Public School History of England and Canada

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Engraved expressly for the Public School History of England & Canada by the Copp. Clark Co. -Limited-

PUBLIC SCHOOL HISTORY

OF

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.

BRITAIN BEFORE ENGLAND.

1. Early Britain.—The land we call England is that part of the Island of Great Britain south of the River Tweed, with the exception of a small area on the western side, known as Wales. England covers about 50,000 square miles, and Wales a little over 7,000. Yet a great many people live in this little space, and a great many more have left its shores and settled all over the globe. The inhabitants are called English: but this was not always the case, for long before there were any English in England, the land was inhabited by at least three different races of men.

A great many years ago, when the surface of the country was very different from what it is now, and lions, tigers, elephants, and elks roamed over its plains and through its forests, a rude people, with little knowledge of tools and weapons, occupied the country. Then came another race with better weapons and some knowledge of cooking, and the care of domestic animals. Both races, however, made their weapons of stone, and for this reason are called the men of the "Old and New Stone Age." These things we know by the remains found in mounds or barrows of earth, and in caves and river-beds. Then came another race, evidently from the East, near Persia, that had some skill in working metals, such as bronze and iron. These people we call “Celts,” and they were the inhabitants found in Britain when written history first tells anything about the island.

About 600 B.C. the Phœnicians, a trading people from the Mediterranean Sea, visited the country in quest of tin; then, a

hundred years later, came the Greeks from Massilia or Marseilles, in France. It was about this time that the name “Britannia” was given to the island of Great Britain.

2. Roman Conquest.—At last, in the year 55 B.C., a great Roman general, Julius Caesar, came across the Channel from France (then called Gaul), with an army, and defeated the Britons who had gathered on the coast to keep him from landing. He soon returned to Gaul, but came back the next year, and once more defeated the Britons. Again he left the island—this time to return no more.

When Caesar visited Britain he found the people on the southern coast fairly civilized. They had war-chariots, and fought with spears, axes and pikes. They wore ornaments of gold and silver, and clad themselves in mantles and tunics of cloth such as were worn by the people on the opposite coast of Gaul. In fact, these Britons along the southern coast kept up a trade with their neighbors, the Gauls, who were at this time much more civilized than the people of Britain living inland. The latter were a very savage and rude people, dwelling in wretched huts, or in caves in the earth. They dressed in skins of beasts, their food being milk and meat, and further north, roots, leaves, and nuts. The more savage wore no clothing, but stained their bodies and limbs somewhat in the same fashion as the North American Indians do. Their religion was Druidism, and the oak was their sacred tree, under which they worshipped and offered up sacrifices. These sacrifices were often human beings, who were burnt in large cages of wicker work at the command of the Druids, or priests, who had great influence over the people and made their laws.

The Romans, who were to play an important part in the history of Britain, came from Italy and had for their chief city, Rome. They were a very stern and hard people, and at the time when Caesar visited Britain, had conquered nearly all the known world. But they made good laws and forced the people they subdued to obey them.

After Caesar left Britain, the Romans made no further efforts to conquer it until 43, A.D., when their Emperor Claudius came with an army, and after much fighting took possession of the south of the island. The British chief, Caractacus, fought bravely against the well-disciplined Romans, but was taken prisoner and sent to Rome. Then Boadicea, queen of one of the tribes, strove to free the country from the invaders; but she, after winning a great battle, was also defeated by the Roman generals, and, it is said, killed herself to escape ill-treatment at their hands. Thus nearly all Britain, from the southern coast to the Firths of Clyde and Forth, was made part of the great Roman Empire. But it took many years to do this, for the Britons were a brave people, and as the land was covered with forests and bogs, it was difficult for the Roman soldiers to pursue and attack the natives.

The Romans did not ill-treat the Britons, but they did not allow them to carry weapons or to fight in their own defence. They built good, straight, solid roads for their soldiers to pass from point to point, and the remains of their roads and camps are yet to be found in many parts of England and Scotland. Cities, too, were built, such as York; forests were cleared and grain grown in abundance, so much so that large quantities of wheat were sent from Britain to Rome to feed the people of that city. The Roman language, Latin, became the speech of the better educated and wealthier Britons, although most of the people continued to speak their native tongue. Not the least of the good results of Roman Rule was the spread of Christianity in the island. One thing, however, the Romans did, which was not for the good of the people they conquered. They made them depend upon their masters for defence against attacks from their enemies, the Picts, who lived in Scotland, and the Scots, who came from Ireland. The once brave Britons, after a few hundred years of Roman rule, lost the power to defend themselves, and so when the Romans had to leave Britain, about 400 A.D., to protect the empire from enemies nearer home, the Britons were not able to beat back the fierce Picts and Scots who came pouring down from the wilds of Scotland to rob and murder them. In the next chapter we shall see how this led to the coming of the English.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST.

1. The Coming of the English.—We have seen that the Britons were much troubled, after the Romans left, by the Picts and Scots, tribes who spoke much the same language as the Britons themselves. Besides these enemies they had others of a different race, who came from the shores of the North Sea, especially from the low-lying lands about the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. These were the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who before the Romans left Britain had often landed on the coast, and plundered the people, carrying off men, women, and children, and such booty as they could get. They were a fierce, strong, freedom-loving people, with blue eyes and long fair hair, and spoke a language we call Teutonic, somewhat like the Dutch language of to-day. In their own land they lived in tribes, with chiefs at the head who led in times of war, and helped to govern in times of peace. As their own country could not well support them, they took to the sea, and became skilled and hardy sailors. In their little vessels they crossed the North Sea, and plundered the coasts of Britain, Gaul, and Ireland. The poor Britons were so distressed by attacks from their various enemies that they called in two chiefs of the Jutes to help them against the Picts and Scots, hoping in this way to make one enemy fight the other. But Hengist and Horsa, after landing on the Isle of Thanet, A.D., 449, and defeating the Picts and Scots, began to slay and drive away the Britons and to take their lands for themselves.

The Jutes were soon followed by the Saxons, and last of all came the Angles, who gave the name of England to the southern part of the Island. But whether Jutes, Angles, or Saxons, they treated the Britons much in the same fashion. Unlike the Romans, who spared the conquered, they either killed the Britons or drove them westward into what is now Wales, Devon, and Cornwall. It took many years for these German tribes to get possession of Southern Britain, for the Britons at times fought desperately for their homes; but their resistance was of no avail. The Britons were either killed or driven out, and the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons

settled down in families and tribes in their place. The new-comers did not like walled towns and cities—but preferred to live in open villages and till the soil, either destroying the towns of the Britons or allowing them to fall into ruins.

2. Social and Political Condition of the English.—The English, as these tribes came to be called, were not a nation as we understand the word; but were a number of free and independent tribes that under their chiefs had come over to Britain to conquer and plunder. After the Britons were expelled, they settled down from their roving sea-life in separate village communities, and began to till the soil. There were three kinds of people in these communities. First of all, we have the Eorl, a man of higher birth and greater wealth than the rest. Then came the Ceorl or churl, a freeman of lower birth, who nevertheless had his own house and tilled his own piece of land. Last of all we have the slaves, either Britons or men who had sold or lost their freedom, and who might be sold out of the country by their masters. Only freemen were allowed to take part in the village moot or meeting, where all questions in dispute were settled. A man found guilty by his fellows of a crime usually could escape by paying a fine. He could prove his innocence by getting his neighbours to swear he was an honest man. This was called “compurgation.” Otherwise he had to undergo the ‘‘ordeal,” which consisted in walking blindfold with bare feet over hot ploughshares, or in dipping the hand into boiling hot water. If unhurt after this ‘‘ordeal” he was declared innocent.

The villages were some distance from each other; but when any important matter of peace or war had to be considered, men from several villages met in what was called the “Folkmoot,” or meeting of the tribe. Here they chose their aldermen from the Eorls, to lead them to battle, or to speak and act for them in the great meeting of the wise men of the tribes known as the “Witangemot.” After a time the Witangemot began to choose one man from the aldermen to lead—and he was the “king.” He was always elected, and could not appoint his successor; but the custom was to choose the king from the same family on account of its supposed descent from Woden, their god of war.

3. The English become Christians.—When the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came to England they were heathens, and believed in gods, water-spirits, and wood-demons. Their chief god was Woden, who rewarded them after death for their bravery and for the number of enemies they killed. Heaven was to them a place where they could fights and carouse, for these German tribes were very fond of eating and drinking. From the names of their gods we get our names from the days of the week, such as Wednesday or Wodensday, from the god Woden.

It took some time to get the English to accept Christianity, for being a steadfast race they clung to their own customs and religion. At last, as the story goes, some English slaves were taken to Rome to be sold, and Bishop Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, when a young man, seeing how fair and beautiful they were, asked whence they came, and was told they were Angles. “Not Angles,” said he, “but Angels,” and when he became bishop he sent, in 596, a missionary named Augustine, with forty monks to convert the English. Augustine landed in Kent, and his first convert was Ethelbert, King of Kent, whose wife was a Christian from France. Afterwards, many of Ethelbert’s people were baptized as Christians and Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. From Kent the Roman missionaries carried the new religion to Northumbria, where King Edwin ruled. Edwin called his Witan together and, after listening to the missionaries, they also accepted Christianity.

But other Christian missionaries had been busy in the north of England before Augustine came to the country. These same from the small rocky island of Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, where a mission statement had been planted by Columba, an Irish monk. For the Irish had become Christians under the teaching of St. Patrick more than a hundred years before, and Irish missionaries made their way to the north and middle of England and did much to introduce Christianity among the fierce and heathen English. After a time, in 664, the Irish and Roman missionaries disputed about some trifling matters relating to church services, and as the King of Northumbria took the part of the Roman missionaries, the Irish monks went back to their own land, and the work went on under bishops in sympathy with Roman practices. The effect of their teaching was soon seen, for the rude and restless English settled down to steady work, began to learn trades, and to build up small towns around the monasteries which now sprang up in the land. The English also lost much of their fierceness and love of plunder and fighting, and began to love learning as taught them by the monks.

4. Supremacy of Wessex. For a long time after the English came they remained divided under their several kings. In the north there was a powerful kingdom called Northumbria, in the inland another called Mercia, while in the south and west we find another called Wessex. Indeed at one time there were seven of these little kingdoms, known as the “Heptarchy;” but their boundaries were continually changing through the wars waged by one against the other. When one king became stronger than the others he held a kind of supremacy over them, and was known as the “Bretwalds.” At first the King of Northumbria was “Bretwalds”, then the King of Mercia, and finally in 827, Egbert, King of Wessex, got the supremacy and was Bretwalda from the south to the Fifth of Forth. He was alto the king of all the English south of the Thanes. In these days, a king was not called King of England, but King of the English. So, for over 200 years the kings of Wessex held the chief power over the English people.

Chapter 3

Chapter III

STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND THE DANES

1. The Coming of the Danes.—but peace did not come to the English when Egbert became king, for new enemies appeared. These were the Danes, a people of the same blood as the English, but living in Denmark and Norway. They were called Northmen or Norsemen, and unlike the English, had remained heathens. They were as fierce and warlike as the English had been before Christianity changed their habits and softened their manners. They came in great numbers in their boats, and landing on the coasts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, plundered the inhabitants, carrying off prisoners, and burning the homes of the defenceless people. They specially delighted in robbing and burning monasteries, partly because they were the homes of the priests of the Christian religion, and partly because much wealth was gathered there. Besides the monks could not offer much opposition to them. Egbert and his son and grandsons did their utmost to drive back these robbers. At times the English were successful and defeated the enemy, but they gradually lost ground until a great part of England was subdued by the Danes. Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia were thus taken by them, and then they turned their arms against Wessex. Here four grandsons of Egbert reigned in succession and strove to keep back the Danes. The last of these kings was Alfred, who began to reign in 871. He was chosen king over his brother’s son, who was a mere lad, because the English wanted a brave leader at this perilous time, and Alfred had shown his courage in many a fierce fight with the invaders.

2. Alfred the Great.—Few kings have been such good rulers as Alfred, and few have had so many difficulties to overcome. When quite a little lad at his mother’s knee he was fond of reading and learning, although books at that time were very scarce. He was sent to Rome when four years old, and there learned much which helped him greatly after he became king. He was troubled all his life with a painful disease, and at the very outset of his reign had to do battle against the ravaging Danes. But he bore himself bravely and manfully at all times, although for the first seven years of his reign he met with nothing but defeat in his struggle against the enemy. In 878, so great was his distress, he had to fly in disguise to the marshes and woods of Somersetshire. There, it is said, while hiding in a swineherd’s hut, he allowed the good wife’s cakes to burn, so intent was he on thinking out a plan by means of which he could save his country. At last he gathered his scattered followers together in Athelney, an island in Somersetshire, and inspiring them with his own hope and courage, attacked and defeated the Danish leader, Guthrum, at Edington. He then made him sign a treaty, called the Treaty of Wedmore, whereby the Danes kept that part of England north of a line from London to Chester, while Alfred kept all south of that line. By this treaty the Danes held Northumbria, East Anglia, and part of Mercia, and this land became known as the Danelagh. Many of the Danes became Christians, and Alfred’s supremacy over the Danelagh was recognized. This treaty gave the land peace for many years, and Alfred now tried to improve the condition of his people, and to give them good laws.

3. Alfred’s Government.—Among other good things that Alfred did, he collected the old laws of the English and added others from the Ten Commandments and the laws of Moses, and these he put in force. He built monasteries and schools and sought to fill them with pupils under wise and learned teachers. He translated books, which were then written in Latin, into English, and so may be said to be the Father of English literature.

Not content with trying to educate his people, he took great care that they should be taught to defend themselves against the Danes. He divided his men into two bodies, one to go out to fight against the Danes, if needful, and the other to guard the homes of the people. He also built ships to keep the Danes away from the shore, and thus began the English navy. His time was always fully occupied, one portion being given to sleep, another to prayer, and a third to work. Thus it was that Alfred, although often ill and troubled by wars and invasions, did more for his people and his kingdom than most kings who have ruled in England.

4. Alfred’s successors.—Alfred died in 901, and was succeeded by his son Edward (the Elder). Edward, his sons Athelstan, Edmund, Edred, and his grandson Edwy, gradually but surely won back the Danelagh from the Danes, until in 959, an English king, once more ruled over all England, and both English and Danes became subjects of Edgar the Peaceable, Edwy’s brother. By this time the Danes and the English were much alike. They were of the same hardy race, and though their languages differed somewhat, they easily learned to talk with one another. The Danes had become Christians while in England, and had lost much of their rudeness and love of fighting and plundering. We, to-day, can tell where they lived by the names of towns they founded, these nearly always ending in ‘‘by.” Thus Grimsby, Derby, and Kirkby, are places of Danish origin, while towns whose names end in “ham” or ‘‘ton” are English towns.

5. Dunstan.—Edgar did not really rule England, that was the work of a great man in his reign, Archbishop Dunstan. It was Dunstan’s task to make the English and Danes live peaceably together, and this he did by allowing the Danes to keep their own laws and customs. Like Alfred the Great, he loved learning, and sought to educate the people. He brought in from-abroad good teachers, and encouraged the monks to write books and lead pure lives and be diligent in teaching and caring for the people. Under Dunstan commerce revived, for fleets guarded the English shores against the attacks of the Northmen, and enabled traders from France and Germany to visit England. Men of the same trade began to unite in societies or guilds to look after their own interests, while the householders of each burgh or borough claimed the right to manage their own affairs.

6. Social changes.—A great change had by this time come over the English people since they first came to England. The king had now become much more powerful by reason of the increase in the number of his personal followers or thegns. These thegns got land from the king and became a kind of nobility, and did not recognize any authority except that of the king. Again, many of the ceorls had given up their freedom during the troublous times of the Danes. Not able to defend themselves they became the “men” of rich and powerful nobles, and had to work for them in return for protection. These ‘‘villeins” (from ‘‘villanus” a husbandman), although no longer free, were not badly treated. They had houses and land of their own; and for food had barley-bread, fish, vegetables, fruit, and buttermilk. Nevertheless they could no longer take part in the village meeting, nor move from place to place without their masters’ permission.

The lower order of freemen, the ancestors of our yeomanry, lived comfortably on their own homesteads. They had an abundance of good food and clothing and were a sturdy, manly class, with a strong love of freedom and independence. It is from this class, living chiefly in the North of England, that so many brave men have come, who on many battlefields have saved England from her enemies, both at home and abroad.

The nobles having less to do than the ceorls, lived idle and often riotous lives. Their slaves and villeins did all their work, and provided for all their wants. When not engaged in fighting, they passed their time in hawking, hunting, racing, wrestling, and other rough out-door sports. In their halls the ladies spun or embroidered, and amused themselves with travelling glee- men who sang and played ballads to while away the tedious hours. It was from the nobles and bishops that the Witangemot was chosen, which had great power in choosing the king, in making laws and treaties, and governing the people. In olden times every freeman had a right to a voice in making the laws; but now this was impossible, and it fell to the king and his Witan to do all the governing.

7. Danish Conquest.—This was the state of the English people in Dunstan’s time. Dunstan did not remain the king’s minister long after Edgar died, for a quarrel having arisen in the church about the right of the clergy to marry, Dunstan, who favored an unmarried clergy, retired to Canterbury, and a few years later died.

The next king after Edgar was another Edward, and then came Ethelred, rightly called the Unready or ‘‘Uncounselled,” because he would not take good advice. In Edgar’s time the Danes from Denmark and Norway were kept off, but now, Ethelred being a weak king, they landed in great numbers, and once more the land was plundered and the people murdered. Ethelred tried to buy them off, but this only brought them back in greater numbers. Then Ethelred married Emma of Normandy, hoping that her people would help him against the Danes. At last he had a great many of them treacherously murdered on St. Brice’s Day, 13th November, 1002. But this only made matters worse, for among the slain was the sister of the Danish king, Swegen or Sweyn. To revenge his sister, Swegen came over with a large army, and Ethelred fled to Normandy. Sweyn died, but his son Cnut, a still more terrible enemy, continued the war. When Ethelred died in 1016, his son Edmund Ironsides fought so bravely and well that Cnut agreed to divide England with him. Edmund, however, died, and then Cnut became king of all the country.

8. Danish Rule.—Cnut, although cruel in his earlier days, ruled justly and mildly after he became king. He governed by the English laws, and tried to stop the trade in slaves that went on between Bristol and Ireland. English and Danes alike obeyed him, and for eighteen years the troubled land had peace. His reign came to an end in 1036.

Cnut had married Emma of Normandy, Ethelred’s widow, and by her had two sons, Harold and Harthacnut, who in turn succeeded him. They were wild, vicious, and brutal young men. Fortunately their reigns were soon over, Harthacnut, the last to rule, dying in 1042. The English then sent over to France for Edward, the son of Ethelred and Emma, and once more an English king ruled in England.

Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

1. The Normans.—Edward, surnamed the Confessor on account of his being placed in the Calendar of Saints, was not wholly an English king, for his mother, Emma, was a Norman; and Edward himself had been brought up among the Normans, and in tastes and feelings was more Norman than English. We must explain who these Normans were, that now began to interfere in English affairs.

When England, in the time of Alfred, was troubled with the Northmen landing on her shores, France, too, was suffering from their ravages. Large boat-loads of these pirates sailed up the River Seine, and one band seized Rouen. The French king, being feeble and cowardly, gave a large tract of land along the Seine to Rollo, or Rolf, a famous chief of the Northmen, on condition that Rollo should become a Christian and settle quietly down. The land thus wrested from the French was called Normandy, and was ruled by Rollo and his descendants. After the Normans had been in France a while they became much more polished and civilized by being brought into contact with the French, who were a lively, quick-witted people with refined tastes for music, art, and architecture. Thus it came to pass that the Norsemen in France had a different language and were much more civilized than their kinsmen in England. It was among these people that Edward had been brought up, while his mother Emma was living in England as the wife of Cnut. Edward, too, it is said, was a fast friend of his cousin William, the young Duke of Normandy, and it was quite natural that when Edward became king of England he should favour the Normans who followed him into England. To these he gave high offices, much to the displeasure of the English; and, when William of Normandy later on visited him in England, Edward is said to have promised him the Crown.

2. Godwin.—Among others who were angry with the king for favouring foreigners was Godwin, Earl of Wessex, whose sister Edith, Edward had married. Godwin was a very powerful noble, and during Edward’s reign really did most of the ruling, for Edward spent his time in religious duties, and looking after the building of a great abbey called Westminster, on the banks of the Thames. Shortly after Edward’s reign began, Godwin and the king became unfriendly towards each other on account of the influence of Edward’s Norman favourites in the land. It happened that a quarrel arose between the people of Dover and some Normans in which several Normans were killed, and because Godwin would not punish his own countrymen without a fair trial, Godwin and his sons had to leave England for Flanders. While he was away the Normans did much as they pleased, and there was so much discontent in England that Edward had to permit Godwin to return. The Normans saw that their influence was at an end, and most of them went back to Normandy. Godwin now was the chief man in England, and when he died a few years later, his son Harold succeeded to his power, and ruled well for Edward, who cared little for aught save.his religious duties.

3. Harold.—Edward had no children, and the English people had begun to look to Harold as their future king. William of Normandy expected to be made king, but Edward invited over, from Hungary, Edward, the son of Edmund Ironsides, to succeed him. This man, however, died, and left a young son, Edgar, known afterwards as the Atheling. Harold and William were now the rival claimants for the throne. A story is told that once Harold was shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy, and falling into William’s hands was forced to take a solemn oath that he would help William to become king of England. To make the oath still more solemn, William, it is said, secretly placed sacred relics under the altar. However, when Edward was dying in 1066, he named Harold to succeed him, and the Witan gladly chose him to be their king.