Footsteps to History: being an epitome of the histories of England and France, embracing the cotemporaneous periods from the fifth to the nineteenth century, etc

Front matter

FOOTSTEPS TO HISTORY: BEING AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORIES OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE, KMB^CING thb COTOrORANEOUS PERIODS FROM THE FIFTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURIES BO THAT THE HISTORY OF ONE COUNTRY MAY BE THE MEANS OF ACQUIRING A KNOWLEDGE OF THE OTHER; TO WHIlJH IS ADD1-.D SLIGHT SKETCHES OF LITERATURE, ARTS, AND MANUFACTURES, AND THEIR INFLUENCE UPON THE ERA. BY LOUISA ANTHONY. " Ask now us history's authentic page, And call up evidence from every age."— Covvpek. LONDON : WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE. MANCHESTER: J. GAI.T AND CO., DUC1E-STKEET, EXCHANGE. 1852. BERE3F0RD AND GALT, PRINTERS, CROSS-STREET, MANCHESTER.

Preface

. There is an old adage, — "It is not what we learn, but what we remember, that makes us wise." In Seminaries for youth a considerable portion of time is devoted to the study of History, which, in a majority of cases, is presented to the mind of the student in so confused and imperfect a manner as to render its retention in the memory very difficult, and frequently produces, in after life, a distaste for historical reading, and incapacity of separating fact from detail, or cause from effect, in the great drama of the world represented in the revolutions of history. To remedy this defect has been in a great measure the object of the present work, that by the medium of rhyme the leading facts of history may be acquired by rote at an early age, and form a gradation for after knowledge. It must be understood that such rhyme has been composed solely for the purpose of being committed to memory by young people, and that it lays no claim to the title of poetry.

The biographies of the monarchs of England and France, which illustrate the verse, by inciting comparison of rulers and events of cotemporaneous epochs, will, if attentively read and considered, render the history of each country of comparatively easy attainment. Such association may be carried out, and the progressive civilisation of the two countries investigated, by the more advanced student, in the slight sketches of literature, arts, manufactures, &c, which it has been thought necessary to add to the outline of civil and military affairs to which the term history is usually applied. Much care and attention have been devoted to the compilation of the Genealogical Tables as affording an explanation of all changes in the order of succession. It is to be hoped that this brief summary of the vicissitudes and changes of two great nations during ten centuries, may stimulate the intelligent student to the perusal of those admirable and comprehensive historical works which form so valuable a portion of the literature of England and France — that this imperfect glance may form the steps to the Temple of Knowledge — the mile-stone pointing out the way to the City, rich with the memorials and treasures of the Past.

CONTENTS. PAGE The Saxon Line, Introductory Chapter vii. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. ENGLAND. PAGE The Norman Line 1 The Plantagenet Line 9 The House of Tudor 36 The House of Stuart 50 Descent of Oliver Cromwell 57 The House of Orange 67 The House of Brunswick 73 Descendants of the House of Brunswick 86 FRANCE. PAGE The Merovingian, or First Royal Race of France 101 The Carlovingian, or Second Royal Race of France 102 The House of Capet 109 The House of Valois 129 The Royal House of Burgundy 144 The House of Bourbon 160-161 The Bonaparte Dynasty 181 The House of Orleans ... ... ... 195-196 KINGS, &c, OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. ENGLAND. PAGE William the Conqueror 2 William Rufus 4 Henry the First 5 Stephen 7 Henry the Second 10 Richard the First 11 John 13 Henry the Third 14 Edward the First 16 Edward the Second 19 Edward the Third 21 Richard the Second 23 Henry the Fourth 25 Henry the Fifth 27 Henry the Sixth 29 Edward the Fourth ... 31 Edward the Fifth 33 Richard the Third 33 Henry the Seventh 37 Henry the Eighth 39 Edward the Sixth 42 Mary 44 Elizabeth 46 James the Fir6t 51 Charles the First 63 Oliver Cromwell 67 Charles the Second 60 James the Second 64 William the Third and Mary 68 Anne ™ George the First ■* George the Second ™ George the Third £8 George the Fourth « William the Fourth 89 Victoria al FRANCE.

PAGE Philip the First 110 Louis the Sixth 112 Louis the Seventh 114 Philip the Second 115 Louis the Eighth 118 Louis the Ninth 119 Philip the Third 120 Philip the Fourth *. 122 Louis the Tenth 125 Philip the Fifth 126 Charles the Fourth 127 Philip the Sixth 130 John 132 Charles the Fifth 134 Charles the Sixth 136 Henry the Sixth 138 Charles the Seventh 140 Louis the Eleventh 141 Charles the Eighth 145 Louis the Twelfth 146 Francis the First ... 147 Henry the Second 151 Francis the Second 153 Charles the Ninth 154 Henry the Third 158 Henry the Fourth 162 Louis the Thirteenth 165 Louis the Fourteenth 168 Louis the Fifteenth 173 Louis the Sixteenth 176 The Republic— Reign of Terror 180 The Government of the Directory ... 162 Napoleon Bonaparte 185 Louis the Eighteenth 190 Charles the Tenth 192 Louis Philippe of Orleans 197 The Provisional Government 204 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte INTfiODUCTION.

It ought never to be forgotten that Christianity was introduced into Britain during the rule of the Romans. Fifty-five years before Christ is given as the period when Julius Cæsar landed at Deal, but his incursions were confined to the Southern coast, and the Roman power did not attain to any great extent in Britain until Ostorius Scapula and Julius Agricola took the command. It was Ostorius Scapula who defeated Caractacus, one of the bravest of British chiefs. Caractacus and other British captives were taken to Rome in the year a.d. 52, during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, five years previous to the preaching of the Apostle Paul, and remained there two years later. From this period, Roman ships must have brought many christian worshippers to Britain, as by the middle of the second century, British christians amounted to a considerable number.

Many authorities assert that Lucius, who died in 189, was the first christian king of Britain.* In the third century, we have the names of Alban, Julius, and Aaron, as British martyrs who suffered during the persecution of the Emperors Dioelesian and Maximian. During the reign of the Emperor Constantine, in the fourth century, the whole Roman Empire was divided into four great Prefectures or governments, Britain being included in the jurisdiction of the Prefect of the Gauls, who held his court at Treves, and afterwards at Aries. The Councils held by Constantine at Aries, in 314 and 353, were attended by British christians. After the hurricane attendant upon the fall of the Roman power in the fifth century, which visited with peculiar severity the more distant provinces, the Britons were the first to recover from the blow, and to construct a civil and ecclesiastical polity capable of uniting them in one social community, and of preserving the same unity under the pressure of all external force.

The four dioceses in Wales, namely Menevia, or St. David's, Llandaff, Bangor, and Llanewly, were founded at a time when Britain had no connexion with Rome, and we have the names of seven British bishops who refused to render tribute to the Anglo-Saxon kings. Persecuted by the Pagan colonists, who burned the churches and ravaged the^island from east to west, the British christians took refuge amid the mountain fastnesses of Cambria or Wales, and in Cenaw, or Cornwall, which was called West Wales. Many of them fled to that part of Gaul called Arnorica, * We are told that A.D. 162 Lucius began his reign as first Christian king of the Britons, who, after seventy-five pagan kings, was sent in the year 165 to Pope Eleutherus, to receive Christianity. The sainted Pope, knowing the devotion of the monarch, sent to him two doctors, Paganinus and Duinarinus, to convert the king to Christ, and to wash him in the salutary ablution.

This ceremony subsequently took place at Galesia. Twenty-eight bishoprics were founded and inaugurated there, under three archbishops. The first was at Londoina, to which Loegria was subjected; the second at York, to which Deira, or Yorkshire, with Albania, or Scotia, was subjected; the third in Cambria, where is the city of Legions (Caer-usk) ; that such a city was once situate on the river Severn, its walls and edifices still testify. — From the Translation oftlie Latin Chronicle of T/iomas Sprott, an Augustine monk, who lived about A.D. 1274, reign of Edward the First. INTE0DUCT10N. VIII or Brittany, and Cadwallader, one of the most celebrated of British kings, surnamed "the Blessed," died a penitent and pilgrim at Rome. After the connexion between Britain and Rome was entirely severed, two great parties prevailed in the southern parts of the island ; a Roman party headed by Aurelius Ambrosius, a chieftain" of imperial descent, and another supporting the cause of Vortigern, a British chief.

During these contentions, the Scots and Picts, ancient enemies of the Britons, continued their predatory warfare, and reduced the country to the greatest misery. While Vortigern was contending with Ambrosius, two Jutish Ealdormen, or Chieftains, Hengist and Horsa, arrived in the Isle of Thanet with three creels or vessels, and a small train of chosen followers. According to some of the chroniclers, Vortigern invited Hengist and Horsa as his allies. Others represent them as exiles from their native land. All historians, however, agree that the Jutes warred successfully against the Picts and Scots, and that the Isle of Thanet was bestowed upon them as a reward for driving back to their barren moors these troublesome foes of Britain. The expectation of the Jutes increasing with their power, provoked the hostility of their allies in Britain.

Assisted by their kindred, the Saxons, under the command of Ella, the Jutes obtained possession of the fertile county of Kent. Encouraged by the news from Britain, fresh reinforcements arrived from the coasts of the Baltic, and the great tribe of Angles acquiring the eastern part of the island, gave it the name of East Anglia, of which the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk constituted the greatest part. After more than 300 years of constant warfare, the British chieftains were overwhelmed by the power of the invaders. State after state was wrested from them, until all the different kingdoms of Britain were known by the name of the Heptarchy,* and the island, the greater part of which in 823 fell under the sway of one monarch, became the inheritance -of the Anglo-Saxons, who caused their own language, customs, laws, and institutions to become paramount.

We subjoin a list of the Anglo-Saxon kings, commencing with Egbert, who in 828 had become lord of all the states south of the Humber, and whose subsequent victories compelled the sovereigns of the lesser States to become his vassals. -J- Egbert was declared, in 830, by the inhabitants of Surrey, Sussex, Essex, and Kent, to be the rightful king by descent and blood.| * Sir F. Palgrave rejects the term Heptarchy, as signifying seven kingdoms. He observes that at no one period of our history were there ever seven kingdoms independent of each other, and that if we include the kingdoms subservient to larger states, the number must be increased. f There were many States of Britain which remained distinct after the accession of Egbert, and the different subordinate chieftains retaining the right of declaring war against the other Anglo-Saxon States, were miserably divided by internal feuds. t The Saxons, like all the numberless tribes of the mighty Teutonic race, came from Asia at the beginning of the Christian era.

Every century witnessed the tide of emigration, and during these overflowings the Saxons settled themselves upon three coasts, namely the coast of the Elbe, the coast of the North Sea, and the coast of the Baltic. In the sixth century, three tribes of Saxons, one of which was the Jutes or Angles, divided Holstein between them. The learned are not agreed whether these Saxons made their way to Holstein along the coasts of the Baltic, or whether from Sweden by the Danish peninsula. — Dr. Ii. Solger.