A short history of the English people

Preface

The aim of the following work is denned by its title ; it is a history, not of English Kings or English Conquests, but of the English People. At the risk of sacrificing much that was interesting and attractive in itself, and which the constant usage of our historians has made familiar to English readers, I have preferred to pass lightly and briefly over the details of foreign wars and diplomacies, the personal adventures of kings and nobles, the pomp of courts, or the intrigues of favourites, and to dwell at length on the incidents of that constitutional, intellectual, and social advance in which we read the history of the nation itself. It is with this purpose that I have devoted more space to Chaucer than to Cressy, to Caxton than to the petty strife of Yorkist and Lancastrian, to the Poor Law of Elizabeth than to her victory at Cadiz, to the Methodist revival than to the escape of the Young Pretender.

Whatever the worth of the present work may be, I have striven throughout that it should never sink into a "drum and trumpet history." It is the reproach of historians that they have too often turned history into a mere record of the butchery of men by their fellow-men. But war plays a small part in the real story of European nations, and in that of England its part is smaller than in any. The only war which has profoundly affected English society and English government is the Hundred Years' War with France, and of that vi

PREFACE.

war the results were simply evil. If I have said little of the glories of Cressy, it is because I have dwelt much on the wrong and misery which prompted the verse of Longland and the preaching of Ball. But on the other hand, I have never shrunk from telling at length the triumphs of peace. I have restored to their place among the achievements of Englishmen the " Faerie Queen " and the " Novum Organum." I have set Shakspere among the heroes of the Elizabethan age, and placed the scientific inquiries of the Royal Society side by side with the victories of the New Model. If some of the conventional figures of military and political history occupy in my pages less than the space usually given them, it is because I have had to find a place for figures little heeded in common history — the figures of the missionary, the poet, the printer, the merchant, or the philosopher.

In England, more than elsewhere, constitutional progress has been the result of social development. In a brief summary of our history such as the present, it was impossible to dwell as I could have wished to dwell on every phase of this development ; but I have endeavoured to point out, at great crises, such as those of the Peasant Revolt or the rise of the New Monarchy, how much of our political history is the outcome of social changes; and throughout I have drawn greater attention to the religious, intellectual, and industrial progress of the nation itself than has, so far as I remember, ever been done in any previous history of the same extent.

The scale of the present work has hindered me from giving in detail the authorities for every statement. But I have prefixed to each section a short critical account of the chief contemporary authorities for the period it represents as well as of the most useful modern works in which it can be studied. As I am writing for English readers of a general class I have thought it better to restrict myself in the latter case to English books, or to English translations of foreign works where they exist. This is a rule which I have only broken in the occasional mention of French books, such as those of Guizot or Mignet, well known and within reach of ordinary students. I greatly regret that the publication of the first volume of the invaluable Constitutional History of Professor Stubbs came

PREFACE.

vii too late for me to use it in my account of those early periods on which it has thrown so great a light.

I am only too conscious of the faults and oversights in a work, much of which has been written in hours of weakness and ill health. That its imperfections are not greater than they are, I owe to the kindness of those who have from time to time aided me with suggestions and corrections ; and especially to my dear friend Mr. E. A. Freeman, who has never tired of helping me with counsel and criticism. Thanks for like friendly help are due to Professor Stubbs and Professor Bryce, and in literary matters to the Rev. Stopford Brooke, whose wide knowledge and refined taste have been of the greatest service to me. I am indebted to the kindness of Miss Thompson for permission to use the Genealogical Tables prefixed to my work, and to Mr. Freeman for a like permission to use some of the maps in his " Old English History."

The Chronological Annals which precede the text will, I trust, be useful in the study of those periods where the course of my story has compelled me to neglect the strict chronological order of succession. In using this book as a school book, both teacher and scholar would do well to study them side by side with the text.

Contents

PAGE

CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS xiii— xxiv

GENEALOGICAL TABLES XXV — xl

CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS, 6oj — IOI3

Sect. I. — Britain and the English I

„ 2. — The English Conquest, 449-607 7

,, 3. — The Northumbrian Overlordship, 607 — 685 16

,, 4. — The Overlordship of Mercia, 685 — 823 34

»> 5.-- -Wessex and the Danes, 800 — 880 42

,, 6. — The West-Saxon Kingdom, 892 — 1013 49

Chapter II. England Under Foreign Kings, Ioi3 — I2o4

Sect. I. — The Danish Kings 59

,, 2. — The English Restoration, 1042 — 1066 63

,, 3. — Normandy and the Normans, 912 — 1066 67

„ 5. — The Norman Conquest, 1068 — 1071 78

„ 6. — The English Revival, 1071 — 1127 84

„ 7. — England and Anjou, 870 — 1154 94

9. — The fall of the Angevins, 1189 — 1204 108

X

CONTENTS.

Chapter III. The Great Charter, I2c»4 — 1 265

PAGE

Sect. I. — English Literature under the Norman and Angevin Kings . . . 113

4. — 1'he Universities .... ^7

6. — The Friars 143

Chapter IV

Sect. I. — The Conquest of Wales, 1265 — 1284 155

,, 2. — The English Parliament, 1283 — 1295 163

,, 3. — The Conquest of Scotland, 1290 — 1305 175

,, 4. — The English Town ' 187

,, 5. — The King and the Baronage, 1290 — 1327 195

,, 6. — The Scotch War of Independence, 1306 — 1342 204

Chapter V. The Hundred Years' War, I336 — 1431

Sect. 1.— Edward the Third, 1336 — 1360 211

„ 2. — The Good Parliament. 1360— 1377 224

,, 3.— John Wyclif 228

6. — The House of Lancaster, 1399— 1422 258

CONTENTS xi

Chapter VI The New Monarchy, 1 422 — I $40

PAGE

Chapter VII. The Reformation

Sect. 1. — The Protestants, 1540 — 1553 340

,, 4. — England and Mary Stuart, 1560 — 1572 375

,, 5.— The England of Elizabeth 384

,, 7. — The Elizabethan Poets 412

„ 8. — The Conquest of Ireland, 1588 — 1610 429

Chapter VIII. Puritan England

Sect. I.— The Puritans, 1583—1603 447

,, 2. — The First of the Stuarts, 1604 — 1623 461

,, 3. — The King and the Parliament, 1623 — 1629 478

,, 4. — New England . . 490

„ 6. — The Long Parliament, 1640 — 1644 5*8

,, 7. — The Civil War, July 1642 — August 1646 530

,, 8. — The Army and the Parliament, 1646 — 1649 542

„ 10. — The Fall of Puritanism, 1653 — 1660 564 xii CONTENTS.

Chapter IX. The Revolution

PAGE

Sect. I. — England and the Revolution . ............ 587

3. — Charles the Second, 1667 — 1673 616

„ 6.— The Second Stuart Tyranny, 1682— 1688 646