King of England. The nation at
large felt this to be a gross insult; Tories and Whigs
called loudly for war. The new Parliament passed laws
of the utmost severity against the Jacobites, and heartily
voted large sums for the army and navy. William went
zealously to work to get the nation ready for the great
struggle.
6. But William's end was now near; he did not even
live to see war declared. Early in 1702 he was thrown
from his horse and broke his collar-bone. He
had never been a strong man; and of late his
Death of
William,
March,
1702.
health had been growing worse. His feeble
body had not now enough strength to bear up against the
shock. On March 8, 1702, he died at Kensington. He
was but fifty-two years old.
William's
William was a little, meagre man, with a thin, worn-
looking face. He talked little save to his closest friends,
was seldom cheerful save in battle, had a blunt
way of speaking, and cared nothing for lite- character.
rature or art. But his heart was strong and tender; he
was borne away fainting from his wife's dying bed, and
a lock of her hair was found over his heart after his
death. He had some grave faults; but on the whole
his character was nóble. He was the last of our great
kings.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION.
1. THE Bill of Rights had settled who was to take the
crown after William's death. Anne, second daughter of
II 2
484
1702.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Anne,
Queen,
March,
1702-
August,
1714.
The great
Duke of
Marl-
borough,
b. 1650;
d. 1722.
moor.
James II., at once became queen. She was thirty-seven
years old, and was married to Prince George of Denmark;
but she was childless, though she had borne
many children. She was dull-witted, but kind-
hearted, was easily led by anyone whom
she trusted and loved; but nothing could
move her when her mind was made up.
For many years after her coming to the throne, almost
the whole power of the State was in the hands of John
Churchill, whom Anne made Duke of Marl-
borough. Churchill, the son of a Devonshire
gentleman, had risen to wealth and honours by
the kindness of James II., and had won fame
as a soldier in the Low Countries and at Sedge-
But in 1688 he deserted James, and did much
to make his overthrow sure. He is charged with having
been false to William also. William, however, forgave
him, took him into favour, and marked him out for high
command in the coming war. Marlborough was a
general of wonderful skill, firmness, and daring; he had
a temper that nothing could ruffle, and a rare power of
working upon the minds of men. But he was over-fond
of heaping up riches, and is said to have cared little for
anything but his wife and his own greatness. This wife,
Sarah Jennings, was in many ways as remarkable as
himself. She was a woman of great force of character
and overbearing temper, but was deeply loved by her
husband. Indeed her husband owed his greatness
largely to her; for Anne had from her early days been
very fond of Lady Marlborough, and was always ready
to do whatever she wished. That they might talk and
write to each other with greater ease Anne called her
friend Mrs. Freeman, and was in turn known to Lady
Marlborough as Mrs. Morley. The Queen gave herself
1702. War of the Spanish Succession.
485
up altogether to her friend's guidance; and in this way
Marlborough became, on William's death, the most
powerful man in England.
The
Ministry
Godolphin,
of Lord
2. Lord Godolphin, a wary and experienced statesman,
was made Lord High Treasurer, then the highest Minister
of the Crown. Marlborough and Godolphin
were Tories, and put none but Tories into
the other important posts. But after a time
a change came over their views. The Tories 1702-1710.
were lukewarm in upholding the war; the Whigs
warmly pressed it on; and therefore Marlborough and
Godolphin, who were all for war, kept drawing farther
from the Tories and closer to the Whigs.
went on, the Tory members were every now
and then dropping off from the Ministry and
the Whigs were joining it, until it became
altogether Whig. Almost the first act of the new
Ministry was to declare war with France. Marlborough
was named Captain-General of the land forces.
Thus, as time
War de-
clared,
May, 1702.
The war in
the Low
3. England had never yet engaged in a war that
spread so far and wide over the earth as this one. It
was carried on at the same time in the Low
Countries, in Spain, in the Mediterranean Sea,
and in the West Indies. Its greatest battle
Its greatest battle Countries.
was fought in Germany. But its chief scene of action
was the Spanish Netherlands-the country that is now
called Belgium-and the parts of France that lay near.
The armies there were led by Marlborough. They were
made up of men from many lands-English, Dutch,
Prussians, and Hanoverians—all of whom cheerfully
obeyed the great English general.
4. No grand deed of arms was done by Marlborough's
army for the first two years. The French stood on the
defensive; and Marlborough was much hampered by the /
486
Settlement of the Constitution. 1702-04
Battle of
1704.
Dutch, who would not let him give battle when he
wished. He had to rest content with taking several
strongholds. But in 1704 the English captain struck a
mighty blow at the power of France. Finding in that
year that the French and their allies, the Bavarians,
were making alarming way against the Austrians in
South-western Germany, he marched his army from the
Rhine to the Danube, and having joined it to
Blenheim, the Austrian force under Prince Eugene of
August,
Savoy, came up with the French and Bavarians
at Blenheim. There, on the banks of the Danube, was
fought the battle which has shed its chief lustre on
Marlborough's name. Tallard, the French marshal, had
about 60,000, the Englishman about 50,000 men under his
command. For a whole day the French held their
ground manfully, driving back the Allies at almost every
point. At last, in the evening, Marlborough led a ge-
neral assault along the whole line; the French army
was cut in two, and utterly routed. It was a crushing
defeat; almost two-thirds of the beaten army were killed,
wounded, or made prisoners. Tallard himself fell into
Marlborough's hands. The pride of Lewis XIV. was
humbled at last.
·
Taking of
Gibraltar,
Aug., 1704.
:
5. Ten days before the battle of Blenheim an English
admiral gained a success which, though thought little of
at the time, proved to be of vast importance.
Early in August, Admiral Sir George Rooke,
who had been cruising along the coast of
Spain all the summer, and been able to do nothing,
landed a few thousand seamen and marines near
Gibraltar, and took the place with the utmost ease. This
fortress was kept by the English when peace was made;
and every attempt to wrest it from them again has utterly
failed.
6. Next year Marlborough is again found warring in
1705-09.
487
War of the Spanish Succession.
Battle of
Ramillies,
May, 1706.
Battle of
the Low Countries; and, though he could get no chance
of winning a great battle, he managed to push
the French hard. But in 1706 he again over-
threw their armies, at Ramillies; and nine of
the strongest fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands were
the fruits of the victory. Another year (1707) of com-
parative inactivity followed. Then, in 1708, a third grand
victory was won, and the most skilfully-managed siege
of the whole war brought to a triumphant close. For the
French under the Duke of Vendome, having
laid siege to Oudenarde, Marlborough fell upon
them and drove them from their position. He
then drew his army round Lille, perhaps the strongest of
the strong places on the French border. The garrison
of Lille was commanded by Boufflers, the general who
had held Namur against William III.
siege lasted more than three months, and
was watched with eager interest throughout
Europe. Prince Eugene pushed forward the siege, while
Marlborough kept off the French army, which lay in the
neighbourhood trying hard to relieve the place. In the
end Boufflers had to yield.
This
Oudenarde,
July, 1708.
Lille, Aug.-
Siege of
Dec., 1708.
Battle of
7. In the campaign of 1709 the great Duke won the
last and bloodiest of his successes. The French Marshal,
Villars, had entrenched his army at Malplaquet;
and the allies had to carry by storm a strongly Malplaquet,
fortified position held by 90,000 stout-hearted Sept., 1709.
men. They carried it, but at a frightful cost—a loss of
20,000 killed and wounded. The next two campaigns
were not marked by any very striking event. But many
towns were taken, and France itself was invaded. The
upshot of Marlborough's fighting was, that the French
were swept out of the Netherlands, their renown in war
was lost, and their kingdom was drained of well-nigh all its
488
Settlement of the Constitution. 1705-10,
The com-
mand taken
from Marl-
borough,
strength. Not often has a great nation been brought so
low as France was in this war by Marlborough.
But in 1712 the great soldier was disgraced;
and the Duke of Ormond was sent to take his
command. How such a thing as this came
Ormond did
Jan. 1, 1712.
to be done will be explained farther on.
nothing worth mentioning here.
8. During these years the war was going on in Spain

THE
LOW COUNTRIES.
and
Neighbouring Lands
English Miles
Tille
SPANT
Ordenande
Tourna
Skinkerk
Fontenoy Mons
Malplagrat
ETHER
Handen
"Namir
Stades
KlosterZeven
Hanover
Minden
Osnabruck
GER M{ N
Crefeld
Ax la Chapella
E
HERLANDS
SON
MP IR E
Bergens Hanau
Frankfort
Dettingen
Aschaffenburgh
R. Mar
Pazie
R Rhin
Blenhei
R.Danube
The war in
also. There the Allies were not so successful, perhaps
because they had not a general like Marl-
Spain, 1702- borough to lead them. In Spain an effort
was made to carry out directly the chief pur-
pose of the Allies-to dethrone Philip and set up the
1712.
1705-1713. War of the Spanish Succession.
489
Archduke Charles as King. And in 1705 the Archduke,
went to the country under
But most of the Spaniards
calling himself Charles III.,
the guard of an English fleet.
favoured the French prince; and Charles never had a
chance of winning the crown in this way and keeping it.
It is true there were some valiant deeds done by the
English in Spain. In 1705 the Earl of Peterborough took
Barcelona with a very small force, and marched hither
and thither through the eastern provinces unchecked.
And in 1706 the Allies, under the Earl of Galway,
advanced from Portugal and entered Madrid. But
Peterborough's strange career soon came to an end; and
not only was Galway forced to leave Madrid,
Defeat of
1707.
and the
Again
Battles of
Brihuega
and Villa
Viciosa,
Dec., 1710.
but in 1707 his army was destroyed. Yet this Almanza,
overthrow did not end the war in those parts.
In 1710 the French were beaten in their turn;
Allies a second time took possession of Madrid.
however, they found it necessary to march
away from the place. As they were making
for the east coast, the French, led by Ven-
dome, overtook at Brihuega their left wing,
which was English, and commanded by General Stan-
hope. Stanhope's troops were surrounded; and after
some tough fighting had to surrender themselves pri-
soners. Next day the other Allies were more prosper-
ous at Villa Viciosa. Yet all they gained was freedom to
go on to Barcelona. This was the last contest of the war
in Spain. Already, in 1708, the English had
conquered Minorca, an island which they Utrecht,
afterwards held for seventy years. In 1713
peace was made at Utrecht.
Peace of
1713.
499
Settlement of the Constitution. 1702-03:
CHAPTER VIII.
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY DURING THE WAR.
reign dif-
fered from
William's.
J. OF Anne's reign it may be said, as a general truth,
that in it the course of things which had been set going
How Anne's under William went on without check. In
one way only did public life change after
William's death-there was less strife between
Parliament and the Crown, and more between Whigs and
Tories. Anne was an Englishwoman, a Stuart, and a
Sound Churchwoman. The Tories therefore trusted her
far more than they had ever trusted William, and did
not seek to weaken the royal power any further. More-
over the new settlement had seemingly been made safe;
Anne quietly accepted the position which the Revolution
had given her, and so was allowed to enjoy a peace that
had been denied to William. There was, however, great
stir and noise in her time. Party spirit ran very high,
and Whigs and Tories strove with each other as they had
seldom striven before.
2. The Tories were not just of the same mind as they
had been in the days of the Exclusion Bill. They did
not now struggle to keep the Crown powerful with the
same zeal as they had then shown. They not only
accepted the arrangement made in 1688-9, but they up-
held the authority of Parliament often with greater
earnestness than the Whigs themselves. Traces of their
old faith, it is true, might still be seen in them; they
would rather have Anne than William on
the throne, because in her title there was
something of hereditary right; and those of
them who went farthest in Toryism were apt to become
Jacobites. But they mainly showed their Toryism by
Tories and
Whigs in
Anne's
reign.
*❖
1703-05. Constitutional History during the War.491
being great friends of the Church, and by disliking Dis-
senters. They wanted to have all the power in the Com-
monwealth given to Churchmen alone. The Whigs, on
the other hand, wished to see all Protestants made equal
under the law. Moreover, in Anne's reign the Whigs
were very zealous for the war from first to last; but the
Tories both were not over-warm in its support at first
and came to dislike it very much at last.
3. The Commons in Anne's first Parliament were
mostly Tories, and in their very first session carried a
law which would have made it quite impossible for any
Dissenter to hold a post under the Crown. But the Lords
threw out this bill, for in those days most of the Lords
were Whigs. The Lords, as having so much that might be
lost by a violent change, are mostly in favour of keeping
things as they are, and accordingly were then in favour of
the Revolution Settlement, which they thought might in
the long run be upset if the Tories always had
their way. The aim of this bill was to prevent
occasional conformity, as the custom of taking
the Sacrament according to the Church ritual, just to fit
oneself for holding office, was called. Next year the Lords
again threw it out. From this time the Tories lost ground.
Occasional
Bill, 1702,
Conformity
1703.
gain the
1705.
mastery,
4. The war with France was a Whig war. It was
waged to carry out the plans of William, who had become
the great Whig hero, and sprang from the The Whigs
Revolution, which had been a triumph of Whig
principles. Marlborough's victories, therefore,
spread a Whiggish feeling through the country; and, in
1705 a House of Commons was chosen in which Whigs
had the mastery. What followed will show clearly how
the new way of governing was likely to work. The
Whigs were now so strong that the Ministry could not get
on without them. To win them to his side Marlborough
had to promise to get one of their leading men, Charles
492
Settlement of the Constitution. 1700-08.
Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, raised to some high office.
But Anne liked the Tories better than the Whigs; she
thought she had a right to choose her own Ministers, and
for a time would not hear of a place being given to
Sunderland, though he was the husband of Marlborough's
daughter. Marlborough knew how necessary it was that
what the Whigs asked should be done, and eagerly
pressed it on. But the queen was most unwilling, and
yielded only to Marlborough's earnest prayers. In De-
cember 1706 Sunderland was made Secretary of State.
In 1708 the same struggle took place again on a
larger scale. The general election of 1708 having again
given the Whigs a majority in the Commons, the other
Whig leaders-the Whig Junto, as they were
called, of whom the Lords Somers and Whar-
altogether
ton were the chief-demanded to be taken
Whig, 1708. into the Government. Marlborough, knowing
the dislike of Anne to the Whigs, held out for a long
time against them; but they made things so unpleasant,
and there was so much dread that they would use their
strength to work mischief to the Queen's friends, that
Anne had at last to give offices to Somers and Wharton.
Then the Ministry became purely Whig.
The Minis
try be-
comes
England
and Scot-
land, 1700.
5. The most noteworthy change of Anne's reign was
the Union of England and Scotland, the blending together
of the two kingdoms and two parliaments into
the Kingdom and Parliament of Great Britain.
When one looks at what was then going on in
the two countries one is rather surprised that such a good
thing should have been brought about at that time. For
never since Englishmen and Scotsmen had fallen under
the sway of the same king had Scottish hearts been so
filled with rage against England as in the first few years
of the eighteenth century. England, the Scots said,
was working them great and lasting wrongs; and they
1700-04. Constitutional History during the War.493
would never forgive her. There was too much reason for
what the Scots said. Many Englishmen were very selfish
and greedy, and could not bear that their kinsfolk in
Scotland and Ireland should share in the pursuits which
brought them wealth. These men, merchants of the
great seaport towns of England, had so worked upon
Parliament that heavy taxes were laid on all products of
Scotland which were carried into England. Scotsmen
were not allowed to trade with any country belonging
to England, or with England in anything but what was
grown or made in Scotland. Their anger at finding
their hands tied up by English greed was yearly growing
more bitter. In 1699-1700 a plan which they had tried
to carry out, for planting a trading settlement
at Darien had come to a disastrous end. Its
failure brought ruin on a vast number of Scot- 1699-1700.
tish families. The Scots cast the blame on the English
East India Company and on King William; and their
wrath against England rose higher than ever. After
William's death the Scottish Parliament passed an Act
of Security, by which it was made impossible
that the same person who had already been Security,
chosen to sit on the English throne after Anne
died should be chosen to the Scottish throne also, unless
security were given for the 'religion, freedom, and trade'
of the Scots. This law made it possible that at Anne's
death the two kingdoms should pass to different kings.
The Darien
Scheme,
Act of
1703, 1704.
6. To the danger arising from this state of things we
owe the Act of Union. The wiser men in England now
saw clearly that nothing short of a thorough blending of
the two peoples into one would put a stop to their quar-
relling, and, to gain this, were willing to give the Scots
all they wanted. The very last paper that William signed
was a message to his English Parliament asking it to
consider how such a union could be brought about.
494
Settlement of the Constitution. 1707–1710.
Farliament did look into the question, and gave the
Queen power to name men who might meet other men
sent from Scotland, and with them try to find out a way
of uniting the two countries. But the trading jealousy
of many Englishmen and the blind patriotism of many
Scotsmen made the task of arranging the terms very
hard; and this attempt failed. The plan, however, was
not lost sight of; some Scotsmen longed for freedom of
trade the wisest English statesmen were afraid of Scot-
land falling again under French influence. In 1706 there
was a meeting in London of thirty-one men from each king-
Act of
Union
passed.
In Scotland,
Jan. 1707;
in England,
Mar., 1707.
dom; and these at last found a way to a settle-
ment of the question. By the Act of Union
Scotsmen were to have the same freedom of
trade as Englishmen; the Presbyterian Church
was secured to Scotland; there was to be but
one Parliament for Great Britain, to which Scotland was to
send forty-five Commons and sixteen Lords. For a long
time many Scotsmen talked of this law as if it were the
ruin of their country; but it has undoubtedly done much
good to both nations.
Fall of
Godolphin's
Ministry,
1710.
7. In 1710 the Whig Ministry fell from power. It
had foolishly made the Commons impeach a noisy High
Church clergyman, called Sacheverell, who had preached
against Godolphin, and misrepresented the Revolution.
The Lords found Sacheverell guilty; but the trial stirred
up a mighty outburst of High Church feeling
throughout the country. The people too were
growing rather weary of the war, and of the
heavy taxes which they had to pay to keep it going.
Marlborough also had lost the Queen's favour. His wife
was a woman of violent temper and overbearing ways,
and in her rages did not spare the Queen herself. A
coldness had grown up between the two old friends. The
Duchess never tried to soothe the Queen's wounded
•
1710.
The Tory Ministry and the Peace. 495
feelings; and the breach between them went on widen-
ing until at last Anne had come to hate her friend as much
as she had formerly loved her. One Mrs. Masham, once
a bedchamber-woman to the Queen, had already taken
the Duchess's place in Anne's affections. The upshot of
these changes was, that in the summer of 1710
the Queen sent away her chief Whig Ministers,
and gave the guidance of the nation to 1710-1714.
Robert Harley and Henry St. John.
The Harley-
St.-John
Ministry,
CHAPTER IX.
THE TORY MINISTRY AND THE PEACE OF UTRECHT.
1. THIS daring act of Anne's-the turning away of
her Ministers-helps us to see plainly the working of the
altered Constitution. The Whig leaders had Party go-
been able to win office in 1708 merely because vernment.
most of the Commons thought as they did, and were
ready to vote as they wished. The Queen had now a
strong hope that the members of the new Parliament
would be mostly Tory; and, relying on that hope, had
sent away her Whig Ministers and taken Tories in their
places. She was not disappointed; most of the new
members were Tories; and she was able to keep Harley
and St. John. But it is certain that, if it had turned out
otherwise, she could not have kept these Ministers, and
would have been forced to bring back Godolphin, Somers,
and Halifax.
2. Harley, who was made in 1711 Earl of Oxford, and
St. John, who was made in 1712 Viscount Bolingbroke,
ruled England for nearly four years. During
this time the war of parties never ceased.
The great writers of the day took part with one side or
Party strife
496
1711.
Settlement of the Constitution.
the other, each doing his utmost to make people believe
that his party was right and the other wrong. The
stoutest champion of the Tories in this way
Swift;
Addison; was Jonathan Swift, better known as Dean
Steele.
Swift, because in 1713 he became Dean of St.
Patrick's Church in Dublin. Swift had once been a
Whig, but in 1710 had gone over to the Tories. He
wrote for the Tories with all his might; and being the
greatest genius then living, did a great deal by his writ-
ings to spread a Tory feeling throughout the country.
The ablest writers on the Whig side were Joseph
Addison, a most graceful author and amiable man; and
Sir Richard Steele, an honest but somewhat hot-headed
Irishman. Men had not then the same means of reading
speeches made in Parliament as they have now, for it
was very difficult to get any account of a Parliamen-
tary debate, and unlawful to print it if it were got.
Yet even then it was an important thing for a states-
man to be thought well of by the people; and the only
way he had of winning a good name was either to
write himself, or to get others to write, in favour of his
opinions.
The Whigs
and the
Tories.
3. The clergy and the country gentlemen were zealous
for the Tories; the large towns and trading classes
heartily upheld the Whigs. The Tories
charged the Whigs with trying to destroy the
Church; their cry was that the 'Church was
in danger.' The Whigs charged the Tories with wishing
to undo the Act of Settlement; their cry was that 'the
Protestant succession was in danger.' Whilst Anne
lived the Tories were the stronger party, for most
Englishmen loved the Church and sent Tories to Parlia-
ment. There was, it is true, no general desire for a second
Restoration; but the country thought there was little fear
of this, and the cry of the Whigs did not frighten them.
1711-13.
The Tory Ministry and the Peace. 497
The
How the
peace of
made,
1711-13.
Utrecht was
4. But the point that Whigs and Tories fought most
about was the making of peace with France.
Whigs wanted the war to go on until Philip
should be driven from the throne of Spain
and King Lewis should grant all that the
Allies asked. The Tories wanted to have the
war ended at once, and were willing both to allow Philip
to stay on the Spanish throne and to let Lewis off very
easily. The Whigs said that if the Kings of France and
Spain both belonged to the same family they would
always take part with each other in wars, and it would
not be easy for the other States to hold their own against
them. The Tories said that if Charles became King of
Spain the House of Austria would be as dangerous to
the quiet of Europe as the House of Bourbon, for in 1711
Charles had been chosen Emperor. The Tories, too,
were against the war, because it was a Whig war, and
success in it had always given strength to the Whigs.
They resolved, therefore, to have peace. But they went
about getting it in a very bad way. Some years before
Lewis had become so humble from the many beatings
his armies had got that he offered not only to cease help-
ing his grandson, but also to supply the Allies with money
to wage war against him. These offers had not satisfied
the Allies; the war had gone on, and many more losses
had befallen Lewis in it. But now Harley and St. John
secretly sent a messenger to Lewis to ask if he would
agree to a peace. Peace was the thing that Lewis longed
for most; but finding that the English Ministers also were
so eager for it, he did not now offer to yield what before
ne had been willing to yield. His grandson, he now said,
must be left on the Spanish throne. There was much
stealthy going to and fro of messengers between England
and France; and at length the rulers of the two nations
came to an understanding with each other. But not a
E. H.
K K
498
Settlement of the Constitution. 1713-14.
Terms of the
Peace of
Utrecht,
·
word of these doings was told to the Dutch or the
Emperor, though as the allies of England they had a
right to know everything that was going on. And when
at last the English Ministers did tell the Dutch, they
showed them a different treaty from the one that had
been drawn up by them and Lewis. In 1712 they took
away the command of the army from Marlborough,
separated the English army from the Allies, and privately
settled with Lewis a plan for carrying on the war that year.
5. Next year the Peace they so wished for was signed
at Utrecht. Philip was to keep the Spanish throne, but
was to swear that he gave up all claim ever to
become King of France. Lewis XIV. pledged
himself to have nothing more to do with
James Edward, now known in England as the Pretender,
and to recognise the Protestant succession to the English
Crown. England was to have Gibraltar, Minorça, Nova
Scotia, and Newfoundland, and trading rights with the
Spanish settlements. The Dutch were given a strong
line of fortresses to guard their border; and the House
of Austria got the Spanish Nertherlands and Naples.
This has been called 'the shameful Peace of Utrecht,'
partly because of the way in which it was made, and
partly because nothing was done in it to save the Catalans
from the vengeance of Philip, though these had risen in
arms at the bidding of the Allies.
1713.
The last
year of
Anne's
reign,
1713-14.
6. Anne lived little more than a year longer. This
was a very anxious time for Englishmen. The Queen's
health was bad. Oxford and Bolingbroke
were thought to be planning to overthrow
the Act of Settlement and bring in the Pre-
tender. The Jacobites were believed to be
busy laying plots for having James Edward made King
when Anne died. The Tories had seemingly the greater
number of the people on their side, for in 1713 a new
•
1714.
The Tory Ministry and the Peace.
499
Parliament was chosen, in which most of the Commons
were again Tories. But one thing crippled the strength
of their party very much-their chief men, Oxford and
Bolingbroke, had come to hate each other, and very often
had angry quarrels. These statesmen were opposite to
each other in character; Oxford's temper was dull and
sluggish, Bolingbroke's was active and bold. Neither,
however, was thought to have much regard for truth or
honesty, and each narrowly watched the other, eager to
take advantage of any blunder he might make to do him
an injury. In July 1714 Bolingbroke contrived to poison
the Queen's mind against his rival, and Oxford was
turned out of office. But it was too late for
Bolingbroke to gain anything by the change;
three days later Anne died. The day before
her death she had named the Duke of Shrewsbury, a
nobleman who had been active in bringing about the
Revolution, Lord High Treasurer. Shrewsbury was a
Whig; and his appointment was a kind of pledge that
plots to bring back the Pretender, if there were such,
would be crushed.
Queen Anne
dies, August
I, 1714.
CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.
I. THE Electress Sophia had died two months before
Queen Anne; and the right of succession to the English
Crown had then passed to her son, George, Elector of
Hanover. Accordingly on August 1, 1714,
George became King of England as George I.
Much fear had been felt throughout the country
that the Jacobites would try to hinder his coming to the
George I.
King,
1714-27.
K K 2
500
1714-15.
Settlement of the Constitution.
throne; but it turned out quite otherwise-no one dared
even to raise his voice for the Pretender. Indeed, most
people showed great joy when they heard the new king
proclaimed. In foreign lands also George was looked
upon as the true King of England; even Lewis of France
kept the promise that he had made in the Treaty of
Utrecht.
Whig
Ministry
formed,
1714.
2. George came to England about seven weeks after
Anne's death. As soon as he came the Tory Ministers
were sent away, and their places given to
Whigs. For George did not try, like William,
to allow each party a share in governing; he
thought that the Whigs, who had always been in favour
of his title, were likely to be more faithful to him than
the Tories. Of course, if the Commons had wished very
much that the Ministers should be Tories, they would
have made the King take Tories. But the new House of
Commons, which was chosen a few months afterwards,
had many more Whigs than Tories, and the King was
able to keep the Ministers he liked. The foremost man
in the new Ministry was Charles, Lord Townshend; but
General Stanhope and Robert Walpole were also very
powerful members of it. Walpole had rare skill in
finding out the best way of settling questions about
money, and thus made himself very useful to his party.
The late
Ministry
attacked.
3. In 1715 the quiet of the land was broken in two
ways. First, the new Ministers were so angry at what
had been done during the last four years of
Anne's reign that they stirred up Parliament
to take steps to punish the fallen leaders
of the Tories. They tried to make out that Oxford,
Bolingbroke, and Ormond had been guilty of treason in
yielding up to Lewis in the late war more places than
they need have done. Bolingbroke and Ormond fled to
France; but Oxford was not easily frightened, and stayed
1715. First Years of House of Hanover.
501
at home. They were all impeached; and bills of at-
tainder were also passed against Bolingbroke and
Ormond. Oxford was sent to the Tower, where he lay
for two years. In 1717 he was brought to trial; but in
the meantime Walpole had fallen out with the other
leading Whigs and lost office; and now, to spite his old
friends, he cunningly contrived that the Commons should
not come forward to prove the charges they made against
Oxford. The Lords, therefore, voted that Oxford was
not guilty. Bolingbroke, soon after reaching France,
openly joined the Pretender, but in a short time gave up
his cause as hopeless; and in 1723 he was allowed to
come back to England. But Ormond never came back ;
he died abroad in 1745. .
The Jaco-
bites take
up arms,
4. Secondly, there were Jacobite risings both in Scot-
land and in England. Early in September John Erskine,
Earl of Mar—who some years before had been
a Whig and helped to bring about the Union
-raised the standard of rebellion in Braemar,
and in a short time found himself in command of a large
Highland army. But Mar was very slow in his move-
ments, and lingered for six weeks in Perth. The Duke
1715.
of Argyle, famous as both a warrior and a statesman, was
sent from London to deal with this danger; and going
to Stirling, used the time which Mar was wasting in
gathering round him soldiers and loyal Lowlanders.
While things stood thus in the far north a few hundred
Jacobites took up arms in Northumberland under Mr.
Forster and Lord Derwentwater. Joining with some
Southern Scots raised by Lord Kenmure, and some
Highlanders whom Mar had sent to their aid, they
marched to Preston, in Lancashire.
The fate of the two risings was settled on the same
day. At Preston the English Jacobites and their Scottish
allies had to give themselves up to a small body of
502
1715-16.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Affair of
Preston,
1715.
Fight at
1715.
soldiers under General Carpenter. At Sheriffmuir, about
eight miles north of Stirling, the Highlanders, whom
Mar had put in motion at last, met Argyle's
little army in battle, and, though not utterly
beaten, were forced to fall back to Perth.
There Mar's army soon dwindled to a mere
Sheriffmuir, handful of men. Just when things seemed
at the worst the Pretender himself landed in
Scotland. But he altogether lacked the daring and
high spirit needful to the cause at the time; and his
presence at Perth did not even delay the end, which
was now sure. Late in January 1716 Argyle's troops.
started from Stirling northwards; and the small High-
land force broke up from Perth and went to Montrose.
Thence James Edward and Mar slipped away unnoticed,
and sailed to France; and the Highlanders 'scampered
off to their several homes. Of the rebels that were taken
prisoners about forty were tried and put to death; and
many were sent beyond the seas. Derwentwater and
Kenmure were beheaded; the other leaders of rank
either were forgiven or escaped from prison.
Septennial
Act passed,
1716.
5. These risings were followed by an important
change in an important law. The people were in a rest-
less state; and it was feared that trouble might
befal the country if a new Parliament were
chosen which would be unfavourable to the
Ministry. A bill was therefore passed to enable the King
to keep the same Parliament for seven years; and in
passing it care was taken that it should apply to the Par-
liament that then was, which thus might last till 1722.
This bill, which is called the Septennial Act, is in force
still.
6. The Whigs now became stronger than ever. But
shortly afterwards Townshend and Stanhope quarrelled
upon a grave question of foreign policy; and a split took
1717.
First Years of House of Hanover. 503
place in the Whig party which weakened it much for:
a time. Townshend and Walpole not only The Whig
ceased to be Ministers, but also did their Schism,
utmost to thwart Stanhope and Sunderland, 171/
who now held the first place in the King's counsels.
The Triple
Alliance,
1716-17.
t
!
The question about which the Whig leaders fell out
was the right way of forming the Triple Alliance. This
treaty, which England, France, and Holland
made with one another in 1716-17, gave
England great power abroad, and did much
to strengthen the hold of the Hanoverian family on the
English Crown. It seems strange to find the rulers of
England and France, who had lately been such deadly
foes, now linked together in a close friendship. But each.
had an interest in making a friend of the other. In
France Lewis XIV. had died; his great-grandson, a mere
child, had become King; and the Duke of Orleans, who
was next heir to the crown if the King of Spain should
he true to the pledge he had taken by the Treaty of
Utrecht, held the Regency. But the Duke feared that
the Spanish king would not keep his promise, and
thought it would be a good thing to have England on his
side, to help him if the boy-king died. In England,
Stanhope felt that France was the only foreign state that
could give any real aid to the Pretender, and thought it
would be a good thing if France could be brought to take
part with the Hanoverian family. Thus it came about
that an alliance was made between the two countries, by
which their rulers agreed to stand by each other in any
troubles that might arise. The Dutch also afterwards
signed this treaty (January 1717).
7. This alliance gave England and France a proud
position in Europe. It was now the aim of Stanhope and
Orleans to make the other nations abide by the terms of
the Peace of Utrecht. They would not let the quiet of
504
1718.-21.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Battle of
Cape
Passaro,
1718.
Europe be broken by any country. In 1718 the Emperor
Charles joined the Alliance, for the King of Spain wanted
to take Sicily from him, and sent an army thither for the
purpose. Thereupon an English fleet under Sir George
Byng attacked the Spanish near Cape Passaro,
and beat it thoroughly. Next year (1719),
French and English armies began to make
war in the North of Spain, and took some strong places.
Then King Philip yielded, and consented to a peace in
which he gave up everything that he had laid claim to
(1720). From these things we see how mighty England
had become.
Whig
Schism
8. For a time all went well at home also. In 1720
Stanhope made up his quarrel with Townshend and
Walpole, and the Whigs became a united
party once more. For Walpole had shown
ends, 1720.
how dangerous he might be, by causing the
Commons to throw out the Peerage Bill, which Stanhope
wished to see passed. This was a bill for taking away
from the King the power of making any more peers than
six over the number that then was. Townshend and
The Peer-
age Bill,
1719.
Sea
Bubble.'
Walpole again became Ministers. But soon
after their return to office there came a
time of great distress for many people. Some
The 'South years earlier a company had been founded
for trading with the South Seas. It grew and
prospered; it often had dealings with the
Government, and in 1720 its shares had risen to ten times
their original value. An eager desire to get rich very
fast then spread throughout the country; a great many
other companies were set up; and men bought shares
in these greedily and thoughtlessly. Soon a change of
feeling came; men got frightened about the money they
had laid out in this way, and all tried at once to sell
their shares, but no one was willing to buy them. Hence
1722.
505
First Years of House of Hanover.
Stanhope,
1721.
not only did the new companies fail, but the South Sea
shares also fell very low. A loud cry of distress was
raised by those who had lost their money; and all men
were deeply enraged when they heard that some of the
Ministers had taken bribes from the South Sea Company.
In the midst of this trouble Stanhope suddenly Death of
died. It was thought that Walpole was the
only man who knew how to help the people
in this misfortune; so he was made Chancellor of the
Exchequer. He carried laws through Parliament which
did much to calm men's minds and revive their faith
in one another's honesty. The nation then saw that
Walpole was the ablest man the King had; and upon
the death of Sunderland, in 1722, Walpole became
Prime Minister.
CHAPTER XI.
THE MINISTRY OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
Now,
1. Robert WALPOLE was a Norfolk squire of good
family, who had gained sound judgment and rare skill in
the conduct of affairs. He was clear-headed Robert
and practical, and was just the man that Eng- b. 1676,
Walpole,
land wanted at this time. A calm had fol- d. 1745.
lowed the great storms caused by the Revolution, and
the country felt a general longing for a little rest.
Walpole wished above all things to give the
nation rest. He tried with all his might to
keep England from going to war, and to help
her to make herself rich and prosperous. But he never
thought of doing great deeds, of doing away with unjust
laws and getting just ones made, of setting right some of
Walpole's
character
and policy.
506
1722.
Settlement of the Constitution.
(
.
the many evil things that then were, or of helping men
to grow wiser and better. Indeed, he believed that most
men neither were, nor could be made, good; his opinion
of men was so low that he thought they would do any-
thing for money. Every man has his price,' he said.
There was little in him to love or respect. But he had
much good sense, and knew well how to work on men's
minds. It was not a time for carrying out great plans;
the people were not in a humour for them, and were quite
content to be ruled by Walpole. And they were right;
for on the whole things went well with England during
the twenty years that Walpole was Prime Minister.
tution in the
2. Perhaps Walpole would not have been so long at
the head of affairs but for the cunning way in which he
The Consti- managed the Commons. We have seen how
eighteenth
necessary it was for the King or his chief
century. Minister to get most of the members of the
Lower House to give him their votes. Walpole, partly
because the state of things favoured him, and partly
because he was very clever in managing public assem-
blies, got members to vote with him better than any
minister who had lived before him. For the ways in
which men gained seats in Parliament were very different
then from what they are now. Many of the towns that
had the right of sending representatives were mere vil-
lages; and in many others, though they were larger, there
were only very few people who had a vote. It had there-
fore come to pass that the noblemen or gentlemen who
owned the lands on which these towns stood
'Nomina-
tion bo-
could have whatever members they liked
roughs.'
chosen for these places. Besides, the great
landowners had often such influence in the counties that
the voters in these were willing to please their landlords
or noble neighbours by voting for the persons whom they
favoured. There was also a class of boroughs, chiefly
1722. The Ministry of Sir Robert Walpole. 507
seaports, which were quite ready to give their votes to
whomsoever the King or his Ministers desired. It is
clear, then, that most of the Commons were not represen-
tatives of the people, but of the King's Ministers and other
great men of the kingdom.
The Revo
families.
3. In this way it came about that the Revolution, in
making the House of Commons the strongest thing in
the State, gave the leading part in ruling the
nation to a number of great families. These lution
are known in history as the Revolution fami-
lies, or great Whig houses, for most of them belonged to
the Whig party. For a long time it would have been
almost impossible to carry on the Government without
the active support of a good number of these houses;
and their support could be gained only by giving the chief
men among them a large share in governing. It is true
that the King had still some power; he could give away
posts of great dignity and value in Church and State,
pensions, peerages, and other honours that many men
were glad to have. But the first two kings of the line of
Hanover were strangers; neither of them knew much of
English ways or English feeling, and did not care to take
any trouble to keep up the king's power. Accordingly
the heads of the great houses generally had their own
way. We shall see that the third king of the line did
make a great effort to win back to the Crown the autho-
rity it had lost, and succeeded too.
་
Walpole's
manage-
ment of the
4. For twenty years Sir Robert Walpole was able by
wise management to keep on his side both most of the
Whig Houses and the king, and thus to get
the Commons to vote in the way he wished
on every question that came before them.
Moreover, he is believed to have paid away great sums
of money in bribing Members. He was not the first to
use this means of gaining votes; but he is said to have
Commons.
508
1722-24.
Settlement of the Constitution.
used it much more than any other minister ever did. It
was begun in Charles II.'s reign, and first became com-
mon in William III.'s time, when the good-will of the
Lower House was seen to be so needful to the King's
Ministers.
5. But we must not think that the King's Ministers
need pay no heed to the wishes of the people. Walpole
The people
himself was more than once forced to give up
still of
his own will and do what the nation bade him,
some ac-
count.
even when Parliament would have cheerfully
agreed to the course he wanted to take. Only the
people had to speak out very strongly, and show that
they were really in earnest, and would have the matter
settled in the way they thought right. They were sel-
dom, however, very much in earnest then about anything;
for a time they cared very little how things went on in
the State.
6. Few very noteworthy things happened while
Walpole ruled England. So long as George I. lived
this Minister ran little risk of losing his place, and was
able to deal in a high-handed way with each question as
it arose. In 1722 the Jacobites tried to make themselves
troublesome, but failed; and next year their leader,
Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, was banished for life
by Act of Parliament. In 1724 the English settlers in
Wood's
halfpence,
1723-4.
Ireland flew into a great rage because Walpole
began to issue among them a new supply of
halfpence and farthings, made by William
Wood, an English ironmaster. They said that these
coins were far below the value of similar coins in Eng-
land, and that they were issued only to enrich Wood and
some worthless people about the English Court. Dean
Swift, who owed Walpole a grudge, wrote with great
force against this coinage, and so worked upon the minds
of his countrymen that they would not receive it on any
1724-33. The Ministry of Sir Robert Walpole. 509
Another
terms. Walpole, powerful as he was, had to allow the
coinage to be withdrawn. Then in 1725 Spain, wishing
to get back Gibraltar, made an alliance with
Austria, and went to war with England. But
none of these things shook Walpole's hold on
power in the least. So quiet had things become that in
the session of 1724 there was but one division in the
Commons.
war with
Spain,
1725-27.
Death of
George I.,
June 1727.
George II.
King, 1727-
1760.
7. In June 1727 the reign of George I. suddenly
ended. He had gone to visit his German subjects, and
was on his way to Osnabruck, when apoplexy
seized him, and he died in his carriage.
George I. was an upright man, who sought to
deal justly with all men, and was much loved
in Hanover. But he was silent, awkward, and
cold in his manner, and was little liked in
His son at once became King as George II. The new
king at first thought of sending Walpole away, but in a
few days he changed his mind and kept him in office.
England.
Friendship
with
France.
8. England and France were still fast friends; for
Walpole was bent on keeping the country out of war, and
above all out of a war with France. This, he
knew, was the only nation that could help the
Pretender in a way that would make him really
dangerous; without aid from France the Jacobites were
harmless, and could do little mischief. For many years,
therefore, the Pretender, owing to Walpole's wisdom, was
unable to move; and thus the new line of kings had time
to strengthen themselves on the throne.
The Excise
9. But Walpole failed in one thing which he had set
his heart on getting done. In 1733 he brought a bill into
Parliament for levying the duties on certain
goods, tobacco being the first, not as customs scheme,
-which are paid at the seaports, when the 1733.
goods are brought into the country-but as excise, which
·
•
510
Settlement of the Constitution. 1733-39.
is paid when the goods are sent throughout the country.
He said that it did not cost so much to raise an excise,
that men could not keep back or steal part of it so easily,
and that thus more money would come into the treasury,
while the people paid just the same. But most English
folk then hated the excise; the very word put them in an
ill-humour. A loud outcry against Walpole's plan went
up from all parts of the country; and Walpole, much
against his will, gave it up.
Walpole's
jealousy of
able men.
10. But this did not weaken Walpole; both King and
Parliament still upheld him, and for a while longer the
people also rested contentedly under his rule.
Year after year passed, leaving Walpole still
at the head of affairs, as strong as ever to work
his will. But he had made one great mistake in his
doings. He had always been jealous of able men, and
had driven away most of those who had been in office
with him. There was hardly one man of merit in his
Government whom he did not get rid of at some time
or other. Even Townshend had to resign his place. This
unwise conduct hurt Walpole in two ways: it chased
away from his side the men who were best fitted
to help him in the hour of need, and it sent them
to join the ranks of his foes. Thereupon this band of
foes, who called themselves the Patriots, went
Patriots. on steadily growing until nearly every able
statesman belonged to it. Its leader in the Commons
was William Pulteney, a brilliant speaker, who had once
been Walpole's trustiest friend. But the man among thẹ
Patriots who had the greatest gifts of mind and noblest
character was a young man, William Pitt, who first
made himself known by his fiery speeches in Parliament
against Walpole. Seldom has a Minister had so many
great men arrayed against him.
The
11. Yet for many years Walpole held his ground in
1739.
The Ministry of Sir Robert Walpole. 511
spite of them all. They brought many charges against
him. They said that, to please the King, he Walpole
took more pains about Hanover than England; and his foes.
that he was tamely letting Spain trample upon the honour
and the interests of England; that he was destroying the
manly tone and honesty of the nation by his wicked arts.
bribery and corruption. On these points they assailed
him again and again, but for a time without success.
Single-handed Walpole withstood them, and beat them
in every division. Indeed, once (1739) they got so dis-
heartened that they left Parliament altogether. At last
a great longing for a war with Spain seized upon the
people; and the Patriots turned this into a means of
overthrowing their great enemy,
Troubles
with Spain.
12. At this time fresh life was given in England to
the old hatred of the Spaniards by the cruelties which
English seamen were said to be suffering at
Spanish hands in the Southern Seas. Spain did
not like that any country but herself should trade with her
colonies in America, and very unwillingly allowed a single
English ship to carry goods to them once a year. But
the English found the traffic profitable, and in one way or
another contrived to send to Spanish America far more
goods than one ship could carry. For a time the Spaniards
took little heed of these things; but in 1733 their King
secretly made an alliance, called a Family Compact, with
the French King, and after this the American coasts were
more closely watched. English ships that sailed or were
driven by opposing winds into their seas were boarded
and searched by Spanish officials, who often did their
duty very roughly. One of them even tore off the ear of
Robert Jenkins, the master of a Jamaica trading sloop.
Hence the war that these doings led to
sometimes known as 'the Jenkins' Ear War.'
The English grew more and more angry as
they heard of these things, and at last began to call
'The Jen-
kins' Ear
War.'
512
Settlement of the Constitution. 1739-44
-
loudly for war with Spain. Walpole tried eagerly to pre-
vent an outbreak of war; but his efforts failed. The
English were bent on punishing Spain for the many
wrongs they thought she had done them. Walpole,
much against his will, had to go to war (1739). Yet the
English arms did not prosper. Though Vernon took
Portobello in 1739, the Spaniards in 1741 beat back from
Carthagena with great loss a large force that Walpole
had sent to take it. Walpole got the blame of every
failure; the Patriots grew ever louder and fiercer in call-
ing him the cause of all the nation's troubles. Still he
Fall of Wal- fought doggedly for his place. But the General
Election of December 1741 gave the Patriots
a small majority in the Commons, and early
in 1742 Walpole was forced to resign. He was at the
same time made Earl of Orford.
pɔle, Feb.
1742.
Anson's
voyage,
1740-44.
13. The war with Spain went on until 1748; but nothing
further that was striking happened in it except Commodore
Anson's great voyage round the world. In September
1740 Anson had been sent with a squadron to do all the
damage he could to the Spaniards along the
western coast of South America. He was away
almost four years, during which he met with
many wonderful adventures. In a storm he lost, or was
separated from, all his ships but two; but with these he
seized many ships and took the town of Paita, in Peru.
In crossing the Pacific he burned one of his ships. With
the other he fought and took a great Manilla galleon near
the Philippine Islands. In June 1744 he reached home.
7
1742-44.
513
CHAPTER XII.
THE PELHAMS.
1. THE Ministry that followed Walpole's was not alto-
gether made up of new men; many of those who held the
smaller places stayed in office after the fall of The new
their leader. In those days the Ministers did Ministry.
not form a close and united body, as they do now. Each
sometimes took a course of his own apart from the rest ;
so that a change of Ministry often meant little more than
a change of leaders. The man who now took the first
place in guiding the counsels of the King was John, Lord
Carteret; but Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and the Pel-
hamns, who stayed with Walpole to the last, were still very
powerful. Indeed, only a few of Walpole's foes were
taken into the new Cabinet. There was much discontent
at this, and the Ministry was not at first very strong in
the Commons.
Carteret in
1742-44:
2. Carteret was much liked by George II. He had
good parts, was gay and genial in society, but over-fond
of strong drink. He was the only Minister who knew
German and the right way of dealing with German States.
He therefore led the nation into a closer connexion with
German affairs than pleased either his brother
Ministers or the Commons. Without asking power,
their advice he made treaties, and pledged
the English people to give away large sums of money.
So whilst he rose ever higher in the King's favour he
became unpopular. In November 1744 the Pelhams
and their friends told the King plainly that
they and Carteret-now Earl Granville by his
mother's death-could not any longer work
together, and that either he or they must give up office.
The King would gladly have kept Granville rather than
E. H.
L L
Fall of
Carteret,
1744.
514
Settlement of the Constitution. 1744-46.
the Pelhams; but the Pelhams had many more followers
in the Commons than their rival, and the King had to
send away the Minister he liked best. For without a
majority in the Commons no Minister could now get on.
The Pel-
hams in
power,
1744-54.
3. The Pelhams were the Duke of Newcastle and his
younger brother, Henry. The Duke was a fussy man,
who bustled about in a way that made peopie
laugh. He had much knowledge of business,
but little ability. Henry Pelham was in
every way superior to his brother, though his powers
of mind were not great. He did not shine either as a
speaker or as a ruler; but he was hard-working, sensible,
and clear-headed; and his training under Walpole had
given him some skill in managing affairs. For these
reasons he was in 1744 placed at the head of the Ministry.
This has been called the broad-bottom Ministry, from
the number of men of various parties who belonged to it.
Even Tories held places in it. But its chief strength lay
in the support of the great Whig houses, many of whose
heads were members of it. On one point only did George
II. stand firm: he would not take Pitt into his service,
as the Pelhams wished. For Pitt had in his speeches
spoken of Hanover in a way that had deeply hurt the
King. Yet in little more than a year George had to yield
on this point also. In February 1746 the Ministers,
Ministerial
crisis of
June 1746.
knowing that the King was listening in private
to Granville's advice, and was therefore not
trusting them, suddenly gave up their places
in a body. Granville then tried to get together a Ministry
of his own, but failed; and the King had to take back the
Pelhams on their own terms. One of these was that Pitt
should have a place; and he was appointed,
Pitt in office. first to a minor post, afterwards to that of
Paymaster of the Forces. The great families could now
make the King do what he most disliked.
1740--43.
515
The Pelhams.
The War of
the Austrian
Succession,
1740–48.
4. By this time England had been drawn into a war
with France. It is usually called the War of the Austrian
Succession. England joined in it as the ally
of Maria Theresa, whose title to the ancestral
dominions of her father, the Emperor Charles
VI., was disputed by Bavaria, France, Prussia, and other
States. Charles, having no son, had been eager that his
daughter should succeed to the rule of the lands that had
come to him by inheritance; and, to make her succession
sure, had got nearly all the European Powers to sign a
paper called the Pragmatic Sanction, by which they
bound themselves to uphold her claim. But when he
died (1740) the Elector of Bavaria said that by right the
Austrian lands ought to come to him, and set about con-
quering them; whilst Frederick II., the young King of
Prussia, laid hold of Silesia; and France, wishing to
weaken Germany, sent two armies across the Rhine to
aid Bavaria. Only England and Holland loyally stood
by their promises.
Battle of
Dettingen,
June 1743.
In 1743 a united force of British and Hanoverians,
40,000 strong, marched to Aschaffenburg, on the river
Main. King George himself came and took
the command. Whilst they lay at this place,
Noailles, the French general, blocked them
up so closely that they could move neither forward nor
backward without fighting a battle under great disad-
vantages. At last their supply of food became scanty,
and one morning, late in June, they started back along
the right bank of the Main, hoping to force their way to
Hanau, where their bread-stores were. As they drew near
to Dettingen they found that there was a French force
posted right in front of them on the far side of some
marshy ground. Whilst they were putting themselves in
battle-array the leader of this French force, Grammont,
getting impatient, led his men across the marshy ground
LL 2
516
Settlement of the Constitution. 1743-45.
and charged down on the Allies with great swiftness. Their
first three lines were broken through; but the fourth held
its ground, and poured such a steady musketry fire into
the ranks of the French that they had to fall back in
disorder. Then the Allies pushed boldly on, and routed
and drove the French from the field. The victors then
pursued their march to Hanau. The Allies gained nothing
but glory from the fight of Dettingen. Never since has
an English king led an army in battle.
5. As yet the two nations were not at war; England
merely fought as the friend of Maria Theresa, France as
the friend of the Bavarian Elector, who had been chosen
Emperor the year before. But in 1744 the French took
up the Stuart cause and tried to land 15,000 men on the
English coast. A storm scattered the fleet that carried
them; and a declaration of war followed. This
Battle of
Fontenoy, war was waged chiefly in Flanders, where the
May, 1745. Allies were led by King George's younger
son, the Duke of Cumberland. Its greatest battle was
fought at Fontenoy in May 1745. Cumberland had ad-
vanced with 50,000 British, Dutch, and Austrians, to
drive the French besieging army from before Tournay.
Prince Maurice of Saxony, the French leader, had taken
his stand near Fontenoy, and there thrown up strong
defences. Cumberland, then a hot-headed youth, made
his troops attack these; but they were beaten back at all
points. Angry at this repulse, the English general sent a
column of British Infantry, 16,000 strong, straight upon
the French position. This fearless body of men marched
steadily whither they had been sent, and, getting inside
the French lines, for a time swept from their path every
force that strove to check their course. But they were
not backed up as they ought to have been, and they had
to march back the way they came, beaten but not dis-
graced. Then Cumberland led off his army, and
1745.
517
The Pelhams.
Tournay fell. Shortly afterwards the Duke was called
back to England to face danger nearer home.
Stuart
comes to
Scotland,
1745-
6. The war with France had given fresh life to the
dying Jacobite cause. And there had lately come for-
ward as the leader of this cause a high- Charles
spirited young prince, of handsome person and Edward
winning manners, who believed it was his
fate to win back the kingdoms to his house.
This was Charles Edward, sometimes named
the Young Chevalier, the elder of the two sons of James
Edward. Towards the end of July 1745 he came with
only seven companions to the west coast of Inverness-shire,
and sought to stir up the Highlanders to take up arms in
his father's behalf. The Highland chiefs doubted at first,
but many of them were won over by Charles's eager
words. Gathering at Glenfinnan, the clans swept round
by Corryarrick and Blair Athol to Perth. Sir John Cope
had gone northwards with a small force to meet them,
but on reaching Corryarrick had become afraid, and
turned aside to Inverness. The road to the Lowlands
then lay open, and Charles promptly took it. In the
third week of September the Highlanders
entered Edinburgh. Three days later the
Prince led them westwards to meet Cope's
army, which had sailed to Dunbar. They found it near
Preston Pans, and in a single rush almost destroyed
it.
Fight of
Preston
Pans, 1745.
He had
The march
to and from
Returning to Edinburgh, Charles stayed there for
six weeks, and then started for England.
now about 6,000 men under his command.
Taking the Western road, his troops went
steadily on until they entered Derby. There
they paused; and though Charles was himself
full of hope and burned to push on to London,
the chiefs resolved to go back to Scotland. Few English
Derby,
December,
October-
1745.
518
1746
Settlement of the Constitution.
.
55
56
had joined them; and they were disheartened. On their
way back they beat a body of soldiers that overtook them

6
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57
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ENGLISH MILES
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53
at Clifton, in Cumberland. On the day before Christmas
they marched into Glasgow. They then laid
siege to Stirling, but could not take it.
at Falkirk Muir they overcame ·General
Fight of
Falkirk,
January,
*746.
But
1746-54.
519
The Pelhams.
Culloden,
Fight of
April, 1746.
Hawley, who had been sent with 8,000 men to relieve
Stirling. Cumberland himself then took the command
of the royal troops; and the Highlanders fell back to
Inverness. Next spring the Duke went in search of
them, and found them at Culloden Field, near Inverness.
At Culloden the royal troops were handled
so well that the wildest rushes of the High-
landers could not break their firm array.
The mountaineers, thus baffled, soon scattered before the
murderous volleys of musketry, and made for their several
homes. Thus ended the last Jacobite rising. The poor
Highlanders were most cruelly treated by the victorious
soldiers. For five months Charles wandered about
through the Highlands and Western isles, suffering many
hardships and meeting with very romantic adventures.
But in September he got off safe to France. Of his fol-
lowers the Lords Lovat, Kilmarnock, and Balmerinoch
were beheaded; nearly a hundred others were also
executed. A law was then made doing away with the
special authority of the Highland chieftains over their
clans.
Peace of
Aix-la-
Chapelle.
7. The war with France still went on; but in
Flanders the Allies were generally unsuccessful. As a
set-off to their failures by land the British
gained two victories at sea. At length in 1748
peace was made with France and Spain at 1748.
Aix-la-Chapelle. None of the nations won anything in
this war, except Prussia, which was allowed to keep Silesia.
8. Six years of unbroken quiet at home and abroad
followed. In 1754 Henry Pelham died, and the strife
of statesmen began anew. At the same time
things were fast ripening towards the outbreak
of one of the most important wars in history
-the Seven Years' War, as it afterwards came to be
named.
Death of
Henry
Pelham,
1754.
"
520
CHAPTER XIII.
HOW THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR WAS BROUGHT ABOUT.
Newcastle's
Ministry,
1754-56.
troubles.
I. AFTER the death of Henry Pelham it was not easy to
form a ministry that could both do the work of govern-
ment and carry what was thought needful
through the House of Commons. Newcastle
took the first place; but he wanted a man to
lead the Commons. It was not easy to get such a man;
Pitt was too high-minded, and was, moreover, disliked
by the king. Henry Fox, a clever man, who knew well
how to humour the Lower House, and had few scruples,
was willing to take the post; but Newcastle wanted to
keep all the power to himself; and his first attempt to
Newcastle's gain Fox failed. In a short time, however,
Newcastle saw that his ministry must fall
unless he got a man of ability to lead the Commons; he
agreed to allow Fox a share of power, and Fox became
Secretary of State. Even after he got Fox troubles came
thick upon Newcastle. The nation kept drifting into
war with France; and the Duke, looking about for allies,
wanted to draw closer to Austria, which had secretly.
entered into a friendship with France. Then the French,
without declaring war, besieged St. Philip's, in Minorca ;
and Admiral Byng, who had been sent with a fleet to
bring succour to the place, came away without doing
anything. The people grew very angry; and men began
to think more and more of Pitt as the only man who
could save the nation. Newcastle offered to
have Byng hanged-indeed, next year Byng
was tried by court-martial and shot-but the
people were still uneasy and fretful. Then Fox left New-
castle, and soon his Ministry broke up.
Newcastle
resigns,
1756.
1756-57.
521
The Seven Years' War.
Pitt Secre-
State,
November,
1757.
2. By this time war with France had come in earnest,
and the voice of the people called loudly for Pitt as the
only man fit to have the management of it.
Thereupon the King yielded; and a Ministry tary of
was formed in which the Duke of Devonshire,
a man of spotless honour, was Prime Minister, 1756-April,
and Pitt Secretary of State. In a few months,
however, the King-in whose mind the hard things that
Pitt had once said about Hanover still rankled-took
away his office from Pitt, and asked Newcastle to try and
get a ministry together once more. But Pitt had now
become the darling of the people, and men gave utter-
ance to their feelings in a very marked way. The lead-
ing cities and towns sent each its freedom to Pitt in a
gold box; 'for some weeks,' it was said, 'it rained gold
boxes.' The King and Newcastle found that it was
hopeless to try any longer to withstand the will of the
people. Pitt was sent for, again made Secretary, and
allowed to become the ruling spirit in the new
Cabinet. The management of the war and
all dealings with foreign States were wholly
placed in his hands. Newcastle was First Lord of
the Treasury, and Anson First Lord of the Admiralty.
Thus was brought into being one of the strongest minis-
tries that have ever ruled England. It had all the
strength that came from Parliamentary support, for most
of the Commons voted as Newcastle wished; and it had
all the strength that came from masterly intellect and the
hearty love of the people, for Pitt was the largest-minded
and most popular statesman that England has known for
two hundred years. The King too forgot his old grudge
against Pitt, and held loyally by his great minister.
Pitt's great
Ministry
June, 1757.
formed,
William Pitt, known in his own days as 'the Great
Commoner,' was the son of a West Country gentleman.
His character was very pure and noble ; when Paymaster
522
Settlement of the Constitution. 1749–54.
t
William
Pitt
he would not take anything but his lawful salary, though
it was then usual for Paymasters to enrich themselves by
putting out at interest the balance of public
money in their hands. His ways of speaking
and acting were marked by a certain gran-
deur and stateliness, which filled those who came near
him with a feeling of awe. We have had few statesmen
D. 1708,
1778.
equal to him in clearness of thought and greatness of soul.
3. The point that England and France had now re-
solved to settle by force of arms was—which of the two
The English nations should be master in North America.
in America. The English Colonies there had grown very
much of late years; the settlement of Georgia in 1733
had raised their number to thirteen, and in 1756 their
population had reached 1,300,000. The land they dwelt
in stretched from the river Kennebec almost to the
Gulf of Mexico, and from the sea-coast to the Alleghany
mountains. They had not spread to the west of these
mountains, though some men among them were think-
The French ing of making a settlement there. Now the
in America. French had formed colonies in Canada and
Louisiana. There were indeed very few French colonists
-hardly 60,000 in all-but many of these were soldiers,
whilst the English had no great skill or training in arms.
About 1749 the French began to claim all the lands west
of the Alleghanies; and the Governor of Canada was
ordered to take the needful steps to secure these lands
for France. He at once set about raising a line of forts
between Canada and Louisiana. This line was to be a
border marking off the country which belonged to France
from that which belonged to England. By this arrange-
ment the 1,300,000 English would have been shut up in a
comparatively narrow strip of land along the seacoast,
while the 60,000 French would have had almost all the
rest of North America.
1754-56.
523
The Seven Years' War.
4. Just as the French were beginning to carry out this
design a company was formed in England to colonise
500,000 acres of land which King George had granted
them on the banks of the Ohio. But a small French
force had already built a fort there, which they called
Fort Duquesne. In 1754 George Washington, then a
young man, marched across the Alleghanies with 150
Virginians, to drive the French from the place. The
French were too strong for Washington, and he returned
home. By this time the English Government had come
to see that a great effort must be made to put down the
French in America; and General Braddock was sent out
with two regiments to aid the colonists. Braddock
started from Virginia with 2,000 men, made his way
across the Alleghanies, and led his force
blindly into the woods. When within 10 miles
of Fort Duquesne he was assailed by bodies
of French and Indians, who kept themselves carefully
under cover. Braddock, after losing 700 of his small
army, and getting mortally wounded himself, was forced
to retreat. He died on the way. There had also been
much wrangling and much fighting about the border
between Canada and Nova Scotia, where the English
had lately built the town of Halifax (1749). Clearly the
two peoples could not live at peace with each other on
equal terms. England and France now went to war to
find out which was to have the mastery.
Defeat of
General
Braddock,
1755.
with
Prussia,
5. Prussia was an ally of England in this war.
Frederick the Great, then king in Prussia, was George
II.'s nephew, but hitherto there had been little Alliance
friendship between the two princes. Frederick
had acted with France in the last war, and 1757-62
until 1756 had been supposed to be still in close alliance
with the French king. But in that year it came to light
that Austria, France, Russia Sweden, and Saxony had
524
1756-58.
Settlement of the Constitution.
banded themselves together to crush Prussia utterly;
and Frederick gladly made an alliance with his uncle
By this England was to give Frederick 670,000l. every
year, both kings were to wage a common war against
France, and neither was to make peace without the
other.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EVENTS OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR.
1. FOR the four years during which Pitt held the chief
power he thought of little else than how to bring the war
to a happy ending for England. It was his fixed resolve
to blot out the rule of the French in North America, and
to give the sole mastery there to his own
countrymen. The American nation, now one
of the mightiest on earth, owes the beginning of its
greatness to this war.
Pitt's aims.
In
2. At the outset England got rather the worse.
1756 Minorca was wrested from her; and in 1757 a
The war be-
German army in English pay, led by the Duke
gins badly.
of Cumberland, fell back before the French
Stade, on the sea-coast; and to save it Cumberland
agreed, at Kloster-Zeven, to let the French keep Hanover
for a time. In America too the French seemed to be
the stronger power. In 1758, though they quietly left
Fort Duquesne when they heard that an army was coming
against the place, yet they beat back a body of 12,000
from Ticonderoga, killing or wounding 2,000 of them.
3. But most of these things either happened or were
planned before Pitt became Chief Minister. Shortly after
his appointment the war took a favourable turn
in both Germany and America. In Germany
Pitt got from King Frederick a very good
general, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, and set him over
The war in
Germany
1758.
1759.
Events of the Seven Years' War. 525
"
Battle of
Crefeld,
June, 1758.
the army which Cumberland had led so badly. Ferdinand
at once moved upon the French, drove them back from
point to point, and at last swept them clean out of
Hanover. He even followed them across the Rhine, and
overthrew them at Crefeld. Then Pitt added a
British force of 12,000 to Ferdinand's army.
Most of our Highland regiments served for
the first time in this war. Pitt had lately raised these
regiments from the Highland clans, rightly thinking that in
this way he would turn rebels into loyal soldiers. In 1758 a
fleet and army were sent against Cape Breton also. General
Amherst was leader of the army, but his second in com-
mand was James Wolfe, a young soldier of great skill and
daring, simple-hearted and truthful, whom Pitt had picked
out for command from among much older
The French tried to hinder the English
from landing, but failed. Louisburg, the chief
town of Cape Breton, was besieged and taken, whereupon
the whole island passed into the hands of the English.
men.
Cape Breton
subdued,
1758.
4. But the great year of the war was 1759; perhaps in
no single year has England won so many great successes
as in this one. In Germany, in America, in India, off the
coasts of Portugal and France mighty deeds of war were
done by the English. A writer then living said, 'One is
forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear
of missing one.'
The war in
1759.
5. (1.) In Germany the campaign began with a defeat.
The French having seized the free town of Frankfort,
Ferdinand marched swiftly southwards with
30,000 men to try and dislodge them. A Germany,
little way from Frankfort he came upon
35,000 French drawn up at Bergen, fought long and
stubbornly to clear them from his path, but
had at last to go back the way he came, leav-
ing 2,500 of his troops on the field. Yet in
the following August he gained a victory at Minden,
Battle of
Bergen,
April.
526
1759.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Of Minden
August.
which more than wiped away the disgrace at Bergen-
He was standing at bay on the left bank of the Weser
with two French armies before him. These were strongly
posted, and he dared not attack them. But he cun-
ningly tempted the French to come across the river;
whereupon six English regiments of foot boldly charged
and scattered the French horse. The French
horse rallied and again bore down on the
English foot, but were again routed by the swift and
steady musketry-fire of their foes. Then the French
general gave the word for retreat. Ferdinand sent orders
to Lord George Sackville, the commander of the English
horse, to charge'the retreating army; and it is thought
that, if Lord George had done so, the French army would
have been utterly crushed. But the Englishman, for
reasons that are not exactly known, would not charge;
and the beaten French were able to get back across the
river. They lost 7,000 in this battle. For this contempt
of orders Sackville was put out of the army altogether
by King George. The Marquis of Granby took his place
in command of the horse. Ferdinand kept the upper
hand throughout the rest of the campaign, the French
armies moving back towards Frankfort.
The war in
America,
1759.
(2.) But the war in Germany was important only be-
cause it made success in America possible. It was in
America that the greatest event of the war,
indeed of the century, took place. This was
the taking of Quebec, the chief town of Canada,
from the French. Late in June a large fleet, having on
board 8,000 troops, under the command of General
Wolfe, sailed into the St. Lawrence. Quebec stands on
Quebec
besieged,
June.
the left bank of this river, perched on very
high rocks; and the French commander,
Montcalm, had posted his army, 10,000 in all,
a little lower down on the same side. Wolfe began by

1759.
Events of the Seven Years' War. 527
bombarding the town from the other side, but did not get
a bit nearer winning it, though he did it much harm.
100
90
80
70
60
Loungia
CANADA
Quebec
Wolfe's Cave
Ticonderoga
New York
Pennsylvania.
Duquesne
Montre
GULF OF
MEXICO
Havana
Campeachy Bay
10 NORTH AMERICA
AND
WEST INDIES.
Carolina
ston
Softe
pecticut
Jersey
New York
Delaware
and
Botia
Newfoundland
Bretok
Louisburg
Malifan
ATLANTIC
Bermudas
OCEAN
Bahama Isld
40
30
Hayti
Porto Rico
Caribbean Sea
Porto Bello
Carthagend
20
90
70
Next he crossed to the left bank and tried to force
Montcalm from his position. But his foremost troops
were too eager and rushing upon their foes before the
528
1759.
Settlement of the Constitution.
others could be brought forward, were beaten and driven
back in confusion. Wolfe became disheartened, and
almost gave up all hope of getting Quebec that year.
Through death and disease his army dwindled to hardly
more than 4,500, and he himself fell into a fever. He
waited on, however, thinking that help might come to
him from the South, whence Generals Amherst and
Johnson were striving to make their way. But no help
came; Johnson took Niagara, Amherst Ticonderoga, yet
neither could get near Quebec. At last, one dark night
in September, Wolfe's men went aboard boats and drifted
silently with an ebbing tide to a point two miles above
Quebec, now called Wolfe's Cove. There they landed,
climbed the Heights of Abraham, which rose steep from
the river, and early next morning stood drawn up in
battle array on the level ground behind the town.
Montcalm was taken by surprise, but at once hastened
with his army to 'smash' the English, as he said. The
French came briskly on; the English stood stock-still
until they got their foes within forty yards-then they all
Death of at the same moment poured a deadly volley
into the French ranks. The French paused;
and Wolfe at once led his grenadiers to the charge. In
a few minutes all was over; the enemy fled from the field.
But the noble Wolfe fell; hit by three musket-balls, he
had just time to be told that the French ran
and to say, 'I shall die happy,' when he breathed
his last. Montcalm too was wounded, and
died next day. Four days later Quebec surrendered.
(3.) This year the French made a grand plan for
The war off invading England. They got together fleets
at Toulon, Havre, and Brest, and thought
that if these could be combined success was
But Pitt took care to prevent the union
Wolfe.
Quebec
taken, Sep-
tember,
1759.
the Portu-
guese and
French
coasts,
1759.
sure.
of these fleets. In July he sent Admiral Rodney against
1759-60.
Events of the Seven Years' War. 529
Bombard-
ment of
Havre,
Havre, who did much damage to the town and the flat-
bottomed boats that were to carry the French soldiers
across the Channel. In August, Admiral
Boscawen caught the Toulon fleet, which had
slipped through the Straits of Gibraltar, off July.
Lagos, in Portugal, and at once closed with it.
In this fight five of the largest French ships
were taken or sunk, and the rest driven
ashore or forced to flee.
to their plan; and the preparations at Brest were
pushed briskly forward. To Admiral Hawke had
Battle of
Lagos,
August
Yet the French still clung
Battle of
Quiberon
Bay,
November.
been given the duty of watching that port, and he
had watched it all the summer and autumn. But in
November the French fleet under Conflans, finding that
wild weather had driven Hawke from his sta-
tion, put out to sea. Hawke heard of this
movement, came back with all speed, fell upon
Conflans, and beat him utterly. This battle was fought
in the midst of a raging storm, among dangerous rocks
and shoals, well known to the French, but not to the
English. It was an awful scene; three French ships
were sunk or burnt; two struck their flags; the rest were
chased into the river Vilaine or Charente.
Canada
won by
England,
1760.
6. The war lasted some years longer; but the English
always got the better of their enemies. In 1760 three
small armies moved at the same time on
Montreal, where the French still held out.
Montreal surrendered, and the French power
in Canada came to an end. Prince Ferdinand too kept
his ground in Westphalia against forces much larger than
his own, and even gained one or two battles. Never had
the name of England been so great.
7. But at this point the King of Spain thought fit to
enter into the war on the side of France. He was a
Bourbon, and had a kindly feeling for his cousin of
E. H.
M M
530
1761-63.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Spain joins
France
against
England,
1762.
France. English war-ships, he said, had done grievous
wrong to Spanish trade during the war; and Englishmen
had cut logwood, in spite of him, on the
shore of Campeachy Bay. In 1761 he bound
himself by another Family Compact to go to
war with England if peace were not made
before May 1, 1762, Pitt found out about this Family
Compact, and wanted to make war on Spain at once
when she was unprepared. But George II. had died the
year before (October, 1760); his grandson, George III.,
was not so hearty in upholding Pitt; war was not de-
clared; and Pitt went out of office. In 1762, however,
the Spaniards, having got themselves ready, began war
Spain
with England. Again England was victo-
defeated.
rious at every point. A Spanish army which
had invaded Portugal, then an ally of England, was
forced to withdraw ; Havanna, the chief town of Cuba,
was taken at one end of the earth; Manilla, the chief
town of the Philippine islands, was taken at the other.
Vast sums of money fell into the hands of the victors at
both places.
Peace of
Paris,
February
1763.
8. In 1763 the war was brought to a close by the
Peace of Paris. This treaty has some likeness to the
Peace of Utrecht. The Earl of Bute, George
III.'s new Minister, was so anxious to end the
war that he not only abandoned England's
ally, the Prussian king, but let off France and Spain much
easier than they had hoped. France made over to
England, Canada, Cape Breton, and some West India
islands, and gave back Minorca. To Spain, England
restored Havanna and Manilla, getting only Florida in
their place. Most Englishmen were greatly displeased
with this arrangement; but Bute carried it out neverthe-
less.
531
CHAPTER XV.
THE RISE OF THE ENGLISH POWER IN INDIA.
1. Two things make the Seven Years' War the most
fruitful event of modern times for England. The first is,
that it overthrew the French power in America, and thus
smoothed the way for the revolt of the English colonies.
When the colonists no longer needed the help
of the mother-country against foes on their
soil they were sure soon to separate them
selves from her altogether. The second noticeable thing
about this war is, that during it the English began to
build up their Empire in India.
Importanca
of Seven
Years' War.
East India
Company
founded,
December
31, 1600.
2. England owes her sway over India to a mere body
of traders. In 1600 some London merchants got from
Queen Elizabeth a charter giving them the
sole right of trading with the East Indies for
fifteen years. Thus the great East India
Company was founded. In 1609 James I.
renewed this charter without fixing any term of years,
only keeping to himself the power of taking it away at
any time he pleased on giving the company three years'
notice. This Company lasted until 1859; but in 1813
other people were allowed to trade with India as well.
of gaining
Earliest
English
factories in
the Indies.
3. For 150 years the Company went on trading with
the East with no other thought than that
riches. Their earliest dealings were not with
India itself, but with the islands beyond, their
first factories being at Acheen, in Sumatra,
and Bantam, in Java. In 1612, however, they turned
their thoughts towards India itself, and built a factory at
Surat. And in 1615 Sir Thomas Roe was sent to Agra
to seek for his countrymen the good-will of Shah Jehan-
ghir, the Great Mogul, as the chief ruler in India was
MM 2
532
1612-1698.
Settlement of the Constitution.
.
Enmity of
the Portu-
guese and
the Dutch.
called. But it was not all smooth sailing with the Com-
pany at first. The Portuguese and the Dutch,
who had got a footing in the Indies before
the English came, and did not wish any
others to share in their gains, gave the Company much
trouble. They had forts and ships of war in those
parts, and sought to drive the English away by force.
The English met force with force; and for many years
a bitter warfare was kept up. In 1612 a Portuguese fleet
made a bold attempt to crush the English at Surat, but
failed. The Dutch fought longer and more doggedly;
and having more men and armed ships in the Indies
than the English, got the upper hand for a time. James
I. wanted very much to reconcile the Dutch and English
Companies, and twice made them agree to a peace.
But the hatred between them was long in dying out, and
led to more than one lawless deed of bloodshed.
Progress of
the Com-
[any
4. Still the English Company not only held its own
but found a way into other parts of India. In 1640
it built Fort St. George (Madras) and Fort St. David on
lands which it bought from a native prince. Next
Charles II. gave it Bombay (1662), which had come to
him by his marriage with a princess of Portugal. After
the Restoration it became wonderfully pros-
perous. But in William III.'s time it got into
trouble both at home and in India. A new
Company was formed which claimed freedom of trade;
and having many friends in Parliament, seemed likely to
destroy the old. At the same time it did something
in India which kindled the wrath of the Great Mogul,
Aurengzebe; and it lost the flourishing trading settle-
ments which it had formed at Hooghly. But in a few
years both clouds passed away. Aurengzebe was per-
suaded to take the Company again into favour, and
granted it some lands on the Hooghly. There in 1698
1702-48. Rise of the English Power in India. 533
it raised Fort William, round which the present Indian
capital, Calcutta, afterwards grew up. And, in 1702, the
old and new Companies made up their quarrel by uniting
themselves together. Thus quiet came, and fresh pros-
perity along with it.
The English
in India in
1740.
5. In 1740 things stood thus. Each station-Fort St.
George, Fort William, and Bombay-formed a kind of
little state in itself, with a ruling body named
by the Company, and a small army, partly
Europeans and partly natives. These latter
were called Sepoys, from the native word for soldier
(sipahi). Money-making was still the only thought of
the English. The notion of bringing any part of India
under their rule seems never to have entered their heads.
But in 1751 they were drawn, almost in spite of them-
selves, into the quarrels of the native princes, and were
thus tempted to enter on a wider field of action.
In
English and
French in
India.
6. At this time there was a French East India Com-
pany also, with its chief stations in the island of Mauritius
and at Pondicherry, south of Madras.
1746 the Governor of Mauritius was La
Bourdonnais, an able and honourable man;
and the Governor of Pondicherry was Dupleix, also a
man of great ability, but ambitious and vain. As war
was then going on between England and France, La
Bourdonnais sailed with 3,000 men to Madras, which
being unable to withstand his greater force, surrendered
to him. The Frenchman promised to give back the
place to the English when they had paid him a large
sum of money. But Dupleix claimed Madras as his con-
quest; and when La Bourdonnais sailed away he not
only kept the place, but laid siege to Fort St. David.
From Fort St. David he was frightened away by the
coming of a new force from England. In 1748 the war
in Europe ceased, and Madras again became English.
534 Settlement of the Constitution. 1748-51.
7. But peace with the English brought no rest to
Dupleix. The Empire of the Great Mogul was now fast
Dupleix's breaking up; each native ruler was as good
designs.
as independent in the lands under his govern.
ment; and Dupleix thought that he might, by mixing
himself up in their affairs, make himself the greatest man
in Southern India. He was very successful for a time.
He pulled down one Nabob of Arcot and set up another;
he pulled down the Viceroy of the Deccan-the Nizam,
as he was called-and set up another in his place. The
rule of South-Eastern India from the river Kistna to
Cape Comorin was put into Dupleix's hands; his will
was law among thirty millions of people.
Robert
Clive,
b. 1725,
d. 1774-
8. At this state of affairs the English in Madras got
afraid of being driven out of the country altogether, and
The English sent a few hundred men to help Mahommed
interfere. Ali, son of the slain Nabob, who still held out
in Trichinopoly. But these men were shamefully beaten,
and shut up with their ally in Trichinopoly. It was just
at this time that Robert Clive, a young man of
noble daring, yet wary and cool-headed, came
forward to take the lead among the English.
He was the son of a Shropshire gentleman, had been
first a clerk in the Company's service, then an officer,
and then a clerk again. He was now put at the head of
500 men, of whom but 200 were Europeans, and in August
Clive's early 1751 marched straight upon Arcot, the chief
town of the Carnatic. Arcot fell without strik-
ing a blow; and Clive at once strengthened the walls and
got all things ready for a siege. Ten thousand men soon
closed round Arcot; but for fifty days Clive kept them at
bay. In November the besiegers tried to storm the place,
but were utterly defeated, and gave up the siege. A body
of Mahrattas, which had been hired to fight for Mahommed
Ali, then coming up, Clive went in search of the retreating
successes.
1751-56. Rise of the English Power in India. 535
army, overtook it at Arnee, and beat it thoroughly. Clive
then went on from success to success; the siege of Trichi-
nopoly was raised, and Mahommed Ali was made Nabob
of Arcot. Dupleix worked hard to undo the effect of
Clive's daring deeds, but in vain. The upshot of the
strife was that Dupleix was recalled to France, and a
peace favourable to the English was made in 1754. The
year before this, however, Clive had fallen into ill-health,
and gone back to England.
The Black
Hole of
Calcutta,
1756.
9. In 1756 Clive came back to India as governor of
Fort St. David. About the same time a dreadful misfor-
tune befell the English in Bengal. The young
Nabob of Bengal, Surajah Dowlah, was jeal-
ous of the prosperity of the strangers who had
settled on his soil, and, in 1756, led an army to take
and rob Calcutta. The English governor and the chief
officer ran away; and the small garrison had to give up
the place. Then an awful deed was done by the Nabob's
officers. They thrust their 146 prisoners, one of whom
was a woman, into the narrow guard-room of the fort,
called the Black Hole, in which hardly a score of people
could breathe freely. Stifled for want of air they shrieked
to be let out; but the men on guard were afraid to do
this without an order from the Nabob; and the Nabob
was asleep, and no one dared to wake him. They were
therefore kept in all night. The scene was horrible;
the prisoners trampled on one another in their agony;
some died at once; some went mad. Next morning,
when the doors were opened, 123 were corpses. Yet the
hard heart of the Nabob was untouched; he put some of
the few survivors in chains, and took Calcutta to himself.
But in some months Clive was sent from Madras with
2,400 men. He soon won back Calcutta from the
Nabob's soldiers; and when the Nabob came down on
the place with a mighty host, Clive struck such fear into
536
1757.
Settlement of the Constitution.
him by a march which he made through his camp that the
Nabob was glad to agree to a peace.
10. This peace lasted only a short time. The Nabob
soon came to hate and dread the English more than
ever; and Clive, thinking there would be no safety for
his countrymen so long as Surajah Dowlah was lord of
Bengal, made a plot for his overthrow. Meer Jaffier, his
chief general, was to be made nabob in his room.
The plot
against
Surajah
Dowlah,
1757.
In
this affair Clive stooped to do a very shameful
thing. Omichund, a Hindoo merchant, who
had been taken into the plot, threatened to
tell Surajah Dowlah of it unless he was pro-
mised 300,000l. in the treaty made by the persons en-
gaged in the design. To quiet Omichund, Clive caused
a false copy of the treaty to be drawn up; and when
Admiral Watson would not sign this, Clive had his name
put to it by another man. In this, which was shown to
Omichund, the promise of 300,000l. was made to the
Hindoo, but there was not a word about the money in
the true treaty. Clive marched at the head of 3,000 men
towards Moorshedabad, the chief town of Bengal. At
Plassey he met the Nabob's army, 50,000 strong, led by
Battle of
Plassey,
June 23,
1757.
the Nabob himself. Here took place the first
great battle fought by the English in India.
The Nabob's army broke almost at once
before the onset of Clive's little band, and rushed wildly
from the field. Surajah Dowlah fled far away, but
was caught, brought before Meer Jaffier, and slain in
prison. Clive went on to Moorshedabad, and there set
up Meer Jaffier as nabob of Bengal. Then Omichund
was told of the trick that had been played upon him.
The shock was so great that he became an idiot, and soon
afterwards died. The new nabob granted the English
*he lordship of a wide tract of land as the reward of their
services to him.
1757-61. Rise of the English Power in India. 537
Clive's
further
doings,
1757-60.
II. Clive's second stay in India lasted three years
longer. He was not idle during this time. He put to
flight the army of the Great Mogul's eldest son
from before Patna. He destroyed a Dutch
fleet and army which were on their way up
the Hooghly to Chinsurah, a Dutch station, because he
believed they had been sent to work evil to his country-
men. He never faltered, and everything he put his
hand to prospered. Early in 1760 he sailed home, and
was at once made an Irish peer as Lord Clive, and got a
seat among the Commons.
Lally
India, 1758-
Tollendal in
1761.
St. David,
12. Whilst Clive was busy in Bengal, the English at
Madras were in serious danger. Count Lally Tollendal,
a brave and skilful but rather fiery general,
had been sent out from France with 1,200
trained soldiers to strengthen the French at
Pondicherry. In 1758 he laid siege to Fort
took it and levelled it to the ground. Next he went
against Madras itself; but after trying every means he
could think of to win the place, he had to give up his
design and march away. In 1760 he was
overthrown by Eyre Coote, a famous English
soldier, at Wandewash. Next year Pondi-
cherry was taken by the English. With the fall of
Pondicherry the French power in India came to an end.
It was now clear that the English were to be masters of
India, if India was to have foreign masters.
End of
French
power
in
Índia, 1761.
į
538
1820.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FIRST TEN YEARS OF GEORGE IIL'S REIGN.
I. IN October 1760 George II. suddenly died, and his
eldest grandson became king as George III. The new
king was twenty-two years old; and his character was
in many ways unlike that of the earlier kings of his line.
He was thoroughly English in feeling as in birth; he
had much good sense; he was fully alive to
George III.
King, 1760- his duties as a king, and strove to fulfil them
faithfully; and he had always a warm desire
to do good to his people. He had also high courage and
spirit. Perhaps his most marked quality was his un-
flinching pursuit of any end that he had once set before
him. No rebuff, not even seeming failure,
could make him give up, striving after the
thing that he had once made up his mind to
gain. This dogged pursuit of a fixed purpose led to im-
portant changes in the way of ruling the country during
his reign. His life was pure, and his tastes were homely.
But his powers of mind were not great; his under-
standing was narrow and untrained; and he had little
knowledge. Eleven months after his accession he mar-
ried Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a lady like-minded
with himself. Queen Charlotte became the mother of
many children, and lived until 1818.
Character
of George
III.
Pitt's Min-
istry still
2. George III.'s coming to the throne wrought great
changes, but not at once. The Jacobites and High
Tories indeed, who had held aloof in dislike
or enmity from the first two Georges, saw in
George III. a native king to whom they could
be loyal, and crowded to his Court. The Earl of Bute,
stays in
office.
1761. First Ten Years of George III's Reign. 539
who had hitherto been his great friend and counsellor,
was made one of the Secretaries of State; and there
were some other little signs that a new order of things
was at hand. But the Ministry of William Pitt was still
kept in power. The whole management of the war and
of foreign affairs was still left to him.
The King
enters upon
a new
course,
1761.
3. But in October Pitt withdrew from office, because
his advice to make war at once upon Spain was not fol-
lowed; and the king straightway struck into
a new path. Taking as his guide John Stuart,
Earl of Bute, he set to work to make himself
king in reality. For almost fifty years the
King of England had been helpless in the hands of the
great Whig houses. The Constitution still gave him a
large measure of power; but the heads of these houses
had come to look upon this power as their own. The
king could not withhold from them anything they
were firmly bent on having; for everything now hung
on the vote of the Commons, and the Whig leaders had
the means of getting this vote whenever they wished.
As George II. had once said, 'in England the Ministers
were king;' and these must be taken from the ranks of
the great Whig lords and of those whom these lords
favoured. But George III. made it the grand purpose
of his life to wrest from the Whig lords the foremost
place in the State. Thus began a struggle that lasted
for many years, in which George had his own way in the
end.
(1.) It
Nature
4. One or two things make this fight for power unlike
other struggles of the same kind in our history.
was not a strife between the king and the
people, but between the king and a few men
of vast influence. The Revolution Settlement
had left to the king a fair share of power; he could
declare war; make peace; call together and send away
of the
struggle.
540
1762.
Settlement of the Constitution.
parliaments; bestow honours, dignities, and every kind
of appointment in Church and State at his pleasure ;
and do many other things which made people look up
to him with reverence, and be glad to win his favour.
George III. now raised the question-was all this power
to be used by the king himself or by the Whig
houses? George strained every nerve to make this
power the king's, and his alone. He called himself a
Whig of the Revolution, for he wanted things brought
back to what they had been in 1690. (2.) The kings of
former days had sought to work their will in spite of the
Commons; but George sought to work his will through
the Commons. To gain his ends he used every means he
could think of to get members of Parliament to vote as
he wished. And it was only by members of Parliament
voting as he wished that he was able to gain his ends.
This, then, is the meaning of the struggle-George was
resolved that his will should be of some account in the
ruling of the country, and sought to make the working of
the Constitution such as the Revolution had made it.
5. The battle began in earnest in May 1762, when
Newcastle was forced to resign his post. Bute, who had
for some time held all the power of a Prime
Minister, then became so in name also. The
Bute, Prime
Minister,
May, 1762.
raising of such a man to so high an office in
itself showed what the king was bent on doing. Bute
had been in the service of the king's father, had won the
fast friendship of the king's mother, and had been the
tutor of the king himself. He had no better gifts of
mind than his fellows, and no training as a statesman;
but he had the good-will of the king, and so was made
chief ruler of the nation under the Crown. The first
trial of strength between the king and the men whom he
was eager to humble was about the making of peace with
France in 1762. Henry Fox undertook for a large reward
1762-65. First Ten Years of George III's Reign.541
to get a vote in its favour from the Commons. He fulfilled
his promise thoroughly. Only 65 of the Commons
voted against the Peace, whilst 319 voted for it. George
now felt himself to be indeed King of Eng-
land. But the wrath of the people at these
doings showed itself so plainly that Bute got
frightened and threw up his office.
Bute re-
signs,
April, 1763.
Grenville,
Prime
Minister,
1763-65.
6. George Grenville, whose sister was Pitt's wife, was
then placed at the head of affairs. It was thought that
Grenville would not only carry out the king's
wishes, but would also be willing to follow
Bute's guidance. But Grenville complained
so much to George about Bute's influence that George
soon became anxious to get rid of him. There were,
however, few statesmen willing to be the king's min-
isters on the king's terms. George made several at-
tempts to win over Pitt to form a new Ministry; but
they all fell through. At last in 1765 the King's dislike of
Grenville overcame his dislike of the Whig lords; and
a Ministry of the old kind, with the Marquis of Rocking-
ham as its leader, came into office.
Wilkes and
general
7. Englishmen will long remember Grenville's Min-
istry for two causes. (1.) It began and carried on a
legal persecution of John Wilkes, a member
of Parliament who had written against the
Government in a paper called the North warrants."
Briton.' Wilkes was seized along with several others on
a 'general warrant,' that is, a warrant in which no per-
sons were named, but which simply empowered the
king's officers to arrest those that had done a certain
thing supposed to be unlawful. The Court of Common
Pleas released Wilkes because no one had a right to
arrest a member of Parliament for libel. There was
much excitement throughout the country, and Wilkes
became very popular. He soon, however, got into
542
Settlement of the Constitution. 1765-66.
1
trouble again, was wounded in a duel, fled to France,
and was outlawed. But Chief Justice Pratt, afterwards
Lord Camden, gave a solemn judgment against the law-
The Ameri-
can Stamp
Act.
fulness of general warrants; and they have
never been used since. (2.) Grenville carried
through Parliament the law which first stirred
up a strong ill-feeling in the American colonies against
England. This was an Act for raising a tax from the
Americans by means of a duty on stamped paper.
1
8. Rockingham's Ministry lasted no longer than a
year.
The king did not like it, and kept it only until he
could get a body of ministers more to his mind. It lived
long enough, however, to do away with the American
Stamp Act, which had caused a general outburst of
angry feeling in America, and indeed could not be
Rocking-
enforced. But the king looked coldly on this
ham, Prime Ministry; and the King's Friends, as those
members in the Commons were called who
were always ready to vote as the King bade them, took
the side opposed to it. The King, moreover, was at last
able to make an arrangement with Pitt. Rockingham
was dismissed, and Pitt, who was now created Earl of
Chatham, took his plaçe.
Minister,
1765-6.
Pitt's
Ministry,
1766-8.
9. Pitt's second Ministry was as great a failure as his
first had been a success. For this there were several
reasons. He had lost the love of the people
second by becoming a peer. He had undertaken to
break up parties-a task which he found to
be impossible. He had separated himself from his old
Whig friends, and found himself with no other followers
than the King's Friends, who looked more to the King
than to him. But there was a sadder cause still. Early
in 1767 a strange disease laid hold upon him; his mind
2 See p. 561.
I See p. 560,
1768. First Ten Years of George III's Reign. 543
seems to have given way; and for eighteen months he
was utterly helpless, being unable to take the slightest
part in the management of affairs. During this time
everything went wrong, for the Duke of Grafton, Prime
Minister in name, was too weak to hold in check the
other ministers, Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, got Parliament to agree to a bill laying
duties on tea and other goods imported to America; and
thus the wound which the repeal of the Stamp Act had
almost healed was torn open anew. In 1768 Chatham's
health of mind came back to him; but the first use he
made of it was to give up his place in the Ministry.
Grafton's
Ministry,
1768-70.
10. Grafton stayed in office for some time longer.
During this the King was making good way towards the
object he was seeking after, for neither Grafton nor
Lord North, whom the death of Charles Townshend had
made Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767, cared to
thwart him. The noisiest question this Min-
istry had to deal with was one that arose out
of the election of Wilkes to Parliament. In
1768 Wilkes had returned from Paris and been chosen
one of the members for Middlesex. But he was sent to
gaol for two years in punishment of the libels
he had written. Whilst in gaol he wrote a
letter which the Commons regarded as a libel
on the Secretary of State, Lord Weymouth.
therefore expelled Wilkes from their House. Middlesex
again elected him. The Commons would not admit him
and ordered a new election. Middlesex elected him a
third time. But on his being again refused admission
by the Commons, another man, one Colonel Luttrell,
stood for Middlesex; and, though three times as many
votes were given for Wilkes, the Commons took Luttrell
as their member. Many people thought that the Com-
Wilkes and
the rights
of electors.
They
544
1770.
Settlement of the Constitution.
mons in taking this course did a gross wrong to the
electors.
In 1770 Grafton resigned, and Lord North at once
became the chief of a new Ministry.
Prime
Minister,
CHAPTER XVII.
GEORGE III. AND LORD NORTH.
1. LORD NORTH was the eldest son of the Earl of
Guildford. He was a very good-humoured, even-tem-
Lord North, pered man; it was almost impossible to make
him angry. To most people his Ministry at
1770-82. first seemed very weak and not likely to live
long. Yet it lived for twelve years. Many things worked
together to give it this unusual length of life. The
King's Friends were hearty in upholding it. The King
found in Lord North a Minister to his mind, and used
his power and influence to the uttermost to keep him in
office. He took pains to find out how each
member of Parliament voted, and gave or
withheld his favours according as he voted for
or against Lord North. Then the old Tory party had
come together again, and, true to its principles, held to the
man whom the king delighted to honour. Lastly, the
Whigs had got disunited, some looking to Chatham,
others to Rockingham as their leader. And George,
who longed to do away with party-government, now and
then gave office to a Whig of mark who was willing to
break with his party.
The King's
course of
action.
2. The king had now fairly got the upper hand;
during these twelve years he was in every way the real
ruler of the nation. He and Lord North thought alike
1771.
545
George 111. and Lord North.
about the rights of the people and the rights of the king,
for Lord North was a stout Tory. Moreover, George
was a man of masterful will, Lord North was of an easy,
yielding temper, and did little more than carry out the
King's wishes. The bulk of the Commons cheerfully
agreed to everything that the ministers laid before
them.
3. Yet in 1771 the Commons foolishly thrust them-
selves into a quarrel which ended in a way that, in the
long run, weakened the king's power, and helped forward
great changes in Parliament itself. At this time men
outside Parliament had not the means which they have
now of easily learning what members said in their
debates. Neither the Lords nor the Commons would
let anyone publish in an open way any account of their
debates. In 1771 certain newspapers began to give to
the world reports of speeches in Parliament without dis-
guise. The Commons grew angry, and called upon the
printers to come before them and answer for what they
had done. One or two of the printers thus summoned
would not come, and an officer of the House
was sent to arrest them. But this officer was
himself seized and brought before the Lord
Mayor on a charge of having tried to arrest a
citizen of London without a lawful warrant.
The Lord Mayor ordered him to be sent to prison. In
this way the House of Commons and the City of London
got into a bitter dispute, in the course of which the
Lord Mayor was sent to the Tower. But the men of
London showed so dangerous a temper, that the Com-
mons took care never to bring on themselves a similar
trouble again. Henceforth newspapers have been al-
lowed to publish as full reports of Parliamentary debates
as they can get.
Parliament-
ary debates
first allowed
to be
printed,
1771.
4. Statesmen had now begun to watch the growth of
E. H.
NN
546
Settlement of the Constitution. 1760-65.
English power in India with some interest; and a feel-
Growth of
ing was spreading that the men who were at
English the head of English affairs in that land had
pcwer in
India, often been guilty of wrongful deeds. After
1760-4. 1760 the onward course of the English in
India had gone on unchecked. In 1763 the Council of
Calcutta, who had shortly before set aside Meer Jaffier,
and made Meer Cossim nabob of Bengal in his place,
took offence at Meer Cossim, and sent an army to over-
throw him also. He was overthrown, and Meer Jaffier
became nabob once more. But this high-handed way of
dealing with an Indian prince was very displeasing to
other Indian princes; and in 1764 the Great Mogul
himself, Shah Alum, and his Vizier, the
more powerful nabob of Oude, Sujah Dowlah,
marched a force of 50,000 men against the
meddling strangers. At Buxar this force was met, and
shamefully routed by 8,000 Sepoys and 1,200 Europeans,
led by Major Hector Munro. Next day Shah Alum, glad
to free himself from the control of his Vizier, slipped into
Munro's camp, and agreed to a treaty which placed in
the hands of the Company the rule of still more Indian
lands.
Battle of
Buxar,
1764.
5. But by this time the misconduct of the Company's
servants had reached such a height, and the Company's
Clive's last affairs had fallen into such disorder, that in
visit to
1765 Lord Clive had to go out a third time to
India,
1765-6. try and set things right. A great fear fell
upon the native princes when they heard that Clive was
again in India; Sujah Dowlah at once yielded himself
up, and the Great Mogul was ready to do anything the
English liked. Clive gave back to Sujah Dowlah the
greater part of Oude, whilst he got the Great Mogul to
make over to the Company, in return for a yearly rent of
260,000%., the rule of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. In this

1765.
547
George III. and Lord North.
69
80
Oude
N
edaba
Calcutta
The Gang
ww
100
110
Mysore Madras
Dir free of St George
Lance Wandewish
Laccadivel thing y
CCamarin Ceylon
BAY OF
BENGAL
Andamang I
Nicobar I
Achoen
trading on their own account and taking gifts from the
much harder to deal with. They were loth to give up
NN 2
Maldive I
CH
IN
120
Forinoan
Haman
CHINA
SEA
SUMATRA
0
THE
Chagos Arche EAST INDIES
70
80
06
100
WORY
than England itself. Clive found his own countrymen
way the English in India became lords of a region larger
Manilla
PHILIPPINE I
BORNE
Mindanao
110
120
548
Settlement of the Constitution. 1765-74
natives, by which they were growing very rich. The
army, which lay at Monghir, mutinied. But Clive stood
fearlessly to his purpose; the mutiny at Monghir was
put down with a strong hand, and every man in the
pay of the Company had to bow to Clive's will. Late
in 1766 ill-health again forced Clive to return to
England.
Disordered
Company's
affairs.
6. Clive's reforms did not at once work all the good
expected from them. In 1767 the English at Madras
were drawn into a costly war with Hyder Ali,
state of the the Rajah of Mysore, the most dangerous
foe they had yet encountered; and after two
years' fighting they had to make a peace from which they
gained nothing; and in 1770 a dreadful famine carried
off a third of the people of Bengal. The Company sank
deeper and deeper into distress, and Parliament felt
bound to take steps to lessen this evil state of things.
After certain members of the Commons, who had been
named to look into the Company's affairs, had given in
their report, Parliament passed the Regula-
ting Act brought in by Lord North. This
law set up a new court at Calcutta, called the
Supreme Court, made the Governor of Bengal—who then
happened to be Warren Hastings-Governor-General of
India, and named a council of four to advise this official
and check his doings. The Commons also soon after
passed a vote of censure on Lord Clive for some of his
acts in India, though they allowed he had
done great things for his country. Clive, how-
ever, took this treatment very much to heart,
and towards the end of 1774 killed himself in his London
house. He was only forty-nine years old.
The Regu-
lating Act,
1773.
Death of
Clive,
November,
1774.
7. But it was upon America that men's eyes were
chiefly fixed while North was Minister.¹ In the first half
1 See г. 562 sqq.
1774-77.
549
George III. and Lord North.
with
of his time of office the chief work of Parliament was to
agree to those laws-laid before them by the King's
trusted Minister-which led to the colonists Lord
taking up arms against the mother-country; North's
dealings
during the second half, Parliament, Lord North,
and the King were vainly striving to undo America.
the mischief they had done. The Commons must share
with George III. the blame of having driven the Americans
into war, and seen their mistake only when it was too
late. Nor should it be forgotten that the country at
large was of the same mind as King and Par-
liament regarding the justice of their cause;
the English people, save a few deep-thinking
and far-seeing men, approved of the course that the
King and his Minister were taking.
Public
opinion on
the Ameri-
can war.
Chatham
tries to pre-
vent war.
8. Such, however, was not the opinion of Lord Chatham.
He often spoke with great force and earnestness against
the laws and doings that were angering the Americans,
and in 1775 he brought in a bill for doing Lord
away with all causes of quarrel between the
two countries. This bill the Lords at once
threw out; but Chatham still tried hard to save his coun-
try from herself. When the war had broken out, he told his
countrymen that they could not 'conquer the Americans,'
and again and again spoke warmly in favour of peace.
When the news of the disgrace at Saratoga in 1777 came,
and France made an alliance with America, there was a
general wish that Chatham should be made Prime
Minister, and Lord North would gladly have given place
to him. But the frank words that Chatham had often
uttered regarding the management of American affairs
had greatly displeased the king, and he was slow to see
the necessity of taking the great statesman into his
counsels; and before the king could make up his mind
¹ See p. 569.
550.
1778.
Settlement of the Constitution.
Chatham
dies, May
11, 1778.
Chatham was dead. In April 1778 he had, though very
ill, gone to the House of Lords to speak against a motion
in favour of peace; for now that France had joined
America, Chatham would not hear of peace; he had
spoken against the motion, and when rising to
speak a second time had fallen back in a fit.
Five weeks later he died. Lord North, eager
as he was to leave his post, was forced to stay. If he
had gone, the heads of the Whig houses must have come
into power; and the king said, 'I would rather lose the
crown I wear than bear the ignominy of possessing it
under their shackles.'
The Oppo-
sition.
Edmund
Burke,
b. 1728,
d. 1797.
9. Yet Lord North had no easy task. A group of
very able men, small in number, but great in gifts of
genius and power of speech, opposed him in
the Commons and gave him no rest. Of
these the deepest thinker and speaker was Edmund
Burke, an Irishman, who had been brought into Parlia-
ment by Lord Rockingham, and gained a foremost place
in the ranks of the Whigs by sheer force of
intellect. Burke wrote as well as spoke
powerfully; indeed he is believed to be our
greatest political writer. The greatest speaker of the
group was Charles James Fox, a younger son of Henry
Fox. At first Fox had been a Tory, and been
in office for some years under Lord North;
but he changed his views as time went on,
became a Whig, and ere long took the place of Whig
leader in the Commons. By watchful care he made
himself the most skilful and telling Parliamentary speaker
of the day. Other Whigs of mark were Colonel Barre
and Mr. Dunning.
Charles
James Fox,
b. 1749,
d. 1806.
10. Session after session these men withstood Lord
North in every way they could think of: They spoke
strongly and boldly against everything the Minister did,
1779-82.
551
George III. and Lord North.
Reform
movement,
1779-82.
warned him of the fatal course he was taking in taxing
and then trying to conquer the Americans, and frankly
said that they thought the Americans right in resisting
the armies of England. They were nearly always beaten
by large majorities, but they were not disheartened, and
never ceased from their attacks on the Minister. The
thing they were most bitter against was the Economic
great and growing power of the king. To cut
down this power they hit upon a plan for les-
sening the king's influence, which they named Economic
Reform, and strove zealously to get Parliament to approve
of it. It was Burke who thought out, and was most
eager in pushing forward, this plan. It sought to do
away with all useless offices, to bring down the pension
list to a fixed sum, 60,000l. a year-in fact to make the
work of ruling the nation less costly. But its grand
aim was to weaken the king's influence; most of the
useless offices were in the king's household; many of
the men who held them sat among the Commons, and
readily voted as their master wished. A brief sentence
states the whole evil which Burke wanted to destroy-
'The king's turnspit was a member of Parliament.'
Efforts were made to carry this plan through Parliament
from time to time, but they all failed so long as Lord
North was Prime Minister.
Lord North
resigns.
Rocking-
ham Prime
II. But in March 1782, owing to the ill-success of the
English arms in America,¹ the Commons began to show
signs of turning against Lord North; and the
king at last consented to let him go. Once
more George had to fall back on the Whig
houses, and to take Lord Rockingham as
Minister. Still he was able to keep a high 1782.
place for at least one of his friends; Lord Thurlow re-
mained Chancellor. Fox was one of the Secretaries of
1 See p. 572.
Minister,
March,
552
Settlement of the Constitution. 1782-83.
State,, and Burke Paymaster of the Forces. This
Ministry lasted but a few months, for Rockingham died
in the following July. It had time enough, however, to
carry a part of Burke's plan for Economic Reform. This
put an end to a good many useless offices, and cut down
the pension list; but it was far from doing all that had
been hoped for.
12. Rockingham was no sooner dead than the weak-
ness of the Whig party showed itself. The Earl of Shel-
burne had become the leader of the Chatham
Shelburne,
Prime Min-
Whigs after Chatham's death, and with his
ister, July,
1782.
friends had taken office under Lord Rocking-
ham. But now the king gave the first place to the
Earl of Shelburne; and Fox, Burke, and the other
friends of Rockingham resigned in a body, and became
the enemies of the new Ministry. They did worse; they
took the fatal step of uniting themselves with the party
of the man against whom they had fought so long and
bitterly, Lord North. This conduct brought down upon
them the wrath both of king and people, and led, after a
short struggle, to their utter overthrow. Early in 1783
the 'Coalition,' as the combined party of Fox and North
was called, outvoted Shelburne on a question
that Fox had himself set in motion-the
making of peace.¹ Shelburne had to retire.
They then forced the king to take them as
his ministers; and George for nearly a year had to
listen to the counsels of men whom he hated. He made
no secret of his enmity to them, and thwarted them by
every means in his power. Yet the two statesmen had
most of the Commons at their command, and the king
was helpless in their hands. But in December 1783 he
felt that he could bear the yoke no longer; and when an
India Bill of Fox's, which the Commons had approved of,
¹ See p. 576,
The 'Coali-
tion Minis-
try,' Feb.-
Dec. 1783.
1784.
553
George III. and Lord North.
went up to the Lords, the king let it be known that he
would look on every lord who voted for it as his enemy.
The Lords therefore threw out the bill; and the king
not only turned away his hated ministers, but boldly
offered the post of Prime Minister to William Pitt, a
younger son of Lord Chatham's, then only twenty-four
years old. Pitt, with even greater boldness, accepted the
king's offer (December 1783).
William
Pitt, Prime
December,
1783.
Minister,
13. For three months the new Minister had to hold
his place against a House of Commons that promptly
voted against him on every question. Pitt
was beaten over and over again; the 'Coali-
tion' strained every nerve to drive him from
office. But Pitt manfully stood his ground.
A strong feeling against Fox and North was setting in
throughout the country, and Pitt was resolved to wait
until this feeling had reached its height. Late in
March 1784 he saw that the proper time had come,
and asked the king to dissolve Parliament. The king
did so; and in the general election which followed, by
far the greater number of members chosen General
were pledged to give their votes to Pitt. The election of
king had won; the election of 1784 gave the
Tories the rule of the country for almost fifty years.
1784
When we look closely at the ninety-five years of
English history which we have just passed through, side
by side with the times which go before, the
thing that we see most clearly is this-the Summary.
House of Commons has now come to be all-important in
the State. But when we look at the history of these
same years side by side with the times that come after,
the thing that strikes us most is-the House of Commons
554
Settlement of the Constitution.
i
is not yet a body that has a mind of its own and can
act for itself. Owing to the way in which most of its
members are chosen, it willingly puts itself into the
hands of others, and gives them its power to use as they
wish. At one time some powerful men among the
nobility manage to bind together their friends among the
Commons, and through these to make and unmake the
king's Ministries at their pleasure. At another time a
resolute king, by bringing into play the means still left
in his power, can win over most of the Commons to his
side, and carry out his will in every part of the State.
It is clear, however, that any great change in the way of
choosing men to sit in Parliament might take away from
the king and the great folk the power of getting any
kind of vote they want from the Commons, and might
thus alter very much the manner of ruling the people.
Such a change has since come, as will be told in a later
work in this series.
But for a hundred years the people were pretty well
satisfied with the order of things they lived under, and
desired no change. Many men were growing rich; trade
was spreading swiftly; there was a rude plenty among
the tillers of the soil, and there was little complaining.
And there is much in the history of this time for English-
men to be proud of. It is true, they lost the American
colonies of their own planting; but, on the other hand,
they twice overcame in war the most warlike European
power, wrested from this same power its great American
colonies, crushed its strength in India, and began build-
ing up in that country a grand empire for themselves.
555
THE FIRST MINISTERS, OR HEADS OF THE
MINISTRIES
WHICH HELD OFFICE
UNDER KING GEORGE III.
Mr. William Pitt [afterwards Lord
Chatham]
Earl of Bute
Mr. George Grenville
from [June 1757] to Oct. 1761
"
Oct. 1761,, April 1763
"
April 1763 June 1765
Marquess of Rockingham
"
Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
Duke of Grafton.
Lord North
"
Marquess of Rockingham
"
"
July 1765, July 1766
July 1766 Oct. 1768
Oct. 1768 Jan. 1770
Jan. 1770,, Mar. 1782
"
Mar. 1782,,
July 1782
Earl of Shelburne
"
"
July 1782 Feb. 1783
Duke of Portland (Coalition Ministry),,
April 1783
"
Dec. 1783
•
"
Dec. 1783 Feb. 1801
Mr. William Pitt (the younger)
Mr. Addington
Mr. William Pitt
Lord Grenville (Ministry of All the
Talents)
Duke of Portland
Mr. Spencer Perceval
Lord Liverpool
"
"
"
Feb. 1801 April 1804
"
May 1804,, Jan. 1806
"
Feb. 1806 Mar. 1807
Mar. 1807, Oct. 1809
Oct. 1809,, May 1812
May 1812,,[April 1827]
+
BOOK VII.
ENGLAND DURING THE AMERICAN
AND EUROPEAN WARS
INTRODUCTION.
THE period of English history between 1760 and 1820
is full of great wars.
(1) England had much fighting to do in America,
where she was beaten. She was fighting for a bad cause,
and freedom and good government came from her defeat.
While America gained very much, England lost little
more than the lives and the money spent in the war.
(2) In India she was successful. There her cause
was the cause of peace and good government. For she
began to understand the duty of governing honestly, justly,
and carefully, and so there English power has thriven.
(3) The greatest war was against France. All Europe
was thrown into confusion by the French Revolution,
and England could not remain at peace, as she wished.
Englishmen had to do all they could to save their in-
dependence, and they saved it.
(4) This French war was bad for England in several
ways. She had just begun to find out that she had many
needful reforms and changes to make at home. These
Introduction.
557
had to do especially with the management of Ireland, the
choice of representatives to the House of Commons, the
regulation of trade and manufactures, the raising of
taxes, and the criminal laws. She had a great minister,
Pitt the younger, who understood the work, and would
have done it, but the war put off the thought of these
things and they could not be attended to till it was over.
Moreover, the waste of money and the destruction of
trade made England poor and discontented for a long
time.
CHAPTER I.
THE CAUSES OF THE QUARREL.
I. THE English Colonies in North America had joined
with spirit in the war against France (1756–1763), and
the interests of the mother country and
colonies.
The
The
the colonies had been alike while France thirteen
threatened. The peace of Paris, Feb. 1763,
left the colonists without fear of future disturbance.
thirteen colonies then reached from the sea to the St.
Lawrence and the Lakes, to the Ohio and the Mississippi,
though the settlers were mostly near the seaboard. Of
these thirteen, a northern group of four consisted of
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island; then came a middle group of New York, New
Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania; and a southern
group of five, Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas North
and South, and Georgia. The lands in all were some-
what thinly inhabited, the people were hardy and in-
dependent, not wealthy, yet having few, if any, very poor
amongst them.
2. The relations between the mother country and the
558
The American War.
colonies had never been fixed very accurately, and dis-
Old dis- agreements had arisen from time to time. The
agreements. colonists complained of neglect, of bad
governors, of unfair laws and rules. Many points had
never been settled; such as the rights of the colonists to
take possession of the lands lying further west, their
rights of trading, and the right of Parliament to levy
taxes on them. The home government claimed rights
about these things which the colonists did not admit.
3. It was out of a question as to the right of taxation
that the great quarrel at last arose. Questions about
trade might have righted themselves in time. Although
there was some feeling of the hardship of the Navigation
laws, which did not allow the colonies to trade with any
country except Great Britain, yet this policy of com-
mercial monopoly was usual, and it had grown with the
growth of the colonies. The wealth which flowed to
some persons from it was seen, the injury to the whole
community was less plain, and a widespread system of
smuggling, by which foreign produce was brought in
without payment of the lawful import duties, toned down
much of the evil of such laws.
Taxation.
4. The case soon became quite changed when King
George III. and his government set on foot a plan for
taxing the American colonies. Whether Eng-
land could lawfully tax the colonies was
uncertain, it was certain that she had not heretofore
taxed them, and that they had never acknowledged that
she had any such right of taxation; the Assembly of
Massachusetts had once plainly said that she had no
such right.
5. The colonies were becoming more important,
richer, and better known since the late war. The king,
on the other hand, wished to have more control over them,
and to keep down the independent spirit shown by some

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1760-1783
560
1763-
The American War.
Towns-
hend's plan
of raising
of the Assemblies. In England heavy taxes were levied
to pay for the late war, and to keep up a larger army.
One of the ministers, Charles Townshend, a
brilliant speaker but a headstrong statesman,
led Parliament to think that the taxes in
England might be lessened by raising a revenue in
America; Mr. Grenville, then First Lord of the
Admiralty, wished to stop the American smuggling and to
enforce the Navigation laws.
revenue.
The Stamp
Act, 1765.
6. The plan of the ministry proposed to 'grant duties
in the Colonies and Plantations of America,' stating,
'that it was just and necessary that a revenue
should be raised there.' In 1765 the Stamp
Act was passed, requiring law papers in America to bear
stamps much as they do now in this country. This put
forward the claim of Parliament to tax a country which
sent no representatives to Parliament. Little attention
was paid to the remonstrances of the colonies, and few
thought that they would resist.
Resistance
of the
colonies.
7. The colonies were probably not well able to pay
taxes to England at that time, for they were in debt for
their own share of the war. Perhaps the
Assemblies might have voted sums of money;
but the colonists did not so much think of the
difficulty of raising money, they were angry at the way
in which the ministers were trying to get it from them.
In North and South alike men made up their minds to
resist; the Virginian Assembly in May 1765 declared
that taxation without their consent was illegal, and
almost at the same time a meeting at New York of
delegates from nine colonies used the same words.
Moreover the people would not use the stamps, and
documents were everywhere accepted as legal without
them.
8. In July 1765 a Whig ministry under Lord Rocking-
1770.
561
The Revenue Act.
the Stamp
Repeal of
Act, 1766.
ham succeeded to power. Among its members was
General Conway, and among its supporters
Edmund Burke, who became a most strong
defender of the colonists. After some inquiry,
during which Benjamin Franklin, the agent of Pennsyl-
vania, was examined before a committee of the House
of Commons, the Stamp Act was done away with (July
1766).
Towns-
hend's
Revenue
Act, 1767.
9. There was a change of ministry again in the same
summer, and a new Government was formed by Pitt, as
has been told before. Pitt soon retired from
any active share in public business, and
Townshend again guided the ministers in
dealing with America. A new Revenue Act (1767)
imposed duties in America on tea and five other articles,
to raise money for the administration of justice' and
'the support of the civil government there.' The colonists
were firm in resisting all such taxation, great or small,
laid upon them by England. Seeing this, the new ministry
of Lord North in 1770 did away with all duties save that
on tea, 'upon consideration of such duties having been
laid contrary to the true principles of commerce.' It was
useless to give up some of the duties, for the Americans
said there was no right to lay on them any at all; whether
the tax was on one article or on six, whether the duty was
great or small, made no real matter.
Ill-feeling
in Massa-
chusetts.
10. Other difficulties also arose about this time. At
Boston citizens aided in rescuing from the police the
crew of a sloop who were charged with smug-
gling. Ill-feeling grew between the citizens
and the soldiers, who were now used to keep
the people quiet. A quarrel took place at Boston
between citizens and soldiers in March 1770: it ended in
the death of some citizens, the removal of the troops, and
the conviction of two soldiers for manslaughter; all this
E. H.
562
1773-
The American War.
made the feelings of the people of Massachusetts more
bitter than before.
II. The colonists left off using tea, and when the
government would not withdraw the duty, some tea-ships
The Boston in Boston harbour were boarded, and their
tea-ships. cargoes were thrown into the sea; on this the
ministry tried to punish the whole colony (Dec. 1773).
The port of Boston was to be closed, and the charter of
the colony taken away; the Assembly was dissolved.
But the spirit of the people could not be so put down; to
the last the Assembly protested against such doings as
illegal, and encouraged the people to hold to their rights.
As other colonies felt with them they got ready to resist,
and a Convention or meeting of representatives, chosen
without the consent of the Governor, sat and managed
the affairs of the colony.
War at
hand.
12. Towards the end of 1774 it was plain that war
was at hand. In England the king and his minister
Lord North, who did whatever the king
wished, and had a large majority in the House
of Commons, were set on harsh measures. A small body
of the men who thought for themselves, and thought
wisely, such as Chatham and Burke, were in favour of
giving way to the colonists. The great trading towns
were on the same side. But the Whigs, as these men
were called, were not popular; Englishmen in general
neither knew nor cared much about the feelings of the
colonists. Public opinion on the whole was on the side of
the king and the government.
First
13. In America a Congress of fifty-five delegates, from
all the thirteen colonies except Georgia, met
meeting of at Philadelphia in September 1774. They
Congress.
drew up a Declaration of Rights, claiming for
themselves all the liberties of Englishmen. Full of
sympathy for Massachusetts, they passed resolutions
1775.
563
Last hopes of Peace.
pointing to a stoppage of all trade with Great Britain.
They issued addresses to the people of Great Britain,
and to the people of Canada, and a petition to the king.
They behaved wisely and moderately, and separated after
calling another Congress for May 1775.
14. Lord North was willing in 1775 that the colonists
should no longer be taxed, but the king was still deter-
mined to punish them for their rebellious spirit. Last hopes
The Houses of Parliament also felt as he did, of peace.
and would not listen to the wise advice of Chatham and
Burke, so the last chance of peace was lost. Meanwhile,
in Massachusetts and in Virginia men were arming.
Although the power, resources, and population of England
would seem to give her the advantage, the colonies were
strong in the hardy habits and stubborn spirit of their
people, in the great size of the country, and in the distance
over sea from England. If they had not trained soldiers
or generals, still almost every settler was used to carry
arms, and they knew the country; it might be hard to
get money and other things wanted for a war, but their
own needs were few, and they were ready to bear much
in defence of their homes.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIGHTING IN AMERICA.-1775-1782.
1. THE first fighting was in Massachusetts, in which colony
Parliament had in February 1775 declared that 'a rebellion
existed.' The colonists had a store of arms at Fighting at
Concord, a town about eighteen miles north- Lexington.
west of Boston. General Gage, who was governor of
the colony and commander of the forces at Boston,
secretly sent a force in April to take or destroy these
002
564
1775.
The American War.
stores. Men got to know of this, and gathered to resist.
At Lexington, ten miles from Boston, fighting began, and
seven men were killed. The arms still in store at
Concord were destroyed, and after a smart skirmish the
troops began their homeward march. They were
harassed all the way by the colonists, who fired at them
from behind the hedges, but fresh troops came out from
Boston to help them, and they got back to barracks having
lost about 270 men, while less than 100 was the loss of
the other side.
2. From this time there was war between England
and her American colonies. Ill-feeling and even hatred
Con-
necticut.
soon grew up between the two peoples. The
king was firm in the resolve to reduce 'the
rebels,' and the mass of the English people agreed with
him, though they did not care much. In America, while
many colonists remained 'loyal,' the help they gave was
not great compared with the fierce resistance of the
majority in almost every part. At first the war went on
chiefly in the four Northern or New England colonies.
Massachusetts led the way, quickly followed by Con-
necticut. The legislature of Connecticut sent a force
which surprised the little garrisons of Ticonderoga and
Crown Point on Lake Champlain; these successes, though
small, were cheering, and brought the colonists stores and
guns and powder, which they greatly needed.
made com-
mander-in-
chief.
3. Congress met for its second session at Philadelphia
in May 1775, and the moderate party in it was weaker
Washington than before. Measures were taken for raising
money, and a commander-in-chief was elected,
George Washington, of Virginia. He had
earned some reputation in the war against the French,
when in 1754 he attacked Fort Duquesne; he had a
well-deserved character for moderation, public spirit,
and honour. It was very needful that the command in
1775.
565
Bunker's Hill.
war should be given to one great soldier. For a danger
which threatened the colonies was that local interests
and jealousies should prevent them from holding together
as one country; since each colony had been used to
manage itself, and had been quite independent of the
rest. Congress as yet had no real power, and could not
do much more than advise what was best.
began to
Battle of
Bunker's
Hill, May
1775.
4. The English Governors retired from the Southern
colonies, and Virginia, under Patrick Henry,
make open resistance; Massachusetts acted
for herself without waiting for Congress.
Round Boston men fought with such generals
as they could find. General Gage was joined by a large
body of fresh troops in May, and then made up his
mind to fortify Bunker's Hill, a height on the peninsula
which commands Boston. On the other side a strong
body of Americans was sent to occupy the hill during the
night. Next afternoon, in the sight of all Boston, the
English stormed the hill. The ground was difficult, and
they were twice beaten back, but in a third attack the
hill was taken with great loss. The victory was with the
English, but on the Americans, who fought most stub-
bornly, the effect was not that of a defeat, and the day has
always been counted among their national successes.
5. In Congress the minority of able men, who aimed
at independence of England and union among themselves,
gained ground and began to lead the country. Invasion of
Late in the autumn Congress agreed to Canada.
attempt a great thing, and invaded Canada. Montgomery,
a soldier who had become a settler in New York, with a
force of 3,000 men took St. Johns and Montreal, intending
to pass down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, but his army
dwindled away, as his men only served for short periods.
Another force of 1,000 men, under Benedict Arnold, had
been sent from Massachusetts up the Kennebec river to
566
1770.
The American War.
join Montgomery. They had to find their way through
the rough unsettled country that now is the State of
Maine, and round the north of the Green Mountains.
This band was almost starved and lost, but somewhat
more than half reached Quebec early in December. The
united forces then numbered scarcely a thousand; it
was hopeless to take the city with so few men, but an
assault was made, Montgomery was killed, and his
division was driven back. Arnold, his second in command,
was wounded while attacking the lower city, and his
division was overpowered. The Americans lost 160
killed and 426 were made prisoners, while 20 was the loss
of the garrison. Even after this failure Arnold stayed
till May, attempting a blockade; then he retreated before
General Carleton, and all Canada was regained by the
English.
English
troops leave
Boston,
1776.
6. Early in March 1776 Washington, who had hitherto
been drilling and training his army while keeping watch
over Boston, was ready to fight. He sent
General Thomas to occupy Dorchester
Heights, which from the south commanded
Boston city and harbour and the British lines on Boston
neck. General Howe, who had succeeded Gage, was
unable to drive them from their position. He had long
thought that Boston was a bad place for his head-
quarters, so he now took his troops away and retired to
Halifax; the English never again had any real hold on
the Northern or New England States.
7. The colonies now began to listen more and more
to the counsels of the extreme men; this was natural
Declaration when war had once begun. So long as it was
of Indepen- only talked about, however bitter the talk
dence, July
might be, there was hope that things might
be quietly settled. But when once war had broken out,
and Americans were glorying in feats of arms done
4, 1776.
1776. The Declaration of Independence.
567
against the English, the desire of settling matters grew
faint and died away. The need of some form of
independent government became pressing, and in June
1776, on the motion of Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia,
Congress agreed that these united colonies are and
ought to be free and independent States.' A committee
of five delegates from five states, Adams of Massachusetts,
Franklin of Pennsylvania, Jefferson of Virginia, Living-
ston of New York, Sherman of Connecticut, drew up a
draft of the Declaration of Independence. With some
changes it was passed by Congress, and published, as the
Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1776. It was
signed on that day, or soon after, by delegates from all
the thirteen States. The Declaration was a bond of
union; but it did nothing, and nothing could be done at
the time, to join the separate States under one govern-
ment so as to make what is called a Confederation.
Congress also sent Franklin and two others to try to get
help from the French Government in their struggle for
freedom.
war.
General
Howe
attacks
1776.
8. During this summer many more soldiers were on
their way from England, and Admiral Lord Howe was
sent out with powers to treat for peace, but no
peace could be made. New York, one of the
Middle States, now became the chief seat of New York,
This State had not been very eager to
resist England; the loyalists were many, and the English
authorities thought that in this and the other Middle
States much help would be got. The city of New York
was held by Washington, who had an army of 10,000
men, which was increased early in August to 27,000 by
new levies of militia, who were not however very good
soldiers. General Howe, with the troops which had left
Boston, sailed from Halifax and reached Sandy Hook at
the end of June. He landed 9,000 men on Staten Island
568
1776–
The American War.
and was well received. In August the main body of the
new troops from England reached the general, who was
thus in command of about 25,000 men. He then sent a
division to the south-west point of Long Island, who soon
faced the American position near Brooklyn. After three
days of skirmishing, the English forces routed the
Americans, and made them withdraw from Long Island;
soon the English crossed the East River and entered the
city of New York. The Americans, unable to hold the
neighbouring country, crossed the river Hudson, and
when Lord Cornwallis followed closely, Washington re-
treated with all speed through New Jersey into Pennsyl-
vania.
9. Thus the States of New York and New Jersey
were won back, and the English held the country as far
New Jersey,
as the river Delaware. So threatening did
1776.
things look, that the Congress left Philadelphia
for a safer meeting-place at Baltimore. Howe ought to
have pressed on across the Delaware, and to have forced
the remains of the American army to fight while it was
out of heart. Instead of doing this, he dispersed his
troops in quarters in New Jersey, where they became un-
popular, and then he waited for the ice on the river.
Thus Washington found time to get new soldiers together,
Congress and the country had time to recover from the
shock of defeat and misfortune. At the very end of the
year, Washington surprised Trenton, an English post,
and a few days later, again crossing the river Delaware,
passed to the rear of Lord Cornwallis' army. He then
gradually recovered almost all New Jersey. The whole
fighting of this year was thus made a success for the
Americans, for the English generals, with far better
soldiers, had had to give way to Washington.
Io. The summer of 1777 was marked by an attempt
to cut off the Northern States from the rest. General
1777.
569
Saratoga.
Burgoyne's
march from
Canada,
1777.
Burgoyne started from Canada to march down the great
valley of the lakes and the valley of the Hudson, and
meet a force under Clinton from New York.
Leaving Crown Point at the end of June, he
pushed on to Ticonderoga, which was left by
its garrison; then, crossing a most difficult country, full of
forest, streams, and swamps, made still more difficult by
artificial obstacles, he found Fort Edward also empty.
By this time the militia of the New England States had
come together; they were mostly untrained men, but
were well armed, brave, used to hardships, and very
angry on account of the cruel doings of the Indian
savages who had come with General Burgoyne. From
Fort Edward to Albany was fifty miles, and Burgoyne
dared not go on till he had got proper supplies; so a
month was spent. Then the army crossed to Saratoga,
and found the enemy under Generals Gates and Arnold,
in front of Stillwater, lining a low range of hills called
Behmus' Heights. After a hard fight, the English re-
mained masters of the ground, but had gained no real
advantage. For more than a fortnight Burgoyne waited
for news of Clinton; then he tried, without success, to
break through the enemy's lines. With great difficulty the
army retreated to Saratoga, ten miles; there it was sur-
rounded, and all supplies were cut off. A Convention was
signed on October 17, allowing the English to lay down
their arms and receive provisions; thence they marched
as prisoners to Massachusetts. About 3,500 fighting
men, or 5,750 in all, were made prisoners. This Conven-
tion of Saratoga was the turning-point in the war; it was
an enormous disaster for the English cause.
11. Meanwhile, in the Middle States, Washington had
been able to do little, because of the smallness of his
army. Late in the spring (1777), General Howe decided
on leaving New Jersey to reach Philadelphia by another
570
1778-.
The American War.
Howe takes
Phila-
way. Embarking some 14,000 men at New York, he
sailed southward, entered the Chesapeake, and reached
the Head of Elk, seventy miles from Phila-
delphia. Washington, in September, met
delphia. him half-way between Philadelphia and the
Head of Elk, where flowed a stream, the Brandywine.
The Americans were routed, and Washington could not
prevent the advance of the English, who entered the city.
But General Howe found that he could do little towards
winning back Pennsylvania, and he failed to draw Wash-
ington to a battle. This success, therefore, did not at all
make up for the great defeat at Saratoga.
12. In England the news of the surrender at Saratoga
made even the ministers wish for peace. Unfortunately,
Ministers
wish for
peace,
1777-8.
the same news made the French Govern-
ment ready to enter into treaties of alliance
and commerce with the United States (Feb-
ruary 1778). Lord North then passed a bill giving up
altogether the claim of Parliament to tax the colonies, and
was ready to do anything short of granting them inde-
pendence.
13. This was a time when the war might have ceased
without dishonour to England. England was ready to
own that she had been in the wrong. She was willing
to grant all that Americans had claimed; freedom, with
some slight tie to the mother country, or even indepen-
dence, as Lord Rockingham thought, might have been
conceded. But when France began to interfere in the
war, its meaning was changed. The honour of England
seemed at stake; even those who had been against the
war before, now thought that it must be carried on
boldly. Thus Chatham, in the House of Lords, declared
he would never consent to 'an ignominious surrender of
the rights of the empire.' 'Shall we now,' he said, 'fall
prostrate before the House of Bourbon ?? And his death
1780.
571
Major André.
in May 1778 put an end to the last hope of reconcilia-
tion with America.
English
leave Phil-
adelphia.
14. The certainty of war with France at once began
to mar English plans. Orders were sent out to the new
commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton, to
retire from Philadelphia to New York. The
Americans instantly retook the city and almost
all parts of the Middle States. New York was again the
head-quarters of the English, but as troops were sent
thence to Halifax, Bermuda, and the West Indies, to
guard against the French fleet, the army did little. And
want of union between the States, quarrels in Congress
itself, difficulties of raising money, men, and supplies,
and jealousies in the army, hindered Washington from
doing any great thing.
André.
15. In 1780, men were made more bitter by a very
unfortunate event. General Arnold, a man of mark, who
had held important commands at Saratoga Major
and at Philadelphia, was now at West Point,
a fort dominating the upper part of the State of New
York. This he treacherously offered to hand over to
Sir Henry Clinton; the terms were to be arranged with
Major André, aide-de-camp to the English general. He
visited Arnold, and was taken prisoner on his way back
in disguise, and with a pass given by Arnold. Arnold
had time to escape to the English lines; André was
treated as a spy. His plea of a safe-conduct from Arnold
was not unfairly met by the reply that Arnold was a
traitor and a safe-conduct granted for a treacherous pur-
pose was not valid. Washington was unyielding, and
André was hanged. It was natural enough that the
Americans should insist on making an example of him ;
but when they hanged him on the charge that he was a
spy, they were really revenging themselves on him for
572
1780-
The American War.
the treachery of Arnold, whom they could not reach. By
the English, André was honoured as a martyr to his zeal
for king and country.
The
Southern
colonies.
16. Sir Henry Clinton's new plan of operations carries
as to the Southern colonies, where loyal feeling was still
rather strong.
In November 1778 a small
force occupied Savannah, the capital of Georgia.
From this point the troops and their supporters
carried the war into the two Carolinas, and seized Port
Royal, while an attack made by the French and
American forces was driven back. Early in the spring
of 1780 Clinton took Charlestown, and then left Lord
Cornwallis in command. General Gates, who was sent
to oppose him, failed, and the South seemed to be entirely
won back by the English. Cornwallis was so sure of this,
that he formed a plan of leaving Lord Rawdon to keep
the South under control, while he himself marched north-
wards to join Clinton.
Cornwallis
at York-
town, 1781.
17. This attempt was beyond his power, and he failed.
In order to cross the rivers, he had to go far inland; the
Surrender of country was difficult, and the people did not
help him, so that he could not get food for his
men. The Americans, though routed at Guild-
ford in North Carolina, in March 1781, followed Corn-
wallis as he retired to Wilmington on the coast. There
the English stayed three weeks. At last Cornwallis
reached Yorktown in the Chesapeake Bay, and there
waited for Clinton to join him by sea. But there he was
shut in on all sides. Washington and La Fayette, with
a force almost three times as large as his own, marched
into Virginia and hemmed in Yorktown; the French
fleet came from the West Indies, blocked the York
river, and cut him off from the sea. In October, Corn-
wallis surrendered, after several brave attempts which
had only proved his position to be hopeless. Further
1783.
573
Lord North's Resignation.
south the English had been driven back, till, at the end of
1781, they held nothing but Charlestown and Savannah.
18. This was really the end of the war, though in some
places fighting continued on a small scale. The English
still held New York till November 1783, after Lord North
peace had been made. But feeling in England resigns, 1782.
was now steadily changing into keen dislike of the war;
the majority which supported the Government in the
House of Commons grew smaller and smaller. In Feb-
ruary 1782 General Conway proposed an address pray-
ing the king 'that the war might no longer be pursued,'
and the Government threw it out by one vote only.
Another motion of like effect was proposed and carried;
the ministry could no longer stay in office, and in March
1782 Lord North resigned.
19. By the union of the two bodies of Whigs, a new
ministry was formed under Lord Rockingham, The Whig
with Lord Shelburne as Colonial Secretary.
ministry.
They were in favour of making peace, and Lord Shelburne
at once opened negotiations for this purpose.
CHAPTER III.
WAR WITH FRANCE AND SPAIN.
War with
France.
I. DURING these later years of the American war,
England's task had been made hopeless by the state of
things in Europe. Many powers were at war
with England, and at one time almost all
Europe was openly or secretly hostile. In March 1778
'a treaty of alliance was made between France and
America. War between England and France soon fol-
lowed. A French fleet during the summer helped the
Americans, and afterwards hovered about the West
+
+
574
War with France and Spain.
1780-
Indies and took possession of Dominica. Nearer home,
the Channel fleet, under Admiral Keppel, was met by a
far more powerful French fleet under D'Orvilliers, and,
after fighting, retired to harbour.
2. Next year the war in Europe became more serious,
for Spain joined France. England was greatly disturbed
Weakness by threats of invasion. The enemies' fleets
of England.
were not only superior on the open seas, but
also masters of the Channel, which was swarming with
American and French privateers, or ships sent out,
not by government, but by private persons, who wished
to gain what they could by attacking the enemy's vessels.
Ireland could not be defended; commerce was nearly at
an end; the English fleets could only try to keep the
enemy off. The French even attacked Jersey, and the
Spaniards besieged Gibraltar.
Right of
search.
3. In 1780 arose a quarrel with the neutral powers
which left England for a time without a friend. England
had claimed and exercised Right of Search,
that is, the right to stop and search all mer-
chant vessels sailing under the flag of any neutral nation,
and to take them if they were found to be carrying supplies
to the enemy.
It was a claim galling to the dignity and
harmful to the trade of nations who were at peace, and it
unfairly placed their interests at the mercy of those who
were at war. The Empress Catherine of Russia, angry
at the doings of Spain and England, put forth a Declara-
tion, stating that 'free ships make free goods,' and contra-
band goods, that is, goods which a nation at war might
seize anywhere, were those only that a treaty might have
declared to be such; that the blockade of a port was not
to be acknowledged unless there were really cruisers off
the port to stop merchant ships from entering. Thus,
to protect their own interests, Russia, Sweden, and Den-
mark made a league called the Armed Neutrality. Hol-
1782
575
Rodney's Victory.
land and Prussia afterwards joined, and France and Spain
agreed to the Declaration.
Gibraltar.
4. As might be expected, in 1781-2 England was hard
pressed. In European waters, the French and Spanish
fleets swept the seas, and although Admiral
Parker beat the Dutch near the Dogger Bank,
yet, on the whole, the enemy had command of the Channel.
Minorca was lost, and Gibraltar was closely besieged.
All through 1782 General Elliot and his garrison defended
the place, and beat back every attempt to take it. In
October Admiral Lord Howe relieved the garrison with
a powerful fleet, and Gibraltar was saved, though the
siege was kept up till the news of peace arrived. There
are few more glorious deeds of daring and endurance in
English history than the defence of Gibraltar by General
Elliot and his brave garrison.
Admiral
victory.
5. In the West Indies Admiral Rodney could do little
for a time. At last a glorious victory fell to his lot. The
French Admiral de Grasse had taken most of
the Leeward Islands, and was threatening Rodney's
Jamaica, which Rodney meant to protect.
Anchored in St. Lucia, he watched for the French fleet
from Port Royal in Martinico. After some days of
straggling and rather confused fighting, Rodney forced a
general battle. The admiral led the way and broke the
French line. The battle lasted for eleven hours. "I
believe the severest ever fought at sea, Rodney him.
self wrote. The Count de Grasse at last struck his flag,
the whole fleet was broken up, and from that day the
French were no more masters of the seas.
6. The new ministry in 1782 was ready to make peace,
acknowledging the independence of the United States.
France and Spain were by no means desirous of peace,
but the Americans willingly entered into negotiations
with Lord Shelburne and welcomed the end of war. A
576
1783
War with France and Spain.
Treaty of
Versailles,
1783.
treaty was signed at Paris in November 1782, but was
dependent on peace being made between Great Britain
and France. Treaties with France and Spain
soon followed. England gave back some of
her conquests, as Chandernagore, Pondicherry,
and St. Lucia, gave up Tobago, St. Pierre, Miquelon,
and got some West India islands. Spain eagerly desired
to have Gibraltar, but Englishmen, proud of the glorious.
defence, were resolved to keep it. Minorca and the
Floridas were yielded. The treaties were all signed at
Versailles in September 1783. Some men were loud in
calling them disgraceful, but those who knew how hardly
pressed England was, and how the increase of debt and
waste of men were crushing her, saw that peace must be
had, and that the terms were fair. England came with
honour out of the war against these powerful European
foes. She had met with disasters in a bad cause in
America, but still her soldiers and sailors had done their
duty well.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PEOPLES OF INDIA.
I. IN India, Clive had saved the English settlements,
and had put an end to the power of the French. He had
come back to England in 1760, but things went so badly
that it was needful to send him out again in 1765. He
stayed two years, and during that time he did three great
things. He enlarged the Company's dominions by taking
over for ever Bengal, Behar, and Orissa; he put a stop
to the private trading of the civil service and to the plan
of taking presents; and he brought the army into proper
obedience. We have now to see how the English made
their power felt all over India, and how the native States
one after another fell under the control of England.

70
95
75
90
SO
85
35
20
25
30
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Indus
Rave
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Great Desert
Joudy po
Aravill
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Dodypore
Ahmedabad
Clot Cute Guzerat
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Delbi
All
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Langong
Robile und
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Bombay
Saleah Ber
திரிதனை
Tuptee
Asraye
BGodavery
Ahmednuggur
Pona
INDIA
1760-1820
30
Him
RSanpuo
ains
Nep
Cudh
Lucknow
Jumna
Corah
Oudh
Allahabad
Allahabad
R.Sone
eFore
Nizams
Dominions
Raj
Moorshedahad
Chot Play
Nagpore B
Chanderangal Calcutt
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BURMAE
20
15
10
Goa
Laccadive
Islands
Mangalor
Gitvar
Mysore
Fingopal
Madras
Areat
Wandewash
Pondicherry
Porto Nove
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Maldive
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Andaman Islands
Nicobarl
Khandy
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10
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5
5
70
75
80
85
90
E. H.
PP
578
India.
This was due partly to the courage of the English, and
to the peace and good order which they made where they
ruled. But it was also due partly to the divisions among
the natives theinselves-for the people of India were not
all of one race or of one religion, and the country was
broken up under many governments.
2. The people to whom the land belonged in very
early times were a very dark race, not much civilised.
Some tribes of them still remain in the high-
The hill.
races.
lands of Central India, and also in the hills
and forests of almost all parts; among the best known
are the Santals in Bengal along the Rajmahal hills, the
Kôls in Chota Nagpore, the Bheels in Rajpootana, and
the Gonds. They are mostly a quiet, simple people, who
have never formed great States of their own, but have
always lived to themselves, obeying the rulers of other
races. They gave the English little trouble.
The
Hindoos.
3. A great and more civilised people came in upon
these tribes, passing over the Indus and down the valley
of the Ganges. These spread as settlers all
over the land. This race, called Hindoo,
though united by one religion, split off into many States.
The most important that lasted to the days of English
rule were the States of Rajpootana, as Oodypore and Jey-
pore, and the Mahratta States of Poona, Guzerat, Baroda,
and the territories of Sindia and Holkar. Besides these
the greatest number of the people in most parts of
India are of the Hindoo race; and in many parts tribes,
which were not Hindoos by race have become Hindoos
in religion, as in Mysore and the furthest parts of
southern India.
4. Again, men of other races and another religion
had come across the Indus from Central Asia ; these
were Mohammedans, who began to pour into India
during the eleventh century. They were eager to con-
The Regulating Act.
579
The
Moham-
medans.
quer the rich Hindoo kingdoms, and longed to put down
the idolatrous religion. Piece by piece they overran the
land, and beat down most of the kingdoms
and ruled over them. They set up a great
empire, with a capital at Delhi; then they
added province after province, all north India as far as the
river Nerbudda, all Bengal, and the Deccan as far as the
river Kistna. And when the empire broke up, still many
of its parts were ruled by Mohammedans who, like the
Nizam in the Deccan and Hyder Ali in Mysore, were
lords over Hindoo subjects. The hatred between the
two races of Hindoos and Mohammedans helped the
English to spread their authority over both.
CHAPTER V.
INDIA UNDER WARREN HASTINGS.
1. WHILE Clive had stayed in India he had ruled firmly,
but after his return to England in 1767 the loss of his
firmness and honesty was soon felt. It would English
be scarcely too much to say that greed and misrule.
oppression, misrule and false dealing, marked English
rule in Bengal and Madras during the few years before
1773. The tales that reached home roused men's anger,
and when in 1770 a famine killed about one third of the
people of Bengal, the home government was forced to
interfere.
2. A new constitution was given to the East India
Company under 'the Regulating Act' of 1773. This
gathered the three settlements of Bengal, Regulating
Bombay, and Madras, or Presidencies as they Act, 1773.
were called, under the Governor of Bengal; it gave him
the title of Governor-General, and set up a council of
PP 2
580
1773-
India.
.་
four members to help him. A Supreme Court of Justice
was also made at Calcutta, like the English Court at
Westminster, and thus English law was brought into
India.
First
Governor-
General.
3. The Act named, as the first Governor-General,
Warren Hastings, who had been Governor of Bengal
since 1772. He had been long in India, and
knew about the country. He had sided with
Clive in trying to make the English rule
better in Bengal. Some reforms he had already begun.
He found the gathering of taxes in the hands of natives
who oppressed and robbed the people. He made a new
and better settlement of the taxes, and removed the
capital from Moorshedabad to Calcutta. Hastings ruled
on the whole justly, strongly, and wisely, but he did some
things which were cruel and unjust, for which he has
been rightly blamed. Being pressed by the Directors of
the Company in England for money, he made an unfair
bargain with the Vizier of Oude, who coveted the neigh-
bouring territory of Rohilcund, while Hastings wanted
money. Hastings sold to the Vizier the districts of
Corah and Allahabad, and listening to his talk about the
bad faith of the Rohillas, an Afghan tribe who had lately
settled near him, sold the services of English troops,
and became for money the tool of the Vizier, who would
make no terms with the Rohillas. They were, perhaps,
dangerous neighbours, but they had given no cause for
war, and the attack upon them was wicked. By means
of English troops their chiefs were slain and themselves
driven across the Ganges or enslaved.
4. The Governor-General found his new position no
easy one; the Regulating Act had not laid down his
powers exactly, and his council instead of
helping him often went against him. Three
of the four members, Francis, Monson, and Clavering,
The
Council.
1779.
581
The Mahratta War.
who came from England with their minds set against
Hastings, began to oppose him at the very first meeting
of the council. They knew little about Indian matters,
and were neither as wise nor as sensible as Hastings.
But they were impressed with the evils of English rule in
India, and they fancied it was their business to reform
everything. The result was soon seen; there was nothing
but quarrelling, unfair dealing, and scandals. Even in
these difficulties Hastings changed the way of levying taxes
with great advantage to the people of India and to the
Company. He did much to stop bribery in the civil
service; he drew up a code of rules for the courts which
showed that he was a great and wise law-maker. He
was vigorous enough to impress the native mind and
just enough to earn their goodwill; and beyond all
this Hastings carried on great wars, and saved Madras
when its own government was feeble enough to ruin any
state.
ratta war.
5. During this time the English power was threatened
by the Mahrattas. These were the men of the great Hindoo
empire of the Deccan, which had been founded The Mah-
by Sevajee in the seventeenth century. The
Peshwa, as the head of their race was called, could not
keep hold over his generals. Four new powers grew up,
the Raja of Nagpore, the Gaikwar in Guzerat, Sindia, and
Holkar. At the headquarters of the Mahrattas in Poona,
a regency on one side with a usurper on the other had
thrown all into confusion. Without asking the consent
of Hastings, the Governor of Bombay supported the
usurper Raghoba, and received in return the island of
Salsette and the port of Bassein. The result was a
great war with the whole Mahratta confederation. The
Bombay troops, successful at first, presently failed, and
after a defeat at Wurgaum nothing but the courage and
energy of Hastings saved Bombay itself. An expedition
582
1779-
India.
under General Goddard, sent from the banks of the Jumna
to Bombay, reached Surat on the western coast in safety.
This was a wonderful march made by less than 5,000 men
across more than 1,000 miles of country almost wholly
unknown to Englishmen. It was one of the grand rash
acts of Hastings, one of those strokes of genius by which
he impressed the natives with his greatness. The Mah-
ratta league tried the English power to the extreme.
General Goddard took Ahmedabad, the capital of Guzerat
(1779), and the Gaikwar agreed to leave the confederation.
But this did little good, for a fresh alliance with the Nizam
in the Deccan and Hyder Ali, Rajah of Mysore, gave the
league courage to attack all three Presidencies at once.
Leaving General Goddard to save Bombay from Sindia
and Holkar, Hastings first saved Bengal by buying off
the Rajah of Nagpore, who deserted the league. With
his usual boldness he ventured to send a sepoy army by
land to the help of Madras. The Hindoos were forbidden
by their religion to go on the sea, and they had lately
mutinied rather than obey an order to do so.
But they
willingly endured the march of 700 miles by land, and
bravely fought to save Madras from Hyder Ali. Hastings
was able to make a general peace with the Mahrattas in
1782. By the treaty of Salbye, conquests were restored,
but the island of Salsette was kept.
6. The peace did not take in Mysore, and its ruler
Hyder Ali still pressed hard on Madras. He had rushed
War with
upon the Carnatic in 1780 with a large army,
Hyder Ali.
well armed, and in part trained by French
officers. The Nabob made no resistance, fort after fort
fell, and the army drew on towards Madras. Sir Hector
Munro tried to relieve Arcot, and another force under
Baillie was to join him. But Baillie was defeated, and
Munro hurried back to Madras with the loss of his guns.
On news of this Hastings was roused. He sent off Sir
1784.
583
Hastings leaves India.
Eyre Coote by sea at once with what force he could spare
and sent a sepoy expedition along the coast through
Cuttack and the Northern Circars. Coote retook Arcot
which had fallen, relieved Wandewash, and gained a
great victory at Porto Novo. With small resources and
poor support from anyone except Hastings, Coote held
his own and beat off all the attempts of Hyder Ali. The
year 1782 saw the English fortunes in Madras at a low
ebb. French troops and a French fleet under Admiral
Suffrein brought help to Hyder Ali. Madras was again
besieged by the Mysore army, and was in great danger,
but at the end of the year Hyder Ali died, and his son
Tippoo hurried his army home to Mysore. The treaty
of 1783 with France relieved the English from a threaten-
ing danger in India.
7. In the end of 1784 Hastings gave up his office, and
went back to England early in the next year, leaving the
English territories in India at peace.
He
Warren
Hastings
leaves India,
1784.
left behind him a great name as a strong ruler
both in peace and war. He had always at
heart not only the interests of England, but also the welfare
of the Indian peoples whom he ruled. A great man, al-
ways patriotic though not always scrupulous enough, he
made a new great empire in the East while the English
king and his ministers were losing the great dominion
in the West. Hastings and Clive were the two greatest
Englishmen who had to do with India.
8. Not long after the return of Hastings, an attack was
made in the House of Commons on his conduct in India.
After a time a resolution was carried, order-
ing his impeachment at the bar of the House
of Lords. The movers in the matter were
his old enemy Francis, and Burke and Fox.
The ministry were in a difficulty. Pitt, and Dundas,
who was now the President of the Board of Control,¹
1 Sce page 585.
Impeach-
ment of
Warren
Hastings,
1787.
584
1795.
India.
had never liked Hastings; they believed many of the
stories told against him and against English rule in
India; but they did not want to have things looked
into. They consented to the motion, but refused to
help in the management of the impeachment. So the
managers were chosen from the Opposition side of the
House, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan being the chief among
them. Articles of impeachment were drawn up contain-
ing nine charges, which were afterwards increased to
twenty-two. The trial began in February 1788. Burke,
in a fine speech, which it took four days to deliver, ac-
cused Hastings and those under him of every kind of
cruelty and wrong-doing. Only four out of all the
charges were gone into fully. These charged him with
robbery, cruelty, and taking bribes. The prosecution
spread over nearly five years, and the whole trial lasted
more than seven years, in which time the court sat alto-
gether 145 days. Judgment of acquittal on all charges
was given in April 1795. The delay had allowed people
to forget the fine speech and the exaggerations of Burke
and Sheridan. And as time went on, most men thought
that Hastings was being unfairly treated. Before the end
of the trial Lord Cornwallis had come back from India,
and was able to give strong evidence of the good results
of Hastings' rule.
Fox's India
Bill, 1783.
CHAPTER VI.
INDIA FROM 1783-1813.
I. FOR some time there had been a feeling that the
mode of governing India needed to be changed. The
territory had become so large that the king's
government could no longer leave it entirely
in the hands of a company of traders. The Coalition
government of Fox and North, which succeeded Shel-
1784.
585
Pitt's India Bill.
burne's ministry in 1783, presented their India Bill to
the House of Commons in November of that year. This
Bill was prepared by Fox and Burke, who both knew
Indian affairs well, and both were deeply impressed with
the stories of the mismanagement of the Company. It
proposed very great changes. All charters of the Com-
pany were to be done away with. The government of
India was to be placed for four years in the hands of a
Board of seven Commissioners. All accounts were to
be laid before Parliament. The Bill was a good one, and
many of the things which it proposed have been done
since; but at the time, the changes seemed too great to
be made. It passed the House of Commons, but the
king got the House of Lords to throw it out. So the
Coalition ministry had to resign, and Pitt became first
minister.
Pitt's India
2. Pitt also found India a pressing question. No
sooner had the general election in 1784 given him a
majority, than he brought in and carried an
India Bill through both Houses. This Bill Bill, 1784.
was approved by the Company, and aimed at reforming
abuses with as little change as possible. It appointed a
Board of Control, which, as a department of the English
government, should take some of the management of
Indian matters away from the Directors. So that while
the Directors kept their right of appointing to all offices,
the king's ministers could at any time of danger make
the Directors do as they pleased.
3. In 1786 Lord Cornwallis, who had commanded in
America, became Governor-General. He ruled India
well, as he had great powers, and was well Lord Corn-
supported by Pitt. He did much to cure the
bribery and corruption among the civil servants, and by
paying them better, took away the excuse for it.
wallis.
4. He managed a difficult war with Mysore well,
•
586
1786-
India.
though the need of the war is not clear. The Nizam
War with having applied for help against Tippoo of
Tippoo.
Mysore, Lord Cornwallis allowed it to be
known that he did not count Tippoo as an ally. Soon
after this Tippoo attacked Travancore, and the Governor-
General made a vigorous move against him. In alliance
with the Nizam and the Peshwa he carried on active
campaigns and took several strong forts. Early in 1792,
with 22,000 men and powerful artillery, he threatened
Seringapatam, the capital of Mysore, a remarkably strong
fortress on an island in the river Cauvery. The camp,
strongly posted on the northern bank of the river, was
stormed, and a landing made on the island. Then Tippoo
yielded, and bought peace at the price of half his do-
minions and a large sum of money.
The 'Per-
manent
Settlement.'
5. But the fame of Lord Cornwallis rests chiefly on
his settlement of the land question of Bengal. The
Company derived most of its income from the
land-tax, and because of bad ways of levying
and collecting this tax, agriculture was failing
and the ryots, or cultivators of the land, were in misery.
The' Permanent Settlement' of Cornwallis made over the
ownership of land to the zemindars, or larger landowners
and landholders, who were then to pay the government
a fixed sum. The interests of the ryots were to be
guarded by a provision that the land could not be taken
from them while they paid rent as at the date of the
settlement. On the whole, the plan was just and good.
6. Sir John Shore governed from 1793 to 1798, five
quiet years, during which the Mahratta States
grew rapidly.
Sir John
Shore.
7. In
Marquess
Wellesley
1798, Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquess
Wellesley, was made Governor-General. He
knew Indian affairs well, and was a man of
great ability and firmness, with a real genius for ruling,
1799.
587
The Conquest of Mysore.
and a strong belief in the need of English authority
making itself felt throughout India.
8. As in the days of Hastings so now again there was
danger from the French influence in the native States of
India. There were French troops at the
French
ference.
court of the Nizam, and with the Peshwa, inter-
and in the service of Sindia. And Tippoo
in Mysore had gone so far in making an alliance with
the French in Mauritius that they landed a force at
Mangalore to join him. Wellesley interfered at once; he
partly persuaded and partly forced the two friendly powers,
the Nizam and the Peshwa, to put themselves under the
protection of the English and send away their French
troops.
9. He then demanded that Tippoo should disband
his force, but he did not obey. War followed, and in the
spring of 1799 English armies marched on. Conquest
Seringapatam. General Harris, under whom of Mysore.
Colonel Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) was
serving, moved with 20,000 men from Madras. From
Bombay General Stuart came with a smaller force.
Tippoo met Stuart, but failed to turn him; he then
hurried off to resist the army from Madras. The English
defeated him at Malavelly, and then besieged Seringa-
patam early in April. A month later General Baird
stormed this great fortress, which was desperately
defended. Tippoo died fighting in the gateway. So
ended the family of the Mysore usurpers, who were fierce
Mohammedan despots that had set their feet on the
necks of the Hindoos of the Deccan. Lord Wellesley
restored a ruler of the old line, and Mysore gave no
further trouble. The Deccan was now safe, with the
Nizam protected by English troops and no longer in-
dependent. The Carnatic, too, now became an English
province dependent on the Governor of Madras; and
588
1800
India.
•
the Nabob Vizier in Oude was compelled to take, instead
of his own troops, a British force for whom he paid a
large sum of money.
10. The Mysore war had put an end to two great
powers, but a third remained, the Mahratta nation.
War with
the Mah-
rattas. The
Peshwa.
Of
the several powers into which the race was
divided the Peshwa was the head, but all
were really independent, and were even rivals.
The two most ambitious and powerful leaders were
Sindia and Holkar. These not only made war one upon
another, but also as rivals threatened the Peshwa. Lord
Wellesley interfered to save the territories of the Peshwa,
who was then partly forced, and partly led by his fears
of Sindia and Holkar, to agree to the treaty of Bassein,
1802, which reduced him to the level of the Nizam, a
subject protected by English troops.
1803.
11. Sindia and the Raja of Nagpore determined not
to let the lands of the Peshwa become English according
Sindia, to the treaty of Bassein, so they tried to get
Holkar to join them and to make the Peshwa
leave his new masters. Wellesley found out their
plan and was too quick for them; he declared war,
August 1803, and at once attacked Sindia on all sides.
General Wellesley in the Deccan took the great fort of
Ahmednuggur and occupied all the district south of the
Godavery. Then with his small army of 4,500 men he
attacked Sindia's entrenched camp of 50,000 men at
Assaye, further north. Sindia's army fought well, but the
English troops simply walked right over his guns and his
infantry, with the loss of one third of their number.
The Mahratta force was broken up, and the remains
driven beyond the river Taptee. General Lake mean-
while attacked Sindia's possessions in Hindostan proper,
which reached from the Sutlej on the west to Allahabad
on the east. He took the stronghold of Allygurh, and
1810.
589
Recall of Lord Wellesley.
pushed on to Delhi where he beat a portion of Sindia's
French forces. He next took Agra after a siege, and de-
feated the enemy in a hard-fought battle at Laswarree. In
less than half a year Lord Wellesley had broken the power
of the Mahrattas and made his own authority supreme.
12. One Mahratta chief, Holkar, had not joined his
rival Sindia, but his habit of plundering his neighbours
soon brought him to war with Lord Wellesley, Holkar,
and he too, like the others, had to submit.
1804.
Recall of
Lord
Wellesley.
13. But before the war was fully over Lord Wellesley
was recalled by the authorities in England in 1805. They
did not at all like the things that he had done,
though he had made England supreme in
India. Their desire was for peace and no
interference, but Lord Wellesley knew, better than they
did, that peace could not be firm till England was able
to forbid the native States to tear one another to pieces.
Years later, when the opposite plan had been tried, men
saw at last that Lord Wellesley had been right.
14. Lord Cornwallis landed in India, and died. His
successor, Sir George Barlow, 1805–1807, did the oppo-
site to what Wellesley had done; that is to say, Sir George
Barlow.
he would not interfere in anything which lay
outside of English territory. This meant war on all sides
between native States, and the rise of great conquerors
such as Holkar and Sindia, who made themselves masters
of smaller States which were more friendly to England.
Lord
Mil.to.
15. Lord Minto (1807-1812) intended to follow the
same plan, but he soon found that he could not leave the
native States alone. He could not help inter-
fering so far as to make Runjeet Sing, the
greatest of the Sikh leaders, keep to the west of the river
Sutlej. So the English frontier was moved from the Jumna
as far as the Sutlej. A powerful expedition sent by Lord
Minto (1810) took the Isles of Bourbon and Mauritius
590
1813-
India.
from France. This made the Eastern trade of England
quite safe by putting an end to the last remnant of
French power in Indian waters.
The new
charter:
Opening of
Indian
CHAPTER VII.
INDIA UNDER THE NEW CHARTER.
1. DOWN to this time, by their charter, the East
India Company had kept all the trade with India and the
East to themselves; other persons could not
enter the country to trade or to settle there.
Even those missionaries who would have
trade. 1813. tried to teach the people were forbidden; but
now the twenty years, for which the latest charter lasted,
were coming to an end. It would soon be needful to ask
Parliament for a new one, but Englishmen were no
longer willing to let the Company have their own way so
much. The ministers too saw that greater freedom of
trade with India would be good for England. So the
new charter which was given to the Company in 1813
made a great change. Though the Directors did not like it,
their monopoly of trade was taken away, and the trade with
India, though not with China, was made free to all English
merchants. Missionaries were allowed in the country.
The Mar-
quess of
Hastings.
2. Lord Moira, Marquess of Hastings, succeeded the
Earl of Minto as Governor-General, 1813-1822. At home
in former days he had disliked Lord Wellesley's
plan of interference, and had said that native
States should be left alone. In India he soon
changed his opinion, and made known his determination
to exercise authority over the whole land, to control native
States, and to keep peace between them.
3. His first troubles were with the Nepaulese on the
northern frontier, and the Pindaree and Patan freebooters
1817.
591
War with Nepaul.
in central India. The power of Nepaul had lately grown,
and the Nepaulese, or Goorkhas, had come down into the
plains beyond their own frontier. After often War with
ravaging the British borders they at last tried Nepaul.
to take possession of all lands north of the Ganges.
Negotiations failed and war became needful. The country,
a valley enclosed within the lofty ranges of the Himalaya,
was most difficult to get at, but it was necessary to strike
a decisive blow. Four expeditions started from different
points to invade the country, and of these, three failed ;
but the fourth, under General Ochterlony, passed range
after range of the mountains, and took fort after fort in
spite of a most brave resistance. The same general again
made a successful campaign early in the next year. The
Nepaulese, twice defeated, sued for peace when Katman-
dhoo, the capital, was threatened. A treaty of peace was
made, and Nepaul has been a friendly neighbour ever since.
The Pin-
darees.
4. The Pindarees and Patans were robber bands who
had long lived by plundering central India. In 1815-
1817, they crossed the Nerbudda into the
English lands; they reached the Kistna, and
again as far as the Coromandel coast, burning hundreds
of villages and torturing the people. Lord Hastings at
last determined to make the other powers join with him.
and put down these robbers. The smaller princes, such
as Nagpore, Bhopal, Oodypore, and Jeypore, were very
glad to have the English to protect them. But the inter-
ference was not so pleasing to the Peshwa Bajee Rao, or
Sindia, or to the chiefs of Holkar's state. The Peshwa,
who was willing to do anything to lessen the power of
the English, openly helped the Pindarees. All central
India was in confusion. But the English power was too
strong. The Peshwa's forces were overthrown in the
battle of Kirkee, and his capital, Poona, was taken. The
army of Holkar's state was broken at the battle of Mehid-
592
1822.
India.
pore, on the Sipree. The Pindaree chiefs, then left to
themselves, were no match for the English; their forces
were broken up in several fights and disappeared in a few
months. The great river Indus was now declared to be
the boundary of English dominion.
Success of
5. Thus Lord Hastings' plan was successful, and
security and greater prosperity in after years followed
from keeping the native princes at peace.
Lord
But in England statesmen and the Directors
Hastings'
policy. of the Company alike did not understand the
needs of the English position in India, and believed that
increase of territory was the one great evil to be guarded
against. Yet the growth of English power so far brought
peace and security in India that Lord Hastings was able
to carry out wise changes, suited to the country. Good and
peaceful government became possible when the English
were no longer afraid of subjects or neighbours. Hastings
encouraged the education of the natives, and at the same
time helped the growth and freedom of the press and of
a public opinion. His firm, prudent, and liberal way of
ruling was a governing of India for the good of the people
of India.
CHAPTER VIII.
PITT AS A PEACE MINISTER.
1. IT has been told before how Pitt was made minister.
and how by his help the king won in the great con-
stitution struggle against the Whig houses, and set up
again the power of the crown. It seemed at first as if
the king would again have his own way as in the days of
Lord North and the American War. But it was not
really so, for Pitt was strong in the support of the people,
which North had never been. Pitt felt himself the
minister of the Commons rather than of the king.
1784-6.
593
Pitt as a Peace Minister.
Pitt be-
minister,
comes first
Pitt remained in power for almost eighteen years,
December 1783-March 1801, about nine years of peace
and about nine years of war. With the sup-
port of the king, of the House of Commons,
and of the country, he was supreme. With 1783.
such an able statesman, of commanding ability and
powerful will, the king could not have his own way as much
in the state as he had before. But even Pitt made com-
mon cause with the king, and moving away from his
early principles, cared less for the wishes of the people,
and became more decidedly the king's Tory minister.
Reform of
2. During the early years of Pitt's power he was a wise
and capable ruler, and he was willing to trust the people
much. He was a peace minister, and his
energies were devoted to make the country the finan-
prosperous. Finance, commerce, parliamen-
tary reform, and the government of Ireland took up his
attention.
ces.
As regards finance he did many useful things. In
the late wars the national debt had grown till it reached
about 250,000,000l. Taxes had been laid on at hap-
hazard to meet the needs as they arose. Pitt set before
him the reduction of the debt as an important end of all
financial measures. He saved much for the country and
encouraged honest dealing by his plan of borrowing
money by public contract, and so getting it at the lowest
possible interest. And he did much good by publishing
the accounts of the money received and paid by govern-
ment. By lowering the heavy duties on tea, wine, and
spirits, which were fast handing over the trade of the
country to smugglers, he lessened smuggling, improved
trade, and raised the revenue. The payments of customs
duties on goods imported, and of excise duties on things
made in the country, were very many and very difficult
to calculate. By doing away with these many duties,
QQ
E. II.
594
1784-
Pitt as a Peace Minister.
+
and fixing instead one single duty on each article, he
saved merchants much trouble and made taxation less
unpopular. The increase of revenue soon allowed him to
take off some of the worst taxes—among others, those on
retail shops and on women servants.
The Com-
merce bill.
3. Pitt also tried to get rid of the high protective
duties which crushed the trade of Ireland. These duties
were heavy taxes laid on Irish goods, and
were intended to enable English manufact-
urers to make and sell things much cheaper than Irish-
men could do. He wished by taking away these duties
to give free trade to Ireland, and so to place her in a
situation of commercial equality with England. Already
since 1780 European produce might be imported through
Ireland; the same freedom was now (1784-5) to be ex-
tended to American and African trade. Pitt's first pro-
posals passed through the Irish Parliament with one
small alteration. After many changes the bill which
embodied them was carried in the teeth of the English
merchants and manufacturers, and in spite of Fox and
the Whigs, who both opposed free trade and did not wish
to do anything more for Ireland. But after all it could
not be got through the Irish Parliament sitting at
Dublin, because Grattan, Flood, and Curran persuaded
it to assert its independence of England. A commercial
treaty with France (1786) did away with many high
duties which were intended to stop trade. Instead of
them small duties were fixed, which did not prevent
merchandise from being brought in, and yet paid some-
thing towards the revenue. Thus the treaty increased
the commerce between the two countries, and was a step
towards freedom of trade.
4. Following the example of his father, Pitt had early
in his life thrown himself earnestly into the question of
parliamentary reform, but with little success. In 1785
1789.
595
The Regency Bill.
Reform of
Parliament.
he brought forward his measure. He proposed to take
away the right of sending members to Parliament from
thirty-six decayed boroughs, and to give their
seventy-two members to the largest counties,
and to the cities of London and Westminster. He gave a
vote in counties to copyholders, or tenants holding lands
under a lord of a manor, and means were provided by
which members should be given to populous towns, and be
taken from other boroughs which might decay from time
to time. But on such a question Pitt's followers would
not follow him, and he was beaten by a large majority.
He found little support in the country, for it had been
made indifferent by prosperity and good government.
The Re-
gency Bill,
1788-9.
5. Towards the end of 1788, during a serious illness,
the king lost his reason. After a time it was doubtful if
he would recover, and the question of a Re-
gency, to rule in his place, was talked about.
There is no provision in English law for any
exercise of royal power during incapacity, or the minority,
of a sovereign. The Prince of Wales was of age, and it
was proper that he should be Regent, but there were
many difficulties in the way. He was not on good terms
with the king, and his conduct had made him unpopular
in the country; he had so openly taken the side of the
chiefs of the Opposition in Parliament, that it was certain
he would dismiss the king's ministers as soon as he could.
To help him to power seemed to be taking part against
the king himself. When Parliament met in December,
Fox made matters worse by rashly saying that the Prince
of Wales had a right to the Regency, a right as clear as
in the case of the death of the sovereign. Pitt answered
that he had no right more than another person, unless
Parliament gave it to him. Fox tried to explain away
his words, and the Prince himself said that he claimed
no such right. Still Parliament looked into what had
Q Q 2
596
1788.
Pitt as a Peace Minister.
been done in former times in such cases. At last, after
many delays, a Regency Bill setting forth Pitt's view had
almost passed the third reading in the House of Lords,
when the king's recovery put an end to the whole thing.
The Bill had given the care of the king's person and the
authority over his household to the queen; the regency
to the Prince of Wales, and the royal power, with certain
limitations. When, in 1810, the king's health gave way
so that he never recovered, the Prince of Wales was made
Regent by a Regency Bill founded on that of Pitt, with
almost exactly the same limitations. The king recovered
his health in the middle of February 1789, to the very
great joy of all classes, and the delight of the people at
having escaped the rule of the Prince of Wales and his
friends made the minister's power greater than ever.
6. For some years the foreign policy of Pitt was
peaceful and of small interest. The Peace of Versailles
had been favourable enough to England to be
welcome, but the two countries had continued
Foreign
policy.
to distrust each other.
Holland.
7. Differences had arisen in Holland between the
democratic party, supported by the Court of France, and
the Stadholder, as the chief magistrate of
Holland was called, upheld by his brother-
in-law, the King of Prussia. Pitt would not interfere at
this time, but in 1788, England, Prussia, and the Stad-
holder of Holland made an alliance, by which they agreed
to defend each other against any enemy. Thus England
and Prussia became responsible for the independence of
the United Provinces.
8. Pitt, in the next thing he did, met with his first
serious check. Under the Empress Catherine, Russia
Russia and was growing strong, and pushing southwards.
Turkey. Pitt watched the war between Russia and
Turkey (1788-91) with all the anxiety which English-
1789.
597
The French Revolution.
men have felt in this century. The Russians stormed
and sacked Ockzakow, at the mouth of the Boug, and
established themselves on the Black Sea (1788). Their
great general, Suwarrow, drove the Turks across the
Danube and occupied Wallachia (1789). When Suwarrow
sacked Ismail, a fortress at the mouth of the left arm of
the Danube, and slaughtered about 30,000 Turks with
horrible barbarity, Pitt wished, even at the risk of war, to
prevent Russia from taking any territory from Turkey.
But the country would not hear of war for such a cause,
and Turkey was stripped of the land beyond the Dniester.
war.
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLAND DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Causes of
the French
Revolution.
1. A TIME, however, came when foreign affairs held the
chief place, and the great peace minister was driven into
The war soon greatly upset his peace-
ful plans at home, and by and by made him
rule less wisely, and with less trust in the
people. The French Revolution of 1789 was such a
great event that men were forced to think of it before
everything else. It altered men's notions of politics, and it
changed for a time the whole face of the map of Europe.
The extravagant and selfish despotism of the French
monarchy, and the oppression of the people by the nobles,
had brought France to a state of discontent and distress
in which peaceful and sufficient reform was almost im-
possible. For years the notion that men ought to rule
themselves and not be ruled entirely by a king and his
nobles, had been set forth in French writings. The idea
of a revolution, or change of government, had been in
men's minds. In 1789 things came to a head. The
598
1789-
Pitt as a Peace Minister.
States-General, a kind of parliament, at last, after an
interval of 175 years, had been called together by
Lewis XVI., who was desirous of reforms. It declared
itself the National Assembly, and took to itself the power
of the other Estates. Riots broke out in Paris and else-
where; the Bastille, which was the great prison in Paris,
was destroyed; the abolition of all privileges or special
rights of nobles, of clergy, and of all classes, was swiftly
decreed. The feeble but well-meaning king was helpless
in his capital, the nobles were soon in exile.
Feeling in
England.
2. Most Englishmen were glad at the news of the
overthrow of despotism. Freedom had been gained, they
thought; at some expense, no doubt, but
things would soon settle down into order and
a better government. But there were some Englishmen
who, like Burke, disapproved even from the first; and
when, after a time, the revolutionists grew more and
more violent, and showed themselves unable to set up a
firm and free government, English opinion became less
in their favour.
Break-up
of the Whig
party.
3. The effect of the French Revolution on English
politics was most marked. Burke violently attacked
those who agreed with it, while Fox con-
stantly praised them in extravagant language.
The difference of opinion destroyed the long
friendship of these two great statesmen. The same dif-
ference gradually broke up the Whig party, for not only
Burke, but later the Duke of Portland also, and others,
ceased to act with Fox and Sheridan, and began to sup-
port the government. Thus the opposition became
weaker in Parliament, had less hold on the country, and
at the same time grew more violent.
4. Pitt, at first not sorry for the overthrow of the
French Court, was most anxious to keep aloof from French
politics; but this became impossible. A small portion of
1792.
599
Invasion of France.
Republican
societies in
England.
Growing
the doings
dislike of
:he English people greatly admired the French Revolution,
and their unguarded language and conduct drove the
majority to extreme opinions of the very op-
posite kind. Societies and clubs in some
English towns connected themselves with
the Paris clubs, and their conduct led to disturbances.
5. The opening of the year 1792 was prosperous, and
peace seemed so sure that both parties in the House of
Commons agreed in reducing the forces. But
on the Continent the violence of republicans
was terrifying the governments and leading in France.
them to be very watchful over their own subjects, and to
be willing to make war against France. The English
ministry still wished for peace, and determined to put
down with a high hand all signs of agreement with French
republicanism. With this intention Pitt was gradually
led on to interfere with what people did and said in a
way that became very oppressive. In France the As-
sembly was powerless before the mob of Paris, and the
king's life was threatened.
Invasion of
France by
armies of
Austria and
Prussia.
6. At this moment the governments of Austria and
Prussia determined to invade France, put down the
republicans, and restore King Lewis XVI. to
power. A large army was to enter France
from the north, under the Duke of Brunswick,
and a force of French exiles was to join him.
The invasion was wrong, because the French people had
a right to change the government of their own land if
they pleased. These two States that interfered are to be
blamed for bringing on the general European war that
followed. France did not at that time threaten Prussia
or the Empire, and however much foreigners might dis-
like the condition of monarchy in France, there was no
call for interference. And the Duke of Brunswick made
600
1792-
Pitt as a Peace Minister.
such demands and put forth such threats as a great
nation could not endure.
Deposition
of the King
7. This foreign interference at once led to a new re-
volution in France; the king and queen were imprisoned;
the National Assembly was replaced by a
Convention in September, which at once voted
to do away with the monarchy. All power
fell into the hands of the extreme men among the re-
publicans, of whom one small party after another gained
the upper hand.
of France.
Success of
the French
forces.
8. Meanwhile the allies took the frontier towns of
Longwy and Verdun, and might have pushed on to Paris ;
but their slowness gave the French generals
Dumouriez and Kellermann time to unite their
forces and stop the way. After a slight de-
feat at Valmy in September, the allied forces left France.
Dumouriez then occupied Brussels and the district to
the Meuse (then the Austrian Netherlands), and other
French forces gained successes in Germany and Savoy.
Violent
measures of
the French
9. It was natural that the French republicans should
be inclined to make war in their turn, when, for the
moment, the fear of foreign invasion was past.
Proud of their successes, but with entire want of
Convention. good judgment, the Convention published the
'Decree of November 19,' offering help to all nations
that desired to recover freedom, in other words, to cast
off their kings; and they annexed Savoy to France. A
demand which the French made for the opening of the
trade of the river Scheldt was an attack upon the indepen-
dence of Holland, and upon England, which was bound
by treaty to Holland.
The Decree of November 19 was received almost as
a declaration of war against monarchy, and against all
countries ruled by kings. A change was soon to be
found in the words of the English ministry: England
1793.
601
War with France.
་
was drifting on towards war. At the opening of Parlia-
ment in December, the king's speech urged an increase
of the army, and, whilst hoping war might be avoided,
gave a warning that war was likely. The execution of
the King Lewis (January 1793) led to an open breach
with France, and in February war was declared by France
against England and Holland.
CHAPTER X.
PITT AS A WAR MINISTER.
1. The English entered on the war rather unwillingly.
Pitt felt bound to defend Holland, but did not want to
interfere within France, though he thought the Pitt did not
war would be short, and would end in the de- desire war.
feat of the republicans. The first division of the war
dates from February 1793 till the peace negotiations of
Basle and Paris in the spring and autumn of 1796.
2. The French, under Dumouriez, at once invaded
Holland, but the Austrians, entering Belgium, forced them
to retire, and won back all the Netherlands. Nor were
the French at first more successful on the Lower Rhine,
for the allies took Mentz. Dumouriez, vexed at the con-
stant interference of the Convention in military matters,
and desirous of playing a great part in a restoration of
the monarchy, entered into a treasonable correspondence
with the allies. His schemes failed, but he passed
over to the Austrians, and then went to England, where
he was little heard of afterwards. An English ex-
pedition under the Duke of York landed and Failure of
joined the Austrians, but the campaign was
badly managed by the allies. Instead of pressing for-
ward with energy, they wasted time on the sieges of
Valenciennes, Condé, and Quesnoy, in which success
was of little use. An allied fleet failed to save the city
the allies.
602
1793
The War with France.
and port of Toulon for their French royalist friends.
And no help was given to the royalists who rose in La
Vendée till the struggle was over, and a fearful slaughter
of the peasantry made further resistance hopeless.
The Com-
mittee of
3. Meanwhile all France had been roused to fury. The
arrogance of the allied invaders, the treason of Dumouriez,
the fall of the frontier fortresses, the threat of
a march on Paris, made the republicans frantic.
Public
Safety. The Girondists, as the party was called that
had gathered round the deputies from Bordeaux and the
department of the Gironde, lost all influence. They
were the more moderate party in the Convention, but now
power passed to the Jacobins (June 1793), of whom a
small committee became rulers of France. Robespierre,
St. Just, and the Jacobins, forming the Committee of
Public Safety, were in power for nearly fourteen months,
and their tyranny in Paris and other cities well earned
its name of 'The Reign of Terror.' The 'Revolutionary
Tribunal,' as the men who acted as judges were called,
put thousands to death, trying, condemning, and execut-
ing in a day. Cartloads of victims were slaughtered
every day, often without even the pretence of a reason,
the Queen Marie Antoinette among the number. It was
a horrible time, but any government of Frenchmen
seemed to the people better than the rule of foreign con-
querors. So France submitted easily to the patriotic
Jacobins, who quickly taught France her power for war,
and successfully defied Europe. And in this the people
were wise, for when the Reign of Terror passed away,
France was still powerful and safe from the foreign foe.
4. The campaigns of 1794 and 1795 brought no
honour to England. The Duke of York failed to take
Campaigns Dunkirk, and the defeat of the Austrians at
the battle of Fleurus lost Belgium. The
French even pressed on into Holland, and were well
of 1794-5.
-1796
603
Troubles in England.
received by a large republican party, who did not like
the English alliance. An expedition to the Bay of
Quiberon to assist the Chouans, or royalist insurgents in
Brittany, was a disgraceful failure. On the German
frontier the successes of France brought out the jealousies
of the German States, and in 1795 Prussia made peace,
leaving the Austrians and England to carry on the war.
The English fleet under Lord Howe gained a great
victory over the French in the Channel on June 1, 1794,
a victory always named from the date only. English
arms prevailed in India and the West Indies, and English
forces gained Ceylon, Malacca, and the Cape of Good
Hope. Disturbances in Corsica ended in the expulsion
of the French and the union of Corsica to the crown of
England for a time. But these things did not make up
for the ill-success on the Continent.
Ill effect of
the war on
England.
The war
5. Early in 1796 there seemed an opportunity of mak-
ing peace, and little reason for longer war. The alliance
was broken up, Holland was more friendly to
France than to England, the hope of restoring
monarchy in France was gone, for a stable
republican government was in power there.
had become unpopular in England. Trade had suffered,
banks had failed, taxes were pressing heavily, and the
debt had been greatly increased. The war had changed
Pitt too, and his home policy. Believing monarchy to be
in peril, he and his party had acted as if they saw revolution
all round them. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended
for the time, and so people could be put in prison, and
kept in prison without being tried. The freedom of the
press was almost put down, freedom of speech almost
at an end, spies and informers were everywhere. One
bookseller, Ridgway, had been punished for selling
Paine's 'Rights of Man,' a book which was a coarse
attack upon Monarchy. It had been published in
604
1796-
The War with France.
England and it had been already condemned in a court
of law, while the author was in Paris joining in the French
Revolution. Another bookseller, Holt, who was also
editor of a newspaper, had died in prison for publishing an
address on reform. In Scotland matters were still worse,
but everywhere the law was severe, and the judges were
ready to press it so as to meet every case. At last, the
city of London began to make a stand against the tyranny
of the courts, and the juries of citizens refused to find
men guilty who were brought to trial for treason. When
a jury (December 1793) acquitted Perry, the editor of a
newspaper, who was accused of publishing a seditious
libel because he asked for parliamentary reform, and when
(December 1794) a prosecution for high treason against
Horne Tooke and others failed, people again began to
feel confidence in the law courts.
6. With the country thus disturbed peace had been
needed, and Pitt had become willing for peace. Negotia-
tions were opened, but the French Directory,
Pitt desires
peace, 1796.
as the new government was called, was elated
with success, had grand plans of conquest, and distrusted
the English desire for peace. France refused to give up
Belgium or Holland or Milan, which she had annexed.
Moreover England was almost without allies, and the
Directory, careless of the fact that not England but
Prussia and Austria had made the war upon her, turned
with a savage hate against England and against Pitt, to
humble them before all Europe. The peace negotiations
came to nothing.
Changed
7. After the negotiations of 1796 the nature of the
war was changed, and the feeling of the English people
also. They had cared little to support the
government in attacking France, or in helping
continental despots to overthrow the republic.
Many had feared that war and victory endangered their
nature of
the war.
-1797.
605
Naval Victories.
own liberties. But now peaceable England was on its
defence against a proud enemy, and Pitt, as the champion
of his country in a war which could not be helped, was
stronger than ever.
Invasion of
8. The French Government was no longer merely de-
fending itself, but now threatened to invade Ireland and
even England. Both Holland and Spain had
joined France, and so with the Dutch and England.
Spanish fleets the French hoped to sweep the English
navy off the seas, if not to conquer England. But the Irish
conspirators and the French Government did not work
together. An expedition to Bantry Bay, in Ireland, failed,
and the landing of 1,400 men at Fishguard, in Pembroke-
shire, February 1797, was ridiculous. Without artillery,
deserted by the frigates that brought them, this small body
surrendered at discretion to Lord Cawdor, who had
gathered a still smaller force of volunteers, yeomanry, and
militia.
St. Vincent
and
Camper-
down.
9. In the same month, February 1797, Admiral Sir J.
Jervis and Commodore Nelson met a very powerful
Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, and gain- Battles of
ing a considerable victory, forced them to
retire to Cadiz. The Dutch fleet during the
summer had been prevented by the weather
from trying to join the French at Brest. When in October
they did put out, an English fleet under Admiral Duncan
attacked them off Camperdown, nine miles from land, and
after a most obstinate battle, took more than half the ships.
10. These successes put an end to any serious attempt
at invasion. But during this year the country was troubled
by serious mutinies in the fleets at Spithead Mutinies in
and the Nore in April and May. Fortunately the fleet,
the dangers passed away. The Admiralty
yielded in the one case to reasonable and fairly urged
claims of sailors badly paid, badly fed, and badly cared
1797.
:
606
1798-
The War with France.
!
for. In the other case they showed firmness in refusing
insolent demands, and punished a few ringleaders who had
behaved very ill.
in Egypt.
II. Though the invasion of England was still threat-
ened, the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was now
Napoleon rising to power in France, was bent on a dif-
ferent scheme. From the southern port of
Toulon he aimed at the conquest of Egypt, Syria, and
possibly of India. In July 1798, after seizing Malta, he
landed in Egypt, took Aboukir, Rosetta, and Alexandria,
and soon pushed on to Cairo. Though Nelson was sent
off early in May to watch the French fleet, it was not
till August that he found them. Sixteen sail were drawn
up at anchor, in a safe position in the harbour of
Aboukir, well supported by guns on the shore. Nelson,
who had a plan for everything that might happen,
worked his ships in alongside of the Frenchmen, and
began a battle which lasted all night from sunset. Two
French ships of the line and two frigates escaped, but
by morning the victory of the English was complete.
This grand victory of the Nile, or Aboukir Bay, did
much to make Napoleon's expedition to Egypt an entire
failure. He, however, still aiming at the conquest of
Syria, reduced El Arish, Gaza, and. Jaffa, but his march
was stopped by the fort of Acre. Sir Sidney Smith,
whose ships had been blockading the port of Alexandria,
set off to the help of the Pacha in command of Acre, and
capturing the French ships with a battering train of great
guns on his voyage, was in time to aid in the defence.
The place was in a condition unfit for resistance, yet
those who were inside, by untiring work and undaunted
courage, were able to hold out for sixty days, and when
in great distress were relieved by fresh troops. The
siege was raised in May 1799, Syria saved, and Napoleon
very soon returned to Cairo and to France. The French
- 1801.
607
French Successes.
occupation of Egypt lasted two years longer, but its im-
portance was over. In March 1801 a force of 15,000 men
under Sir Ralph Abercromby landed at Aboukir, and de-
feated the French army which opposed them. On the sur-
render of Cairo in June and of Alexandria in August, the
French army agreed to leave the country, while the fleet
fell into the hands of the English. A body of 7,000 sepoys
froin India under Sir David Baird arrived too late to share
the fighting, but their very presence showed how utterly
the eastern schemes of Napoleon had come to nothing.
Napoleon
supreme in
France.
12. When Napoleon hurried home from Egypt in
August 1799, he put an end to the Directory, and soon
under the name of First Consul became chief
ruler of France. Men were mostly glad of the
change. The Directory had been ruling feebly,
while Napoleon soon gave Frenchmen plenty of glory.
His rule was firm, and fairly just, and while he acted
as one who had no mere party ends to gain, he did not
seem to undo the good of the Revolution. He gave
France order, and good law, and even when he made
himself Emperor, his subjects felt that there was social
equality for all below him. The year 1800 was a year of
French successes under the rule of Napoleon. One
French army under Moreau overran Bavaria. Napoleon
himself, by a very bold plan, crossed the Alps to the rear
of the Austrian army which was besieging Genoa, entered
Milan, gained a victory at Marengo, near Alessandria,
and forced the Austrians to give up all North Italy,
except Genoa, to France. Later in the year Moreau
gained the battle of Hohenlinden, which opened the
way over the river Inn to Vienna, and placed Austria
at his feet. The Austrian Emperor was compelled to
agree to the treaty of Luneville (1801) which ceded the
and on the left bank of the Rhine, and gave France the
Rhine for her border from Basle to its mouth, while the
608
1801-
The War with France.
Adige became the border of the Cisalpine Republic, which
Napoleon controlled.
13. In 1801 England stood alone at war with France.
The continental states either had been subdued by
Napoleon, or were too weak to resist him, or, like the
Northern, or Baltic, powers had their own cause of quarrel
The North- against England. Paul, the Emperor of Russia,
ern League. the head of this Northern League, was hos-
tile to England partly from a half-insane admiration
for Napoleon, partly because of the old grievance about
the right of search of vessels under a neutral flag.
Sweden and Denmark followed his lead, and even
Prussia was unfriendly. Things abroad looked dark for
England, and they were little brighter at home. The
ministry had not cared to listen to Napoleon's proposals
for peace made soon after his return from Egypt. They
had misjudged the strength of France, and had fancied
that the many changes of the government were signs
that the Revolution was failing, and the republic would
come to an early end. Now Englishmen longed for
peace, for the distress in the country had grown great
and the price of corn was very high. Moreover, Pitt
had resigned office on the Catholic Emancipation
question.¹ He felt that, after the union of Ireland with
England, Roman Catholics ought at once to be freed
from those laws which gave them less liberty than other
people had. Especially he wished that they should be
able to become members of the House of Commons.
He would have passed a law giving them such freedom.
As the king would not consent, Pitt would no longer be
his minister. The king, however, became incapable of
attending to business, and so the new ministers were not
yet in office.
¹ See page 621.
-1802.
609
Peace of Amiens.
many
Bombard-
ment of
Copen-
14. The power of the navy and the firmness of
Nelson at this moment saved England by breaking up the
threatening Northern League. A fleet was sent out in
March 1801 under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson second
in command. The object was to separate Denmark from
the League, or to take her fleet, that it might
not fall into French hands. After
delays the fleet passed up the Sound and
anchored off Copenhagen. When the Danes had refused
to accept the terms offered, Nelson's squadron of twelve
ships opened fire on their fleet and forts, and after some
hours made the Danish ships strike their flags. A truce
was made which grew into an armistice, or stopping of
war, for fourteen weeks.
hagen.
The Peace
of Amiens,
1802.
15. And fortunately the death of the Emperor Paul
caused a change of Russian policy, and peace was made
with the Baltic powers, June 1801. The Right
of search was to be confined to men-of-war
and refused to privateers, and blockades were
to be real, with enough ships of war to close the ports
and really prevent vessels from getting in or out. The
break-up of the Northern League, added to the decisive
battle of Alexandria, made the French willing to renew
proposals of peace, and these were most acceptable.
England was to give up her conquests, except Ceylon
and Trinidad; France to withdraw from Naples and
Rome, to give up her claims to Malta and Egypt, and
to leave Portugal in peace. Such were the terms of the
Peace of Amiens, March 1802; 'a peace,' as was truly
said, 'which everybody would be glad of, but which no-
body would be proud of.' But the peace was little or
nothing more than a truce between foes who were to
fight again very soon.
h.
E. H.
R B
610
India.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DEMAND FOR IRISH INDEPENDENCE.
1. THE wish of Williain III. to set up a firm and just
rule in Ireland had come to nothing. He would have
carried out the Treaty of Limerick, 1691, with all fairness
in hope that by and by the soreness of defeat would die
out. He could not, however, do as he wished, for few
people felt with him; and the victory of the Protestants
had been too complete, so that opposition was hopeless
for the Roman Catholics. They were quite crushed, and
could only hate the injustice which kept them down. So
matters had gone on even worse than before the Revolu-
tion. Men in England and Ireland alike would not be
tolerant of one another's differences; the government
had had little patience, and had not paid proper atten-
tion to the real interest of Ireland.
A close union of the two countries, with no separate
Parliament at Dublin, with all rights of liberty, religion,
and trade the same in England and Ireland, under a law
firm and equal alike for Englishmen and Irishmen, would
have been best. A career being thus offered to all alike
in the government of the whole kingdom, and in its army
and other professions, time would probably have cooled
those passions which harsh and unequal laws kept at a
fierce heat. For want of such a career at home Irish-
men were driven to be adventurers in France and Spain,
and to fight against the armies of their country, or to
carry off the vigour and the trade of the north to the
American colonies.
2. As it was, no Roman Catholic could sit in the
Parliament at Dublin, and therefore a large and grow-
ing part of the population had no voice in
governing itself. Laws were passed against
the Roman Catholics so harsh that they could not be
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612
1760-
Ireland.
carried out; there were laws forbidding Roman Catholics
to exercise particular professions and trades, laws to
disable them from inheriting land or holding offices,
laws to bribe them to become Protestants for the sake of
lands or offices or pensions. These evil laws failed of
their object, but they made men false and deceitful, and
they kept up the old religious feuds in a way scarcely
known elsewhere.
The government of England was no wiser or juster
in Irish matters than the Parliament at Dublin. The
English people looked upon Ireland as an ill-behaved
island that must be kept down, and as a dangerous rival
that must be kept poor. They forgot that it is the poor,
not the rich, who rebel; prosperity would have gone
far to soothe the discontent, and with peace most parts
of Ireland would have prospered. All chance of prosperity
was killed by the keeping down of the trade and growing
manufactures of the island. The Navigation Act of 1663
had made a distinction between English ships and Irish,
so that Irish ships could not trade direct to the colonies,
and all exports and imports must come first to English
ports and in English ships. When a thriving trade in
cattle and produce with English ports began to grow up,
it was stopped in the interest of English farmers. The
rich grass land of Ireland fed immense flocks of
sheep, and her wool commanded a high price all over
Europe; but a regulation forbad the sale of Irish wool and
Irish woollens to any country except England. The wool
trade was crushed, and the woollen manufactures in like
manner, and numbers of the most valuable and indus-
trious inhabitants left the country.
Hence it came about that the Protestants, injured by
bad laws and bad government, became more disaffected
towards England than the Roman Catholics were. And
in the latter part of the eighteenth century a demand
..1782.
613
The Volunteers.
began to be put forward for the entire independence of
Ireland.
3. As we follow Irish history through the years of the
American and European wars down to 1782, we find the
demand of independence gradually shaping itself, and,
after giving way in one small point after another, England
in a moment of desperate difficulty yielded and granted
a new constitution.
Sympathy
with the
Colonies.
4. Ireland sympathized much with the Americans, for
their claims for self-government and for free trade were
those which the Irish had so often made. The
Opposition in the Parliament at Dublin, like
the Whigs in England, openly said they
agreed with the colonists; the leader of the Opposition,
Grattan, pressed the demand for independence just when
England was getting more and more into difficulties.
Troops had to be withdrawn for America, and, while
smuggling grew, lawful trade was almost entirely killed
by the swarms of privateers who swept the Channel and
even ventured to engage with men-of-war.
Rise of the
5. The French war (1778) made the Presbyterians of
the north in some measure return to their loyalty; but
it made the condition of Ireland worse than
before, for it ruined what remained of Irish Volunteers.
trade. Then England began to give way. Some measures
to quiet Ireland seemed absolutely needful. Some relief
to trade was given, except to the woollen manufacturers;
some relief to Roman Catholics, who had been very loyal,
was given by making the penal laws less harsh. But
even then Burke failed to alter the Navigation laws, and
he lost his seat as member for Bristol because of his
attempt to get justice for Ireland. The measures which
England would grant were too insignificant and too late;
the weakness of England, and her powerlessness to
defend Ireland from invasion, seemed to call on Irishmen
614
1782--
Ireland.
to protect themselves. Suddenly, all through the land
bodies of volunteers enrolled themselves, to the number
of not less than 40,000, under no control of the govern-
ment, either Irish or English. The command was in the
hands of the leading men of each town or district, and so
the control of Ireland passed from the hands of the govern-
ment into the power of a national army. Events moved
quickly, for the ministry, pressed by the French war,
afraid of the volunteers, and urged by the Whigs in the
English Parliament, gave way to one Irish demand after
another. Concessions, some good, some bad, were made,
so that the so-called patriots put no limits to their
demands, and England had no time to consider what
would be the effect of all this yielding. Acts restricting
trade were hurriedly done away; the Test Act was
abolished; a Catholic Relief Bill was no longer refused.
Then came a demand for a repeal of the Act called
Poyning's Law, which had given the English Parliament
control over legislation in Ireland.
6. At last, in April 1782, Grattan brought forward a
motion amounting to a Declaration of Rights, and made
a demand for the absolute parliamentary independence
of Ireland. His proposals were carried through both
Houses, and sent to England. The ministry had little
hold upon Ireland; they yielded to avoid an immediate
outbreak.
CHAPTER XII.
IRELAND FROM 1782-1798. ·
1. THE independence of Ireland was now complete.
England no longer claimed to pass laws binding Ireland.
The Irish Parliament was to make laws for
itself. But the new constitution did not work
well. The Irish parties quarrelled among themselves. The
Party
quarrels.
.
:
-1795.
615
The Irish Parliament,
Protestants were by no means willing to give way to the
Roman Catholics. The government found the Irish
more troublesome than before. Before the end of the
year Rodney's great victory and the safety of Gibraltar
lowered the tone of France and Spain, and made an
honourable peace possible, and England repented of
having yielded.
During the next few years Irish politics were steadily
making the union of the two countries necessary, as the
only possible mode of government. Pitt worked for this,
with freedom of trade, reform of parliament, and Catholic
emancipation. Union, with or without these reforms, was
the best thing for Ireland, for by it alone could fair rights
ever be given to the two religious parties, and all out-
breaks be calmly kept down.
2. Meanwhile the volunteers melted away, after an
unsuccessful attempt to get a Reform Bill without giving
votes to Roman Catholics. The unfortunate
failure in 1785, of Pitt's Commerce Bill,' by
Difficulty of
the Irish
dealing with
Parliament.
which he wished to make trade between Eng-
land and Ireland free, added to the difficulties. Flood,
Grattan, and Curran alike stirred the passions of their
countrymen to defeat an excellent measure. The ab-
surdity of the new constitution was shown in 1789 by the
behaviour of the Irish leaders about the Regency Bill.
Eager to hamper Pitt, and to take any opportunity of
disagreeing with England, they led the Irish Parliament
to offer the Regency to the Prince of Wales with full kingly
power, while the English Parliament was carefully set-
tling limits and conditions. The recovery of the king
made their conduct fruitless as well as ridiculous. In
1794-5 it was made plain that any measure of emancipa-
tion which should give equal political rights to Irishmen
would be hopeless while the Irish House of Commons
remained as it was.
• See p. 594.
616
1795-
Ireland.
The United
Irishmen.
3. The last years of the century were years of great
trouble. The wiser counsels of Grattan no longer pre-
vailed; new leaders arose. The new bond of
union, the Society of United Irishmen, now be-
came a revolutionary body, and grew more popular and
more powerful. Many of the leaders were wild and raslı
adventurers, such as Hamilton Rowan and Wolfe Tone,
full of enthusiasm for French republicanism and of hatred
for England. In Dublin, Belfast, and elsewhere a power-
ful Protestant following formed their strength. The
lower classes of Roman Catholics looked to them for the
signal to root out for ever the Saxon and the heretic from
the land. As has been usual in Irish history, the govern-
ment had no difficulty in learning the whole plot from in-
formers, of whom numbers offered themselves. Outrages
became common, and had to be put down by force, so
that a fierce spirit grew on both sides.
4. The first plan was to get the French to invade
Ireland and set up an independent republic. Wolfe Tone,
Plots with with Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur
France. O'Connor, two young men of good family,
negotiated with General Hoche, and an expedition was
arranged. Everything that the English Government could
leave undone was left undone. The blockading squadron
which should have been off Brest let the French fleet pass.
Lord Bridport's fleet from Portsmouth made no attempt to
find them. No force came by sea to stop the enemy, no
soldiers were sent from England to meet him if he landed.
The ministry disbelieved the whole story, and it seemed
that they neither could nor would protect Ireland.
5. Generals Hoche and Grouchy sailed out of Brest
on a fine night, December 16, 1796, with a fleet of twenty-
eight sail and fifteen transports, and an army
of 15,000 men well equipped. They were to
meet off Mizen Head, or later at the Shannon mouth.
Invasion of
Ireland.
-1798.
617
The Irish Rebellion.
The way was open, there were no troops worth mention-
ing in South Ireland, and it was thought that the
peasantry would rise everywhere. The fleet separated in
the darkness of the first night, and one large ship went
down; during several foggy days the fleet gathered again
till, on the 21st, off Cape Clear, thirty-five vessels were
mustered. But since the first night the Fraternité, with
General Hoche on board, was nowhere to be seen.
Grouchy waited for Hoche, who never came.
gale drove all to take refuge in Bantry Bay. There fog
shut them in for days, and at last a storm swept them out
to sea, and back to Brest, where they learnt that General
Hoche had put into Rochelle, and had never seen Ireland.
The French expedition had come and gone. Scarcely a
man had landed; no Englishman had opposed, no Irish-
man had aided.
Then a
6. The Orange Association of Protestants, so called
from William of Orange, now began to draw the northern
republicans to itself, and became by and by a The Orange-
formidable weapon wherewith to put down the
rebels in the south, who were almost all Roman Catholics.
men.
CHAPTER XIII.
IRISH REBELLION OF 1798.
I. THE death of Hoche, the battle of Camperdown,
the rise of Napoleon's power, put an end to the hopes of
French help.
Thrown back on themselves, the leaders fixed on May
23 for a general rising. The government, who knew their
plans, arrested the committee in Dublin. Lord Lord
Edward Fitzgerald, in a desperate struggle,
stabbed two officers, one mortally. He was
himself shot, and died in prison of his wounds. A
Edward
Fitzgeraid.
618
1798-
Ireland.
vigorous but vain and wilful young man, he had been led
by unprincipled men to use most foolishly the influence
which birth and position gave him. He was wholly with-
out statesmanlike qualities to atone for his unhappy
attempt at rebellion.
4
The out-
break
2. The arrest of the committee saved Dublin from a
massacre which had been carefully planned, but the sur-
rounding counties, Kildare, Meath, Wicklow,
and Wexford were soon full of rebellion and
bloodshed. The government was for the moment almost
helpless, with few troops and those inexperienced. Fierce
attacks were made on several stations in Kildare which
were held by small bodies of yeomanry and militia. Farms,
country houses, barracks, villages, were attacked, pillaged,
and burnt, and unoffending people were massacred
with revolting cruelty. Carlow was saved with difficulty,
and there the troops, after fighting bravely, slaughtered
the rebels with a ferocity which at the least equalled their
own. In Meath, at Tara Hill, the insurgents were at
once thoroughly beaten. For a moment the rebellion
hung fire. An offer of submission was made in Kildare,
and Dundas, the general, was willing to listen. Unfortu-
nately, another band offering submission was savagely
cut down on the Curragh by yeomanry marching from
Limerick, and news spread among the rebels that no
terms would be granted. Martial law had been instantly
proclaimed, and the terror of the ruling class burst forth
into mad fury. Before a hurried court-martial any sus-
picion was evidence enough to declare a Roman Catholic
guilty, and to hang him. The government was scarcely
strong enough to be cool; no troops arrived from Eng-
land; the Irish yeomanry and militia were led by officers
wild with hate and distrust, and eager for vengeance.
3. Very soon the rebellion in Wexford seemed to
excuse both terror and severity. The chief leader was a
-1798
619
The Irish Rebellion.
Wexford.
parish priest, Father John Murphy, a bigoted, blood-
thirsty man, who made the rising into a furious onslaught
upon heretics, a wild religious war to restore Ireland to
the true church. The Bishop's palace at Ferns
was wrecked and burned; a small force from
Wexford was overpowered by the pikemen who crowded
after him in thousands. Enniscorthy, a little town
garrisoned by some 300 men, was attacked and taken,
and the Protestants were butchered. A great camp was
formed on Vinegar Hill, close to the town. Here vile
atrocities, almost equal to those of the Reign of Terror in
France, were committed in the name of religion; innocent
prisoners were daily murdered in batches. Wexford next
fell into the hands of the rebels, who then began to
plan an attack on Dublin.
For some days such an attempt had chances of
success; but time was wasted. One division intending
to make its way through Carlow and Kildare was defeated
at Newtownbarry. A second division reached New Ross,
but was frightfully cut up in the streets of the town. The
fighting was desperate; no quarter was given, and the
angry soldiers could not be held in. At midday, before
the battle was over, a portion of the rebels murdered
about 300 wretched persons whom they had made
prisoners on their march. A third division, under Murphy,
was stopped after a fierce battle at the bridge of Arklow.
The re-
crushed.
4. By the middle of June the cause of the rebels
was hopeless. A force of 13,000 men was marching in
several divisions to attack the camp of Vinegar
Hill. The rebels fought well, but anything bellion
like war was now over. Those who were in
Wexford had time for one more vile massacre. Nearly a
hundred prisoners were piked to death in cold blood
before rescue came. Then Wexford submitted; the
leaders, including the fanatic Murphy, were hanged.
•
620
1798–
Ireland.
Small bands passed over into the Wicklow mountains or
into Kilkenny, and still committed outrages. A strong
government might have quieted the country at once, but
instead ferocious scenes of retaliation were common, and
large portions of the country were harried by the soldiers,
who were as cruel as the rebels, and licentious besides.
Measures
of Lord
Cornwallis.
5. Lord Cornwallis was sent over, in order that the
Lord Lieutenant might hold supreme military as well
as civil authority. He withdrew the extra-
ordinary powers from the courts martial, which
were acting with violence, and soon proclaimed
an amnesty. But party feeling and the vindictive
conduct of the Parliament in Dublin interfered with his
attempt to quiet the country.
General
6. Soon a new danger threatened. General Humbert
landed a small body of French troops at Killala in Mayo
in August, and marched inland. Joined by a
Humbert's few hundreds of Irish, he reached Castlebar,
landing.
where General Lake's force of 3,000 militia
and yeomanry melted away before him. But when Lord
Cornwallis placed himself in the way on the road to Sligo,
nothing remained for General Humbert but to surrender,
with no terms for his rebel followers. A French squadron
which was coming to his aid was defeated and most of
the vessels taken, including the Hoche, which had Wolfe
Tone on board. He was tried and condemned, but com-
mitted suicide in prison. It is a curious illustration of
the reckless mode of putting down the rebellion, that
though Wolfe Tone was certainly guilty of treason, his
conviction by a court martial was illegal; and though
his judges had chosen to try him as a soldier, they
refused him a soldier's death and sentenced him to be
hanged.
7. It was clear that Ireland could not govern itself in
connection with England. It is no less clear to anyone
-1800
621
The Act of Union.
The Union
of Great
Britain and
Ireland.
who reads Pitt's great speech on the subject, that a close
union between the two countries was good for both
and needful. Pitt made up his mind to carry an Act of
Union, by which the Irish Parliament should
cease, and Ireland should be represented in the
British Parliament. The Union was carried
by Pitt's influence, in spite of slight interest shown
in England and much hostility in Ireland. Whole-
sale bribery cleared a passage for it through the Irish
legislature. The Act of Union provided for a United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with one Parlia-
ment at Westminster. It gave to Ireland representation
in the Parliament by four spiritual peers sitting by rota-
tion, and by twenty-eight temporal peers elected for life
by their own body; and by one hundred members of the
House of Commons. It provided for almost entire
freedom of trade between the two countries. And it pro-
vided that the laws of Ireland should remain as then in
force, with power in the Imperial Parliament to alter or
repeal them, or to enact new laws for Ireland, separately
or in common with the rest of the realm. The Act took
effect on January 1, 1801. It was one of Pitt's greatest
measures, and the fault did not lie in him that it was not
made still more perfect by the addition of a provision for
the relief of Roman Catholics from all disabilities. But
this was at the moment impossible.
622
1802-
The European War.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EUROPEAN WAR, 1803-1807.
I. THE ministry of Addington, who succeeded Pitt in
1801, was one of the weakest which have ruled England.
Addington was an honourable gentleman, who
Addington.
had been Speaker of the House of Commons
for eleven years with some success. He had never been
thought a man of great ability, and as First Minister in
difficult times none had entire confidence in him. During
the months that ended the war, and during the peace
negotiations, the new ministry carried out Pitt's plans,
and were safe with his support.
The re-
quarrel.
2. It was clear, even before the end of 1802, that the
peace would not last. The result of the fighting had not
been decisive enough to settle the new posi-
newal of the tion of France in Europe. The olà causes of
dispute remained. England and other powers
felt that France was a neighbour more dangerous than
ever; France, eager to revenge attacks upon her, had
grown fond of war and conquest which brought glory and
increase of territory. The warlike spirit was kept up by
Napoleon Buonaparte that France might need him as her
ruler and submit to loss of liberty under his rule. His
aggressive conduct was alarming Europe. He annexed
to France the Island of Elba in August, and Piedmont
in September; he occupied Parma and Placentia in
October, and Switzerland about the same time. He had
some cause of complaint that England had not left Malta
according to agreement. He was also angry because
England received French exiles, and did not prevent them
from writing against him. Both nations prepared against
war, and so provided that there should be war. The
government, supported by Pitt, declared war against

EUROPE
1780 – 1815
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Copenhagen
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624
1803-
The European War.
!
France in May 1803, and soon after against the Batavian
Republic, as Holland was now called.
3. On the part of the French vigorous measures were
at once taken, and Hanover was occupied. Before the
Prepara- other powers were roused, immense prepara-
tions for the
invasion of
tions were made, as though the war were solely
England. for the conquest of England. All the coast
from Brest to Antwerp was busy with arrangements for
an invasion, of which the headquarters were at Boulogne.
England met the threatened attack with much spirit;
volunteers enrolled themselves in all places, to the number
of 300,000. This all gave an aim and a popularity to the
war which had been wanting before 1802. The eagerness
of the public spirit seemed to outrun the energy of the
government, and Addington resigned in April 1804,
unable to withstand the attacks of the Opposition. The
ministry fell because the country believed that Pitt alone
was able to govern in such perilous times.
4. Pitt's Second Ministry lasted from May 1804
January 1806, when he died. The great points of his
policy were to strengthen the navy to the ut-
most, and to make a great European Coalition
against Napoleon.
Pitt's
second
ministry,
1804-1806.
During 1805 Napoleon, now become Emperor of
the French, had himself crowned King of Italy at Milan,
and annexed the republic of Genoa. Meanwhile, Pitt
arranged terms of alliance with Russia, and the allies
were joined by Austria, and by Sweden a little later. The
objects were to stop the encroachments of France, and
to withdraw Hanover, Holland, Switzerland, Piedmont,
and Italy from the control of Napoleon.
5. The Coalition, Pitt's grand scheme, failed, as we
Villeneuve's shall see; and the grand scheme of Napoleon
for the invasion of England failed as en-
tirely. His plan was that Admiral Villeneuve, with the
failure.
-1805
625
Battle of Trafalgar.
powerful Toulon fleet, should draw away Nelson's
squadron to the West Indies, then, returning, should
join the Rochfort squadron and the Spanish fleet, and,
suddenly sweeping the Channel, should help the invading
flotilla. The plan was good and had fair chance of success.
Villeneuve sailed, drew Nelson off to the West Indies,
and got back to Europe several days before him. On his
return he put in at Ferrol. Napoleon's orders, which he
found there, were precise. Villeneuve was to go to Brest,
fight the English blockading squadron, and with the Brest
fleet go up the Channel to Boulogne. He sailed instead to
Cadiz for more ships, believing that his twenty-nine ships
of the line were not strong enough to meet the English
combined fleets. Napoleon in August waited for his fleet
at Boulogne, but the fleet was at Cadiz; and so, through
the admiral's grievous fault, all possibility of the invasion
was at an end. Nelson had come to England, but by
the end of September he was off Cadiz, and on October 21
he French and Spanish fleets met him near Cape Tra-
falgar. Nelson and Collingwood had twenty-seven liners
to meet thirty-three, and they were ready. Their plan
was to sail in two lines and break through the enemy's
line. Each admiral led his division, and each was suc-
cessful. The result was a wonderful victory: twenty of
the enemy's ships were taken, the French admiral was a
prisoner, the Spanish admiral was killed. Nelson him-
self, shot by a musket-ball from the tops of a French ship,
lived just long enough to know that his work was done.
This, the sixth great naval victory of the European war, de-
stroyed for the French all hopes of beating England at sea.
6. The news of Trafalgar reached England early in
November, but four or five days earlier very bad news
from Ulm had arrived. Napoleon, disap-
pointed by Villeneuve's sailing to Cadiz, had
instantly changed his plans. Swiftly moving his troops
Austerlitz.
E. H.
SS
626
1805-
The European War.
to the Rhine, before September was over he attacked the
Austrians in Bavaria, and in October had surrounded
General Mack at Ulm, on the Danube, and forced him
He
to capitulate with a splendid army of 30,000 men.
entered Vienna in November, and following up the
Austrian army, which had joined the Russians, overthrew
their combined forces at Austerlitz, in Moravia, with
enormous loss. The Emperor Francis yielded to all
Napoleon's demands, and the Coalition was no more.
7. Pitt, who died in January 1806, at the age of forty-
six, lived to hear of the failure of his plans, and it was
said that Austerlitz had killed him. So, to
the sorrow of England, passed away the great
minister of this reign, who, able, untiring, up-
right, liberal, had wielded power in the country for nine-
teen years. He had been a wise and open-minded ad-
ministrator in peace; less fortunate, and, indeed, less
able in war, though friends and foes alike had felt, so late
as 1803, that unless Pitt were at the head of affairs,
England's course indeed was run.
Death of
Pitt, Jan-
uary 1806.
The Gren-
ville
ministry.
8. Lord Grenville now formed, with Fox (who, how-
ever, died in September) and Addington (now Lord Sid-
mouth) a ministry which was called of 'all
the Talents:' but the foreign policy was un-
changed. The ministers declared all the
French coasts under blockade, a blockade which was
meant to include the Baltic and Italy. It was a foolish
thing, for such a blockade could not be kept up, and was
irritating to neutrals. Napoleon, with most of the Con-
tinent at his feet, having overthrown Prussia at Jena
and occupied the capital, put forth the Berlin decree'
(November 1806), forbidding all intercourse with Great
Britain. He hoped to crush the trade of this country by
cutting her off from continental markets, but his plan
failed. In turn, the English Government (January 1807),
C
--1807
627
Bombardment of Copenhagen.
by Orders in Council, reasserted the right of blockade
and of search of neutrals, an unwise claim which led at
last in 1812 to war with America.
The Port-
land
ministry.
9. The Grenville ministry was dismissed by the king
in March 1807, because they would not promise to let
the Catholic Emancipation question rest.
Their home policy had been good, but they
were unwise to raise again a question which
had overthrown Pitt once, and which both Pitt and Fox
had meant to leave till there was a new king. The Duke
of Portland succeeded, with Spencer Perceval, Canning,
and Lord Castlereagh, these Pittites having joined the
followers of Wilberforce in a 'no-Popery' cry unworthy
of those who had been friends of Pitt in 1801, and with
him had been in favour of emancipation.
ment of
Copen-
hagen.
IO. In the summer of 1807 a pressing danger called
for the utmost vigour. Russia, worn out with war, made
the Peace of Tilsit and passed under the in- Bombard-
fluence of France. With her ports closed
against England, those of Prussia in French
hands, and Russian influence brought to bear upon
Sweden and Denmark, there was a repetition of the
Baltic League of 1801. A very large fleet and army was
at once sent to Copenhagen under Admiral Gambier,
Lord Cathcart, and Sir Arthur Wellesley. A demand
for the possession of the Danish fleet being refused, a
regular bombardment by land and sea led to a surrender
(September). The fleet, with stores and guns, was carried
off to England just as a French army entered Danish
territory. This strong measure was thought needful,
since Denmark commanded the Baltic, and England
could not quietly allow all northern Europe to be arrayed
by France against her.
SS 2
[
628
1807-
The Peninsular War.
2a!.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PENINSULAR WAR.
1. THE Treaty of Tilsit placed almost all western con-
tinental Europe under the mastery of Napoleon, and the
Junot's
occupation
'Berlin decree' was an offensive avowal of
the mastery. It led to the Peninsula war, in
of Portugal. which the English gradually drove the French
armies from Portugal, through Spain, over the Pyrenees
into France. Portugal refused to submit to the Berlin
decree. She was an old ally of England, and owed much
to her. The English influence was great, and her trade
most valuable. Just at the right moment disputes in the
royal family of Spain gave Napoleon an opportunity of
interfering in that country. An appeal to Napoleon
ended in a treaty (October 1807) for the partition of
Portugal. French troops were sent into Spain, and an
army under Junot, a young and able general, marched
from Bayonne, through Salamanca and Alcantara, and
occupied Lisbon. Other forces cut off the northern pro-
vinces from Madrid, or turned towards Barcelona.
Joseph
Bonaparte
King of
Spain,
1808.
2. Early in 1808, both King Charles IV. and his son
Ferdinand placed themselves in Napoleon's hands at
Bayonne, and the kingdom of Spain was re-
signed to him. His brother, Joseph Bonaparte,
who had been King of Naples, now became
King of Spain, and entered Madrid in July.
3. Meanwhile, among the Spanish people there was
a fierce outburst of determination to resist the French.
There were riots in all parts, with outbreaks
of the Span- of savage barbarity against the upper classes
in Madrid, Seville, Toledo, and almost every
town. It was a wild effort of a confused patriotism, with-
Resistance
iards.

Corinna
Vigo
m
Ferral
LLICIA
Minho
Oporto R. Douro
Leiria
•
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&
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Torres Novas
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yes Vedras
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Sahagun
Mts
OLD
BISCA
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meida
Crydad Rodrigo.
uentes de On
CS/Vincent
Cadiz
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S
Sierra
Guadarramu
Pak Madrid
P
Talaveras Toledo
Tagus
Aranjues
NEW CASTILE
Sierra Toledo
Sie
R.Guadalquivi
Sevalle
Radian
Morena
ALUSIA
Nevada
R..Adour
Bayonne
F
P
Pamplin
R A
R. Garo
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pees Mts
C
D
Saragossa
CATAL ONIA
Barcelona
ARAGON
REbro
N
Minorca
Majorca
Alicante
SPAIN
AND
PORTUGAL
1807-18 15
Gibraltar
CTrafalgar of Gabraltar
CAFRICA
630
1808-
The Peninsular War.
out any great men to lead. The French were staggered
for the moment, and the new king left Madrid and re-
tired to the Ebro, August 1808.
Expulsion
of the
French
from
Portugal.
4. For a time Lisbon was quiet under the military
rule of Junot. But though his rule was in some ways
better than the miserable government of the
Regent, who had fled to Brazil, still the country
was not willing to be thus annexed to France.
The arrogance of Junot and his demands for
money roused a spirit of resistance, and the influence of
Spain and England made the people ripe for insurrection.
The first signs of a rising were at Oporto, and before long
the whole country round the French posts was in arms,
while an English squadron was blockading Lisbon. An
attempt was then made by the English government to
drive the French from Portugal, with a hope, very ill-
founded as it proved, that the rising of the Spaniards
would free their country. Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in
August at the mouth of the Mondego, and prepared to
strike a blow near Lisbon with a small force of about
12,000 men. Marching southwards near the coast by
Leiria and Torres Novas, a successful fight at Roliça.
opened the road towards Torres Vedras. At Vimiero he
attacked Junot's army, and, after a hard fight, forced it
back. Wellesley was unable to reap the fruits of his vic-
tory, as he was superseded by Sir Henry Burrard, and he
by Sir Hew Dalrymple, who took command on the next
day. The intended advance was stopped; but Junot,
afraid of a rising in Lisbon, offered to leave Portugal
under a convention. This was agreed to, and, according
to the 'Convention of Cintra,' by the end of September
Portugal was clear of French armies.
5. Another expedition was not so fortunate. Sir John
Moore, a brave and honourable man, and one of England's
best generals, was sent into Spain to assist the Spanish
-1809
631
Retreat of Sir John Moore.
Moore.
armies. When his force arrived at Salamanca, it was
clear that he was too late to be of any great service in
Spain. The Spanish forces had been routed, Sir John
the French were in far too great strength
everywhere. He made up his mind to retire to Portugal,
but over-persuaded by false information, he advanced to
Sahagun, and there found that Napoleon would be upon
him with an enormous force. He at once retreated over
the river Esla, and past Lugo towards Ferrol and Corunna,
with the French army, now under Soult, close upon him.
The fleet which was to take him off was a day too late at
Corunna, and a battle had to be fought. Soon after mid-
day the French from the outer circle of hills attacked the
English position; but by nightfall the advantage lay with
the English. During the night the army was embarked
without confusion or difficulty. Sir John Moore, struck
by a cannon ball during the battle, died, and was buried
in the citadel of Corunna. This small expedition had
disarranged Napoleon's plans, and drawn the French
troops to the north, saving the south and Portugal. The
retreat before so powerful an enemy was an honourable
achievement, deserving far more praise than it received.
6. Meanwhile Napoleon had filled Spain with troops
to the number of 300,000 men, reoccupied Madrid, and
recovered the country.
7. After Portugal had been cleared of French troops
according to the Convention of Cintra, it was neglected
for some time by the English Government. At Lisbon
the Regency was weak, elsewhere there was scarcely even
the form of a government. Sir John Cradock with the
English force held Lisbon, but he could do no more. In
the south Marshal Beresford, an English officer, was
making a Portuguese army. In the north Soult, leaving
Corunna, was threatening Fortugal. Towards the end of
632
1809-
The Peninsular War.
March 1809 he took Oporto, and set up French influence
firmly in the district round.
8. At this time Sir Arthur Wellesley was sent to
succeed Cradock in command of the English troops in
Wellesley
lands in
Portugal.
Portugal. Taking up the plan of holding
Lisbon at all hazards, he made ready to fall
upon Soult's army. Passing Coimbra, he
surprised the French by suddenly crossing the Douro
in May, and so forced them to leave Oporto. Soult,
though surprised, made a inasterly retreat into Gallicia.
Thus in 28 days Wellesley restored confidence, cleared
Portugal of enemies, and forced a victorious army to
retreat with the loss of all its guns.
Wellesley's
advance
into Spain.
Talavera.
9. Wellesley marched on into Spain, but the small
number of troops which he brought into the field pre-
vented his doing much. He aimed at threaten-
ing Madrid by the line of the Tagus. The
various French armies began to gather upon
him, and he placed his forces on the heights of Talavera.
After some days' skirmishing a general attack was made
by the French under Victor and Jourdan and King
Joseph himself, who was too eager to wait for the opera-
tions of Soult in the rear of the English. All through
the intense heat of the afternoon of July 28 there was
desperate fighting, but the French attack failed, and a
grand charge of the English cavalry and the irresistible
advance of the 48th infantry gained the victory. The
French retired, and next day their army retreated.
Wellesley presently moved off into Portugal, and held the
line of the Guadiana during the winter. The campaign
had relieved Gallicia, but otherwise it was a failure.
Wellesley indeed had been successful, but the Spaniards
had proved useless allies.
10. The English people were weary of the war,
and
-1811 French advance to Torres Vedras.
633
Mr. Per-
ceval's
ministry.
the news of Wellesley's retreat, and the failure of an ex-
pedition to Walcheren, led to a quarrel in the
ministry, and its resignation, September 1809.
A more thoroughly Tory government suc-
ceeded, under Mr. Perceval, with the Marquess Wellesley
as Foreign Secretary. The new ministry was unpopular
at home, and not vigorous enough abroad.
Massena's
advance to
Lisbon,
11. The next year (1810) was marked by a great dis-
play of French power. Napoleon, victorious in Germany,
was able to attend to Spain. Victor invaded
Andalusia and blockaded Cadiz. Massena,
arriving in May, took Ciudad Rodrigo, and 1810.
pressed on towards Portugal. Wellesley, now Lord
Wellington, had sagacious plans ready. Lisbon was to
be defended by the English and Portuguese armies inside
three strong lines of fortified works drawn from the
Tagus to the sea, while an English fleet was in the har-
bour. In September Massena with 65,000 troops was
at Viseu, north of the Mondego. Wellington retreated
before him, after making a successful stand on a high
range of hills, the Sierra Busaco; and then crossing the
Mondego, and passing Leiria, drew his army within the
lines of Torres Vedras. The lines included 50 miles of
fortification, 150 forts, and 600 guns. Besides the regular
army, sailors from the fleet, English marines, Portuguese
artillery and militia, and a Spanish division were engaged
in the defence, while the army and fleet off Cadiz kept
French troops in Andalusia from reinforcing Massena.
•
Massena
12. The blockade lasted throughout the winter, but as
Wellington expected, his position was as strong as ever in
the spring, and by March 1811 Massena was
obliged to withdraw. He retreated across the
Mondego, and out of Portugal as far as
Salamanca, Wellington following to attack the French
garrison at Almeida. Then Massena turned to meet him,
leaves
Portugal
634
1811-
The Peninsular War.
and a fierce battle was fought at Fuentes d'Onoro (May)
in which both sides claimed the victory. The advantage
lay with the English: they were forced to give some
ground, but defended the village and still kept up their
blockade of Almeida. The French shortly left the place,
and Marmont, who succeeded to the command of the
army, fixed his headquarters at Salamanca.
13. Further south Beresford's army was eager to take
the powerful fortress of Badajoz. Soult, who had a large
army in Andalusia, left Seville in May, and
Albuera. forced Beresford and his Spanish allies to
break up their investment of Badajoz and take position
for battle on the heights of the stream called the Albuera.
Here was fought a long and confused battle, which was
going against the English and Spaniards, till at last the
tremendous pressure of the steady march of 6,000 fusiliers
of the English infantry up the crest of the hill, in the face
of masses of the enemy, and under a terrible fire, decided
the day. Of the 6,000 Englishmen only 1,800 arrived at
the top, but when they arrived the battle was over. The
loss on both sides was enormous, the advantage to the
victors was not great. The glory belonged not so much
to the general, for his dispositions had been bad, as to
the soldiers, for it was a soldiers' victory.
Ciudad
Rodrigo.
14. The winter saw the blockade of the great border
fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. For Wellington's plans of
Storming of invading Spain, the capture of this place and
of Badajoz was absolutely needful. The siege
was hurried in every possible manner, that no
French force might come to the rescue in time, and
thorough preparations had been made beforehand in
Almeida and places near. In twelve days the breaches
were practicable, a fourfold attack was made, and the
place was stormed. A frightful scene followed; all dis-
cipline was cast off by the soldiers, who even set fire to
the town in their drunken madness.
-1812
635
Wellington at Madrid.
15. Wellington then turned to Badajoz. This famous
fortress had been twice invested during 1811, and twice
left untaken. In March it was again invested, Storming of
this time to be taken. The French governor, Badajoz.
Phillipon, was an engineer second to none, and he did all
that could be done. But in April the place was stormed
and taken after siege operations which cost 1,500 men,
and an assault costing 3,500 more.
These successes,
with the capture of Almaraz on the Tagus, gave Wel-
lington new and strong bases of action beyond the
frontier.
Welling-
ton's
advance to
16. In June, no longer fearing for Portugal, he ad-
vanced to the river Tormes, attacked Salamanca, and
passed across the river. A month later he was
in the same position again, with Marmont's
arny close by, threatening his communica- Madrid.
tions. From this he intended to retreat, when suddenly
he found an opportunity of falling on Marmont's army,
broken into three divisions. With great skill the left of
the French was instantly attacked and thrown into con-
fusion, and Marmont himself badly wounded. General
Clausel saved the centre, but the whole army was de-
feated, and next day was in full retreat. In a few days
Wellington was at Valladolid, and Clausel had been driven
towards Burgos, while King Joseph, who had been unable
to join him, left Madrid. The battle of Salamanca was
the first decisive victory in the war. The French armies
were driven headlong, and all the centre of Spain was
cleared of the enemy. While King Joseph crossed the
Tagus to Aranjuez, Wellington entered Madrid.
The power to hold central Spain depended on the
movements of Soult with the army of Andalusia. When
he left Seville to join the armies of the centre and north,
Wellington decided to leave Madrid and the siege of
Burgos, and retire to his base, Ciudad Rodrigo. There
636
1812-
The Peninsular War.
in the surrounding district he made ready for winter,
after the greatest campaign which he had yet fought.
Lord
17. This year, 1812, had seen a change of ministry in
England, for Mr. Perceval had been shot by a man called
Bellingham, a merchant who fancied that the
Liverpool's government had treated him badly. Lord
Liverpool re-made the ministry, with but little
change of policy. Abroad they were not much more
vigorous or successful; at home there was some small in-
clination to grant slight reforms, though little was done.
ministry.
18. During the winter Wellington prepared for the
work of the next year. He made his own army ready,
Plans for and visited the Spanish Cortes at Cadiz, and
the cam-
the Portuguese Junta at Lisbon, to urge them
paign of
1813.
to support his plans vigorously. The cam-
paign of 1813 was to be decisive. Many things favoured
the allies. The desperate need of keeping France and
Germany quiet since the failure of the Russian expedition
made the war in Spain now a small matter in Napoleon's
eyes, so long as Wellington could be kept out of France.
Stronger bands of guerrillas, who were irregular troops,
half soldiers half robbers, were springing up all over the
north of Spain, shutting the roads, and threatening the
French posts along the coast of Biscay. Differences of
opinion between King Joseph, Soult, and Suchet also
damaged the French cause.
19. With headquarters at Valladolid, the French
armies stretched from Alicante to Toledo and on to
Advance to
Salamanca. The English forces had grown
Vittoria. in numbers, and their allies had improved in
quality. After waiting till May for the green forage, the
allies, with wide front, advanced in three armies across
the Esla, the Dourò, and the Tormes, in such force that
the French retreated before them. Passing Salamanca,
they were at Valladolid in the beginning of June. Crossing
-1813
637
Vittoria.
the Carrion and the Pisuerga, they turned the sources of the
Ebro. Thus the French had to leave the coast and con-
centrate themselves on Vittoria, while Santander became
a new and convenient depôt and base for the allies, now
cut free from Portugal. At Vittoria a decisive battle was
fought. The town stood at the end of a wide basin
about eight miles by ten, circled by rocky hills. Into
this basin was gathered all the material of the French
army, with not far short of 80,000 men posted to defend
the heights. On June 21 the allies closed round the
basin, and then forced their way through the hills, driving
the enemy six miles to the last height before the town.
From this point, with further fighting, they advanced,
taking gun after gun, while the enemy hurriedly retreated.
The loss of men was not enormous, but all the baggage,
all the treasure, all the papers, and all, save two, of the
guns of the army were left to the allies in the basin of
Vittoria. It was the end of the French occupation of
Spain, and in a few days all the frontier line from the
valley of Roncesvalles to the Bidassoa was held by the
allies, and Pampeluna and San Sebastian were invested.
In six weeks Wellington had marched almost 600 miles,
and driven 120,000 troops, under excellent generals, out
of Spain.
The pas-
sage into
France.
20. For a moment, Soult, who was now at Bayonne,
again in command, hoped to unite his armies, and relieve
the fortresses of Pampeluna, San Sebastian,
Santona, and occupy Aragon. But he made
no way in nine days of hill fighting, in which
ten actions were fought. San Sebastian surrendered
after a brave defence of sixty-three days, and Pampeluna
soon after.
In October Wellington was in France, at
Vera; and in November the passage of the Nivelle was
forced. Soult was driven back on Bayonne, and still the
English army pressed him. However much he was de
638
1814
The Peninsular War.
layed by want of stores, money, or ammunition, or dis-
tracted by the contrary views of the ministry in England,
or disturbed by Bourbon plots or Spanish quarrels, still
Wellington steadily and cautiously closed his grasp upon
Soult, who fought with untiring spirit and yet no hope of
success. In February, 1814, General Hill crossed the
Adour; a battle followed at Orthes in which the French
were again beaten. Next Soult was obliged to leave Bay-
onne, which was at once invested. Fighting all the way,
he retreated on Toulouse, the great arsenal which com-
manded the southern roads and the passage of the Garonne.
There the war ended. One desperate battle was fought
outside Toulouse in April, before the abdication of the
Emperor Napoleon was known. It was scarcely a
victory for the English, scarcely a defeat for Soult, but
he had to retreat two days later, and Wellington entered
Toulouse. He had done his work so as to earn glory
for the English armies seldom if ever equalled.
་
The glory was due to general and army rather than
to the government. In no other part of Europe had the
English schemes succeeded. The home government
had shown little energy or good sense. An expedition
sent to the island of Walcheren and to Antwerp at the
mouth of the Scheldt to aid in driving out the French
had been a wretched failure. It took Walcheren and its
town of Middelburg. But so much time was spent in
taking Flushing that all chance of getting Antwerp was
lost, and no more was done. The Dutch did not want
such help, and the French could not be driven out. The
services of 40,000 men were wasted, and very many
lives lost.
1814
639
The Fall of Napoleon.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
Invasion of
France.
1813-14.
1. WHILE Wellington had been making his way into
France, the end of Napoleon's power had come. In 1811
he had annexed Holland and the neighbouring
coast as far as Lubeck ; Westphalia and all the
minor States of Germany were in his power.
But in 1812 Russia and Sweden were, no longer willing
to be shut out from trade with Britain. Napoleon at once
attacked Russia, crossing the Niemen in June, and passing
through Lithuania to Smolensk and Moscow. He was
victorious, but his army perished of cold in its retreat,
and very little of it repassed the Niemen in December.
His power was broken, and the people of Prussia and of
other parts of Germany were eager to rise and join
Russia in overthrowing him. Though he had successes
in the spring and summer of 1813, his enemies closed
upon him, and the decisive battle of Leipzig, fought
through great part of three days in October, allowed the
allies to follow him into France. Amidst frequent battles
and much negotiation Paris yielded, March 31, and then
Napoleon abdicated in April, while Wellington and Soult
were fighting near Toulouse.
·
2. The allies had been fighting not alone for independ-
ence, but also for the old monarchy which the French
Revolution had overthrown; they therefore The Resto-
again set up the old line of French kings, and ration, 1814.
Lewis XVIII. was placed on the throne. The task of
restoring the old limits of kingdoms, and the old state of
things, wherever possible, was given to a Congress of
diplomatists who met at Vienna.
640
1815
The Battle of Waterloo.
3. The war, however, was not yet all over; one great
campaign more had to be fought. For eleven months a
feverish peace lasted, and then news suddenly
The return
of Napo- came that the Emperor Napoleon was again
leon, 1815.
in France. He had been placed in the little
island of Elba, and from thence, in March 1815, he crossed,
and landed near Cannes. He was everywhere welcomed,
the army and his old generals gathered round him. He
was in Paris in three weeks, and the restored king had
gone again. There is no wonder that men who had
fought and suffered as Frenchmen had for equal rights
and for glory should eagerly welcome the great general
and Emperor who was to free them from the feeble king
who reminded them of the old days of despotism and of the
conquest of Paris by the foreigner. But the allies would
have no terms with the Emperor, no terms with France
save as a beaten country. Wellington was at Brussels
early in April, and armies of English, Prussians, and
other allies began to gather. Napoleon crossed the
frontier near Charleroi on June 15; and he was at once
within reach of the Prussian forces at Charleroi, Namur,
Liége, while the English were moving close to Quatre
Bras.
June 1815.
4. The Prussians, attacked at Charleroi and again at
Ligny, retreated after suffering some loss. The English,
Waterloo, who fought at Quatre Bras with success, were
moved back a distance of seven miles. There,
on June 18, was fought the decisive battle of Waterloo.
About eleven o'clock the attack was begun by the French;
and the fighting lasted till evening. The whole brunt of the
battle fell upon the English army, and they bravely kept
their ground. About seven o'clock the last French
charge was made upon the left centre, and it failed.
that time the Prussians, under Blucher and Bulow, had
come up, and to their timely assistance it was due in
By
1815
641
Abdication of Napoleon.
great measure that a great victory was won.
was now over and the French empire at an end.
The war
5. Napoleon reached Paris on the 21st, and abdicated.
At Rochfort he placed himself in the hands of the
captain of an English man-of-war.
The Abdication
allies decided that he should be exiled to the of Napoleon.
island of St. Helena, an English possession in the
Atlantic, where he stayed till his death.
Restoration.
6. There was nothing now to hinder the march of the
victorious armies. The allies entered Paris on July 7,
and Lewis XVIII. was restored on the next
day. France was held by foreign troops till
the work of restoring the old map of Europe was done.
England had nothing to gain by any settlement, but she
took her part in setting up the old despotisms with little
care for the people of the different states.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE YEARS OF PEACE.
Want of re-
forms at
home.
1. FROM the outbreak of the French Revolution, England
had been more than usually affected by foreign politics.
And from the year 1793 she had been obliged
to attend almost wholly to war. During the
whole time social improvement had been
checked, and of constitutional progress there had been
scarcely any. The government feared all discussion,
and tried to prevent all change or reform. Any desire
for change was called unpatriotic and un-English, all
E. II.
TT
642
1815-
The Results of the War.
:
reforms were looked on as revolutionary and French.
The country generally shrank from disturbance in home
politics, thinking the time not suitable. The dread of
making great changes during war, combined with a fear
of the danger of any approach to French republican
views, had prevented all reform of Parliament; the
same fate had befallen the other great question, Catholic
emancipation. Although in each case valuable time was
lost, perhaps it was well that England did not pretend to
reform herself at a time when she was helping the powers
on the Continent to stamp out demands of reform in
other countries.
2. The many years of war had done much to destroy
the wealth and prosperity which had grown so fast in the
early years of Pitt's ministry. For all manufactures and
every kind of trade had been injured except so far as
war had in some few cases made an extraordinary
demand, and so brought wealth to some classes, as to the
farmers, who got very high prices for corn and other pro-
duce. For most persons the means of living had been so
exhausted by the loss of trade, the waste of life and
money, and the enormous amount of the taxes, that
distress had become widespread.
3. After the peace of 1815 was made, the effects of
the war made themselves most thoroughly felt for the
next few years. Foreign politics gave way to difficulties
at home; war was succeeded by profound peace, save in
one spot and for a moment, but for years the peace was
full of troubles.
Putting
4. The one exception to the general peace was an
interference of civilised Europe against barbarian practices.
The small Mohammedan States of northern `
Africa, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, had for
centuries been wont to sweep the seas as
pirates, to take the vessels of all nations, and to carry off
down
Christian
slavery.
.1820
643
Bombardment of Algiers.
Christians into slavery. In the seventeenth century we hear
of Turks and Barbary corsairs even in the English Chan-
nel. To leave money for the ransom of Christian slaves
from the Moors was a common form of charity in England.
The power of these States was less now than formerly ;
while other nations had stronger fleets, and the Mediter-
ranean was public water. The Christian States would
allow this habit of piracy no longer. Public opinion as to
slavery had changed; England had put down her own
slave trade in 1807; and Napoleon had found time to do
the same in the hurried days of 1815; and other nations
followed. The worthiest memorial of the Congress of
Vienna is its agreement to put an end to the deeds of the
corsairs of the Mediterranean.
The
Bombard-
ment of
Algiers,
1816.
5. An English fleet under Lord Exmouth forced the
rulers of Tunis and Tripoli to give up their Christian
slaves, to the number of 1,800, and to bind
themselves by treaty to take no more.
fleet, with a small squadron of Dutch ships,
was off Algiers in August. Lord Exmouth's demands
were made at once, including freedom of all Christian
slaves and the end of Christian slavery. When no
answer was given, the fleet worked in close to the im-
mense batteries and facing the Algerine fleet and the
higher forts. The first shot was fired by the Algerines,
it is said, and then all the afternoon and the evening
there was deadly fighting, till almost all the enemy's
guns were silenced. The fleet worked out in the night
with a loss of about 900 men, better spent in this than
most causes. Next morning the Dey of Algiers yielded
to all demands, and gave up 1,083 Christian slaves.
6. The exhaustion of the country was great, and the
recovery at first was slow. The enormous debt pressed
hard, and distress created bitter discontent before society
had fitted itself to the new conditions. The heavy
TT 2
644
1815-
The Results of the War.
taxes seemed more unbearable in peace than they had
been in war. All those branches of industry which had
Distress
and dis-
turbances.
flourished because of war prices now suffered.
Many workmen were thrown out of employ-
ment. Much suffering was felt before ad-
vantage could be taken of those new openings for trade
which peace would gradually offer. Large numbers
of soldiers and sailors were no longer needed, and yet it
was not easy to take them into the professions and trades
without injury to others. Parliament listened to the
complaints of landowners and farmers, and to prevent
them from being injured by a fall in the price of corn,
forbade all imports unless the price reached 8os., that is
till there was famine in the land. This unfair and foolish
law hurt all other classes, and almost starved the poor.
Bad seasons and wretched harvests followed. Distress
led to riot among the agricultural labourers in the eastern
counties, and among the colliers and miners of the
midland districts and of South Wales. There were also
riots of distressed mechanics who knew no better than to
try to put down the machinery which was now being largely
brought into use. In thickly peopled places, such as Man-
chester and Glasgow, demands for reforms led to great
disturbances. The country was fast becoming difficult to
manage. The government, unwilling to admit the need
of any changes, or unable to find remedies, looked only
for means to force the people to be quiet. They sus-
pended the Habeas Corpus Act, and got Parliament to
pass the severe laws of repression known as the Six Acts,
which took away the usual liberty of holding public
meetings, increased the harshness of the law of libel,
and gave to the authorities powers to search private houses
for arms. It must also be remembered that the king
through illness had taken no part in business for years,
-1820
645
The Beginning of Reforms.
and that the Regent was neither respected nor liked.
Crown and Parliament were alike held in suspicion.
7. The reign of George III. therefore ended in a time
of sullen agitation, the result in part of the usual distress
caused by a long war, in part of the putting off of needful
measures of reform. These were now urgently called
for, to make our laws reasonable and fair, to allow for
the natural growth of the community, and to give the
great majority of the people their fair share in governing
themselves.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DEMAND FOR REFORMS.
1. Two great movements deserve mention as worthily
marking this period of discontent, during which men were
slowly preparing for the great struggle which ended in
the passing of the Reform Bill. The one was the im-
provement of English criminal law; the other was a
crusade against the slave-trade, ending in the abolition
of slavery.
2. English law had long needed reform. It was of un-
wieldy bulk, badly arranged, and slow of application. The
criminal law was also frightfully severe, and,
Reform of
nal law.
in consequence, very ill executed. For juries the crimi-
could not be found to subject men and women
to its harsh punishments. A small knot of energetic men
set to work to reform the criminal law. They were
mostly, as was natural, men of advanced liberal views.
Their master, Jeremy Bentham, was a learned and wise
lawyer. Unfortunately the government was afraid of all
reformers, and was also specially afraid of the effect of
mildness in what they thought most dangerous times. To
646
1815-
The Results of the War.
make the laws milder when men were lawless, seemed
to them a move in exactly the wrong direction. It is
astounding now to think that in this century men were
liable to death for forging receipts, or for sheep-stealing,
or for picking pockets, or for shop-lifting. In the reign
of George III. the punishment of death was due by law
for about 160 different crimes, 'actions which men are
daily liable to commit.' Sir Samuel Romilly, in 1808,
was able to do away with the punishment of death for
picking pockets. And at last, after many years, in 1818,
Sir James Mackintosh, aided by Canning and Wilberforce,
against the whole force of the government, carried in the
House of Commons a motion for a Select Committee on
capital punishment, which led in the end to a rearrange-
ment of penalties, and made English criminal law fit for
a civilised and law-abiding people.
The
3. The abolition of the slave-trade was due to that
religious party which has borne the name of Evangelicals.
They were representatives of the spirit which
Wesleys. arose from the teaching and the religious
fervour of the Wesleys and Whitfield and their admirers.
These men were leaders of an earnest revival of religion
in the eighteenth century. They were pious Oxford
students who gave themselves up to do good. They
went everywhere preaching, to awaken people to a sense
of their sinfulness, and to lead them to live better and
more religious lives. The Church at first did not like
them, and they met with many difficulties, for their doings
were often odd. But though many laughed at them, their
success was very great. Thousands were converted by
their preaching. The whole tone of English feeling was
changed by the renewed religious life which grew out of
it. Very many, who did not become followers of them in
name, yet learnt much from their piety and unselfishness,
and joined them in good works.
-1820
647
Movement against Slavery.
The aboli-
slave-trade.
4. From the foundation of American and West Indian
colonies negro slaves had been brought from Africa, and
the trade had greatly fallen into the hands of
Englishmen. The horrors of the traffic and tion of the
the sufferings of the slaves on the passage
roused attention in England. A determined attempt
was made to regulate or even to put down the traffic.
The leaders of this attempt were Wilberforce and Thorn-
ton in Parliament, and Granville Sharp, Clarkson, and
Zachary Macaulay outside. The last had been manager
of a slave plantation in Jamaica, and knew well the evils
against which he fought so hard. In 1788 Pitt moved for
an inquiry with a view to regulate the trade, and awful
disclosures were made of cruelties, scarcely credible in
these days. But when next year Wilberforce proposed to
put down the slave-trade and make it illegal, the mer-
chants of Liverpool and other ports were too strong for
him, and they defeated him for many years. No effort
was spared, a Society was formed, the matter was urged in
season and out of season. They rescued slaves where
they could, and formed a colony for freed slaves at Sierra
Leone under a charter, of which Macaulay was governor
from 1793-1799. The two great statesmen, Pitt and Fox,
opposed on most questions, were united on this, and sup-
ported the change on the ground that traffic in human
beings was wrong. The length of the battle had its value,
for the long discussion showed that more was involved
than a mere question of cruelty on board ship, more
was needed than the end of the slave-trade. When
at length success crowned the efforts of the Society,
in 1807, and the slave-trade was abolished by the Gren-
ville government, the philanthropists had not finished
their work. They began again, and fought for many
years, till 1833, a harder and a longer battle, and they
won a still more honourable victory in the abolition
648
Summary.
of slavery in all the dominions and colonies of the
British empire.
1. Looking back over the reign of King George III.,
we find that it was a time of great events. England lost
most of her great colonies in America, and
Summary.
gained a great and growing empire in the
East. She fought a long and exhausting war in Europe
with great bravery and perseverance, and came out of it
with a high reputation.
The seeds of many changes also were sown, to
grow vigorously before many years passed; indeed of
nearly all the great reforms by which England has
become so great, so well governed, so prosperous, and so
contented.
The crown
loses
power.
2. It is especially to be noted that during this reign,
power had been gradually passing into the hands of the
middle classes, and, more particularly, the
population of the great cities. The power of
the great Whig noble families of the Revolution
had been broken by the king. Again, the power of the
crown had grown less. King George III., who was
thoroughly English, and most attentive to business, tried
hard to have his own way; he succeeded to a great
extent, in some measure because of his industry and his
desire to do what he thought was good for his subjects.
But his policy was not wise, and the results of his exer-
cise of power were disastrous, and after a time he grew
feeble and then for a long time he was mad.
3. While the crown thus lost power, the middle
classes, to whom it was passing, were becom-
ing more ready to claim it and more compe-
tent to use it. The example of the American
colonies was before their eyes. The influence of the
The middle
classes gain
power.
Summary.
649
French Revolution was greatly shown in the new spirit
of inquiry, which spread widely. A demand for informa-
tion created a quickly growing supply of books, periodicals,
and newspapers, both in England and Scotland, and these
in their turn tended to increase the demand for education.
The desire for news from the war helped the sale of
newspapers to a degree not before known. While the
House of Commons grew less and less representative of
the people, the newspapers were becoming the best means
of appealing to public opinion.
4. The wealth, also, of England had grown greatly by
reason of an enlargement of trade. This, though checked
by the war, was constantly tending to throw a larger
proportion of wealth into the hands of the middle classes,
in whose hands manufactures and commerce chiefly lay.
Much fell also to the largely growing class of artisans. The
influence of scientific invention was the same; it too
greatly benefited the trading classes. Engineering made
great strides, especially through the adaptation of steam to
machinery, to engines of locomotion on land, and to ships,
though the great effects of the invention were not seen
till later. All these things threw wealth into the hands
of the middle classes, and increased wealth meant in-
creased influence and power in the country. In every
way the middle classes were becoming the great power in
England.
650
LIST OF PRIME MINISTERS
FROM 1820 TO 1874.
Lord Liverpool.
Mr. George Canning
Lord Goderich.
Duke of Wellington
Lord Grey.
Lord Melbourne
May 1812 to
April 1827.
April 1827
Aug. 1827.
Aug. 1827
"
Jan. 1828.
Jan. 1828
Nov. 1830.
Nov. 1830
"}
July 1834.
July 1834
Nov. 1834.
Sir Robert Peel.
Dec. 1834
"
April 1835.
Lord Melbourne
April 1835
Aug. 1841.
Sir Robert Peel
Aug. 1841
July 1846.
Lord John Russell
July 1846
""
Feb. 1852.
Lord Derby
Feb. 1852
Dec. 1852.
Lord Aberdeen
Lord Palmerston
Lord Derby.
Lord Palmerston
Earl Russell.
Lord Derby
Mr. Disraeli
Mr. Gladstone.
Mr. Disraeli.
Dec. 1852
Feb. 1855
Feb. 1858
"}
Feb. 1855.
•
"1
Feb. 1858,
June 1859.
June 1859
Nov. 1865.
Nov. 1865
June 1866.
June 1866
Feb. 1868.
"
Feb. 1868
Dec. 1868.
•
Dec. 1868
Feb. 1874.
•
"
Feb. 1874
BOOK VIII.
MODERN ENGLAND.
INTRODUCTION.
THE last period of our history is as important as any
part of the annals of England. It is with few exceptions
a time of peace, of quiet, steady internal progress. It
represents a nation resting from the exertions of a
mighty past to grow strong for the trials of a momentous
future.
It is the genius of England to gain by reform what
other nations attempt by revolution.
It was one of the effects of the French Revolution to
destroy what remained of the feudal system in France;
to strengthen the national life by summoning the whole
nation to council; to establish liberty and equality.
What France imperfectly attained by one fierce struggle
England successfully acquired by the patient efforts of
fifty years.
The chief events which mark the advance of this
progress were these:
652
Modern England.
1. In 1829 the emancipation of the Catholics recon-
ciled an ancient feud, and led the way to a wider tolera-
tion of religion.
2. In 1832 the great reform bill shook the monopoly
of aristocratic government, abolished distinctions of
class, and prepared the nation for a just and tempered
democracy.
3. In 1846 the repeal of the Corn Laws secured cheap
food for the working classes, and asserted the principle
of free trade.
4. In 1851 and 1862 the nations of the world met in
peaceful rivalry as the guests of England. The Crimean
war between 1854 and 1856 did not seriously affect the
regular march of progress.
5. In 1866 a new reform bill, in many respects the
continuation of the old one, gave a new opportunity for
internal improvement. Two large measures were passed
with a view to give peace to Ireland, and a step was
taken towards providing a national education.
These changes have all followed quietly and naturally
one upon another, so that they look like growth rather
than change.
At the end of this period England is ready with re-
newed strength to run a fresh career of prosperity and
honour.
1820.
653
Cato Street Conspiracy.
CHAPTER 1.
THE QUEEN'S TRIAL.
I. THE reign of George III. closed in a time of sullen
agitation, the result partly of the usual distress caused
by a long war, partly of the delay in passing needful
measures of reform. The reign of George IV., therefore,
opens dark and gloomily. We find the ministers so un-
popular that a conspiracy is formed to murder them.
We find the crown discredited by the bad character of
the King, and the people ready to take part against him.
The horror of the Cato Street conspiracy is explained by
the scandal of the Queen's trial.
2. Let us hear what this conspiracy was.
One day,
towards the end of February 1820, the Cabinet ministers
were to dine together at Lord Harrowby's. Cato Street
But they had been told that a plot had been conspiracy.
formed by some desperate men to murder them as they
sat at table. They therefore dined separately at home,
while the police were sent to capture the conspirators.
They found them, twenty-five in number, in a loft above
a stable in Cato Street, Edgware Road, armed, and
ready for the enterprise. The first of the police who
entered was stabbed to the heart, and the greater
number of culprits escaped, including Thistlewood, the
captain of the gang, who, however, was taken next day.
On May I he was executed with four others, while five
more were transported for life. Terror spread through-
out the kingdoin. Nothing, it was said, could be com-
pared with this atrocity except the Gunpowder Plot in
654
1820.
Modern England.
the reign of James I. It was attributed to the Radical
Reformers, and the name of Radical became a byword.
It was only the work of a few; yet misery and discontent
must have risen to a high pitch before such remedies
could have been thought of.
trial.
3. George III. had become unfit through illness to per-
form his duties as king at the end of the year 1810. His
The Queen's son George, Prince of Wales,was made Regent,
and held the office till his father's death in the
beginning of 1820, after which he succeeded to the throne.
The trial of Queen Caroline, wife of the new king, tended
still more to widen the breach between the people on one
side, and the king and ministers on the other. She was
a Princess of Brunswick, and had married the Prince of
Wales in 1795. From the first he treated her with dislike,
and she withdrew from England in 1814, as soon as peace
made it possible for her to travel on the Continent. On
the accession of her husband to the throne she was refused
the title and honours of a queen; her name was omitted
from its place in the prayer-book, and she was not re-
ceived at foreign courts. Goaded by these insults she
came to England to claim her rights. She was received
with enthusiasin by the people. Crowds of supporters
thronged her house and attended her carriage. The
ministers, at the bidding of the king, introduced a bill to
deprive her of her rank and to dissolve her marriage.
The bill failed, and was withdrawn, and London was
illuminated for three nights. Parliament granted her an
annuity of £50,000, but no place was provided for her at
the coronation of the king. On the morning of that day
she attempted to force her way into Westminster Abbey,
but was repulsed, and died a few days afterwards
1822.
655
The Holy Alliance.
CHAPTER II.
FOREIGN POLICY, 1815-1822.
After the
The Holy
Alliance.
1. WE must now consider the position of England in
connection with the other nations of Europe.
defeat of Napoleon the allied sovereigns who
met at the Congress of Vienna, attempted to
do away with all traces of his work. The Emperors of
Russia and Austria, the Kings of Prussia, France, and
Spain, indeed, nearly all the European powers, except
England, formed what was called the Holy Alliance. The
object which it put forward was that of promoting peace
and good-will among nations upon the basis of Chris-
tianity, but its real effect was to crush attempts to es-
tablish self-government throughout Europe. Napoleon
had driven out the Bourbon kings from Spain and
Naples; he had destroyed the Holy Roman Empire, and
weakened the Papacy; he had been the enemy of all
the old governments which were hostile to progress. The
efforts of European statesmen were devoted to undoing
all that he had done. During the six years which suc-
ceeded his fall Europe was disturbed by conspiracies and
plots. These were mainly caused by the measures taken
by governments to repress their subjects in their aspira-
tions for freedom. Lord Londonderry, better known as
Lord Castlereagh, who managed foreign affairs in Eng-
land, had shown himself too favourable to the policy
which Prince Metternich, the prime minister of Austria,
had done most to form. In August 1822, however, Castle-
reagh died by his own hand, and Canning, who was just
preparing to sail as governor-general to India, became
foreign secretary in his place.
Insurrec
2. Insurrection had broken out in Spain. The Libe
rals set up a new constitution, and secured
the person of the king. The partisans of ab-
solute government and of the Catholic religion
tions in
Spain and
Naples.
3
656
1822
Modern England.
marched into Catalonia under the name of the Army of
Faith. The French troops, under the plea of protecting
their country against a contagion of fever, occupied the
passes of the Pyrenees. They however soon crossed the
frontier and, uniting with the absolutists, succeeded in
quelling the rebellion. A similar outbreak had occurred
a short time before in Naples and in Piedmont.
3. Part of the same wave of feeling had caused the
Greeks to throw off the Turkish yoke. This attempt
met with much sympathy in Europe, for when men
Insurrection thought of what the old Greeks had done for
in Greece.
freedom, they wished that their descendants
might succeed in gaining it. England could not give
open help, but her feelings were shown without conceal-
ment to be on the side of the struggling power. The poet
Shelley wrote and the poet Byron died for the awakened
freedom of the land to which poetry owes so much. The
Greeks fought well and bravely against the Turks, who
could not put down their rising foe.
Canning's
policy.
4. A congress of European powers was summoned to
meet at Verona in the north of Italy, in 1822, apparently for
the purpose of discussing the affairs of Greece.
It was attended by the Duke of Wellington
as representive of England. As soon as it was suggested
by the other powers that a general interference should
be made to crush the rising in Spain, he refused to take
any further part in the matter, and retired from the con-
ference. Canning recognised the independence of the
colonies in South America which had revolted from
Spain. He called, as he said, a New World into ex-
istence to redress the balance of the Old. At a later
period he sent troops to protect the liberties of Portugal
against France. In this manner England showed that
she had definitely broken with the principles of the Holy
Alliance.
1823.
657
Finance,
CHAPTER III.
COMMERCIAL REFORM.
Financial
condition of
England.
I. THE Conclusion of the war against Napoleon had left
England in great distress. She had borne the expense not
only of her own armament, but of the arma-
ments of foreign nations. The national debt
amounted to nearly 800 millions, and the
money required for the struggle in which the nation was
engaged had been borrowed most wastefully. In 1823 Hus-
kisson became President of the Board of Trade. He was,
like Canning, sneered at for being an adventurer. In
other words he did not belong to one of those families who
were considered at that time to have the right to keep
the government entirely in their own hands. He was
thoroughly versed in the principles of political economy-
that is, in knowledge of the laws under which wealth is
produced and distributed; and he used his position to
pass a number of measures which rapidly developed
the resources of the realm.
2. A law had been enacted during the time of the Com-
monwealth, which was ratified by Charles II., forbidding,
with some exceptions, that foreign produce Navigation
should be brought into England by any but laws.
English ships. The effect of this had been to give to
England the carrying trade of Europe and to take it away
from the Dutch—that is, to enrich English merchants
with all the profits of carrying foreign goods. Other
nations had objected to this, and America in particular
placed so high a duty on goods imported in English
vessels that it practically prevented the trade from con-
tinuing. English ships used to go empty to America
to fetch American goods, and American ships, after
bringing their own goods to us, went away empty them-
E. H.
UU
:

658
1823.
Modern England.
1
selves. The price of freight was tnus doubled on both
sides. To remedy this evil Huskisson proposed and
carried, in 1823, a Reciprocity of Duties Bill, by which
duties were made equal on all goods, whether brought in
English or foreign vessels. Our shipping trade, which had
been much depressed, was thus very largely increased.
Silk and
wool.
3. There were also large duties levied on the importa-
tion of foreign silk. This did great injury to our silk
weavers, partly by depriving them of the mate-
rials of their labour, partly by removing the
stimulus of healthy competition. French silks were every-
where preferred to English, and so great was the rage for
smuggled goods that it even paid an English manufac-
turer to have his own goods smuggled into England
under the name of French. The prohibition of foreign
wool was equally injurious. Much English wool could
only be used when mixed with foreign. All change was
resisted both by manufacturers and operatives. But
Huskisson was assured of the truth of his principles, and
carried measures which reduced the duties on both these
articles.
4. The question of the abolition of slavery was still
unsettled. Like many other reforms it had been brought
forward, and encouraged by Wilberforce and
Slavery.
Pitt, but had been laid aside in the throes of
the European struggle. Our West Indian colonies were full
of slaves, and scenes were enacted in them as terrible as
any we have since heard of in America. Yet slavery could
not be abolished without heavy loss of money. Indeed
it was feared that the blacks might rise and bring about a
general massacre. A bill was passed to mitigate the suf-
ferings of the slaves, and all slaveholders knew that by this
small measure the death-blow of slavery had been struck.
5. Under the influence of these measures the prosperity
of the country largely increased. Wealth began to flow
1825.
659
Catholic Question.
to war.
into new channels, and all classes of the people felt in
their daily lives how far preferable peace was Commercial
Only the change was too sudden. distress.
The country ran into wild speculation. Companies were
formed for objects impossible to obtain. Banks were
opened by men who had no capital to support them. A
crash came in 1825. Riots broke out in the Midland
Counties; machines were broken as the supposed cause
of the people's misery. The Government came to the
rescue; money was lent to merchants to retrieve their
fortunes; foreign corn was let out of the docks, and the
panic passed away.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEATH OF CANNING.
I. Two great questions remained for settlement, the Corn
laws, and the Catholic disabilities. The Catholic popula-
tion of Ireland was four times as great as the Catholic
Protestant. The Catholics had for more than Question.
•
a century and a half been treated as a conquered and
down-trodden race. In many respects their position had
been improved, yet even in 1828, no Catholic could sit in
either house of Parliament, no Catholic could be guar-
dian to a Protestant, or keep any arms or warlike stores.
The Catholics were excluded from almost every office of
trust or distinction, and were made in many ways to
feel that they stood on a different social footing to the
Protestants. In 1800, when Ireland was united with
England, Pitt had promised to remedy their grievances.
But the King pleaded his coronation oath, and his mind
gave way when the question was pressed upon him. It
UU 2
660
1825.
Modern England.
was felt that nothing could be done as long as George
III. lived. Canning had devoted himself to this cause
from his earliest years. But the matter remained an
open question with the ministry, and it would probably
have remained so much longer had it not been for the
efforts of the Catholic Association under Daniel O'Connell.
A Relief Bill passed the House of Commons in 1825,
but was defeated in the House of Lords, by the efforts of
the Duke of York, the next heir to the throne, who
declared his unflinching hostility to any measure of this
kind so long as he lived.
Canning
Prime
Minister.
2. He did not live long, but died in January 1827.
Lord Liverpool was soon afterwards struck down by para-
lysis, and Canning was reluctantly summoned
by the sovereign to form a ministry. He had
already received his death-blow in attending
the Duke of York's funeral on a cold winter's night in St.
George's Chapel. The Duke of Wellington, Peel, and
Lord Eldon, declined to serve under him. His principal
colleague was Huskisson. His ministry was pledged to
remove the two crying evils of the time. A Corn Bill
intended to redeem part of this pledge was rejected in
the House of Lords. Canning had no time to put into
execution the cherished purpose of his life.
His death.
3. Worn out by the exertions of his office, disheartened
by the desertion of his friends, harassed by the constant
persecution of an unscrupulous opposition like
that which had embittered the last days of
Pitt, he sank under his accumulated burdens, and died
in August 1827, at the age of 57. He has left a name
second to none on the roll of English statesmen. His
policy was not bounded by the limits of his country. His
heart was ever moved with indignation against oppression.
He vindicated the position of England as the asserter of
liberty and freedom throughout the world. The death of
Canning was an event of greater political importance
1827.
661
Duke of Wellington.
than it was generally conceived to be at the time. As a
disciple of William Pitt, he is properly reckoned among
the Tories, but in foreign politics and in some home
questions he may rather be regarded as the forerunner
of modern Liberals.
CHAPTER V.
WELLINGTON PRIME MINISTER.
Lord Gode-
Minister.
1. THE King had hoped to keep the same ministry in
office and to carry on public business with as little change
as possible. Lord Goderich, who was con-
sidered a moderate man, was therefore made rich Prime
prime minister, but Mr. Herries and the Duke
of Wellington, who were both Tories, were received into
the Cabinet. This was enough to bring about its destruc-
tion. A quarrel broke out between Herries and Huskisson,
and Lord Goderich not wishing to get rid of either of
them preferred to resign himself. The administration
had scarcely lasted six months.
Duke of
Wellington
Prime
2. His place was taken by the Duke of Wellington
(January 1828), now in his sixtieth year, the first subject
of the Crown, accepted in all parts of Europe
as the representative of English power and
English spirit, but destined to impair in Minister.
office the reputation he had gained in war. His industry,
courage, and integrity were beyond question, but he had
little sympathy with the people, and was apt to base his
conduct too exclusively on obedience to the authority of the
Crown. Huskisson tried to convince himself that the
spirit of Canning would yet continue to guide the conduct
of the ministry, and therefore remained in office. But an
opportunity soon occurred for removing him, and the
remnant of Canning's party, Lord Dudley, Lord Palmer-
ston, and Mr. Grant, joined him in his retirement.
662
1827.
Modern England.
CHAPTER VI.
BATTLE OF NAVARINO.
1. THE attention of Europe had now for six years been
directed towards the East. The Greeks had continued
Turkish their struggle for liberty with various fortunes.
Question.
Russia took this opportunity to attack her
hereditary foe, and was moving forward in her double
mission of releasing her brother Christians from the
Moslem yoke, and of establishing her power upon the Dar-
danelles. England and France were afraid that Russia,
if left to herself, might forget her worthier objects in the
satisfaction of her ambition, and they saw that the best
hope of controlling her policy lay in sharing her designs.
2. To effect these objects Canning had, in July 1827,
procured the signature of the Treaty of London between
England, France, and Russia. The powers
Treaty of
London. offered their mediation to establish peace
between the two countries which had been so long at war.
An armistice was to be concluded without delay. The
Sultan was to retain the title of Suzerain or superior lord
of Greece, and the Greeks were to pay a yearly tribute
or relief; also a separation of the two nations, which were
then intimately mixed, was to be effected, and the Turks
were to be compensated for the territory which they
surrendered. A secret article attached to the treaty pro-
vided that if the Porte or the Greeks did not accept the
armistice within one month, the Powers should do their
best to force it upon them without however taking an
active part in the war.
3. The Turks refused to grant an armistice. Ibrahim
Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, sailed with a large fleet to
assist the Sultan. The combined English,
French, and Russian fleets allowed him to
enter the Harbour of Navarino, on the west coast of the
Battle of
Navarino.
1827.
663
Battle of Navarino.
Morea, on condition that he did not come out again. He
broke his promise and was driven back, but took his
revenge by harassing the country and burning villages.
The allies saw the smoke from burning villages rising
among the hills. They realised the misery of his vic-
tims, and their patience could hold out no longer. They
sailed into the narrow strait at the entrance of the har-
bour with a view of forcing Ibrahim to discontinue these
atrocities under penalty of the entire destruction of his
fleet. A battle was not in their intention, but a random
shot fired the train of angry feeling, the battle became
general, and in four hours the Turkish fleet was entirely
destroyed (October, 1827).
Kingdom of
Greece.
4. When the news of this victory arrived in England
Canning was dead. Wellington was not so favourable
to the independence of the Greeks. The
king, at the opening of Parliament, spoke of
Navarino as an 'untoward event;' and no effort was
made to follow up the advantage gained over the Turks.
The Russians took up with greater vigour the cause which
they had more nearly at heart. One army crossed the
Danube and the Balkans, another marched into Armenia
and occupied Kars and Erzeroum. The treaty of
Adrianople (August, 1828) secured the existence of Grecce
as an independent kingdom.
CHAPTER VII.
CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.
1. THE Corporation and Test Acts, passed in the reign of
Charles II., provided that no one should hold
any important civil or military office without
giving evidence that he was a member of
the Church of England, by receiving the Holy Sacrament.
Corporation
and Test
Acts.
664
1828.
Modern England.
These Acts had been especially directed, the first against
the Independents, the second against James II. and the
Roman Catholics. The burden of them now fell on the
Dissenters who were, however, able to evade the prohibi-
tion enforced by them by an Act of Indemnity first passed
in the reign of George II., and annually renewed. Lord
John Russell proposed and carried, in 1828, a motion that
a Committee should be appointed to consider the abolition
of these galling and useless restrictions. Peel and Hus-
kisson opposed the measure, as Canning had always done
before, on the ground not of principle but of expediency.
But they gave way to the feeling of the House, and a
declaration of friendliness to the Church of England was
substituted for the test.
Election of
O'Connell.
2. This was followed by a new agitation in Ireland
for the emancipation of Catholics. By the efforts of the
Catholic Association O'Connell was elected
member for Clare. His return was declared
valid, although he could not sit and vote in the House
until he had taken the prescribed oaths. The Catholic
Association became more and more powerful. Supported
by the priests and well furnished with money, it spread
itself over the whole of Ireland. It professed to secure
that no member should be elected for any Irish constitu-
ency who did not pledge himself to obtain emancipation
for the Catholics and Parliamentary Reform. It became
evident to the ministers that no course was left to them
but to conciliate a power which they could not quell.
3. The king's speech on opening the session of 1829
contained the surprising announcement that the Catholic
Association would be suppressed, and that a
Bill passed
measure for the relief of the Catholics would
be presented for the consideration of Parliament. Sir
Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington had courage.
1829.
665
O'Connell.
ously sacrificed political consistency to the good of their
country. A Bill which abolished all political distinctions
between Catholics and Protestants in the fullest and most
generous manner passed the Commons and Lords, and
after a little hesitation received the assent of the king.
The association which had obtained this victory in the
name of a nation disappeared quietly out of existence.
A great step had been made towards redressing the
wrongs of Ireland.
4. O'Connell, who had deserved the gratitude of his
country, was reluctant to give up the position of agitator.
He declared that he would never rest until
he had secured the repeal of the union
between England and Ireland. In this vain
Agitation for
repeal of
Union.
and hopeless struggle he squandered the reputation which
he had fairly earned, and came eventually to be regarded
rather as a demagogue than as a patriot
CHAPTER VIII.
EUROPEAN REVOLUTION.
Portugal.
1. THE discontent which existed in England was only
part of a general feeling of uneasiness which overspread
the Continent and took the form of a reaction
against the arrangements of the Treaty of
Vienna, and the repressive measures which succeeded it.
In these disputes the sympathies of the English people
were on one side; the sympathies of the Duke of
Wellington were thought, with only too good reason, to be
on the other. In Portugal, Don Miguel, brother of Don
Pedro, the new Emperor of Brazil, had usurped the
666
1829.
Modern England.
throne which belonged to his niece Donna Maria, the
daughter of Don Pedro. He overthrew the constitution
which had been defended by Canning, and established a
government supported by the priests and the nobility,
and recognised by no powers but Rome and Spain.
Donna Maria was received with honour in England, and
ministers declared that they would observe the strictest
neutrality; but it was evident that the feelings of the
government were really with the party of absolute govern-
ment, and our neutrality was so strictly interpreted that
we attacked an expedition sent out to garrison an island
which had remained faithful to the Queen Maria.
France.
2. France was the scene of far more serious disturb-
ances. Louis XVIII., who had been restored to the throne
after the fall of Napoleon, died in 1823, and
was succeeded by his brother. This was the
Count of Artois, whose frivolous youth had been spent
among the dissipations of Versailles, in the years which pre-
ceded the French Revolution; he now, as Charles X., go、
verned reluctantly as a constitutional king. In 1829 Prince
Polignac, a strong royalist, and a friend of Wellington,
joined the ministry. It was in a hopeless minority in the
Chamber of Deputies, as the French House of Commons
was called. After attempting in vain to pass some im-
portant measures, the Chamber was dissolved. The elec-
tions throughout the country were against the ministry,
and placed it in a worse position than before. It deter-
mined to adopt a high-handed course, and issued in the
king's name three ordinances, first to suspend the liberty
of the press, secondly to dissolve the newly-elected
chambers, and thirdly to alter their constitution. A revo-
lution broke out, the fury of which made three days
memorable in French History: the 27th, 28th, and 29th
of July, 1830. The king, who was at St. Cloud, abdicated,
and retired to England. Louis Philippe, son of Philippe
1830.
667
Wellington Resigns.
Duke of Orleans, who, in the first French Revolution, after
voting for the King's death had himself perished by the
guillotine, was first made Captain General and then King
of the French. An impulse towards independence spread
throughout Europe. Belgium separated itself from Hol-
land, a country different in language, religion, and race.
Poland attempted to recover its independence. It was
seen how vain had been the efforts of the Treaty of
Vienna to arrange the map of Europe without consulting
the wishes of the people who were chiefly concerned.
3. Just before the outbreak of the Revolution in France,
George IV. died (June, 1830). He was succeeded by the
Duke of Clarence under the name of William Wellington
IV., a popular sailor, deficient in regal qualities, resigns.
but who was understood to sympathise with the people.
Parliament was dissolved, as is usual, after the death of
a sovereign. The new elections were most unfavourable
to ministers. Brougham, a strong advocate for reform
and education, the favourite of the populace, was re-
turned for Yorkshire without expense. The king's speech
announced a defiant attitude. It regarded with coldness
the struggles on the Continent which roused so much
sympathy in England, it breathed a determination to
repress and crush all agitation throughout the country.
This was followed shortly afterwards by a statement of
the Duke of Wellington that he considered the reform of the
representation entirely unnecessary, and that he should
always resist it. His unpopularity became so great that
the king's visit to the City was postponed lest public
violence should be offered to the minister. At last the
government were defeated, and resigned in November,
1830.
9668
1830.
Modern England.
Lord Grey
Prime
Minister.
CHAPTER IX.
FIRST REFORM BILL.
J. THE time had now come when the accommodation of
the Constitution to new social conditions could no longer
be delayed. The importance of the crisis was fully
understood by both parties in the country, and the hopes
and fears of either have not been falsified by the result.
Lord Grey was pointed out as the natural head of a
ministry whose chief duty was to introduce a scheme of
Parliamentary reform. He was now sixty-six
years of age, and had made the same good
cause his own thirty years before. The Cabi-
net of fourteen was composed of nine Whigs, whose long
exclusion from office had made them less fit for the
work of administration, and four remnants of the party
of Canning. Lord Althorp was Chancellor of the Exche-
quer. Brougham, to the surprise of all men, became
Lord Chancellor, and deserted the scene of his triumphs
in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, as Secre-
tary for Foreign Affairs, held different opinions to his
colleagues. Lord Grey declared to the House which was
then sitting that the principles of his government were
reform, economy, order, and peace. Agitation still con-
tinued in England, but Ministers hoped to be able to
allay it by the measure which four of their number were
preparing in secrecy and silence.
Reform Bill
2. In March 1831, Lord John Russell asked leave to
introduce the first Reform Bill. The greatest excitement
prevailed; heaps of petitions were piled upon
introduced. the table, the House was crowded, dense
masses of the people stood outside waiting for the news,
and beyond them were horsemen ready to carry the first
1831.
669
Reform Bill.
information of the details of the Bill to every part of
England. The chief evils which demanded a remedy
were: 1. The existence of rotten boroughs, places with
few electors, and sometimes no inhabitants, which re-
turned two members to Parliament. 2. The fact that
large towns which had grown into importance through
commerce were left without representation. 3. The un-
equal distribution of the franchise itself, so that only a
small part of the population had the right of voting in
elections. The Bill proposed that sixty of the smaller
boroughs should be disfranchised altogether, that forty-
seven should return only one member instead of two; on
the other hand, London received eight additional repre-
sentatives, and thirty-four seats were distributed among a
number of towns hitherto unrepresented. The English
counties had allotted to them fifty-five new members, the
Scotch five, the Irish three, the Welsh one.
quence of these changes the numbers of the
Commons would be reduced from 658 to 596.
tions in towns lost their exclusive right of election, and it
was uniformly extended to all householders who paid £10
a year rent. This gave votes to half a million citizens
who were before without them.
In conse-
House of
Corpora-
Second
Reading.
3. Lord John Russell's speech was received with deri-
sive cheers and laughter, but Sir Robert Peel sat fixed and
immovable in his place, and the Duke of Wel-
lington told his friends in society 'that it was
no joke, and there was nothing to laugh at.' The debate
lasted seven nights, and brought out the conflicting objec
tions of the Tories and the Radicals. The one thought
such a reform, coupled with a free press, incompatible
with the power of the crown and the independence of the
Lords. 'It is a revolution,' said a Tory member. The
Radicals recognised the boldness of the measure, but
regretted that no mention was made of ballots, of shortened
670
1831.
Modern England.
Parliaments, or of universal suffrage. At last, after a
short reply from the opener of the debate, leave was given
to bring in a Reform Bill, and it was read for the first
time. The country was strangely divided. The Court,
the House of Lords, the clergy, the army and navy, the
universities, and the Inns of Court were mainly against
the Bill; it was supported by the manufacturers and the
body of the people. The press was generally in its favour.
Excitement was at its highest when Lord John Russell
proposed the second reading. After a debate of two
nights the motion was carried by a majority of one, the
numbers being 302 and 301. The success of the Bill
seemed to be very doubtful.
Dissolved.
4. After the Easter recess ministers announced some
changes in the details of the Bill. General Gascoigne,
Parliament in Committee, proposed that the number of
the English and Welsh members should not
be diminished. Lord Althorp declared that this motion
would be fatal to the Bill. At four in the morning it was
carried by a majority of eight. A dissolution was imme-
diately resolved on, but kept secret for the present. On
April 21, Ministers were again defeated by a majority of
twenty-two. A Cabinet Council was held, orders were
given for the attendance of the Officer's of State and the
royal guards, the King's consent was reluctantly obtained
by Lord Grey and Lord Brougham. The King surprised.
both Houses in the midst of a debate, protesting against
dissolution. Parliament was prorogued as a prelude to its
dissolution, and the question of reform was left to the
judgment of the country (April 1831).
1831.
671
Second Reform Bill.
CHAPTER X.
SECOND REFORM BILL.
I. THE dissolution of Parliament was followed by general
rejoicing and illuminations; those who refused to illumi-
nate had their windows broken.
In the New Parlia-
Bill passes
the Com-
mons.
The debate on
elections reformers were chosen throughout ment.
the country; of the county members nearly all were
pledged to support the Bill. The Second Reform Bill
was introduced by Lord John Russell in July.
It was the same as the first, with very few
modifications. Leave to introduce it was
granted with only one dissentient voice.
the second reading lasted three nights. The motion was
carried by a majority of 136, the numbers being 367 and
231. The Ministers had gained 135 votes by the dissolu-
tion. But the minority was united and determined. The
motion to go into committee was met by repeated
amendments. The House rose at half-past seven to sit
again at three. In committee the case of each borough
was separately discussed. It was urged that the Bill dis-
franchised the South of England for the benefit of the
North, but it was in the North that the chief increase of
wealth and population had taken place. Every art of
obstruction was put in force. The House continued to
sit through the tropical heat of July and past the 12th
of August, and the work of the Committee was only just
concluded before the coronation of the king in September
The Bill finally passed the House of Commons by a
majority of 106.
2. In October the second reading of the Bill was pro-
posed in the House of Lords by Lord Grey. He defended
672
1831.
Modern England.
\
the consistency of his career, and showed that he had
Rejected by supported Pitt's proposals for Reform in
the Lords. 1786. The debate continued for five nights.
The Duke of Wellington opposed the Bill; Lord Lynd-
hurst, who had been a Tory Lord Chancellor, complained
that it opened the flood-gates of democracy. The Chief
Justice and the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke the sen-
timents of their professions in demanding its rejection.
Earl Grey replied on the morning of the 8th, but the Bill
was rejected by a majority of 41.
3. The indignation of the country was extreme. A
spark might have produced a revolution. A cry was raised
for the abolition of the House of Lords.
Riots.
Un-
popular peers were attacked in the streets. A
procession of 60,000 persons presented a petition to the
King. Windows were broken in London, riots were
common throughout the country. The public mind was
calmed by Brougham and Russell. The people were
assured that there was no intention to desert their cause,
or to shelve the question of Reform, but that repose was
absolutely needed. Parliament was prorogued for a
month. Even after this it was found necessary to pro-
hibit political associations by proclamation. A terrible
riot took place in Bristol, directed against the recorder,
Sir C. Wetherall, one of the fiercest opponents of the
Bill. The constables were routed and soldiers were
called in to quell the tumult. The prisons were broken
open and the prisoners liberated, the mansion-house and
the bishop's palace were burned to the ground. The
riots were at last suppressed with great bloodshed and
loss of life. Bishops were burned in effigy throughout
England, and the Church was involved in the hatred
inspired by its chiefs.
1831.
673
Third Reform Bill.
CHAPTER XI.
THIRD REFORM BILL.
Bill passes
the Com-
mons.
1. PARLIAMENT met again in December, and the third
Reform Bill was introduced. The chief alterations made
in it were in adopting the census of 1831,
as a basis of calculation for the population
instead of that of 1821, and in maintaining
the members of the House of Commons at the original
number. The second reading was carried by a majority
of 162, and in spite of attempts at delay, the Bill finally
passed the Commons in March.
The Lords,
2. In the Upper House it was still violently opposed
by the Duke of Wellington, whereas a party called the
'Waverers' or the 'Trimmers' represented by
Lord Wharncliffe and Lord Harrowby were
disposed to accede to the second reading in order to
amend it in Committee. The Bill therefore passed
through this stage by a majority of nine. In Committee
an amendment of Lord Lyndhurst was adopted by a
majority of thirty-five. The debate was immediately
adjourned.
3. Ministers had before them the choice between ad-
vising the King to create sufficient peers to ensure the
passing of the Bill, or of resigning their
Ministry
offices. The King, whose early enthusiasm resigns.
for the measure had gradually cooled, was reluctant to
swamp the Upper House with new creations. So the
ministry chose to resign. The Lords determined to pro-
ceed with the discussion of the Bill, the Commons prayed
in an address to the throne that the measure passed by
them might not be surrendered. The excitement through-
out the country was more violent than ever. A union
E. H.
X X
674
1832.
Modern England.
was formed at Birmingham with the object of refusing to
pay taxes. Arms were prepared, and there was even
danger of a civil war. An attempt to form a ministry
among the enemies of Reform failed. Lord Lyndhurst
and Sir Robert Peel declined the post; the Duke of
Wellington undertook it, only to find it impossible.
Bill passes.
,
4. Lord Grey was recalled in May 1832; the King re-
luctantly gave permission to him and to Lord Brougham
to create such a number of peers as would
be necessary to pass the Bill, first calling up
peers' eldest sons. In consequence of this the opposition
of the Lords was suddenly withdrawn, the Waverers
declaring that they had been duped and cheated. The
Bill passed in June, only twenty-two peers voting against
it. The amendments of the Lords were shortly after-
wards accepted by the Commons, and the Bill became
law. The King refused to give his consent in person, but
it was given by commission amid the silence of deep
emotion. Parliament was shortly afterwards dissolved,
that a new House of Commons might be elected under
the new Act.
Reflections.
CHAPTER XII.
RESULTS OF THE REFORM BILL.
I. THE Reform Bill has not belied the prophecies of those
who opposed it. It was a great revolution, as momen-
tous though not so violent as the revolutions
of France in 1789, and of England in 1688.
Its consequences are still in the future. But although
the change it brought was as complete as was predicted
of it, its effects have been far from disastrous. It brought
about by gradual and silent means the reforms which are
1833.
675
New Parliament.
necessary to harmonise progress with stability, and new
ideas with old traditions. It took a large step towards
admitting the whole nation to the labours of government,
and allowed the national life to flow in a fuller tide.
ment.
2. A spirit of moderation governed the elections. The
attention of the new House of Commons, which met in
January 1833, was first directed to Ireland. New Parlia
Riots and disturbances rendered it necessary
to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. When this had been
done, it was possible to consider the wrongs of Ireland.
The first act of the government was to remedy the abuses
of the Irish Church. The number and salaries of the
higher clergy were reduced, and an attempt made to
diminish the injustice of the tithe, which often had to be
collected at the point of the bayonet.
3. Retrenchment and financial reforms next claimed
attention. Ministers felt bound to redeem their promises
on the one hand, and to resist their extreme Slavery
supporters on the other. The Government of abolished.
India lost the exclusive right of trading, but their charter
was renewed in other respects to their satisfaction. But
by far the most important measure was the abolition of
slavery in the British Empire. The victory so long striven
for by Wilberforce, Stephen, and Clarkson was at last
gained. The slaves were set free, at a great loss of pro-
perty to their owners. Some attempt was made to alleviate
the condition of factory-workmen at home, and a large
grant was given for education. Such efforts are only
possible when the feeling of the people is at a high pitch.
4. Parliament met for its Second Session in February
1834. It had first to deal with the affairs of Ireland.
Some liberals wished to diminish still further Second
the revenues of the Irish Church. O'Connell Session.
opposed any measure of political coercion. At last, worn
out with anxiety and vexation, Lord Grey retired from a
X X 2
576
1834.
Modern England.
position which had long been wearisome to him. Lord
Melbourne took his place, and the rest of the ministry
continued unchanged.
Lord Mel-
5. The force with which ministers had met a reformed
Parliament was exhausted. Attempts to give effect to
the rest of the measures which had been pro-
bourne's first mised ended in failure. Neither the Irish
Ministry. tithes nor the English poor rates could be
placed on a satisfactory footing. The one success was
the passing of the Bill to amend the poor law. By this
act the law of settlement by which paupers were removed
to the parish of their birth was abolished, workhouses
were erected throughout the country, outdoor relief was
greatly diminished, and the results were shown in a falling
of rates, a rise of wages, and a rapid spread of happiness
and contentment.
6. The popularity of the ministry was gone, but its
fall was sudden. The King, after a hasty declaration
in favour of the Irish Church, intimated to
Resignation.
his ministers that they should resign. Sir
Robert Peel, who was in Rome, was sent for in haste.
In the meantime the Duke of Wellington held nearly all
the offices of Government in his own hands. A new
ministry was formed, and Parliament was dissolved to
ascertain the feeling of the country, in December 1834.
CHAPTER XIII.
SIR R. PEEL'S FIRST MINISTRY.
SIR ROBERT PEEL took office under a strong sense of
duty but with little hope of success. In his address to his
constituents he tried to win the confidence of the country
by declaring a certain sympathy with Liberal measures.
1835.
677
Sir Robert Peel.
But though the country might trust the minister, it
could not trust those with whom he worked. A
parliament was returned which made it impossible
that he should remain long in office. The new
Parliament still contained a majority of Whigs,
although many seats, especially in the counties, had
been won by the Tories. These old party The new
names were now giving way to the terms Parliament.
Liberal and Conservative. Ministers were in a minority
from the first, they were beaten in the election of speaker,
and beaten on the address. Parliament was only restrained
by fear of a dissolution. Sir R. Peel inaugurated several
measures of the wisest character which were afterwards
adopted by the opposition. He established an ecclesi-
astical commission, to equalise the income of the clergy;
he tried to regulate the collection of tithes and the mar-
riage of dissenters; he was beaten in detail, but his enemies
shrank from proposing a vote of want of confidence.
Ministry
2. At last an issue was found in the question of the Irish
Church, and the appropriation of some of its revenues to
secular purposes. The ministry found itself
in a minority of thirty-three, and soon after falls.
resigned. The king was compelled to recall Lord Mel-
bourne, and the old ministry was restored with the ex-
ception of Lord Brougham. An attempt to force a Tory
government on the nation by the authority of the sovereign
thus signally failed. William IV. is more to be blamed
for trying it than the Duke of Wellington and Sir R. Peel
for supporting their sovereign.
678
1835.
Modern England.
Municipal
reform.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE KING'S LAST YEARS.
1. Two great problems lay before the ministry, the reform
of municipalities, and the reform of the Irish Church.
The government of boroughs, once the home
of liberty and the training ground for political
practice, had come to be as full of abuses as the repre-
sentation of the country. Some town councils consisted
of a great noble, the members of his family, and his chief
man of business, and their sole function was to elect
members to Parliament. Early in September, 1835, a
measure was passed, with the concurrence of Lords and
Commons, which rendered municipal government a reality,
provided for the proper election of aldermen, abolished
the unreasonable privileges of freemen, a class of men
who by the accident of birth were invested with the
government of the towns; and struck off the fetters from
many industries. This measure completed and extended
the work of the Reform Bill.
Ireland.
2. The grievances of Ireland still continued. During
the last fifty years a number of political societies called
Orange Lodges had sprung up in the province
of Ulster. Their object was to support the
cause of Protestantism against the ribbon men, who were
Catholics. The attempt to diminish the revenues of
the Irish Church favoured the extension of these lodges.
They spread throughout Ireland, England, and the
colonies. Their members reached the number of 300,000,
and the Duke of Cumberland, the king's brother, was
placed at their head with almost despotic power. They
were considered a menace to the peace of the kingdom
and were quietly dissolved in 1836.
3. Opportunity was taken for carrying a number of
1836.
679
Death of William IV.
domestic reforms. A uniform registration of births,
deaths, and marriages was ordered through- Domestic
out the kingdom; the revenues of bishops reforms.
and canons were equalised in pursuance of the report of
the Ecclesiastical Commission; the tax on newspapers
was reduced to a penny in spite of the opposition of the
Tories, who preferred cheap soap to a cheap press.
4. The power of the Ministry did not last much longer.
Deserted by some old allies, they failed to carry mea-
sures of further improvement. Discredited
by repeated defeats, they would have resigned
King dies.
if it had not been for the illness and death of the king.
This took place in June, 1837. William IV. was honest
and conscientious. His reign witnessed a great revolu-
tion in the Reform Bill, and a strong impulse to commerce
by the extension of railways and growth of steamships.
With good reason his statue adorns the passage of the
Houses of Parliament as representing a time when the
national progress was unusually rapid.
CHAPTER XV.
THE NEW REIGN.
The Queen.
I. No monarch ever came to the throne more popular than
Queen Victoria, the daughter of the Duke of Kent, just
eighteen years old. Her youth secured sym-
pathy; her conduct soon won for her affec-
tion and respect. Consideration for her feelings kept the
ministers in power, as the nation did not wish to deprive
her of advisers whom she was understood to like. To
the joy of Englishmen Hanover was separated from
the crown by passing to a male heir. An outbreak in
Canada threatened to become serious, and the first
680
1837.
Modern England.
measures of the new sovereign were directed to the sup-
pression of rebellion.
2. Discontent in Canada arising from disputes between
the French and English Canadians had been fostered by
the United States. Major Head, governor of
Canada.
Upper Canada, sent away the soldiers, called
out the militia and loyal inhabitants, and entirely crushed the
rebels. He was reprimanded and recalled. Lord Durham,
a man of the highest character, was sent out to appease
the province. Nothing could be more heroic than his
performance of duty, while he was slowly wasting with
incurable disease and thwarted by factious opposition. He
failed in the object of his mission, and came home to die.
3. The Ministry continued to exist on sufferance. They
had no power to carry measures or to support their ser-
Bedchamber vants. In May, 1839, they were defeated in
question. a question about Jamaica. They resigned;
but Sir R. Peel made it a condition of taking office that
a change should be made in the ladies of the Queen's
bedchamber. The Queen objected, and the ministry
remained in their posts; but it has since been held that
the chief officers who surround the person of the sove-
reign are changed with a change of ministry.
4. The same year saw the introduction of penny post-
age, the invention of Rowland Hill. At this time no post-
age was under 2d. Letters from the country
Penry post.
to London cost from 6d. to IS.; from Scotland
to Ireland Is. or Is. 6d. Rowland Hill showed that
the actual cost of carrying each letter was very small,
and that if a stimulus was given the traffic would increase
enormously. Experience has endorsed this, and cheap
postage has been adopted by all civilised nations.
Postage stamps were also introduced, and franking, the
privilege of sending letters free of postage reserved to
members of Parliament, was abolished.
1840.
681
Prince Albert.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE QUEEN'S MARRIAGE.
1. STATESMEN had long been occupied with the question
of the queen's marriage; none more so than the king of
the Belgians, uncle of the Queen, himself the Prince
widower of a princess who was heir to the Albert.
English throne. Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg Gotha,
the Queen's first cousin, had been silently educated for
his destinies. The marriage, which took place in Feb.
1840, was happily one of love. The prince's virtues formed
the real foundation of the prosperity of the reign, and it
will be recognised by posterity that his many-sided culture
and intellectual activity have left an indelible stamp on the
minds and character of Englishmen. The best results
of German thought were transfused into English man-
liness, an effect which the union with Hanover had never
been able to accomplish.
2. The government regained some little strength by its
activity in crushing the attempt of Egypt to revolt from
the Porte. But they were not able to pass Ministers
measures of importance, and the debates on resign.
the budget overthrew them. They were defeated in a
measure which anticipated the repeal of the corn laws.
Instead of resigning, they dissolved Parliament in June
1841. But the country ratified the judgment of the
House, and after the election the Conservatives divided
on the address with a majority of 91. A new ministry was
formed, of which the principal members were Sir R. Peel
and the Duke of Wellington.
682
1841.
Modern England.
CHAPTER XVII.
AFGHANISTAN.
1. THE coming of the Conservatives into office was
felt as the beginning of a new era. The prospect of
war abroad and of distress at home gilded any change
with the radiance of hope. The Queen parted with
sorrow from her old advisers, but she soon learned
to depend on her new servants with equal confidence.
Sir R. Peel, at the outset of his ministry, found him-
self compelled to provide for a deficiency of revenue of
Corn Laws.
corn.
two millions and a half, and to take at least
some steps in the direction of free trade in
At this time the poor were paying a large price
for their daily bread in order that the farmers of England
might derive a supposed advantage of profit, while quan-
tities of corn from the Baltic and the Black Sea were
kept out of England by an unreasonable duty. The prime
minister proposed an alteration of what was called the
sliding scale—that is, a set of duties varying with the
price of corn in the English market-his object being to
maintain the price of wheat as nearly as possible at sixty
shillings. A motion for the repeal of the corn laws was
made by the leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law League, Cobden
and Villiers. It was lost by a large majority, and the
government proposals were easily carried.
2. The deficiency in the revenue was made worse by the
outbreak of a war in China and the possibility of troubles
on the Indian frontier. Sir R. Peel determined
Income Tax. to deal with the whole matter comprehensively,
and began that series of financial reforms which, con-
tinued by his pupil, Mr. Gladstone, have done much to
raise England to her present height of prosperity. The
chief source of proposed revenue was the income tax, at
1841.
683
Afghanistan.
that time new and violently opposed, but which has since
been found a powerful engine in times of difficulty. Besides
this, he revised the whole tariff of imports, simplifying
them wherever it was possible, and preparing the way for
free trade. At this time a penny income tax produced half
a million revenue; it now produces a million and a half.
3. Afghanistan, a province on the north-western frontier
of India, is approached by two passes from the plains.
The Khyber Pass, a long and difficult defile, Disaster in
leads to Jellalabad, and the Khoord Cabul Afghanistan.
Pass, still longer and more difficult, bars the passage to
Cabul. Afghanistan had been occupied by General
Elphinstone, who, fearing for his retreat, sent General
Sale to occupy the pass to Jellalabad. In the meantime
he neglected the commonest precaution. The Afghans,
excited by some wild rumours, rose against him, cut off
his provisions, killed the British Envoy by treachery, and
compelled the army to shameful capitulation. No faith
was kept by the barbarians. Deprived of food, harassed
by treacherous attacks, the army dwindled away to a mere
handful. The women and children had at last to be sur-
rendered to the faithless enemy; out of 16,000 men who
left Cabul only one survivor reached the city of Jellalabad.
Vengeance.
4. No insult of this kind has remained long unavenged.
General Pollock marched with 8,000 men through the
Khyber Pass. He joined General Sale at
Jellalabad, who had defended the city, al-
though it was shaken with a hundred shocks of earth-
quake. In August 1842 the two armies moved through
the pass of Khoord Cabul, where their countrymen had
perished man by man. The city of Cabul was taken
and given up to plunder, and the Great Bazaar was
burned to the ground. Afghanistan was entirely reduced,
but the English did not care to retain so useless and so
costly a possession.
684
1843.
Modern England.
Reforms.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FREE TRADE.
1. THE next three years are chiefly occupied with the
struggle between protection and free trade, but little
progress was made with this question in the
session of 1843. The year was taken up with
discussions on factory labour, on education, on church
rates, with the visit of the Queen to the King of the French,
and the excitement at Oxford caused by the defection of
some prominent high churchmen to the Church of Rome.
It was found that the financial reforms of the previous ses-
sion had been a brilliant success. Instead of two millions
and a half deficit, there was a million and a half surplus
after all debts had been paid, and an anticipation of a
still larger balance for next year.
Ireland.
2. The emancipation of the Catholics had not suc-
ceeded in quieting Ireland. The movement for repeal of
the Union was still in full vigour, and O'Connell
told a large meeting at Tara that within a
year a Parliament would be sitting at College Green in
Dublin. Another meeting, summoned with all the parade
of military organisation, was prohibited by proclamation,
and prevented by O'Connell. He was, nevertheless, tried
for sedition and condemned by a Protestant jury to im-
prisonment and fine. The judgment was reversed after a
tempestuous scene in the House of Lords, and the ac-
quittal of the great agitator was received with joy through-
out Ireland. Little more was heard of O'Connell. He was
now grown old and weary, and his followers knew that
they would be treated in future with severity or mercy, as
they deserved it. In the next year the Government did
an act of justice by endowing the Catholic College of
Maynooth.
je
&
1845.
685
Potato Disease.
Free Trade.
3. In the meantime events were rapidly moving to-
wards free trade. Sir R. Peel, assisted by Mr. Gladstone,
went on with his financial reforms. He pro-
posed to use the surplus produced by the
income tax in reducing the taxes on commodities. A
great change was proposed in the sugar duties, wise in
the main, but disfigured by traces of protection. The
agricultural distress of the year gave the free traders an
opportunity of enforcing their views, whilst a new party
of young England, led by Mr. Disraeli and Lord John
Manners, thought that the landed interests were too
heavily taxed already, and ought to be relieved.
4. The Session of 1845 closed quietly enough. The
increased Maynooth Grant had been passed, the Jews
admitted to municipal offices, the Oregon dis- Potato
pute with the United States arranged, New Disease.
Zealand pacified. Suddenly an unexpected crisis arose.
A disease which entirely destroyed the potato plant
appeared first in England and then in Ireland. The
whole subsistence of the Irish peasantry was destroyed.
Pressure was put upon the Ministry to admit foreign corn
free of duty. The country was deluged with the free
trade tracts of the Anti-Corn Law League. Sir R. Peel
was convinced that protection was no longer tenable, but
his Cabinet would not follow him. Lord Stanley resigned,
and the Ministry broke up. Lord J. Russell was unable
to form a cabinet, and Sir R. Peel was induced to take
office again. It was known that he would meet Parlia-
ment in 1846, pledged to support the cause of free trade.
5. The agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws began
in Manchester towards the end of 1836. In a season of
distress it appeared to some of the most influ- Anti-Corn
ential members of this rising town that the
Law League.
only remedy lay in free trade, and that by artificially
keeping up the price of corn the manufacturing interests
686
1846.
Modern England.
of the country were sacrificed to the agricultural interests.
Three years later the Anti-Corn Law League was formed.
Its most prominent members from the first were Mr.
Cobden and Mr. Bright, who sacrificed their worldly pros-
perity in a great measure to the work of converting their
countrymen to the principles of true economy. Very
large sums of money were collected for the purposes of
the League. A free trade hall was built in Manchester.
In 1843 the 'Times' acknowledged that the League was a
great fact, and compared it to the wooden horse by which
the Greeks were secretly brought within the walls of Troy.
At the end of 1845 it was stronger than ever in men,
money, and enthusiasm.
Corn Law
Repeal.
5. On the assembling of Parliament in 1846, the Queen's
speech and the address in reply to it indicated the coming
change. Sir R. Peel rose immediately after-
wards, and honestly confessed his alteration
of opinion. He had observed, he said, during the last three
years (1) that wages do not vary with the price of food, and ·
that with high prices you do not necessarily have high
wages; (2) that employment, high prices, and abundance
contribute directly to the diminution of crime; (3) that
by the gradual removal of protection, industry had been
promoted, crime had been diminished, and morality
improved. Sir R. Peel was followed by Mr. Disraeli,
who, expressing the passion of the protectionist country
gentlemen, violently assailed the minister. In February
Sir R. Peel announced a fixed duty on corn for three
years, and afterwards its entire abolition. The free
traders attempted to dispense with this delay, but they
were beaten by a large majority, and the bill passed easily.
The Duke of Wellington secured its acceptance in the
House of Lords. He had became wiser since the Reform
Bill, and his conduct on this occasion compensated for
the errors of his previous career.
6. The protectionists determined on their revenge.
1847.
687
The People's Charter.
Ministers
resign.
A Bill for the suppression of crime in Ireland gave the
opportunity. Lord George Bentinck assailed
the Ministers with violence, and they were
defeated by a majority of seventy-three on the very
evening that the Corn Bill passed the House of Lords.
The Whigs who had assisted Sir R. Peel in carrying free
trade now joined the Protectionists in turning him out.
Ministers had nothing left them but to resign, and Lord
John Russell was ordered to form a cabinet. The new
ministry did not do much in the session of 1847. They
were obliged to propose a second time the measure for
the pacification of Ireland which had brought about the
defeat of their opponents. A bill for shortening the hours
of labour in factories passed without difficulty. This year
was also marked by the death of O'Connell at Genoa, on
his way to Rome, and by the voluntary dissolution of the
Anti-Corn Law League.
CHAPTER XIX.
!
THE CHARTER.
Discontent.
1. ALTHOUGH no great question was before the nation,
Parliament had been dissolved. The result of the new
elections was a slight increase of strength to
the Government. It was proceeding to con-
sider simple measures of practical reform, when a new
and unexpected danger demanded its attention. A revo-
lution which broke out in France in 1848 overthrew the
monarchy of Louis Philippe, and established a republic
in its place. The contagion spread throughout Europe.
In every country thrones were tottering, and England was
not exempt from the general disorder. The discontent
of the Irish increased, and Smith O'Brien took the place
688
1847.
Modern England.
of O'Connell. In England the excitement was shown by
the agitation of the Chartists.
2. The Chartists derived their name from the sketch
of a new Reform Bill, which had obtained the title of the
The People's People's Charter. It contained six principal
Charter, points: 1. Universal suffrage. 2. Annual
parliaments. 3. Vote by ballot. 4. Abolition of property
qualification for members of parliament. 5. The payment
of members. 6. Equal electoral districts. This had
been finally drawn up in 1838, but for many years the
agitation for it was obscured by other matters.
In 1839
a petition containing a million and a quarter names was
presented to Parliament. In 1840 an attack made by the
Chartists on Newport was crushed by the firmness of the
mayor. In 1847 the Chartists put out their full strength
and gained several seats in Parliament, and especially
the election of their leader Feargus O'Connor for Not-
tingham.
3. Inspired by their successes, the Chartists determined
to hold a monster meeting on the tenth of April on Ken-
nington Common; from this place they were
April 10. to march and present a huge petition to the
House of Commons. They even talked of imitating
France in the establishment of a republic. The Govern-
ment determined to prevent the march. Soldiers were
posted in all parts of London by the Duke of Wellington,
170,000 special constables were sworn in, the public
offices, the bank and post office were armed to the teeth.
All their designs ended in failure. The meeting was far
smaller than had been expected, the march was given
up, and the petition of five million and a half of names
was found to contain only a third of this number, and
those mainly fictitious. The movement could not survive
the ridicule of exposure.
1849.
The Gorham Case.
689
CHAPTER XX.
THE GREAT EXHIBITION.
Progress.
1. THE chief subjects of discontent which existed when our
period opened had now been removed. The
disabilities of Catholics had been taken away,
the corn laws had been repealed, the Irish had been
pacified, rebellion in England had been crushed. The
country entered upon a career of peaceful progress. In
1849 the navigation laws, which had been passed by
Cromwell's Government in 1651, and which had first
transferred the carrying trade from Holland to this
country, were repealed. This was a legitimate extension
of the principles of free trade.
2. At this time a dispute arose in an ecclesiastical ques-
tion which was a forerunner of many similar discussions in
later years. Mr. Gorham had been presented The Gorham
to a living in the diocese of Exeter. The Case.
bishop took the unusual course of examining his opinions,
and refused to institute him because he was unsound on
the question of baptismal regeneration. The Court of
Arches, a court reserved for the trial of ecclesiastical
matters, supported the bishop, but its decision was
reversed by the judicial committee of the Privy Council,
a lay court of appeal which had lately received power of
revising the judgments of the ecclesiastical courts. The
low church party was rejoiced at the freedom allowed it;
the high church party, which had recently been strength-
ened by a movement to increase its power begun at Ox-
ford, was angry first at the slight thrown on an important
doctrine, and secondly that the law should ultimately
decide on church matters. However a Bill introduced to
alter the constitution of the court was rejected by the
House of Commons. To this year 1850 also belongs the
E. H.
Y Y
690
18511
Modern England.
commencement of an attempt to make the universities
more useful to the whole nation by the appointment of a
royal commission. Party spirit was hushed for a time by
the death of Sir Robert Peel.
The Great
Exhibition.
3. Some slight excitement was caused by the appoint-
ment by the Pope of Roman Catholic bishops,
under an Archbishop of Westminster, and
the division of England into dioceses. It produced how-
ever much less effect than was anticipated. All thoughts
were concentrated on the Great Exhibition, to be held in
Hyde Park in 1851. The design and execution were
entirely the work of Prince Albert. A building of a new
kind, made of glass and iron, was invented as if for the very
purpose. It contained the industrial products of all nations,
and it was hoped that peaceful competition had rendered
the horrors of war for ever impossible. The enterprise
was a brilliant success, it fulfilled the hopes of its pro-
jectors, and the profits wisely invested have been a means
of promoting art and culture throughout England.
4. As if in mockery of human designs, this hope of
peace was succeeded by a destructive war. Louis Napoleon,
nephew of the Great Emperor, President of
Change of
Ministry. the French Republic since 1848, had just made
himself Emperor of the French. It was feared that a mili-
tary power so near to us might drag us into an unwise
policy. Lord John Russell was succeeded as minister by
Lord Derby. But a dissolution of Parliament brought back
the old ministry with Lord Aberdeen at its head, and
Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of Exchequer. His budget
inaugurated a new series of financial reforms. He
formed a plan of reducing the national debt, while he
retained the income tax in order to make it easier to tax
more equally the chief articles of daily consumption.
5. A dispute had arisen between Russia and Turkey,
ostensibly about the guardianship of the Holy Places in
1853-
691
Crimean War.
Jerusalem, but the root of the quarrel lay far deeper.
Turkey, a decaying power, had become more War.
and more unfit to govern Christians. Russia
was deeply interested in protecting the Slavonic races
under the Turkish rule who were of the same blood and
origin as herself; she wished also to extend her power
to the Dardanelles. If great calmness had been shown
on both sides peace might have been preserved. But the
Russian Emperor Nicholas was violent and impetuous,
our ambassador at Constantinople was a sworn enemy of
Russia. A war was necessary to the Emperor of the
French for the consolidation of his throne. The spirit of
both nations was gradually roused. The Russians entered
the Danubian principalities, and burned the Turkish fleet
at Sinope. Lord Aberdeen strained every nerve for peace.
Lord Palmerston, the home secretary, threatened to resign
unless strong measures were adopted. The country ap-
proached nearer and nearer to the brink of war. The
attitude of England in 1853 was not the same as it had
been in 1827. Then she took part with Russia against
Turkey in order to restrain her in the vehemence of
victory; now she allied herself with Turkey to stop the
advance of Russia. The one policy established the in-
dependence of Greece; the other, although it crippled
Russia for a time, could only delay for a season the
inevitable break-up of the Ottoman Empire.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CRIMEAN WAR.
1. IN November, 1853, the Emperor of Russia declared
war against Turkey. To the surprise of Europe, the Turks
Outbreak of at first held their own against the invader. The
Russians were repulsed from every point of
War.
Y Y 2
69%
1854.
Modern England.
attack along the Danube, and the Emperor became more
exasperated at the failure of his arms. The Emperor of
the French attempted in vain to mediate. At last a
message was sent by England that unless the Russian
troops were withdrawn across the Pruth before the end
of April 1854, it would be considered that war had been
declared. To this the Czar made no reply, and the war
began its course.
Crimea.
2. The plan of operations was very simple. Russia could
only be attacked in her extremities, and England could only
act on a sea base. A fleet was sent into the
Baltic with high expectations of success, which
were not realised, and a large force of English and French
troops were despatched into the Black Sea with the
object of taking Sebastopol, a powerful fortress which the
Russians had recently constructed at great expense. In
September the allies landed at Eupatoria, in the Crimea,
and six days later completely defeated the Russians at
the Battle of the Alma. It might have been possible to
attack Sebastopol with success from the northern side,
but it was thought more prudent to besiege it from the
south, and the batteries opened fire in October. The
Battle of Balaklava fought on October 25 was signalised
by a charge of six hundred light cavalry, in which nearly
half were killed or wounded. In November was fought
the Battle of Inkerman, in which an attempt to surprise
the British army was defeated by the steadiness of the
guards. The winter tried the army severely, and the want
of supplies and hospitals roused indignation at home.
3. Discontent ripened into suspicion. Mr. Roebuck
proposed an inquiry into the conduct of the Ministry.
Change of
Unable to meet it, the cabinet of Lord Aber-
Ministry. deen resigned, and, after a short delay, Lord
Palmerston formed a Government not very different
from the previous one. It soon lost the services of
1855.
693
Peace of Paris.
Mr. Gladstone and two others, but it was able to carry
on the war with undiminished vigour. The death of the
Czar in March gave only a slight hope of peace. In
April the siege was reopened, and continued with varying
success. On June 18, the anniversary of Waterloo, the
allies were repulsed in an attack upon the Redan and
Malakhoff batteries, and at the end of the month Lord
Raglan, the commander-in-chief, died. At last, after a
month's incessant bombardment, an attack was made on
the fortifications in September. The result was that the
Russians evacuated the town, blowing up their forts, and
leaving their wounded behind them.
4. Before the end of the year negotiations for peace
were begun by the help of Austria. The French were
more anxious for a settlement than the Eng- Peace.
lish. The points most difficult for Russia to
accept were the limitation of her power in the Black Sea
and the cession of a portion of Bessarabia to Roumania.
These points were at last arranged, and the Treaty of
Paris was signed in March 1856. Thus ended a war
which crippled the power of Russia for twenty years, and
delayed for a time the inevitable fate of Turkey.
CHAPTER XXII.
INDIAN
MUTINY.
I. THE rest of the year 1856 passed quietly, but in the
spring of 1857 the Government were defeated on a
motion of Mr. Cobden's condemning their China
action with regard to a war which had broken War.
out in China. Ministers determined to dissolve Parlia-
ment rather than to resign, and the issue placed before
the country was that of confidence in Lord Palmerston.
694
1857.
Modern England.
In the election Cobden and Bright were rejected as
members of the peace party. The liberal cause on the
whole was supported by a triumphant majority.
Indian
2. The elections were closely followed by a terrible ca
lamity in India. A wide-spread rebellion of the native
soldiers had broken out in the country, accom-
mutiny. panied by atrocities such as English men and
women had never suffered before. The pretext for the revolt
was the dislike of the Indian native soldiers to the use of
greased cartridges which might contain the fat of cows
or pigs, animals which their religion teaches them may
not be eaten. This rebellion may have been connected
with the Russian war, but it was certainly stimulated by
the withdrawal of troops for China. The mutiny first
broke out at Barrackpore; it then appeared at Lucknow
and Meerut. Delhi, the ancient capital, was seized by
the rebels, and the native king was placed on the throne
of his ancestors. The whole of Northern India was in
disturbance. Sir Henry Lawrence, with the English gar-
rison, was a prisoner at Lucknow in Oude. The treachery
of Nana Sahib decoyed the garrison of Cawnpore to their
destruction. The wives and children whom they had
left behind were slaughtered by native butchers and
thrown into a well.
3. The Government strained every effort to recover the
country. Delhi was taken by Wilson, Cawnpore was re-
lieved by Havelock-too late, however, to save
Recovery.
his countrywomen from murder. A conqueror
in twelve battles, he entered Lucknow in time to prevent
a similar calamity. He died in the hour of victory. A
black cloud of mutineers retook Cawnpore, and threatened
Lucknow, but they were entirely defeated in the field by
Sir Colin Campbell. At the close of 1857 the great de-
pendency was again almost at peace, and in June 1858,
the work was completed by the capture of Gwalior.
1858.
695
Change of Ministry.
4. Great as was the provocation, it may be doubted
whether too wild and passionate a vengeance was not in-
flicted on the mutineers. Many of them were
blown from guns, a death peculiarly horrible
Results.
in their eyes. Our country received a severe lesson from
the shock of this calamity. Among its principal effects
were the transference of the government of India from
the East India Company to the Crown, and the awaken-
ing of Englishmen to a deeper interest in Indian affairs.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LORD DERBY.
I. ALTHOUGH the French alliance was popular through-
out the country, it was not so with the personal character
of the French Emperor. Men felt that they Change of
did not understand and could not trust him, Ministry.
and it weakened the position of the Prime Minister that
he was believed to be the Emperor's intimate friend. An
unexpected occurrence made this suddenly manifest. An
attack made by Italian refugees on the life of the Emperor
Napoleon in January 1858 was the occasion of a demand
from the French Government that we should cease to
offer facilities for the conspiracies of political exilés.
Lord Palmerston, in deference to this request, proposed
to alter the English law of conspiracy to murder. When
this was rejected by a majority of 19, he immediately
resigned, and was succeeded by Lord Derby at the head
of a Conservative Ministry. The year was occupied by
various internal reforms: the choice of Indian civil
servants by competitive examination was extended, the
Thames was purified, a telegraphic cable was laid be-
tween England and America. It appeared that the
question of Parliamentary Reform, which had been
696
1858.
Modern England.
stopped by the war, but had never sunk into oblivion,
had now to be faced, and Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli
braced themselves to deal with a problem which they
acknowledged to be unwelcome.
New
2. The Reform Bill introduced by Mr. Disraeli was
not satisfactory. It gave the franchise to a number of dif-
ferent classes without resting it on any broad
Parliament. or comprehensive basis. A resolution pro-
posed by Lord John Russell which expressed this feeling
was carried against the Government by a majority of
39.
Ministers determined to dissolve. The issue before
the country was not entirely of a domestic character.
War had broken out between France and Austria for the
liberation of Italy, and the feeling of England was strongly
with Italian Unity. The liberals, who were known to
have this cause at heart, were returned in a majority of
50, and immediately after Parliament met Ministers were
compelled to resign, defeated in a vote of confidence.
This was the sixth change of ministry which had taken
place in fifteen years.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LORD PALMERSTON.
1. LORD PALMERSTON now became Prime Minister, with
Lord J. Russell as Foreign Secretary, Mr.
Reform Bill.
Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
Lord Granville President of the Council (June 1859). The
first step of the Government was the conclusion of a
commercial treaty with France, based on principles of
free trade. Mr. Cobden had been the negotiator, and Mr.
Gladstone, in a speech which announced a new era of
financial policy, expressed the long services of the free
1859.
697
American War.
trader in language of universally accepted praise. The
Ministry attempted to satisfy the expectations of the
country by bringing forward a Reform Bill. It was as
simple as its forerunner had been complicated. It pro-
posed a franchise of £10 in counties, £6 in boroughs, and
a redistribution of seats. The languid interest felt in it
by the Premier was a sign of the indifference of the
country, and the Bill was withdrawn.
2. In 1861 a civil war broke out in America between
the Northern and Southern States. The matters in dispute
between them were many and various, but American
the most important point at issue was the War.
question of slavery. The English people generally took
the side of the South, partly from a supposed community
of feeling and partly from a jealousy of America, and a
wish to see her dismembered. This feeling was intensi-
fied by the capture of two Southern envoys while under
the protection of the British flag. There was danger of
war breaking out, but the Northern States submitted to
an ultimatum, and returned the prisoners.
Death of
Consort.
3. The affair of the 'Trent,' as this dispute was called
from the name of the ship in which the envoys were sailing,
was the last public question in which Prince
Albert, now for some time since called the the Prince
Prince Consort, was engaged. After a few
days' illness, he died at Windsor in December 1861, at
the age of forty-two. The grief of the English nation
was universal and spontaneous. Only gradually did the
country come to learn that he had been king of England
for twenty years, while no one knew it.
4. The American war affected England in two ways.
First, the ordinary supply of cotton to our manufacturing
districts was cut off, and a great distress was
felt in Lancashire, which was known by the Famine and
name of the cotton famine. The operatives
Cotton
'Alabama.'
698
1862.
Modern England.
displayed the utmost patience and self-control under their
afflictions, and large subscriptions were contributed for
their support.
Lord Derby gave the services of his
genius to the organisation of relief, and cotton, the
threads of which were of a shorter length, was provided
from India. Before the American war was over the worst
pressure of distress had passed. The other trouble was
of longer duration. A ship called the 'Alabama' was
fitted out from an English dockyard, notwithstanding the
protest of the American Ambassador, with the object of
making war on American commerce in the interests of the
Southern States. The Americans felt that the negligence
shown in not stopping this vessel expressed only too
clearly the sympathies of England. They could not at
this time do anything to prevent or to avenge the wrong,
but when the war was over a feeling of bitterness was
left, which nearly led to an open rupture, and was with
difficulty appeased.
Repose.
5. Lord Palmerston died in October 1865. The condi-
tion of parties during these closing years was remarkable.
Popular throughout the country, the Premier
was trusted equally by Conservatives and
Liberals. The policy of a long life was the earnest of his
liberalism; and, at the same time, he was known to be
opposed to organic reform. The great questions which
were agitated in later years now slumbered, and the
reform of the representation, which lay at the root of all
other measures, was deferred with the admonition that
the nation should rest and be thankful for what it had
already achieved. A new election in the spring of 1865
returned a solid Liberal majority with a few Liberal losses.
No loss, however, was so great as the premature death of
Richard Cobden.
·
6. Earl Russell succeeded Lord Palmerston as Pre-
mier; Mr. Gladstone became leader of the House of
1866.
699
Mr. Disraeli.
Earl Russell
Prine
Minister.
Commons; the ministry in other respects remained un-
changed. The history of this administration
is the history of the Liberal Reform Bill. The
Bill introduced by Mr. Gladstone in March
1866 gave the franchise to householders of the value of
£14 in counties and £7 in boroughs. It was evidently a
compromise, and was not heartily supported either by
the cabinet or by the party. A section of the Liberals,
called by Mr. Bright the 'Cave of Adullam,' joined the
opposition in resisting it, and in June the ministry were
defeated and resigned. They were succeeded by a Con-
servative Government, the principal members of which
were Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli.
CHAPTER XXV.
MR. DISRAELI.
I. LORD DERBY promised a safe and moderate measure
of reform. But the agitation throughout the country was
very great. The war in Germany, which in Reform
six weeks made Prussia instead of Austria the Agitation.
dominant power in that country, passed almost unheeded.
The somewhat cruel suppression of a rebellion in Jamaica
by Governor Eyre was condemned by advanced Liberals.
The laying of a telegraph cable between Ireland and
Newfoundland gave hope to those who wished for a
union of affection between two mighty continents. But
the desire for reform was unmistakable. In July the
Reform League was forbidden to hold a meeting in Hyde
Park, but the masses who had accompanied them threw
down the railings and pushed back the police who would
have barred their passage. The reform addresses of
Gladstone and Bright were received with enthusiasm.
700
1867.
Modern England.
Reform Bill
2. At the beginning of the session of 1867, Mr. Disraeli
proposed resolutions which were to be the basis of a
reform bill. A considerable extension of the
introduced. franchise was contemplated, limited by a
system of plurality of votes. Parliament objected to this
method, and it became necessary for Ministers to agree
in a definite measure; of two alternative courses the
more liberal was adopted, but Lord Carnarvon, Lord
Cranbourne, and General Peel could not accede to it,
and left the Ministry. Mr. Disraeli expounded his measure
in March. The proposed franchise was founded on
rating and not on rental. The franchise in boroughs was
given to all householders paying rates; in counties it was
given to occupiers of property rated at £15 a year.
Besides this, the franchise was given to all men of a
certain education, or who had saved a certain sum of
money. In some cases voters were allowed a double vote
in respect of possessing a double qualification.
Amendments
in Com-
mittee.
3. The Bill was violently opposed by Mr. Gladstone,
who objected to its provisions in almost every par-
ticular, but the section of his party, who
formed the Cave of Adullam,' declined
to follow him in procuring the defeat of
the Government. Notwithstanding this, the measure
was gradually changed piece by piece until it was entirely
altered. The abolition of compound householders, that
is, of those whose rates were paid for them in the lump
by their landlords, nearly quadrupled the number of
voters; lodgers were admitted to the franchise, the county
franchise was reduced, and the distribution of seats was
changed. The Bill, as it was passed by both Houses
weary with argument at the end of July, almost reached
the limit of manhood suffrage. It had been passed by a
Conservative Ministry, and Lord Derby described it as a
leap in the dark.
}
868.
701
Gladstone's Ministry.
4. It was necessary that Parliament should meet again
in the autumn of 1867 to vote supplies for an expedition
to Abyssinia, undertaken to release some
Return of the
Englishmen who were kept in prison by the Liberals.
king. The prisoners were released, and Magdala, the
king's capital, destroyed. Early in the session of 1868
Lord Derby resigned the Premiership from bad health,
and was succeeded by Mr. Disraeli. It soon became
obvious that the main point of struggle between the two
parties would be the disestablishment of the Irish Church.
At the end of March, Mr. Gladstone moved resolutions
to that effect. The Government had been defeated by
small majorities before the Easter recess. In April it
was beaten on the Irish Church question by a majority of
eighty-five. Parliament was dissolved, and the result of
the elections was a signal victory for the Liberals. The
Government did not wait for the opening of the session,
but resigned their offices, and just before the close of 1868
Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister.
CHAPTER XXVI.
IRISH CHURCH AND LAND.
Disestablish-
ment of Irish
Church.
1. It is natural that in England constitutional changes
should be followed by great activity in administrative
reform. The ministries which succeeded the
Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867 carried a
number of measures which could only be
carried when the tide of public spirit was in the flood.
Both ministries soon exhausted the popularity which had
enabled these measures to be passed. The chief members
of Mr. Gladstone's cabinet were Lord Hatherley, Mr.
Lowe, Mr. Bruce, Lord Granville, Mr. Bright, and Mr.
702
1870.
Modern England.
Childers. During its five years' tenure of office it showed
a great activity in every branch of administrative reform.
This could only be maintained by a large majority in Par-
liament, directed by a chief of exceptional ability, at a time
when the feeling of the country was wrought to an unusual
strain. The first efforts of the Government were directed
to the removal of Irish grievances by the disestablishment
of the Irish Church, and the regulation of Irish land. The
country had determined by the elections that the Irish
branch of the Church of England should cease to exist
under State protection. The working out of that change
was difficult and complicate:l. The arrangements pro-
posed by Mr. Gladstone were passed by large majorities
in the House of Commons, and met with no serious
opposition in the House of Lords. Experience has shown
the wisdom of the measure, and the large surplus resulting
from it still remains to be applied to the material benefit
of the country.
Irish Land
Act.
2. The Irish Land Act passed in the session of 1870
was a matter of greater difficulty. Its object was to
give such security to the tenant as might
induce him to spend money in improving his
holding, to lend money to landlords to be spent in im-
provements, to put a restraint on hasty and unjust evic-
tions, and to establish a ready means of arbitration
between landlord and tenant. The Bill, though full of
complicated provisions, met with little opposition in
either House, and became law on the 1st of August.
Education
Act.
3. The same session was occupied with another mea-
sure of first-rate importance. Mr. W. E. Forster produced
a comprehensive Education Act to deal with
primary education, that namely, of the poorer
classes. Time was given for different religious denomi-
nations to supply deficiencies in existing schools, but if
that were not done school boards were to be created, who
1870.
703
Battle of Sedan.
should provide at the cost of the ratepayer a cheap,
universal, and unsectarian education. The result has
surpassed the most sanguine hopes. Every year since
the passing of the Act the number of ignorant children
has diminished. A great lift has been given to the edu-
cational system of the country; universities and public
schools have undergone revision, and the country now
only waits for the organised instruction of the middle
classes.
CHAPTER XXVII.
WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY.
Fall of the
the French.
1. THIS peaceful progress at home was not without violent
contrast abroad. Since the defeat of Austria in 1866 a
strong jealousy had existed between France and Prussia.
War broke out suddenly in Ju'y 1870. The successes of
the Germans were rapid and unexpected.
The French army was driven back from the Emperor of
Rhine, it was cut into two parts by a series
of bloody battles, Marshal Bazaine was shut up with a
large army in Metz, the Emperor was driven into the
Ardennes. Here he was surrounded by the consummate
skill of Moltke, and forced to surrender at Sedan on Sep-
tember 1. On receipt of the news, the Empire was abolished
in Paris, the Empress and her son fled to England.
Peace.
2. Paris was invested by the German army, and soon
began to suffer from famine. The siege was prolonged
throughout the winter. About the middle of
January the success of the Germans became
certain, and on January 18 King William of Prussia was
saluted as German Emperor in the Galerie des Glaces at
Versailles. Peace was made shortly afterwards. Alsace
704
1872.
Modern England.
and Lorraine were ceded to Germany, and an indemnity
of 200 millions paid for the expenses of the war.
Internal
Affairs.
3. The English Government had with great skill and
patience preserved the neutrality of the nation. This was
tried most severely when the Russian Govern-
ment repudiated the clauses of the Treaty of
Paris referring to the Black Sea. The matter was amica-
bly arranged at a conference in London. The session of
1871 was not idle. Purchase in the army was abolished,
the English civil service was made attainable by compe-
tition, the universities were thrown open to the whole
country without regard to religious denominations, trades
unions were recognised by the law, and the powers of
local government were extended to country districts. In
the winter the Prince of Wales became seriously ill, and
in the middle of December the whole country waited in
suspense for tidings of life and death. Before the begin-
ning of the year he was out of danger.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LIBERAL REVERSES.
1. IN 1872 a system was adopted of electing Members of
Parliament by ballot, or secret voting. This measure had
long been urged by advanced Liberals and opposed by
Conservatives. But the chief event of the year was the settle-
ment of the so-called 'Alabama' claims, that is, the com-
pensation for damage done by this and other
Arbitration. privateers in the American war. In accord-
ance with the Treaty of Washington, these matters were
arranged in a conference held at Geneva, in which the
chief living authorities on international law formed the
tribunal. The award was given against England, and a
'Alabama'
1874.
705
Liberal Reverses.
sum of nearly four millions had to be paid to America.
But friendship between the two countries was restored at
this small price, and a new principle of arbitration was
asserted in public affairs.
2. The session of 1873 was intended by the Govern-
ment to remove another Irish grievance by establishing
a system of Catholic university education. Irish Educa
The measure had been carefully prepared by tion.
Mr. Gladstone, and it was introduced with good hope of
success. But it was soon found that it satisfied neither
party. The Government were defeated, and the Ministry
resigned. Mr. Disraeli, however, refused to take office,
and the seals were resumed by their former holders. A
few changes were made in the Cabinet, and a Judicature
Bill was passed, remodelling our whole system of judicial
procedure.
Dissolution
ment.
3. The Government were weakened and discredited.
Seat after seat was won by the Conservatives. The
Liberal majority became every day smaller
and less compact. At last, in the beginning of Parlia
of 1874, Mr. Gladstone determined to appeal
to the country, and, to the surprise of everybody, in
January Parliament was dissolved. In five years the
majority of Liberal supporters had dwindled from 116 to
66. The result of the elections was a triumph for the
Conservatives. The Cabinet did not wait for the meeting
of Parliament. Mr. Disraeli accepted office as Premier,
supported by Lord Derby, Lord Salisbury, Lord Car-
narvon, Sir S. Northcote, Mr. Cross, and Mr. Hardy.
Shortly after this Mr. Gladstone announced that he had
retired for ever from the leadership of the Liberal party.
E. H.
Z Z
706
Modern England.
Summary.
It may be well to review the results of the policy
which we have described in detail, and to compare the
condition of England in 1875 with its con-
dition at the close of the great continental
We will consider separately-1. Her population;
2. Her wealth; 3. The state of pauperism in the two
periods; 4. The state of crime; 5. The condition of
trade; 6. Food, education; 7. The extent of her do-
minion.
war.
1. The population of Great Britain in 1811 was twelve
millions; in 1875, it was twenty-seven millions and a half.
At the first period she contained only nine per cent. of the
whole population of the great powers of Europe, France,
Germany, Austria, Russia. She now contains about
thirteen per cent.
2. As an indication of wealth, in 1826 the United
Kingdom paid £2 9s. 5d. a head for taxation. In 1876
she paid £2 Is. 5d. England is the only country in
Europe in which the percentage of taxation in proportion
to the population has diminished. The assessments to
the income-tax in Great Britain in 1815 were a hundred
and thirty millions; in 1875 they were five hundred and
thirty-five millions and three quarters. In 1830 the
deposits in savings banks amounted to 11s. 4d. per head
of the population. In 1876 they amounted to £2 2s. 6d.
per head.
3. In 1813 the amount spent in the relief of the
poor was eight millions and a half; that is, a cost
of 15s. 2d. per head of the population. In 1876 the
amount spent was seven millions and a quarter, that
is 6s. 1d. per head; yet we spend nearly three times
as much on each pauper as we did five and thirty
years ago.
The percentage of paupers to the population is now
Conclusion.
707
only three per cent.; at the close of the war it was more
than eight per cent.
4. Crime has very largely diminished. The number
of offences left undiscovered is probably much smaller
than before. At the same time, the proportion of
committals to the population is nearly one-half of what it
was. While all kinds of serious crime have decreased,
offences against property have diminished more than all.
5. The value of British exports was in 1820 thirty-six
millions and a half, and in 1876 two hundred millions
and a half. Inland trade has probably increased quite
as much in proportion.
This period has seen an enormous growth in the
cotton and iron trades. It has witnessed the entire
development of the railway system. The total receipts
from railway traffic are now sixty millions a year.
6. Besides all this, the people are much better fed
than they used to be, and the duration of life has probably
increased.
The development of the press has done as much for
popular education as the measures especially devoted to
that end. In 1846 there were in the United Kingdom
551 newspapers; in 1877 there were 1,692.
7. In 1829, the population of the English Colonies
was three millions and a quarter; in 1871 it was eleven
millions and a half. At the same time, during the last
hundred and thirty years we have conquered two million
six hundred and fifty thousand square miles of territory,
and nearly two hundred and fifty millions of people.
From these facts we may conclude that the England
of the present day is incomparably stronger, happier, and
better than England at the time of the Regency. Also,
that not only are Englishmen better fed, better taught,
better governed, and more united than they were, but
708
Modern England.
that the nation is, for all purposes of offence and defence,
far stronger than it was at the time when it carried on
the struggle against Napoleon.
These results are mainly due to the wisdom and patriot-
ism of the statesmen who have controlled the destinies
of the nation during the period we have described.
INDEX.
ABO
A BOUKIR See Battles
Abyssinia, war in, 701
Acre, siege of, 606
Addington, ministry of, 622
Addison, Joseph, 496
Afghanistan, war in, 683
Agincourt. See Battles
Agricola, Julius, conquers South
Britain, defeats the Caledonians
under Galgacus, 10
Aidan, preaches in Northumber-
land, 34
Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 519
Alabama, the, 698, 704
Albuera. See Battles
Alcwin, sent by Offa to Charles the
Great, 46
Alexander III. of Scotland, dies,
215
Alfred, the Great, King, 54
- flying from the Danes, 56
defeats the Danes at Edington, 57
-wars with Hasting, 60
dies, 61
Algiers, bombarded by Lord Ex-
mouth, 643
Alma. See Battles
Almanza. See Battles
America, state of, before Seven
Years' War, 522
attitude of colonists, 557, 558
- first meeting of Congress, 563
civil war in, 697
Amiens, Award of, 203
peace of, 609
André, Major, affair of, 571
BAT
Arthur, British king, 25
of Brittany, his mysterious death,
175
Ashdown. See Battles
Assandun. See Battles
Assassination Plot, 476
Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.

banished, 508
Aughrim. See Battles
Austerlitz. See Battles

BABING, Francis, Lord Chan-
ABINGTON, his plot, 355, 356
cellor, impeachment of, 382
Badajoz, stormed by Wellington, 635
Balaclava. See Battles
Baliol, Edward, 229
John, King of Scotland, 218
Bank of England, origin of, 474
Bannockburn. See Battles
Barebone's Parliament, 419
Barlow, Sir George, in India, 58,
Barnet. See Battles
Barons' War, 201, 206
Battles:
Aboukir, 606
Agincourt, 239, 240
Albuera, 634
Alma, 692

Almanza, 489
Ashdown, 55
Assandun, gr
Aughrim, 467
Anne, her accession, 484
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury,
138-141
Anson, voyage round the world, 512
Argyle, Earl of, takes part of Wil-
liam against James, 461
Armada, Spanish, defeated, 357-359
Austerlitz, 626
Balaclava, 692
Bannockburn, 224
Barnet, 275
Beachy Head, 470
Bergen, 525
Blenheim,486
Bloreheath, 271
Bosworth, 279
710
Index.
Battles:
Bouvines, 180
Boyne, 466
BAT
Bramham Moor, 264
Brihuega, 489
Bunker's Hill, 565
Buxar, 546
Cambuskenneth, 220
Camperdown, 605
Cape Passaro, 504
Castillon, 243
Chalgrove Field, 410
Corunna, 631
Crefeld, 525
Cressy, 232, 234
Culloden, 519
Dettingen, 515
Dunbar, 219, 417
Edgehill, 409
Evesham, 205
Falkirk, 220, 518
Flodden, 294
Fontenoy, 516
Fuentes d'Onoro, 634
Halidon Hill, 229
Hohenlinden, 607
Inkerman, 692
Killiecrankie, 462
Landen, 471
Lagos, 529
La Hogue, 470, 471
Langside, 344
Lewes, 203
Lexington, 563
Loudon Hill, 223
Maldon, 83
Malplaquet,
Marengo, 607
487
Marston Moor, 412, 413
Minden, 526
Mortimer's Cross, 272
Najera, 237
Naseby, 413, 414
Navarino, 602
Neville's Cross, 234
Newbury, 409
Northampton, 272
Oudenarde, 487
Patay, 241
Pinkie-cleugh, 320
Plassey, 536
Poitiers, 236
Preston, 502
Preston Pans, 517
Quatre Bras, 640
Quiberon Bay, 529
BOA
Radcot Bridge, 261
(Battles:
Ramillies, 487
Sandwich, 196
Sheriffmuir, 502
Shrewsbury, 264
Sluys, 231
Solway Moss, 320
St. Albans, 271, 272
Stamford Bridge, 108-110
Steinkirk, 471
Stirling, 231
Stoke, 286
St. Quentin, 332
St. Vincent, 605
Talavera, 632
Tenchebrai, 142
Toulouse, 638
Towton, 273
Trafalgar, 625
Villa Viciosa, 4Ɛ9
Vinegar Hill, 619
Vittoria, 637
Wakefield, 272
Waterloo, 640, 641
Worcester, 418
Zutphen, 355

Beachy Head. See Battles
Beaufort, House of, power in Henry
VI.'s time, 265
Becket, Thomas, Chancellor, 156
- Archbishop, 157
- quarrels with Henry II., 159-161
flees to France, 160
- is murdered, 161
Bede, his Church History, 43
Bedford, Duke of, in Henry VI.'s
time, 241
Belgium, independence of, estab
lished, 667
Bentham, Jeremy, law reform, 645
Bentinck, Earl of Portland, his
friendship with William III., 477
Bergen. See Battles
Bernicia, kingdom of, 24
Bertric, King of Wessex, 45
- poisoned by Edburg, 46
Bill of Rights. See Statutes
of Six Articles. See Statutes
Black Death, the, 235
Blackfriars, Synod of, 255
Black Hole of Calcutta, 535
Blenheim. See Battles
Bloreheath. See Battles
Boadicea, defeats the Romans, 8
-is defeated by Suetonius aud dies,c
Index.
711
BOL
Ecleyn, Anne, marries Henry VIII.,
395
executed, 309
Bonner, Bishop of London, impri-
soned in Edward VI.'s time, 323
Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Spain,628
Napoleon, in Egypt, 606
-- becomes First Consul, 607
crowned Emperor of the
French, 624
626
wins battle of Austerlitz, 626
puts forth the 'Berlin decree,'
his Russian campaign, 639
his abdication, 639
returns from Elba, 640
Louis, makes himself Emperor of
the French, 690
his fall, 703
Boniface, preaches to the Germans,42
of Savoy, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, 199
Boston, tea-ships, 562
Bosworth. See Battles
Bouvines. See Battles
Boyne. See Battles
Braddock, defeat of, 523
Bramham Moor. See Battles
Bretigny, peace of, 236
Brihuega. See Battles
Britons, their customs, 2, 3
their government, 3
their coming into Britain, 4
their religion, 4
Brittany, war of succession in, 232
Bruce, David, captive in England,
234
- Robert, crowned King of Scot-
land, 222
224
makes a truce with Edward II.,
dies, 226
Bunker's Hill. See Battles
Bunyan, John, his 'Pilgrim's Pro-
gress, 430
Burgoyne, General, his march, 569
Burke, Edmund, opposes Lord
North, 550
his Economic Reform,' 551
attacks French Revolution, 598
Bute, Earl of, his influence over
George III., 539
prime minister, 540
Buxar. See Battles
Byng, Admiral, his failure at Min-
orca and fate, 521
CAB
CHA
ABINET, the, formation of, 478
Cabot, Sebastian, his dis-
coveries, 292
Cade, John, his rising, 268
Cadmon, the poet, 37.
Caedwalla, King of Wessex, 39
Cæsar, Caius Julius, invades Britain,
5, 6
Calais, siege of, 234
lost under Mary, 332
Caligula, feigns to invade Britain, 7
Calvin, John, his influence on Scot-
tish Church, 340
Cambuskerneth.
See Battles
Camperdown. See Battles
Canada, won by England, 529
invasion of, during War of Inde-
pendence, 565, 566
Canning, becomes foreign secretary,
655
his policy, 656
his ministry, 660
his death, 660
Canute the Great, of England, 92
goes to Rome, 94
his character, 95
Cape Breton, taken by English, 525
Cape Passaro. See Battles
Caradawg, taken prisoner to Rome, 7
Carteret, John, Lord Granville, his
influence over George II., 513, 514
Cassivelaunus, conquered by Cæsar,
6
Castillon. See Battles
Castlereagh, Lord, his suicide, 655
Catholics, laws against, in Eliza-
beth's time, 346, 353, 375
shut out of House of Lords in
Charles II.'s time, 438
- Irish, penal laws against, 468
emancipation of, 665
Cato Street Conspiracy, 653
Caxton, sets up printing press, 302
Ceawlin, wins battle of Dyrham, 23
Cecil, William, Lord Burleigh,
Elizabeth's chief minister, 337
Cenwolf, King of the Marchland, 47
Cerdic, founds Wessex, 23
Chad, St., his mission to Mercia, 35
Chalgrove Field. See Battles
Charles I. marries Henrietta Maria,
384
attempts to arrest five members,
406
takes refuge in Scotland, 414
his trial and execution, 416
712
Index.
CHA
DET
Charles II. flees to France after Courtenay, Archbishop, his relations
battle of Worcester, 418
his restoration, 428
his character and aims, 431
his relations with Lewis XIV.,
433, 437
- his war with the Dutch, 431, 432
Charles Edward Stuart, his insur-
rection, 517-519.
Charles V. elected Emperor, 296
abdicates, 332
Charles VI. of France, 238
Charles X., King of France, 666
Charter, the Great, 182, 183, 184
renewed, 194, 195, 198
Charter, of forests, 196
Chippenham, Peace of, 57
Chronicle, the English, 80
Churchill, John, Duke of Marl-
borough, his power in Anne's time,
his disgrace, 488
[484
Church of England, rise of High-
Church and Low-Church parties,
457
Cintra, Convention of, 630
Ciudad Rodrigo, storming of, 634
Clarendon, Constitutions of, 159
Claudius, comes to Britain, 7
Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, op-
poses William III., 460-462
Clement VII., his relations with
Henry VIII., 300, 304
Clive, Robert, Lord, his early suc-
cesses in India, 534
•
deceives Omichund, 536
his last visit to India, 546
censured by Commons, 548
his death, 548
Coalition ministry,' 552
Coifi, his argument for Christianity,
34
Colet, John, Dean of St. Paul's, his
school, 302
Commons, enclosure of, in Edward
VI.'s time, 321
Constantine, Emperor, in Britain, 11
Copenhagen, bombardment of, 609,
627
Corn Law repeal, 685, 686
Cornwallis, Lord, his surrender at
York-town, 572
governor-general of India, 585
his war with Tippoo Saib, 586
settles the land question of Ben-
gal, 586
Corunna. See Battles
with Wiclif, 255
Marquis of Exeter, his insurrec-
tion and death, 310
Covenant, First, signing of, 339
Solemn League and, 409, 410
Coverdale, Miles, revises translation
of Bible, 312
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 305
- sent to the Tower, 326
- burned at Oxford, 330
Crefeld. See Battles
Cressy. See Battles
Crimean War, 691, 692
Cromwell, Oliver, leads Indepen-
dents in Long Parliament, 411
- his Ironsides, 412
subdues Ireland, 417
subdues Scotland, 417
turns out the Long Parliament,
419
made Protector, 420
his parliaments, 420, 421
wars with Spain, 426
his dealings with foreign princes,
426
his death, 427
Richard, his reign, 427
Thomas, his career, 306–315
Crowland, Abbey of, founded, 37
Culloden. See Battles
Cumberland, Duke of, makes Con-
vention of Kloster-Zeven, 524
Cuthbert, St., in Northumberland, 36
Cynwolf, a poet, 47
Cynwulf, King of Wessex, slain, 44
DANES, the, first invade Eng·
land, 48
harass Egbert of Wessex, 51
settle in York, 56
defeated at Louvain, 59
Dane-gild first raised, 83
in William I.'s time, 131
David, of Wales, rebellion and death
of, 211, 212
Declaration of Indulgence, 434, 445
of Independence, 566, 567
of Rights, 449
Deira, kingdom of, 24
Derby, Earl of, his ministry, 695
Desmond, Earl of, his rebellion,
349
Dettingen. See Battles
Index.
7:3
DIS
Disraeli, Mr., opposes Sir R. Peel
on the Corn Laws, 686
- becomes Prime Minister, 705
his Reform Bill passed, 700
Domesday Book, 132
Dover, Treaty of, 434
Drake, Sir Francis, in the Spanish
Main, 355
Druids, 4
Dudley, John, Earl of Warwick, his
power in Edward VI.'s time, 323
becomes Earl of Northumber-
land, 323
his plot for the succession, 324
his execution, 326
Dunbar. See Battles
Dunstan, made Abbot of Glaston-
bury, 72
his friends, 75
dies, 83
Dupleix, his ambitious schemes, 533,
534
EDGAR the Peace-winner, 75
his wars, 75
his crowning, 76
marries Elfthrith, 78
the Atheling, submits to William,
121
Edgehill. See Battles
Edinburgh, Treaty of, 340
Edmund, King of East England, 54
the Deed-doer, 72
his wars, 72
slain by Leof, 73
Edmund Ironside, go
Edred the Chosen, 73
his wars, 73
Education Act. See Statutes
Edward the Elder, 66
his wars, 66
dies, 68
the Martyr, 78
his relations with Dunstan, 78
his death, 79
the Confessor, 99
Norman
favours the Normans, 99
>>
dies, 106
Edward I., 206
- conquers Wales, 209-213
his Parliaments, 206-209
his relations with Scotland, 216-223
dies, 223
Edward II., his truce with Bruce,
ENG
Edward II., his death, 224
Edward III., his wars with Scot
land and France, 229-238
his relations with James van
Artevelde, 231
his death, 238, 248
Edward the Black Prince, wins the
battle of Cressy, 233
his Spanish campaign, 237
struggles against John of Gaunt,
247

dies, 247
Edward IV., heads the Yorkist
party, 272
crowned, 273
Edward V., 276
Edward VI., his death, 325
Edward of Lancaster, son of Henry
VI., 269
Edwin, King of Northumbria, 32
called Brytenwalda, 32
slain at Heathfield, 34
Edwy the Fair, 74
quanels with Dunstan, 74
Egbert, King of Wessex, 48
gains overlordship, 48
his dealings with Charles the
Great, 50

his wars, 50, 51
Egfrith, King of Northumberland, 37
Elfheg, Archbis) up, murdered, 87
Eliot, Sir John, opposes Charles I.,
387
dies in the Tower, 397
Elizabeth, her accession, 333
her religious views, 335
her marriage projects, 334, 351
helps the Huguenots, 341
excommunicated by the Pope,
346
sends help to Netherlands. 347,
354
association for protection of her
life, 354
Ella, founds the kingdom of the
South Saxons, 23
Elliott, General, his defence of Gib-
raltar, 575
England, first dwellers in, 1, 2
- prosperity of, in Elizabeth's time,
348
England, Church of, as set up by
Elizabeth, 336, 337
English, the, in their first home,
their government and religion, 16-
224
22
714
Index.
ERA
Erasmus, his friendship with More,
302
Essex, Earl of, his expedition to
Cadiz, 364
his failure in Ireland, 365
his insurrection and death, 366
Ethelbald, King of the Marchland, 44
Ethelbald, King of Wessex, 53
marries Judith, 54
Ethelbert, King of Kent, 28
Ethelbert, King of the East English,
47
slain by Offa, 47
Ethelbert, King of Wessex, 54
Ethelfrith, King of Northumberland,
31
wins battle of Chester, 31
Ethelfled, the Lady of Mercià, 66
Ethelred, King of Wessex, 54
Ethelred, the Unready, 82
-advised by Dunstan, 83
- marries Emma, 85
builds a fleet, 87
'Ethelstan the Steadfast, 69
- wins the battle of Brunanburg, 69
his dealings with foreign kings, 70
Ethelwolf, King of Wessex, 51
fights the Danes, 52
goes to Rome, 53
Eugene, Prince of Savoy, 486
Eustace, of Boulogne, his strife with
men of Dover, 102
Evesham. See Battles
Exchequer, Court of, its work in
Henry I.'s time, 145
Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,
643
Exclusion Bills. See Statutes
FAIRFAX, Sir Thomas, made
commander-in-chief by Long
Parliament, 413
Falkirk Muir. See Battles
Fawkes, Guy. See Gunpowder Plot
Feudalism, 125, 126
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 297
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 307
- executed, 308
Flambard, Ranulf, William II.'s
minister, 137
arrested by Henry I., 142
Flodden. See Battles
Fontenoy. See Battles
Fox, Charles James, opposes Lord
North, 550
GRE
Fox, Charles James, his India Bill, 584
Francis I., taken prisoner at Pavia,
297
Frederic, Elector Palatine, marries
Elizabeth Stuart, 378
Frederick the Great, of Prussia, 523
Fuentes d'Onoro. See Battles

GAGE, General, 563
Gaunt, John of, his intrigues,
246-248
Galgacus, defeated by Agricola, to
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, im-
prisoned in Edward VI.'s time, 323
made Lord Chancellor, 328
George I., his accession, 499
George II., wins battle of Dettingen,
515
George III., his character, 538
loses his reason, 595
George IV., accession of, 654
trial of his wife, 654
Gibraltar, taken by Rooke, 486
defence of, by General Elliott, 575
Ginkell, General, 467
Gladstone, Mr., Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 640
-opposes Mr. Disraeli's Reformi
Bill, 700
becomes Prime Minister, 701
disestablishes Irish Church, 702
Glencoe, Massacre of, 463
Goddard, General, in the Mahratta
War, 582
Goderich, Lord, his ministry, 661
Godolphin, Lord, Lord High Trea-
surer in Anne's time, 485
Godwin, Earl of Wessex, 93
outlawed, 102
inlawed, 103
his death, 104
Gorham case, the, 689
Gorm-Ethelstan, settles in England,
57
Grafton, Duke of, his ministry, 543
Grand Remonstrance, the, 405
Grattan, his support of Irish inde-
pendence, 614
his opposition to Pitt's commer-
cial policy, 615
Gregory I. sends Augustine to Eng-
land, 29
Gregory VII., his relations with
William I., 130
Grenville, George, his ministry, 541
Index.
715
GRE
Grenville, Lord, his ministry, 626
Grey, Lady Jane, proclaimed queen,
325
Grey, Lord, his ministry, 668
Guienne, held by England, 226
Guise, Mary of, Regent of Scotland,
339
Gunpowder Plot, 375, 376
HAL
ABEAS CORPUS ACT. See
Statutes
Hadrianus, Emperor, his wall, 10
Halidon Hill. See Battles
Hampden, John, retuses to pay ship-
money, 398
slain at Chalgrove Field, 410
Hampton Court Conference, 374
Hardi-Canute, King of England, 97
Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, his
ministry, 495
his impeachment and trial, 50r
Harold Fair-hair, King of Norway,
58, 59
Harold Hardrada, King of Norway,
107
- invades England, 108
defeated at Stamford Bridge, 108,
109, 110
Harold Harefoot, King of England,
96
Harold, son of Godwin, made Earl
of Wessex, 104
— shipwrecked off coast of France,
105
-crowned King of England, 106
slain at Hastings, 113
Hastings, Lord, his death, 276
Hastings, Warren, made Governor-
General of India, 548
- his rule in India, 580
his share in the Rohilla war, 580
impeachment and trial of, 584
Hastings, Marquess of. his rule in
India, 590
his war with Nepaul, 591
Havelock, his Indian victories, 694
Hawke, Admiral, defeats the French
in Quiberon Bay, 529
Hengist, comes to Britain, 15
Henry I., 139
his charter, 139
his marriage, 140
his relations with Anselm, 140, 141
- his death, 149
Henry II., his marriage, 151
HUB
Henry II., his accession, 152
his character, 156
-
his reforms, 156, 163-166
his quarrel with Becket, 159-161
struggle with his sons, 162, 168
his conquest of Ireland, 168-170
his death, 171
Henry III. of England, becomes
king, 194
his foreign favourites, 199
Henry IV. of England, 238
his banishment, 262
Henry V. of England, his wars with
France, 238-240
dies, 240
Henry VI., becomes king, 264
marries Margaret of Anjou, 266
goes mad, 269
Henry VII., his descent, 279
wins battle of Bosworth, 279
marries Elizabeth of York, 285
his extortions, 287, 288
sets up Court of Star Chamber,287
his foreign policy, 290, 291
Henry VIII., his character, 292, 293
his wars, 293-298
his book against Luther, 299
his divorce from Katharine of
Arragon, 299, 300, 304, 305
throws off the Papal Supremacy,
305
his death, 316
his dealings with Scotland, 319
Heresy, law against. See Statutes
Hereward, the last of the English,
124
High Commission Court, appointed,
335
-under Charles I., 394
abolished by Long Parliament,
403
Highlands, the, subdued in William
III.'s time, 462
Hild, St., of Whitby, 36
Hohenlinden. See Battles
Holkar, 589
Holy Alliance, 655
Howard, Admiral Lord, of Effing-
ham, 358
Howe, General, attacks New York,
567
takes Philadelphia, 569
Hubert Walter, crushes John's re-
volt, 172
Hubert de Burgh, resists Lewis of
France, 195


716
Index.
HUB
Hubert de Burgh, his government,
198
Huskisson, President of Board of
Trade, 657, 658
Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon,
his fall, 432
Hyder Ali, 548, 582, 583
INCOME tax, introduction of, 683
India, first English settlements
in, 531
power of French in, 533
under Warren Hastings, 579
mutiny in, 634
Government
the Crown, 695
of, transferred to
Ini, King of Wessex, 40
Inkerman. See Battles
Innocent III. contends with John,177
Ireland, conquered by Henry II.,
168-170
-risings in, during Elizabeth's
reign, 349-351
- rebellion of 1798, 617-620
French invasion of, 617
union with Great Britain, 621
famine in, 685
Irish Land Act. See Statutes
JAC
ACOBITES, rise of the party, 457
their plots in Anne's last days,
498, 499
rising of, in 1715, 501
James I. of England, born, 343
ascends the throne, 373
his favourites, 381
his relations to Parliament, 380,
381
James II. of England, his aims at
accession, 444, 445
his use of Dispensing Power, 445
his struggle with the bishops,
447, 448
his flight and deposition, 449
James IV. of Scotland, marries Mar-
garet Tudor, 290
slain at Flodden, 294
Jenkins' Ear War, 511
Jesuits in England during Eliza-
beth's reign, 352
Joan of Arc, career of, 241, 242
John, King of England, plots against
his brother Richard, 172
— his character, 174
LIM
John, King of England, loses Nor-
mandy, 175
his quarrel with the Pope, 176-178
his quarrel with the barons, 179,
192, 193
- his death, 194
Judicature Bill. See Statutes
Junto, the Whig, 492
Justiciar, the, becomes chief minister
of the Crown, 143
Jutes, the, under Hengist, win
Kent, 22
KENT, the Nun of, 307
Killiecrankie. See Battles
Knox, John, his resistance of Mary
of Guise, 339
LABOURDONNAIS, 533
Labourers. See Statutes
Lagos. See Battles
La Hogue. See Battles
Lally Tollendal, in India, 537
Lambeth, Peace of, 196
Lancaster, House of, its history,
260, 261
Lancastrian party, 259
Landen. See Battles
Lanfranc, made Archbishop of Can-
terbury, 129
- his death, 138
Langside. See Battles
Langton, Stephen, made Archbishop
of Canterbury, 177
goes to Rome, 192
Latimer, Bishop, burned at Oxford,
330
Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury,
his views, 392
his execution, 410
Law, reform of the criminal, 645, 646
Leicester, Earl of, sent to Nether-
lands, 354
Lewes. See Battles
Lewis, son of Philip Augustus, his
invasion of England, 193
defeated by Hubert de Burgh, 195
Lewis XIV., intrigues with English
opposition in Charles II.'s time, 437
Lewis XVIII., set on the French
throne, 639
Lexington. See Battles
Limerick, Treaty of, 467
Limoges, massacre of, 237
D
Index.
717
LIN
Lincoln, fair of, 195
Liverpool, Lord, ministry of, 636
Llewellyn, of Wales, his struggle
for independence, 210-212
Lollards, their doctrines, 256
Londonderry, siege of, 465
London, Treaty of, 662
Loudon Hill.
See Battles
Louis Philippe, becomes king, 667
- dethroned, 687
Luneburg, Treaty of, 607
MACKAY,
General,
Dundee, 462
defeats
Mahrattas, their wars with the
English, 582, 583, 588
Maldon. See Battles
Malplaquet. See Battles
Marengo. See Battles
Margaret of Anjou, opposes Edward
IV., 274
Margaret of Norway, dies, 216
Marlborough, Duchess of, her in-
fluence over Anne, 484
- loses Anne's favour, 495
Marshall, William, Earl of Pem-
broke, 194
Marston Moor. See Battles
Mary, Queen of Scots, returns to
Scotland, 341
- marries Darnley, 342
marries Bothwell, 344
flies to England, 344
her execution, 356
Mary Tudor, set aside by Edward,
325
-her marriage, 329
her persecution of the Protest-
ants, 330
her action with regard to the
Church lands, 331
her war with France, 332
dies, 333
Masham, Mrs., her influence over
Anne, 495
Massena, advances on Lisbon, 633
Matilda, daughter of Henry I., 149
marries Geoffrey of Anjou, 149
her struggles with Stephen, 150
Maynooth, Catholic College of,
endowed, 684
Melbourne, Lord, his first ministry,
676
Mercia, Kingdom of, founded, 24
Milton, John, his writings, 423, 424
NOR

Minden. See Battles
Minto, Lord, his rule in India, 589
Monasteries, dissolution of, 308, 311
Mona, subdued by Suetonius, 8
Monk, General, his share in restora.
tion of Charles II., 428
Monmouth, Duke of, his rebellion,
444
Montcalm, General, 526-528
Montfort, Simon de, Earl of Leices
ter, 201
rules England, 204
Moore, Sir John, his death at
Corunna, 631
More, Sir Thomas, his friendship
with Erasmus, 302
executed, 308
Mortimer's Cross. See Battles
Municipal reform, in William IV.'s
time, 678
Murray, Earl of, Regent of Scot-
land, 344
Mutiny Bill. See Statutes
NAJERA. See Battles
Naseby. See Battles
National Debt, origin of, 474
Navarino. See Battles
Navigation Laws. See Statutes
Nelson, gains battle of St. Vincent,
605
- gains battle of Aboukir, 606
bombards Copenhagen, 609
gains battle of Trafalgar, 625
Netherlands, revolt of, against
Spain, 347
Neville's Cross. See Battles
Newbury. See Battles
Newcastle, Duke of, his ministry in
George II.'s time, 514
New Model army, 413
Nonjurors, 457
Norfolk, Duke of, imprisoned by
Henry VIII., 316
-plots in favour of Mary Stuart,
345-347
executed for high treason, 347
Normandy, lost by John, 175
conquered by Henry V., 240
recovered by France, 243
North, Lord, ministry of, 544-551
his Regulating Act, 548
Northampton, peace of, 226
See Battles
Northumberland, harrying of, 124
718
Index.
OAT
ОАТ
ATES, Titus, his plot, 437, 438
Occasional Conformity Bill.
See Statutes
O'Connell, his agitation for Catholic
relief, 660, 664
his agitation for repeal of union,
665
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, regent in
William's absence, 123
cast into prison, 128
Offa, King of the Marchland, 45
his dealings with Charles the
Great, 46
builds the Abbey of St. Albans, 47
Olaf, King of Norway, invades
England, 84
Oldcastle, Sir John, executed, 258
Olney, peace of, 91
O'Neil, Hugh, his insurrection, 365
subdued by Mountjoy, 366
O'Neil, Shan, his rebellion, 350
Orange lodges, dissolved, 678
Orangemen, association of, formed,
617
Orleans, siege of. See Joan of Arc,
241
Oswald, King of Northumberland,
34, 35
Oswy, King of Northumberland,
defeats Penda, 35
Oudenarde. See Battles
Oxford, provisions of, 201
PAINE, his 'Rights of Man,' 605,
боб
Palmerston, Lord, home secretary,
691
prime minister, 693
his ministry, 696
Paris, peace of, 530
- Treaty of, 693
Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 336
Parliament, rise of, 189-198
-
- growth of, 244-248
the Merciless,' 261
of 'bats,' 266
its position under the Tudors,
367,368
its position in William III.'s time,
472-479
- debates of, first allowed to be
printed, 545
Partition Treaty, the, 481, 482
Patay. See Battles
POY
converts
Paullinus, the bishop,
Northumberland, 33
Pecquigny, peace of, 275
Peel, his action with regard to the
Corn Law repeal, 686
his share in Catholic emancipa-
tion, 664
his first ministry, 676, 677
Peerage Bill, thrown out, 504
Pelham, Henry, his ministry, 514
Penda, King of Mercia, 34
Perceval, Mr., his ministry, 633
Perrers, Alice, her influence in
Court of Edward III., 246
Peterburgh, Abbey of, founded, 37
- rebuilt, 76
Petition of Right, 388
Philip II. of Spain, opposes Henry
IV. of France, 359
marries Mary Tudor, 359
Philip IV. of France, deprives the
English of Guienne, 227
Picts invade Britain, ro
Pilgrimage of Grace, 310
Pindarees, the, 591
Pinkie-cleugh. See Battles
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham,
opposes Walpole, 510
made paymaster of the forces, 514
his great ministry, 521
his madness, 543
supports the Americans, 549
dies, 550
Pitt, William, the Second, takes
office, 553
- his India Bill, 585
his financial reforms, 593
fails to pass his Commerce Bill,
594
beaten on question of reform, 595
his Coalition Scheme, 624
death of, 626
Plague in Charles II.'s time, 432
Plassey. See Battles
Poitiers. See Battles
Pole, Cardinal, his power in Mary's
time, 331
his death, 333
Poll-tax, in Richard II.'s time, 251
Poor Law, origin of, 349
Portland, Duke of, his ministry, 627
Portugal, occupation of, by Junot,
628
Postage, penny, introduction of, 680
Poynings, Sir Edward, deputy in
Ireland under Henry VII., 291
Index.
719
PRA
Præmunire. See Statutes
Pragmatic Sanction, 515
Preston. See Battles
Preston Pans.
See Battles
Pride's purge, 415, 416
Pulteney, leads opposition to Wal-
pole, 510
Puritans, their views, 392
changes made by them during the
Commonwealth, 422, 423
called Dissenters in Charles II.'s
time, 430
-laws against, in Charles II.'s
time, 429
found New England, 395, 424, 425
Pym, John, leads the Commons of
the Long Parliament, 404
Q
UATRE BRAS. See Battles
Quebec, taking of, 526–528
Quiberon Bay. See Battles
RA
ADCOT Bridge. See Battles
Ragnar, a Danish king, 52
Raleigh, Sir Walter, discovers Vir-
ginia, 361
his imprisonment, 376, 377
his expedition to Guiana, 377, 378
- his execution, 378
Ramillies. See Battles
Reformation, its progress in Edward
VI.'s time, 317
- political difficulties of, 318
in Scotland, 338, 339
Reform Bill, introduced, 668, 669
passes the Commons, 671
thrown out by the Lords, 672
riots in connection with, 672
passes, 674
Regency Bill, 595
Regulating Act. See Statutes
Revolution, French, causes of, 597,
598
Richard I. becomes king, 171
imprisoned in Austria, 172
builds Chateau Gaillard, 173
killed at Chaluz, 173
Richard II., of Bordeaux, 238
his deposition, 238, 263
his despotism, 262
Richard III., his seizure of the
throne, 276-278
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York,
267
SID
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York,
claims the crown, 272
slain at Wakefield, 272
Ridley, Bishop, burned at Oxford,
330
Ridolfi, his plot in Mary Stuart's
favour, 347
Rizzio, David, murder of, 343
Robert of Normandy, son of William
I., taken prisoner at Tenchel rai,
142
Robespierre, 602
Rockingham, Marquis of, 542, 551,
552
Rodney, Admiral, defeats the
French in the West Indies, 575
Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, Henry
I.'s adviser, 143
Rolf the Ganger, settles in France,
59, 67
Romans, the, leave Britain, 14
Roses, wars of the, 270-280
Rupert, Prince, his exploits in the
civil war, 409, 412
Russell, Admiral, his intrigues with
James II., 470
defeats the French at La Hogue,
470, 471
Russell, Earl, ministry of, 699
Rye House Plot, 443
Ryswick, Peace of, 471
ACHEVERELL, Dr., affair of,
SAC
494
Sandwich. See Battles
Saratoga, convention of, 569
Sawtree, William, a martyr, 258
Scotland, conquered by Edward I.,
219-223
Reformation in, 338, 339
-resists Laud's religious changes,
399
union with England, 492-494
Scots, the, ravage Britain, II
Septennial Act. See Statutes
Settlement, Act of. See Statutes
Severus, Emperor of Rome, comes
to Britain, zo
Shaftesbury, Earl of, opposes Charles
II., 436
Shakespeare, William, 363
Shelburne, Earl of, his ministry, 558
Sheriffmuir. See Battles
Shrewsbury. See Battles
Sidney, Sir Philip, death of, 355
720
Index.
Silures, 4
-
SIL
resist the Romans, 7
Simnel, Lambert, his insurrection,
285, 286
Sindia, 588
Slavery, putting down of Christian,
642, 643
- abolished, 675
Slave-trade, abolition of, 647
Sluys. See Battles
Solway Moss. See Battles
Somers, John, Lord Keeper in
William III.'s time, 475
Somerset, Duke of, protector of the
Realm, 316
his dealings with Scotland, 320
fall and execution, 322, 323
Soult, Marshal, 631, 632, 634, 637,
638
South Sea Bubble, 504, 505
Spenser, Edmund,
Queen,' 363
Statutes:
Bill of Rights, 459
Education Act, 702
his 'Faerie
Bill of Six Articles, 313
Exclusion Bills, 439
Habeas Corpus Act, 385, 441
Heresy, law against, in Henry
IV.'s time, 257
Irish Land Act, 702
Judicature Bill, 705
Labourers, Statute of, 250
Mutiny Bill, 459
Navigation Laws, 657
Occasional Conformity Bill 491
Præmunire, Statute of, 257
Reform Bill, introduced, 68, 669
passes the Commons, 671
thrown out by the Lords, 672
riots in connection with, 672
passes, 674
Regulating Act, 548
Septennial Act, 702
Stamp Act, 542, 560
Succession, Act of, 307
Supremacy, Act of, 308
Test Act, 434
Toleration Act, 456
Treason Bill, 476
Triennial Act, passed by Long
Parliament, 402
passed in William III.'s time,
474
Uniformity, Act of, passed, 336
St. Alban, martyred, 11
TAL
See Battles
St. Albans.
St. Augustine, comes to England, 29
St. Brice's Day, Massacre of, 85
St. John, Henry, Viscount Boling-
broke, his ministry, 495
his impeachment and flight, 500
St. Patrick, preaches in Ireland, 28
St. Quentin. See Battles
St. Ruth, General, 467
St. Vincent. See Battles
Stamford Bridge. See Battles
Stanhope, prime minister in George
I.'s time, his foreign policy, 503
Star Chamber, Court of, instituted
by Henry VII., 287
abused in Charles I.'s time, 394
abolished by Long Parliament,

402
Steele, Sir Richard, 496
Steinkirk. See Battles
Stephen, King of England, 149
his misgovernment, 149, 150
Stigand, made Archbishop of Can
terbury, 103
Stirling. See Battles
Stoke. See Battles
Stonehenge, 5
Strongbow See Ireland, conquest
of, 170
Stuart, James, Earl of Murray, ad-
vises Mary, 341
Stuart, Henry, Lord Darnley,
marries Mary, 342
- murder of, 343
Stuart, James, the Old Pretender,
his attempted rebellion of 1715,
502
Succession, Act of. See Statutes
Sudbury, Simon of, murdered, 252
Suetonius Paullinus, Governor in
Britain, 8
Supremacy, Act of. See Statutes
Surajah Dowlah, 535, 536
Swend, King of Denmark, invades
England, 123
Sweyn, King of Norway, invades
England, 84
wins England, 88
Sweyn, son of Godwin, outlawed,
100
Swift, Dean, his writings, 496
TAL
ALAVERA. See Battles
Tallard, Marshal, defeated at
Blenheim, 486
•

Index.
721
Tenchebrai.
TEN
See Battles
Test Act. See Statutes
Theodore, of Tarsus, comes
England, 36
Thirty Years' War, 378
to
Throgmorton, Francis, his plot, 353
Tilsit, Treaty of, 628
Tippoo Saib, 586
Toleration Act.
See Statutes
Tories, origin of the party, 439
Tostig, son of Godwin, outlawed, 105
slain at Stamford Bridge, 110
Toulouse. See Battles
Tourville, Admiral, 470
Towns, their growth in wealth and
importance, 167
Charters taken away in Charles
II.'s time, 442
Townshend, Charles, his Revenue
Act, 543, 561
Towton. See Battles
Trafalgar. See Battles
Treason Bill. See Statutes
Triennial Act.
See Statutes
Triple Alliance, 433, 503
Troyes, Treaty of, 240
Tyler, Wat, his rising, 251, 252
UNIFORMITY, Act of.
Statutes
Utrecht, peace of, 489, 497, 498
VERO
ERONA, Congress of, 656
Versailles, Treaty of, 576
Victoria, her accession, 679
her marriage, 681
Vienna, Congress of, 639, 643
Villa Viciosa. See Battles
Villeins, rights of, 249
See
Villeneuve, Admiral, his failure, 624,
625
Villiers, George, Duke of Buck-
ingham, James' favour for, 381
- murder of, 388
Vinegar Hill. See Battles
Virginia,its discovery by Raleigh, 361
Vittoria. See Battles
Vortigern, a British king, 15
AKEFIELD. See Battles
Walcheren, expedition to, 638
Wales, conquered by Edward I.,
209-213
WAKEFIELD.
WIL

Wallace, William, his career, 220, 221
Wallingford, Peace of, 152
Walpole, Robert, becomes prime
minister, 505
his parliamentary system, 508
fails in his excise scheme, 509
opposed by the 'Patriots,' 510
his fall, 512
Waltheof, Earl of Northampton,
beheaded, 127
Warbeck, Perkin, his insurrection,
289
Warwick, Earl of, the Kingmaker,
quarrels with Edward IV., 274
restores Henry VI., 275
slain at Barnet, 275
Washington, George, fails at Fort
Duquesne, 523
made commander-in-chief in War
of Independence, 564
Waterloo, See Battles
Wellesley, Marquess,
General of India, 586
Governor-
his conquest of Mysore, 587
Wellington, Duke of, in India,
587
his victories in Spain, 632-638
storms Ciudad
Badajos, 634, 635
Rodrigo and
advances on Madrid, 635
enters France, 637
his ministry, 661
his share in Catholic emancipa-
tion, 664
resigns, 667
opposes Reform Bill, 673
his action with regard to the
Corn Law repeal, 686
Wentworth, Lord Strafford, opposes
Charles I., 387
becomes Charles I.'s chief ad-
viser, 395
his rule in Ireland, 396
- impeached by Long Parliament,
400-402
- executed, 402
Wesleys, the, teaching of, 646
Whigs, origin of the party, 439
Whitby, Synod of, 35
Wiclif, spread of his doctrines, 250
his attack on the friars, 254
summoned to St. Paul's, 255
his death, 255
Wilberforce, his anti-slavery efforts.
647
Wilfrith, at Synod of Whitby, 36
E. H.
3 A
722
Index.
WIL
Wilfrith, preaches in Sussex, 37
Wilkes, John, affair of, 541-544
William, Duke of Normandy, visits
England, 102
invades England, 110
wins the battle of Hastings, 113
crowned King of England, 122
-subdues Malcolm of Scotland, 124
dies, 135, 136
William II., crowned by Lanfranc,
136
his relation with Anselm, 139
his death, 139
William of Orange, afterwards Wil-
liam III. of England, marries
Mary, 437
his invasion of England, 449
his unpopularity, 458
his Irish wars, 464-468
forms the Grand Alliance, 469
association for protection of his
life, 476
his death, 483
William IV., his accession, 667
ZUT
William, son of Henry I., drowned,
149
William, the Lion of Scotland, cap-
tured at Alnwick, 163
William, Duke of Cumberland,
defeated at Fontenoy, 516
Witena-gemôt, 81
Wolfe, General, takes Quebec, 526-
528
Wolfere, King of Mercia, 35, 37
Wolsey, Thomas, his rise, 294, 295
his policy, 295, 296
his taxation, 297
his fall, 300, 301
his reforms, 303
Wood's halfpence. 508
Worcester. See Battles
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, his rebellion,
329


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