The growth of the English nation

Front matter

THE

Chautauqua^

^LITERARY#S<JEHTJFK

Preface

This little treatise traces the growth of the English nation from its beginnings in a weak and struggling island community to its present attainment of maritime supremacy and world-wide empire. Such a study must concern itself, primarily, with social, economic, and political conditions, since national achievement is the outcome of national character — the resultant of all the forces operating upon a people. Industrial prosperity, intellectual development, the evolution of methods of self-government, the victory of the moral and spiritual over the brute elements in race temperament — these, and not war nor dynastic intrigue, are the determining factors in national progress. We shall, then, since our space is limited, pay slight heed to the deeds of kings and potentates, that we may give more attention to the deeper influences at work. We shall endeavor to understand the people and those popular movements that shape the statesman's policy.

The treatment must, necessarily, be of the briefest. Readers desiring a fuller narrative are referred to Gardiner's " Student's History of England," Bright's "History of England," and Green's "History of the English People." In the attempt to recreate the life of the past, the historical novel and the historical play lend welcome aid. It is hoped that the illustrative readings indicated in connection with the several chapters will add much to the pleasure of the student's work. Yet a word of caution is necessary. It must be remembered that in any imaginaiv Preface.

tive representation, justice and accuracy are often sacrificed for the sake of dramatic interest. One must test the impressions of the artist by the conclusions of scientific history.

Katharine Coman.

Wellesley, Mass., June 6, 1S9U.

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. The Island Home of the English . 9

II. Race Elements of the English Nation 21

CHAPTER I. The Island Home of the English

The life-story of a nation, like that of an individual, is in good part determined by inheritance and environment. The national traits inherited from ancestral races and the tendencies impressed by the physical features of the country give to a people its peculiar character. A nation's history, the sum of its achievements, is the essential expression of its individuality. Circumstances may modify its development. Propitious events may further, or hostile interference may thwart, the accomplishment of its destiny, but at no time in the history of a nation is the effect of physical environment and race inheritance wholly obscured.

The home of the English people is a group of islands, 5,000 in number, lying off the west coast of Europe. They look on the map like icebergs floating away from a huge old glacier. Most of them are mere ledges of rock lifting a few acres of grass land beyond reach of the waves. Some are so bare that they only serve as homes for the sea-birds. Many are picturesque and romantic— Staffa and Iona, Holy Isle and the Isle of Wight, have furnished refuge to persecuted saints and kings — but Great Britain and Ireland alone are of sufficient size to have considerable influence on the national character. The area of the

The Groivth of the English Nation.

Area.

Physical make-up.

Advantage of

insular

position.

British Isles is 121,481 square miles, about one four hundred and thirtieth part of the land surface of the globe. In extent they are somewhat larger than New England, somewhat less than Japan. This seems too small a country to cut any very striking figure in the world's history, and yet the English government controls to-day one fourth of the land area of the globe. The population of the British Empire is ten times that of the British Isles. Nineteenth century Englishmen boast, and with good reason, that the sun never sets on Her Majesty's dominions.

How can we account for this extraordinary national development ? Much is doubtless due to certain inherent qualities in the English people, but much is the result of physical environment. We need to find out first of all, what in the physical make-up of the British Isles has contributed to the success of the English race. The most apparent fact regarding these islands is that they lie within easy reach of Europe. The Straits of Dover are but twenty miles across. The water is nowhere of great depth, 300 feet in the English Channel and 70 feet in the North Sea. The British Isles, in fact, were originally part of the Continent. What is now the bed of the North Sea was once low-lying plain over which animals now extinct and, it may be, prehistoric men made their way. At no time has communication been impossible, but it has always been attended by hazard. The rudest boat can cross the Channel in calm weather without harm, but these are tempestuous seas and such storms may rise as put a man-of-war in peril. Several times in English history this natural isolation has been an effective defense against attack. The great Spanish Armada was dashed in pieces on the Irish coast in Elizabeth's reign, and three centuries later the all-conquering Napoleon shrank from the risk involved in an invasion of England. In the early centuries of its history, Great Britain was frequently overrun and subjugated by her continental neighbors, but the Norman conquerors may be said to have announced England's Monroe doctrine. Thenceforward the British Isles were not open to colonization. From the twelfth century, the inhabitants of these islands have repelled all invaders and stoutly maintained their national integrity. Accessible from the Continent yet easily independent of it, the English people have enjoyed the rare privilege of a free and natural race development. Unhampered by foreign interference, they have dealt with the several problems of political, social, and religious life under conditions comparatively simple, and have arrived at results which, though not perhaps perfect in themselves or of universal application, are at least admirably suited to the national character. On the other hand, this isolation has not been such as to prevent England from sharing in every vital impulse that has stirred the Continent. The Crusades, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Revolution, each in turn has deeply influenced English life and roused the English race to nobler achievement.

A no less important consequence of its insular situation _ mm . is the maritime greatness of the English nation. An advantages. island people are of necessity seafarers. They must venture across the water in search of what their narrow realm does not provide. Great Britain, as we shall see, is peculiarly fitted to foster a race of mariners. Her firths, estuaries, and river mouths form natural harbors, and her situation is most favorable. Lying over against France, Holland, and the Baltic, is a series of seaports in direct communication with these rich and populous regions of the Continent. The western harbors formed by the Clyde, the Mersey, and the Severn, look toward Ireland and America. During the Middle Ages, Venice was the busi-

Climate.

ness center of the Occident, and London but a remote trading post lying near the edge of the world ; but the discovery of America has opened industrial opportunities hitherto undreamed of, and altered commercial relations. London proves to be at the center of the land surface of the globe, and England lies in the direct highway of modern trade. These are great natural advantages, but England's maritime supremacy has not been won without a struggle. Spain, Holland, and France were before her in the field and must be driven out. Only by dint of a long series of commercial wars has England secured her haughty title of Mistress of the Seas. The people's pride in this hard-won victory is voiced in the national song,

" Rule Britannia ! Britannia rules the waves."

These commercial advantages are rendered more valuable by the unusual facilities for internal communication. No part of the country is more than one hundred miles from the coast, and water ways, natural and artificial, give access to the remotest regions. England boasts five navigable rivers, the Yorkshire Ouse, the Trent, the Mersey, the Thames, and the Severn. These reach far into the heart of the country and their head waters are connected by a system of canals. Ships may pass across Scotland from the North to the Irish Sea by the Forth and Clyde canal. Ireland's principal river, the Shannon, is navigable nearly to its source, and is connected by canal with Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford. To-day the railroad has almost superseded water traffic, but the rivers of Britain, these "roads that run," have served an important part in promoting her commercial greatness.

This wave-washed realm is further blessed by a most fortunate climate. An island climate is usually moist and equable, but the British Isles are peculiarly favored in that they lie directly in the path of the Gulf Stream.

The Island Some of the English. 13

This great ocean current is a veritable godsend to Britain. Bearing upon its bosom the atmosphere of a subtropical sea, it beats against the western coasts, bringing to a country of the latitude of Labrador the climate of Virginia. Dublin has the mean temperature of Savannah, though two thousand miles farther from the equator. The Gulf Stream brings to this lucky land not merely heat but moisture. The warm west winds break on the mountainous coasts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, and discharge abundant supplies of rain. Here the average annual rainfall amounts, in certain districts, to seven feet. The rainfall of England is, however, not half so heavy. The influence of this warm, moist climate not only upon the occupations but upon the habit and thought of the people, can hardly be overestimated. The humidity is a great advantage in certain textile industries — notably cotton-spinning. The winters are rarely so severe as to interfere with field-works or transportation, while the wholesome, bracing atmosphere actually stimulates to exertion.

In natural resources the English race is well endowed. The mineral deposits of the British Isles are not only rich resources. and of great variety, but so placed as to be readily accessible. Long before the English came to Britain, tin and copper were extracted in some rude fashion from the rocks of Cornwall. To-day, not only tin and copper, but coal and iron, lead and zinc, are mined with such success that notwithstanding the more extensive mineral regions of .

America, Africa, and Australia, Britain is still one of the area amounts

' ' ' to 75 per cent

most productive mining countries in the world. Rarely of total area in does a countrv combine such mineral wealth with so fertile 60 per cent of

^ total area in

a soil as that of the British Isles. Wales and Scotland, to Wales.

25 per cent of

be sure, can boast but scanty agricultural resources, but total area in

' Jo > Scotland,

there are nowhere more fruitful regions than the pasture 75 per cent of

total area in

lands of Ireland and the gardens and wheat fields of eastern Ireland.

The Growth of the English Nation.

Political divisions.

England.

and southern England. Throughout the Middle Ages the soil of Britain not merely fed her own people, but furnished considerable quantities of grain, cattle, and wool to foreign lands. To-day, however, her population has outstripped the food-bearing capacity of her fields, and Britain is obliged to look to Australia and America for supplies. Nineteenth century Britain is the richest country in the Old World. Her present wealth is estimated at $49,000,000,000, or $1,235 for every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom. The wealth of the United States is reckoned at $64,120,000,000, but our population is so much larger that our average per capita wealth is only $1,050. The wealthproducing facilities of Britain enable her to support a dense population. This surpassing prosperity has a double source. It would be difficult to say which of two co5perating causes has been more influential — Britain's exceptional advantages of situation, soil, and mineral wealth or the pronounced industrial genius of her people.

The four political divisions of the United Kingdom were originally independent and though they have been under one government for centuries, each still preserves a marked individuality. We can account for this dissimilarity in some measure by race inheritance, since the English are Teutons by origin, while the Irish, Welsh, and Scotch are Celts ; but even more is due to the modifying influence of physical conditions. Ireland, Wales, and Scotland have been but shabbily dealt with by Dame Nature, while England has fallen heir to her richest bounties. For example, England has the advantage of situation as regards Europe. The mountains of Great Britain are piled up in the north and west. Scotland, Westmoreland, Wales, and Cornwall are mere masses of rock and moor. From these inhospitable heights the rich plains of England slope eastward to the Channel and the North Sea. Her water courses cross the

The Island Home of the English.

country from west to east, forming natural highways for commerce. Four of her navigable rivers, the Tyne, the Tees, the Trent, and the Thames, give direct access to the Channel trade. Their harbors stand like so many open doors, inviting the products, the men, the ideas of Europe. England may be said to turn her back on Ireland and to face the Continent. She is indeed the favored sister. The west winds come to her with warmth and moisture, but not till excess of rain has been precipitated on the rugged heights of the Welsh mountains. The Channel fogs, it is true, invade the low districts of the eastern coast, but they have this virtue, at least, that they insure England's harvest against drought. Industrially, England is divided into two distinct parts. A line drawn from the estuary of the Humber to the mouth of the Severn would approximately represent the division. Southeast of this line lies agricultural England. The rich lime soil and the gentle rivers of this region make it one of the most productive in the world. No more fertile fields gladden the heart of man than those of the Fen country and the Thames valley, while the pasture lands of the Chiltern Hills, the North and South Downs, and the Cots wold Hills nourish famous breeds of s i k hm'^/M, tri£~S*3L

Outline Map of England.

sheep. Northwest of our imaginary line is the mineral wealth of England. Here lie the great coal fields of Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Derby, Stafford, Leicester, Warwick, and Lancashire. They are 1,650 square miles in extent and constitute the mainspring of England's manufacturing industries. In the midst of this immense coal area rises the Pennine chain, a range of mountain and moorland which thrusts itself like a great wedge 200 miles into the heart of England. It is an axis of carboniferous rock and along its barren slopes lie rich mineral deposits, iron, zinc, and lead. This remarkable combination of fuel with minpopuiation in eral resources has attracted to the region the capital and county, e. g., labor force of England. Here are the mining districts of

sq. m. ;' with Northumberland and Durham. Here lie the great ruanu-

oounty, e. g., facturing towns of Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield, Birming-

to sq. m. ; ' or ham, and Manchester. The centers of wealth and populathat of manu- , . . . „ . ,, ,, , . _ .,

facturing tion were originally in the agricultural regions of the

Lancashire, " south, but the opening of the coal measures has reversed conditions and the most populous districts of England to-day lie north of the Trent. The Pennine district does not, however, monopolize the mineral wealth of England. The rocky promontory of Cornwall supports a large mining population. These barren hills bear rich veins of copper, lead, and tin. Many lesser resources have contributed their quota to England's prosperity. In Cheshire, along the valley of the Weaver, lie rich deposits of salt. They have been known for 1,800 years, but have only in modern times been extensively worked. In addition to its coal measures, Staffordshire boasts a fine clay soil admirably adapted to the manufacture of earthenware. Here Wedgwood and many lesser craftsmen have practiced the potter's art. The remarkable success of the industry has won for this district tbe name of " the Potteries."

Wales. If now we turn from merry England to the little prin-

The Island Home of the English.

cipality of Wales, we shall find a marked contrast. This is a rugged, mountainous country, picturesque and romantic enough, beloved of the tourist, but scantily endowed with industrial resources. These massive peaks, enveloped in mist and rain, afford meager opportunity for pasture or tillage. A circumscribed agricultural district lies along the north coast in the valleys of the Conway and the Clwyd, but the best industrial opportunity of Wales is in the slate quarries of the Cambrian range and the coal mines of the south.

The coal fields of Wales are nearly equal in extent to those of England. That of the Black Mountains is 900 square miles in area and 10,000 feet in depth.

This has become the center of the smelting industry. A dense population is gathered in a series of smoky towns, Swansea, Outline Map of Wales.

Cardiff, Merthyr-Tydfil, and Ystradyfodwg. From Cornwall, from France, from North and South America, from Australia, large quantities of metal are brought to the foundries of South Wales. But this prosperity is offset by the poverty of vast mountain wastes. Wales as a whole supports but a sparse population. Her area is one seventh that of England while her population is but one eighteenth as large.

Scotland in physical make-up is quite comparable to Wales. It looks but a jagged mass of rock from which broken bits, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, Skye, Mull, Arran, are crumbling off into the sea. The country is naturally divided into three districts distinguished from one another by marked physical features. First of these is the picturesque northern section, the

Scotland .

The Growth of the English Nation.

Highlands, the land of shootings and salmon rivers. It contains two thirds of Scotland's territory, but very little of her material wealth. Fishing and sheep raising are the principal employments. The Lowland Plain is a long narrow valley, which may once have been an isthmus, running across the country from east to west, from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde. This region contains the mineral wealth of Scotland.

Here are rich deposits of coal and iron which sustain flourishing manufactures. Here, too, are Scotland's harbors and hence her commercial opportunity. The population of this favored region is more than half that of all Scotland. The third natural division is that of the Lowland Hills, Scotland's natural barrier against invasion from England, Outline Map of Scotland. ^q "border" of the

ballads and historical romance. These hills are monotonous moorlands. They lack the picturesque beauty of the Highlands and the mineral wealth of the Plain. They are good for little but sheep pasture. The Tweed valley is a more prosperous region ; verging on

The Island Home of the English.

the coal districts of -England, it shares their prosperity.

Of the physical sources of national well-being, Ireland Ireland, has but a niggardly portion. The island is shaped like a saucer. Along the coasts, north, west, and south, runs a series of low mountain ranges. In the east alone are there considerable stretches of sandy shore and even here the coast line is broken by two mountain masses, the Mourne and the Wicklow hills. The interior is an undulating plain with hardly sufficient slope to afford watershed to its sluggish rivers. It has a limestone foundation and the soil is as fertile as that of England, but it is too wet for successful agriculture and is given over, in great part, to cattle pasture. Numerous lakes and tracts of bog

land lie across the Outline Map of Ireland,

heart of the country and reduce its tillable area. Ireland gets the first effect of the warm winds from the Atlantic and the rainfall is excessive. The number of rainy days in a year averages 208. The climate is in consequence warm, damp, and debilitating. Moreover the mineral resources of the country are scant. The immense coal measures that originally covered its surface were carried away ages ago by glacial action. Isolated fragments of the once abundant store are found in the hills, but the output of the mines is quite inadequate to the industrial needs of the country. Ireland possesses rich deposits of iron, but they cannot be worked to advantage because fuel is lack-

Make-up of

Ireland : 75 per cent arable land. 9 per cent bog and marsh. 11 per cent barren mountain. 4 per cent water. 1 per cen t woods.

The Growth of the English Nation.

Q,ueenstown.

Cf . density of population: Scotland, 132 to sq. m.

Ireland, 144 to sq. m.

Wales, 206 to sq. m.

England, 540 to sq. m.

Belgium, 540 to sq. m.

Saxony, 598 to sq. m.

ing. The mountains contain other minerals, copper, gold, silver, and lead, and these have been mined at different epochs in Irish history ; but the ores are nowhere so rich as those of the Pennine and Cornish districts and the mining industries are to-day actually declining. The fates seem to have conspired against Ireland. Her rivers rarely afford water power sufficient for manufactures. Her natural harbors lie to the west and north where they are of little use. One first-rate harbor lies on the south coast and has become important since the steamship lines running from Liverpool to America have made it a calling station. England stands between Ireland and the Continent. She can control and has thus far stifled the commercial ventures of the weaker country. Deprived of commercial and industrial opportunities, the Irish people are restricted to agriculture. The population is distributed over the land in villages and scattered hamlets. There are but six towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Londonderry, and Waterford. These it will be noticed are all on the seacoast and owe their importance to some commercial advantage. In northern Ireland conditions are more favorable. The climate is bracing, the juxtaposition of two such harbors as Belfast and Glasgow is a spur to commerce, while ready access to the Scotch coal district renders textile manufactures profitable. The poverty of Ireland may be partly accounted for by misgovernment and race weakness, but it is mainly due to the lack of material resources. The comparative prosperity of the political divisions of Britain is clearly indicated by the movement of population. Scotland has always been sparsely settled. The population of Ireland is actually decreasing while that of England and Wales has rapidly increased since the opening up of their mineral resources. Saxony alone of European countries supports a denser population than England.

CHAPTER II. Race Elements of the English Nation

Illustrative Readings. 449 A. D. Landing of the Jutes.

597. Augustine's Mission.

House of the Wolflngs ; Morris. m Union under Egbert . Ekkehard > Schefftel. 871 _ 901< Reign of A]fred-

Alfred the Great ; Hughes. g78< Treaty of W edmore.

Beowulf. 955> Union un der Edgar.

1016. Conquest by Cnut.

Important Dates. 10 42. Saxon Restoration.

55 B. C. Invasion of the Romans. 1066. Death of Edward.

THE BRITONS AND ROME.

The most ancient descriptions of the island now known as Great Britain show that it must once have been very like northern Russia of to-day, a land of dense forest, barren moor, and desolate fen. The southern coast was lined with forests stretching with scarcely a break from Kent into Devon. Another great woodland bordered the Severn on both sides. The center of the island was covered by forest and thicket. From the Peak to the Tyne rolled almost unbroken woodland and moor, and beyond, impassable forests covered the lowlands between the German Ocean and the hills of Strathclyde. Around the Wash the great fens stretched inland as far as modern Cambridge, cutting off the coast from the interior. To the north and west were barren waste and rugged, inaccessible mountain wilds.

We do not know by what race this desolate land was first inhabited. Traces have been found of a primitive people, cave dwellers, but they have passed away, leaving no clue as to their condition except here and there an etching on a rock, or the engraved tooth of a cave lion. At the

Inhabitants.

The Growth of the English Nation.

The Celts.

Race characteristics of the Britons.

earliest time concerning which we have information the country was occupied by two distinct races, the Iberian and the Celt. The Iberians were few in number and were dark-haired and of small stature, a type still surviving perhaps in the swarthy Irish of the west. At one time they held the whole island, but they were driven into the remoter districts or absorbed by the successive waves of Celts that a little later swept over the country.

The bulk of the population was composed of Celts of the Aryan group, a group which includes Teutons, Slavs, Greeks, and some of the ancient races of India and Persia. They were the first Aryans to enter Europe, and, driven onward by the Teutons who came later, are now found chiefly in the more remote parts of the Continent and the adjoining islands, as Brittany, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Those who crossed over from the mainland were of two branches, the Gaels, represented now by the Irish and the Highlanders of Scotland, and the Britons who gave the island its name and who were the ancestors of the modern Welsh and Cornishmen. They all spoke the Celtic tongue, and it is still the common speech of Wales and the Scotch Highlands.

Although the island was visited by men from southern Europe by the fourth century B. C, we nevertheless know almost nothing of its early history. Csesar relates in his Commentaries that, when he was planning his invasion of Britain, he found it impossible to gain any precise knowledge of the country. " Having, therefore, called together the merchants from all parts of Gaul, they could neither inform him of the largeness of the island, nor what or how powerful were the nations that inhabited it, nor of their customs, or arts of war." Apparently at the beginning of our era the Britons had not passed beyond the tribal stage, and the basis of society was the clan or patriarchal family, those of the

Race Elements of the English Nation.

same blood and having the same totem holding together and shutting out all others. The chief occupation of the tribes of the north was hunting, but they were great fishermen, although they apparently never ventured far out at sea. Cattle constituted their wealth, and with them they wandered from place to place, having no settled home. The Britons of the south were more highly civilized than those of the north. Agriculture was carried on with some skill, the tin mines of Cornwall and Devon were worked, and there was a limited commerce with the Continent. The remains of temples and monuments to the dead, such as Stonehenge in Salisbury Plain, prove that the principles of mechanics were understood.

The religion of the Celts on both sides the Channel was the same. They worshiped many gods, and held sacred certain objects in nature, as the oak and mistletoe. Their priests, called Druids, took an influential part in the government. C se s a r , writing of Gaul, says of them : " The Druids have charge of all matters of religion ; they conduct the public and private sacrifices and interpret the omens. They are held in great honor, and many young men come to them for instruction. They decide almost all controversies, public and private. ... If anyone does not submit to their decision he is made an outlaw. . . . The Druids do not go to war, nor pay tribute with the rest. . . . The leading tenet of the Druids is that the soul does not perish, but passes after death into the body of another person. Thus they incite men to valor by removing the fear of death." In appearance the Celts were tall

Druidical Ornaments.

Totem, a rude picture, as of a bird, beast, or the like; used as a symbolic name or designation of a family.

Religion.

and fair. Ptolemy, a Latin writer of the second century,

describes them as "impatient of restraint, and fond of

and high-spirited."

About the middle of the first century B. C, the Britons Roman Conquest. came into contact with the power of Rome. Csesar

having completed the conquest of Gaul, " resolved to pass over into Britain, as he had certain intelligence that in all his wars with the Gauls the enemies of the commonwealth had ever received assistance from thence." We have a description in Caesar's own words of his attempted landing. " He weighed anchor about one in the morning, and about ten o'clock reached the coast of Britain where he saw all the cliffs " (the white cliffs of Dover) " covered with the enemy's forces. The nature of the place was such that, the sea being bounded by steep mountains, the enemy might easily launch their javelins on us from above." Csesar's first attempt to overcome the Britons was a failure, but in the following year he came again. He met with a stubborn resistance ; in a critical moment, however, tribal jealousy broke the strength of the defense, and the Romans won a complete victory. Thereupon they withdrew, having gained their end of putting a check on British interference in Gaul, and for almost a century longer the island was left to itself.

About a hundred years later Rome renewed the attack. Perhaps the Britons opened the way to this by ravaging the neighboring coasts of Gaul. In 43 A. D., a Roman army invaded the island, and by taking advantage of the rivalries of different tribes soon conquered the southern half of the country, including the much coveted tin mines and the most fertile lands. Constant fighting, however, was necessary to secure these conquests. In 58 A. D. Suetonius Paulinus was made governor of