The leading facts of English history

Front matter

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Preface

MOST of the materials for this book were gathered by the writer during several years' residence in England.

The attempt is here made to present them in a manner that shall illustrate the great law of national growth, in the light thrown upon it by the foremost English historians.

The authorities for the different periods will be found in the List of Books on page 434; but the author desires to particularly acknowledge his indebtedness to the works of Gardiner, Guest, and Green, and to the excellent constitutional histories of Taswell- Langmead and Ransome.

SECOND EDITION.

The present edition has been very carefully revised throughout, and numerous maps and genealogical tables have been added.

The author's hearty thanks are due to G. Mercer Adam, Esq., of Toronto, Canada ; Prof. W. F. Allen, of The University of Wisconsin; President Myers, of Belmont College, Ohio ; Prof. George W. Knight, of Ohio State University ; and to Miss M. A. Parsons, teacher of history in the High School, Winchester, Mass., for the important aid

which they have kindly rendered.

DAVID H. MONTGOMERY,

Cambridge, Mass.

Contents

SECTION PAGE

I. Britain before History begins ; . , . , I

II. The Relation of the Geography of England to its History . , . 12

I. This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war;

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

Shakespeare, Richard II

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGINS.

THE COUNTRY.

1. Britain once a Part of the Continent. — The island of Great Britain has not always had its present form. Though separated from Europe now by the English Channel and the North Sea, yet there is abundant geological evidence that it was once a part of the continent.

2. Proofs. — The chalk cliffs of Dover are really a continuation of the chalk of Calais, and the strait dividing them, which is nowhere more than thirty fathoms deep, 1 is simply the result of a

1 The width of the Strait of Dover at its narrowest point is twenty-one miles. The bottom is a continuous ridge of chalk. If St. Paul's Cathedral were placed in the strait, midway between England and France, more than half of the building would be above the surface of the water.

slight and comparatively recent depression in that chalk. The waters of the North Sea are also shallow, and in dredging, great quantities of the same fossil remains of land animals are brought up which are found buried in the soil of England, Belgium, and France. It would seem, therefore, that there can be no reasonable doubt that the bed of this sea, where these creatures made their homes, must once have been on a level with the countries whose shores it now washes.

3. Appearance of the Country. — What we know to-day as England, was at that time a western projection of the continent, wild, desolate, and without a name. 1 The high hill ranges show unmistakable marks of the glaciers which once ploughed down their sides, and penetrated far into the valleys, as they still continue to do among the Alps.

4. The Climate. — The climate then was probably like that of Greenland now. Europe was but just emerging, if, indeed, it had begun to finally emerge, from that long period during which the upper part of the northern hemisphere was buried under a vast field of ice and snow.

5. Trees and Animals. — The trees and animals corresponded to the climate and the country. Forests of fir, pine, and stunted oak, such as are now found in latitudes much farther north, covered the lowlands and the lesser hills. Through these roamed the reindeer, the mammoth, the wild horse, the bison or "buffalo," and the cave-bear.

MAN. — THE ROUGH-STONE AGE.

6. His Condition. — Man seems to have taken up his abode in Britain before it was severed from the mainland. His condition was that of the lowest and most brutal savage. He probably stood apart, even from his fellow-men, in selfish isolation \ if so, he was

1 See Map No. z, page 4.

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGINS. 3

bound to no tribe, acknowledged no chief, obeyed no law. All his interests were centred in himself and in the little' group which constituted his family.

7. How he lived. — His house was the first empty cave he found, or a rude rock-shelter made by piling up stones in some partially protected place. Here he dwelt during the winter. In summer, when his wandering life began, he built himself a camping place of branches and bark, under the shelter of an overhanging cliff by the sea, or close to the bank of a river. He had no tools. When he wanted a fire he struck a bit of flint against a lump of iron ore, or made a flame by rubbing two dry sticks rapidly together. His only weapon was a club or a stone. As he did not dare encounter the larger and fiercer animals, he rarely ventured into the depths of the forests, but subsisted on the shellfish he picked up along the shore, or on any chance game he might have the good fortune to kill, to which, as a relish, he added berries or pounded roots.

8. His First Tools and Weapons. — In process of time he learned to make rough tools and weapons from pieces of flint, which he chipped to an edge by striking them together. When he had thus succeeded in shaping for himself a spear-point, or had discovered how to make a bow and to tip the arrows with a sharp splinter of stone, his condition changed. He now felt that he was a match for the beasts he had fled from before. Thus armed, he slew the reindeer and the bison, used their flesh for food, their skins for clothing, while he made thread from their sinews, and needles and other implements from their bones. Still, though he had advanced from his first helpless state, his life must have continued to be a constant battle with the beasts and the elements.

9. His Moral and Religious Nature. —His moral nature was on a level with his intellect. No questions of conscience disturbed him. In every case of dispute might made right.

His religion was the terror inspired by the forces and convulsions of nature, and the dangers to which he was constantly exposed. Such, we have every reason to believe, was the condition of the Cave-Man who first inhabited Britain, and the other countries of Europe and the East.

10. Duration of the Rough-Stone Age. — The period in which he lived is called the Old or Rough- Stone Age, a name derived from the implements then in use.

When that age began, or when it came to a close, are questions which at present cannot be answered. But we may measure the time which has elapsed since man appeared in Britain by the changes which have taken place in the country. We know that sluggish streams like the Avon, with whose channel the lapse of many centuries has made scarcely any material difference, have, little by little, cut their way down through beds of gravel till they have scooped out valleys sometimes a hundred feet deep. We know also the climate is wholly unlike now what it once was, and that the animals of that far-off period have either wholly disappeared from the globe or are found only in distant regions.

The men who were contemporary with them have vanished in like manner. But that they were contemporary we may feel sure from two well-established grounds of evidence.

11. Remains of the Rough-Stone Age. — First, their flint knives and arrows are found in the caves, mingled with ashes and with the bones of the animals on which they feasted ; these bones having been invariably split in order that they might suck out the marrow. 1 Next, we have the drawings they made of those very creatures scratched on a tusk or on a smooth piece of slate with a bit of sharp-pointed quartz. 2 Nearly everything else has perished ;

1 Very few remains of the Cave-Men themselves have yet been found, and these with the most trifling exceptions have been discovered on the continent, especially in France and Switzerland. The first rough-stone implement found in England was dug up in Gray's Inn Road, London, in 1690. It is of flint, and in shape and size resembles a very large pear. It forms the nucleus of a collection in the British Museum.

2 These drawings have been found in considerable number on the continent.

BRITAIN BEFORE ITS SEPARATION FROM THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE.

The dark lines represent land, now submerged.

The dotted area, that occupied by animals.

The white land area, portions once covered by glaciers.

The figures show the present depth of sea in fathoms.

F. (France), T. (Thames), W. (Wales), S. (Scotland), I. (Ireland).

?, doubtful area, but probably glacial.

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGINS. 5

even their burial places, if they had any, have been swept away by the destroying action of time. Yet these memorials have come down to us, so many fragments of imperishable history, made by that primeval race who possessed no other means of recording the fact of their existence and their work.

THE AGE OF POLISHED STONE.

12. The Second Race; Britain an Island. — Following the Cave-Men, there came a higher race who took possession of the country ; these were the men of the New or Polished-Stone Age. When they reached Britain, it had probably become an island. Long before their arrival the land on the east and south had been slowly sinking, till at last the waters of the North Sea crept in and made the separation complete. The new-comers appear to have brought with them the knowledge of grinding and polishing stone, and of shaping it into hatchets, chisels, spears, and other weapons and utensils. 1 They did not, like the race of the Rough-Stone Period, depend upon such chance pieces of flint as they might pick up, and which would be of inferior quality, but they had regular quarries for digging their supplies. They also obtained polished-stone implements of a superior kind from the inhabitants of the continent, which they in turn got by traffic with Asiatic countries.

13. Government and Mode of Life. — These people were organized into tribes or clans under the leadership of a chief. They lived in villages or " pit circles " consisting of a group of holes dug in the ground, each large enough to accommodate a family. These pits were roofed over with branches covered with

•

Thus far the only one discovered in England is the head of a horse scratched or cut in bone. It came from the upper cave-earth of Robin Hood Cave, in the Cresswell Crags, Derbyshire. See Dawkins' Early Man in Britain, page 185.

1 Grinding or polishing stone: this was done by rubbing the tools or weapons, after they had been chipped into shape, on a smooth, fiat stone. The natives of Australia still practise this art.

slabs of baked clay. The entrance to them was a long, inclined passage, through which the occupants crawled on their hands and knees.

Armed with their stone hatchets, these men were able to cut down trees and to make log canoes in which they crossed to the mainland. They could also undertake those forest clearings which had been impossible before. The point, however, of prime difference and importance was their mode of subsistence.

14. Farming and Cattle-Raising. — Unlike their predecessors, this second race did not depend on hunting and fishing alone, but were herdsmen and farmers as well. They had brought from other countries such cereals as wheat and barley, and such domestic animals as the ox, sheep, hog, horse, and dog. Around their villages they cultivated fields of grain, while in the adjacent woods and pastures they kept herds of swine and cattle.

15. Arts. — They had learned the art of pottery, and made dishes and other useful vessels of clay, which they baked in the fire. They raised flax and spun and wove it into coarse, substantial cloth. They may also have had woollen garments, though no remains of any have reached us, perhaps because they are more perishable than linen. They were men of small stature, with dark hair and complexion, and it is supposed that they are represented in Great Britain to-day by the inhabitants of Southern Wales.

16. Burial of the Dead. — They buried their dead in long mounds, or barrows, some of which are upward of three hundred feet in length. These barrows were often made by setting up large, rough slabs of stone so as to form one or more chambers which were afterward covered with earth. In some parts of England these burial mounds are very common, and in Wiltshire, several hundred occur withfn the limits of an hour's walk.

During the last twenty years many of these mounds have been opened and carefully explored. Not only the remains of the builders have been discovered in them, but with them their tools and weapons. In addition to these, earthen dishes for holding

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGINS. J

food and drink have been found, placed there it is supposed, to supply the wants of the spirits of the departed, as the American Indians still do in their interments. When a chief or great man died, it appears to have been the custom of the tribe to hold a funeral feast, and the number of cleft human skulls dug up in such places has led to the belief that prisoners of war may have been sacrificed and their flesh eaten by the assembled guests in honor of the dead. Be that as it may, there are excellent grounds for supposing that these tribes were constantly at war with each other, and that their battles were characterized by all the fierceness and cruelty which uncivilized races nearly everywhere exhibit.

THE BRONZE AGE.

17. The Third Race. — But great as was the progress which the men of the New or Polished-Stone Age had made, it was destined to be surpassed. A people had appeared in Europe, though at what date cannot yet be determined, who had discovered how to melt and mingle two important metals, copper and tin.

18. Superiority of Bronze to Stone. — The product of that mixture, named bronze, perhaps from its brown color, had this great advantage : a stone tool or weapon, though hard, is brittle ; but bronze is not only hard, but tough. Stone, again, cannot be ground to a thin cutting edge, whereas bronze can. Here, then, was a new departure. Here was a new power. From that period the bronze axe and the bronze sword, wielded by the muscular arms of a third and stronger race, became the symbols of a period appropriately named the Age of Bronze. The men thus equipped invaded Britain. They drove back or enslaved the possessors of the soil. They conquered the island, settled it, and held it as their own until the Roman legions, armed with swords of steel, came in turn to conquer them.

19. Who the Bronze-Men were, and how they lived. — The Bronze-Men may be regarded as offshoots of the Celts, a largelimbed, fair-haired, fierce-eyed people, that originated in Asia, and overran Central and Western Europe. Like the men of the Age of Polished Stone, they lived in settlements under chiefs and possessed a rude sort of government. Their villages were built above ground and consisted of circular houses somewhat resembling Indian wigwams. They were constructed of wood, chinked in with clay, having pointed roofs covered with reeds, with an opening to let out the smoke and let in the light. Around these villages the inhabitants dug a deep ditch for defence, to which they added a rampart of earth surmounted by a palisade of stout sticks, or by felled trees piled on each other. They kept sheep and cattle. They raised grain, which they deposited in subterranean storehouses for the winter. They not only possessed all the arts of the Stone -Men, but in addition, they were skilful workers in gold, of which they made necklaces and bracelets. They also manufactured woollen cloth of various textures and brilliant colors.

They buried their dead in round barrows or mounds, making for them the same provision that the Stone-Men did. Though divided into tribes and scattered over a very large area, yet they all spoke the same language ; so that a person would have been understood if he had asked for bread and cheese in Celtic anywhere from the borders of Scotland to the southern boundaries of France.

20. Greek Account of the Bronze-Men of Britain. —At what time the Celts came into Britain is not known, though some writers suppose that it was about 500 b.c. However that may be, we learn something of their mode of life two centuries later from the narrative of Pytheas, 1 a learned Greek navigator and geographer who made a voyage to Britain at that time. He says he saw plenty of grain growing, and that the farmers gathered the sheaves at harvest into large barns, where they threshed it under cover, the fine weather being so uncertain in the island that they could not do it out of doors, as in countries farther south. Here, then we

1 See Pytheas, in Rhys' Celtic Britain or Elton's Origins of English History.

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGINS. 9

have proof that the primitive Britons saw quite as little of the sun as their descendants do now. Another characteristic discovery made by Pytheas was that the farmers of that day had learned to make beer and liked it. So that here, again, the primitive Briton was in no way behind his successors.

21. Early Tin Trade of Britain. — Of their skill in mining Pytheas does not speak, though from that date, and perhaps many centuries earlier, the inhabitants of the southern part of the island carried on a brisk trade in tin ore with merchants of the Mediterranean. Indeed, if tradition can be depended upon, Hiram, king of Tyre, who reigned over the Phoenicians, a people particularly skilful in making bronze, and who aided Solomon in building the Jewish temple, may have obtained his supplies of tin from the British Isles. At any rate, about the year 300 B.C., a certain Greek writer speaks of the country as then well known, calling it Albion, or the " Land of the White Cliffs."

22. Introduction of Iron. — About a century after that name was given, the use of bronze began to be supplemented to some extent by the introduction of iron. Csesar tells us that rings of it were employed for money; if so, it was probably by tribes in the north of the island, for the men of the south had not only gold and silver coins at that date, but what is more, they had learned how to counterfeit them.

Such were the inhabitants the Romans found when they invaded Britain in the first century before the Christian era. Rude as these people seemed to Csesar as he met them in battle array clad in skins, with their faces stained with the deep blue dye of the woad plant, yet they proved no unworthy foemen even for his veteran troops.

23. The Religion of the Primitive Britons ; the Druids. —

We have seen that they held some dim faith in an overruling power and in a life beyond the grave, since they offered human sacrifices to the one, and buried the warrior's spear with him, that he might be provided for the other. Furthermore, the Britons when Caesar invaded the country had a regularly organized priesthood, the Druids, who appear to have worshipped the heavenly bodies. They dwelt in the depths of the forests, and venerated the oak and the mistletoe. There in the gloom and secrecy of the woods they raised their altars ; there, too, they offered up criminals to propitiate their gods. They acted not only as interpreters of the divine will, but they held the savage passions of the people in check, and tamed them as wild beasts are tamed. Besides this, they were the repositories of tradition, custom, and law. They were also prophets, judges, and teachers. Lucan, the Roman poet, declared he envied them their belief in the indestructibility of the soul, since it banished that greatest of all fears, the fear of death. Caesar tells us that " they did much inquire, and hand down to the youth concerning the stars and their motions, concerning the magnitude of the earth, concerning the n iture of things, and the might and power of the immortal godo." 1 They did more ; for they not only transmitted their beliefs and hopes from generation to generation, but they gave them architectural power and permanence in the massive columns of hewn stone, which they raised in that temple open to the sky, the ruins of which are still to be seen on Salisbury Plain. There, on one of those fallen blocks, Carlyle and Emerson sat and discussed the great questions of the Druid philosophy when they made their pilgrimage to Stonehenge 2 more than forty years ago.

24. What we owe to Primitive or Prehistoric Man. — The

1 See Caesar's Gallic War, Books IV. and V. (for these and other references, see list of books in Appendix) .

2 Stonehenge (literally, the " Hanging Stones ") : this is generally considered to be the remains of a Druid temple. It is situated on a plain near Salisbury, Wiltshire, in the south of England. It consists of a number of immense upright stones arranged in two circles, an outer and an inner, with a row of flat stones partly connecting them at the top. The temple had no roof. An excellent description of it may be found in R. W. Emerson's English Traits.

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGINS. II

Romans, indeed, looked down upon these people as barbarians ; yet it is well to bear in mind that all the progress which civilization has since made is built on the foundations which they slowly and painfully laid during unknown centuries of toil and strife. It is to them that we owe the taming of the dog, horse, and other domestic animals, the first working of metals, the beginning of agriculture and mining, and the establishment of many salutary customs which help not a little to bind society together to-day.

II

" Father Neptune one day to Dame Freedom did say, ' If ever I lived upon dry land, The spot I should hit on would be little Britain.' Says Freedom, ' Why, that's my own island.' O, 'tis a snug little island, A right little, tight little island !

Search the world round, none can be found So happy as this little island." T. DiBDlN.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND IN RELATION TO ITS HISTORY. 2

25. Geography and History. — As material surroundings strongly influence individual life, so the physical features — situation, surface, and climate — of a country have a marked effect on its people and its history.

26. The Island Form; Race Settlements — the Romans. —

The insular form of Britain gave it a certain advantage over the continent during the age when Rome was subjugating the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe. As their invasions could only be by sea, they were necessarily on a comparatively small scale. This perhaps is one reason why the Romans did not succeed in establishing their language and laws in the island. They conquered and held it for centuries, but they never destroyed its individuality; they never Latinized it as they did France and Spain.

1 As this section necessarily contains references to events in the later periods of English history, it may be advantageously reviewed after the pupil has reached a somewhat advanced stage in the course.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND. 1 3

27. The Saxons. In like manner, when the power of Rome fell and the northern tribes overran and took possession of the Empire, they were in a measure shut out from Britain. Hence the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes could not pour down upon it in countless hordes, but only by successive attacks. This had two results : first, the native Britons were driven back only by degrees — thus their hope and courage were kept alive and transmitted; next, the conquerors settling gradually in different sections built up independent kingdoms. When in time the whole country came under one sovereignty the kingdoms, which had now become shires or counties, retained through their chief men an important influence in the government, thus preventing the royal power from becoming absolute.

28. The Danes and Normans. — In the course of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the Danes invaded the island, got possession of the throne, and permanently established themselves in the northern half of England, as the country was then called. They could not come, however, with such overwhelming force as either to exterminate or drive out the English, but were compelled to unite with them, as the Normans did later in their conquest under Willam of Normandy. Hence, every conquest of the island ended in a compromise, and no one race got complete predominance. Eventually all mingled and became one people.

29. Earliest Names : Celtic. — The steps of English history may be traced to a considerable extent by geographical names. Thus the names of most of the prominent natural features, the hills, and especially the streams, are British or Celtic, carrying us back to the Bronze Age, and perhaps even earlier. Familiar examples of this are found in the name, Malvern Hills, and in the word Avon ("the water"), which is repeated many times in England and Wales.

30. Roman Names. — The Roman occupation of Britain is shown by the names ending in "cester," or " Chester" (a corruption of castra, a camp). Thus Leicester, Worcester, Dorchester, Colchester, Chester, indicate that these places were walled towns and military stations.

31. Saxon Names „ — On the other hand, the names of many of the great political divisions, especially in the south and east of England, mark the Saxon settlements, such as Essex (the East Saxons), Sussex (the South Saxons), Middlesex (the Middle or Central Saxons). In the same way the settlement of the two divisions of the Angles on the coast is indicated by the names Norfolk (the North folk) and Suffolk (the South folk) 1 .

32. Danish Names. — The conquests and settlements of the Danes are readily traced by the Danish termination "by "(an abode or town), as in Derby, Rugby, Grimsby. Names of places so ending, which may be counted by hundreds, occur with scarce an exception north of London. They date back to the time when Alfred made the treaty of Wedmore, 2 by which the Danes agreed to confine themselves to the northern half of the country.

33. Norman Names. — The conquest of England by the Normans created but few new names. These, as in the case of Richmond and Beaumont, generally show where the invading race built a castle or an abbey, or where, as in Montgomeryshire, they conquered and held a district in Wales.

While each new invasion left its mark on the country, it will be seen that the greater part of the names of counties and towns are of Roman, Saxon, or Danish origin ; so that, with some few and comparatively unimportant exceptions, the map of England remains to-day in this respect what those races made it more than a thousand years ago.

34. Eastern and Western Britain. — As the southern and eastern coasts of Britain were in most direct communication with the continent and were first settled, they continued until modern

8 Treaty of Wedmore. See Map No. 6, page 42.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND. 1 5

times to be the wealthiest, most civilized, and progressive part of the island. Much of the western portion is a rough, wild country. To it the East Britons retreated, keeping their primitive customs and language, as in Wales and Cornwall. In all the great movements of religious or political reform, up to the middle of the seventeenth century, we find the people of the eastern half of the island on the side of a larger measure of liberty ; while those of the western half, were in favor of increasing the power of the king and the church.

35. The Channel in English History. — The value of the Channel to England, which has already been referred to in its early history, may be traced down to our own day.

In 1264, when Simon de Montfort was endeavoring to secure parliamentary representation for the people, the king (Henry III.) sought help from France. A fleet was got ready to invade the country and support him, but owing to unfavorable weather it was not able to sail in season, and Henry was obliged to concede the demands made for reform. 1

Again, at the time of the threatened attack by the Spanish Armada, when the tempest had dispersed the enemy's fleet and wrecked many of its vessels, leaving only a few to creep back, crippled and disheartened, to the ports whence they had so proudly sailed, Elizabeth fully recognized the value of the " oceanwall " to her dominions.

So a recent French writer, 2 speaking of Napoleon's intended expedition, which was postponed and ultimately abandoned on account of a sudden and long-continued storm, says, "A few leagues of sea saved England from being forced to engage in a war, which, if it had not entirely trodden civilization under foot 3 would have certainly crippled it for a whole generation." Finally, to quote the words of Prof. Goldwin Smith, " The English Channel, by exempting England from keeping up a large standing army